11–20 of 68 posts
Unfortunately, because Estonia derives almost all of their electrical power from coal, this is a wasteful setback for the environment. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/estonia/electricity-producti...
Unfortunately, because Estonia derives almost all of their electrical power from coal, this is a wasteful setback for the environment. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/estonia/electricity-producti...
Not to mention, solar is rapidly approaching the point where it will be cheaper than coal, so it's only a matter of time before coal will start getting phased out anyway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? Aren't coal-fired plants more efficient than internal combustion engines?
Not even close. First of all, mining and burning coal is far worse for the environment than oil. Mining is destructive, impacts water tables, and burning coal produces lots of toxic byproducts like mercury and other heavy metals. Further, there is significant loss/waste as you push electricity across the grid. There's no environmental case for EV-only cars, unless you are powering the grid with solar, wind, or hydro.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? Aren't coal-fired plants more efficient than internal combustion engines?
Not even close. First of all, mining and burning coal is far worse for the environment than oil. Mining is destructive, impacts water tables, and burning coal produces lots of toxic byproducts like mercury and other heavy metals. Further, there is significant loss/waste as you push electricity across the grid. There's no environmental case for EV-only cars, unless you are powering the grid with solar, wind, or hydro.
Sure, but that's a different metric than the OP was asking about and talks about one particular method of mining. On the specific question of system efficiency -- mechanical output divided by heat content input ("well to wheels") -- it is indeed generally right that coal electricity + transmission/battery losses still has a higher efficiency than everyone burning gas in their own poorly-maintained vehicle.
>There's no environmental case for EV-only cars, unless you are powering the grid with solar, wind, or hydro.
If you make the question black-and-white, perhaps. But hopefully we can recognize that e.g. oil-derived electricity powering cars is a step up from millions of aging ICEs using that oil in refined form;
- and that natural gas-generated electricity is a step up from that
- and that it's easier to change the (ultimate) power source on an electric car than a gas-powered one, which has a very "picky" engine.
Unfortunately, because Estonia derives almost all of their electrical power from coal, this is a wasteful setback for the environment. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/estonia/electricity-producti...
Moving to electric makes you reliant on current means of energy production, but to move to cleaner tech you replace 100 power plants instead of 10,000,000 cars.
Wouldn't it be great if governments everywhere created solar-based chargers like those of Tesla, with some back-up to electricity for night charging or for when all the power is used at a charger for the day, and then the whole population could buy electric cars much faster?
Unfortunately, because Estonia derives almost all of their electrical power from coal, this is a wasteful setback for the environment. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/estonia/electricity-producti...
Secondly, the electrical grid acts like a technology buffer. In the future, those coal plants can be replaced by water, wind, solar or something else, without changing the grid or the vehicle charging network.
What happened to hydrogen cars? I was expecting them to come out on top, but it seems electric charging stations are growing much faster than hydrogen refill stations.
How much energy can a car have with a "full tank of hydrogen", and what would that tank look like? Remember, a bucket of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a bucket of liquid hydrogen, and the gas kan be reasonably safely kept in the bucket, but the hydrogen requires very special equipment.
How will you get the hydrogen into the car? Gas can be poured into the gas tank, how would you transfer liquid hydrogen safely? Remember, chain-smoking stressed out soccer moms with three screaming kids in the car have to be able to do this without blowing themselves up.
How will you get hydrogen to the gas stations? How will you manufacture the hydrogen? You can't mine it or collect it, so you would have to create it by splicing water, a process which consumes a lot of energy. Where will you get that energy from? And if you're going to use electricity anyway, how much of that energy is lost in the process?
What's the "well to wheels" efficiency of a hydrogen vehicle? I'm pretty sure it's smarter to just charge a battery in the vehicle directly, through the electricity network, rather than going the roundabout way of creating volatile hydrogen at special plants, transporting that hydrogen to gas stations, having equipment for allowing people to fill up their cars, and finally combust the hydrogen in the car to make it move.
So what happened? Someone did the math on the whole chain, instead of just handwaving the massive infrastructure problems away.