EV Physics question - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: veedub565
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2022, 07:46:07 pm
content: This may be a bit OT but.. Carbon emissions from ICE cars is contributing to global warming, and at some point we're going to run out of dead dinosaur juice. On the face of it EV's are cleaner and more sustainable long term, here's a question though.You don't get something for nothing, you usually end up having to pay for it somewhere along the line. From start to finish, ICE compared to EV, wouldn't the total energy expended and environmental impact just wind up being the same ? different ways, but, the same, like in an ashes to ashes dust to dust kind of way.I'm not having a bash on either format, I'm just curious.I guess what I'm wondering is, aren't we just going to end up paying for EV's, just the same as we are with ICE, but in a new and different way.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2022, 09:43:21 pm
content: EVs will be better when we finally allow windfarms on every street corner, and solarpanels everywhere....And our government finds a way of getting huge battery storage stations on the national grid.Then EVs will literally be driving on sunshine and wind.But fossil fuel gaffers earn big bucks at the mo, and are thus very powerful...so we may have to wait for our revolution.Also, fossil fuels are the fuel of war (rocket missiles need them, such missiles cant run on battery).....so countries like having all the fossil fuel infrastructure..because it allows them to be war ready...so keeping fossil fuels seems to make sense, kind of.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2022, 10:03:51 pm
content: The effect of fossil-fuel burning ICEs is not only the heat emission (waste heat from combustion) over and above the energy required to achieve motion, but the chemical emissions (CO2, NOx, etc.)The waste heat from good electrical motors is far less than the unavoidable waste heat from heat engines.The chemical emission problem for EVs depends on how the electrical power is generated, from "clean" (solar, wind, nuclear, hydro) through "not-so-bad" (natural gas), through "filthy" (coal).

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2022, 10:21:56 pm
content: Quote from: veedub565 on October 01, 2022, 07:46:07 pmNo, it turns out that Karma is not a law of physics. ICEs and EVs both have environmental costs of course and the exact impact depends on a lot of factors, but there is no "rule" that they have to be equal or similar in any way. I can't even imagine how someone could think that.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 12:38:34 am
content: Quote from: veedub565 on October 01, 2022, 07:46:07 pmNo, why would you think that, I don't understad your reasoning. They are two fundamentally different technologies.Like saying "what difference does it make if I eat lettuce, or lasagne, both are food so must be the same!"To produce and use ICE fuel, you have to extract it from the earth, put it through expensive refining processes, put in additives and so forth, deal with the waste products, ship the fuel around in big ships which themselves burn even dirtier fuel distribute it to retail locations in tanker trucks, fill up vehicles, and burn it producing various rather unpleasant emissions.To produce and use EV fuel, you have to harvest energy much of which is available in on human scales infinite and clean forms, the main one of which being literally light from a star, feed it through wires, plug in your vehicle to charge some batteries, and convert it into kinetic energy and eventually to heat.Yes I didn't account for manufacturing of the battery and power stations... or the car, refineries, drilling rigs, ships, emissions control, climate impact, loss of food producing land to biofuels...This "it's all the same" is a classic, and ridiculous trope of the anti-ev-at-any-cost crowd, "but but but where does your electricity come!" or "but but but making batteries has evironmental impact!" or "but but but what are you going to do when the batteries are worn out!".It is complete nonsense.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 01:19:40 am
content: It's hard to get really concrete data on this but from the bits and pieces I've found the consensus seems to be that EVs are environmentally marginally less harmful to the planet than ICE powered cars, the benefits often greatly exaggerated by one group while the flaws are greatly exaggerated by another group. If you're planning on replacing a car anyway it could make more sense to go electric than if you already have a perfectly usable car that you could keep going for some time by doing some work on it rather than scrapping it prematurely.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 02:04:18 am
content: Quote from: Faringdon on October 01, 2022, 09:43:21 pmI’d expect most missiles to use a solid propellant and very few to use fossil fuels. Some drones may use fossil fuels as do the manned aircraft which carry the missiles.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 02:39:25 am
content: Quote from: sleemanj on October 02, 2022, 12:38:34 amThose are all legitimate questions. They may have answers, but they aren't just FUD.My incremental rate for charging (at night) has gone from $0.13/kWh to $0.31/kWh due to rate increases and changes. And we in California were all recently advised not to charge during a recent power usage event--that's not a big deal right now, but with much higher EV adoption rates it will be.I don't know about lithium mining issues in Australia, but in South America it has been a bit more than messy IIRC. Big deal? I don't know, but worth discussing.My EV recently had a battery issue (coolant leak) that was resolved by replacing the battery packs. It was under warranty. Out of warranty--and the warranty ends this month--that repair would have been so expensive that the car would have been scrapped if I couldn't manage an alternative repair. Both of my other (ICE) cars are older than the EV and not in danger of being scrapped due to needing a repair. Well at least one isn't. The other is 20 years and 200K miles (320k km) old, so if the transmission dropped its gears on the road it might be done.So, not FUD. Legitimate issues.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 04:31:44 am
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on October 02, 2022, 02:39:25 am1. Electrical energy comes from different sources, many of which are clean, some of which are not, the ones that are not are easier to make cleaner than a million petrol cars and every time you replace a dirty station with a clean one all the EV suddenly get a little cleaner. If there is not enough capacity more power stations can be built, power stations are money printers, businesses will want to build power stations (and charging points).2. Everything has an environmental impact, we manage these, it is easier to manage the environmental impact of battery building in a few locations than it is to manage the environmental impact of hundreds of millions of ICE vehicles. Lithium can be harvested in theory from seawater where there is an abundant supply, it's just not practical to get it yet. As battery technology evolves we may reduce our dependance on mined resources, it is the best we have so far, do not let perfect be the enemy of better.3. On the whole EV battery technology has progressed to the point where batteries last the vehicle life. Batteries can be recycled, it is actually a problem developing that there are [not enough batteries to recycle](https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/300679175/the-next-big-battery-material-squeeze-is-old-batteries?dicbo=v2-8bf65ad5a1e9372e50d5d634380ce6760) for the number of recycling plants coming online. Batteries can also be reused for alternative usage situations which do not require the same energy density (storage). Batteries have valuable materials in them, people like to get valuable materials from waste, because, money.

author: veedub565
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 07:20:51 am
content: What I'm trying to understand is you don't get something for nothing, nobody has invented perpetual motion yet.In terms of energy and resources The total 'cost" of propelling 2 ton of metal at 50mph should be the same, right ? Regardless of what source of power you use.Why would you think I'm anti EV. Make it about Diesel and steam powered locomotives if you like.

author: veedub565
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 07:34:02 am
content: This is what I mean (attached)Whatever the power source, Diesel, Electric, Steam... Cabbages. In some areas you pay more, in other areas you pay less, but in total it should all end up the same ?

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 07:52:33 am
content: Plenty of research on that:Source:https://www.cotes.com/blog/greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-ev-vs-ice-vehicles

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 07:59:04 am
content: Engines have different efficiencies, depending on the technology used and the size and duty cycles involved.The battery-motor conversion in the modern EV is more like 75% efficient. Yes, the energy to charge the battery came from somewhere, but likely a more efficient source than ICE engines. Additionally, EV's can reclaim a great deal of energy by using the battery-motor system for braking. This is why you see better performance figures for EV's in city driving vs highway driving.Your average ICE engine in a modern car is going to be in the 30-40% range, meaning 60-70% of the energy is being discarded as heat. When it comes to stopping, ALL of the energy is wasted as heat by the brakes.That's just barely touching on the differences, but should be more than enough to prove the point that they ARE different.

author: redkitedesign
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 08:08:29 am
content: Quote from: veedub565 on October 02, 2022, 07:34:02 amNo, it shouldn't.There is no advantage of steam over Diesel (for vehicular propulsion that is, for Nuclear power generation steam is better than Diesel).There is no reason to assume that Electric has drawbacks that make it at least as bad as ICE.There is no Conservation of Karma law.

author: veedub565
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 08:20:44 am
content: Yes I think I can see a flaw in what I was thinking. Diesel, Steam, Electric, Nuclear.. whatever the power source for your vehicle, it would have it's own total energy life cycle. And that doesn't have to be all part of the same cycle. I mean the "operation" part of the cycle is the same, propelling 2 tons of metal at 50mph for example.Yes conservation of energy law is what I was thinking of I think.There's no question an EV charged up with renewable energy is a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels, and nuclear really as you have no contaminated waste to get rid of. Just part of my mind thinking... but there must be a cost to it somewhere equal to the other forms of propulsion

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 08:57:54 am
content: Where you have gone wrong is to not take into account losses in the system.The energy required to move a vehicle is more than just the energy to move the wheels, it's that's plus all the lost energy that gets just thrown away as heat to the universe before it gets to those wheels.We can start with the direct losses at the vehicle, a lot of the energy that goes in, comes out not as kinetic energy you want, but also heat which is mostly discarded. ICE makes lots of discarded heat energy. EV makes a lot less of that wasted energy.Or we could look to losses in the supply chain. In ICE fuels, we have to transport it to the appropriate places right, that transport involves vehicles, the fuel to power those vehicles doesn't come from the aether, it's a loss. For electric, the energy required to get electricity from generation to your vehicle are probably rather smaller (but I'm not going to calculate).And we can continue going back up that trail, generation and refining, harvesting and extraction...You can't just look at "it takes X joules to move the wheels" and say everything is the same, because it actually takes "X joules, plus all the joules we needed along the way but never got to the wheels".To go back to my lettuce and lasagne, yes you can get energy from eating lettuce, and you can get energy from eating lasagne, but you have to invest a lot more eating time into getting the same amount of energy from the lettuce as from one hearty spoonful of lasagne.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 10:51:46 am
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on October 02, 2022, 02:39:25 amBut for something like a coolant leak, an alternative repair would almost certainly have been possible. ( see recent Rich Rebuilds video on exactly this).And even if not, the battery cells would have significant value for reuse, and eventually recycling to recover materials for new batteries.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 12:14:53 pm
content: I am disappointed that in a technical forum like this so many of the answers are hand waving and emotional. The OPs question is valid. The fundamental energy consumption of moving the vehicles is the same.There is no reason to assume that the efficiency of converting the source energy to motive power is the same, nor that the environmental impact is the same. Which is better is a far more difficult question, and one that is not fully answerable now. There is reason to be optimistic that the EV path is better, but much is actually unknown. For example - Are there significant environmental effects from extracting energy from the wind? Questions like this are frequently raised as FUD tactics, but no FUD tactic is successful unless there is some potentially real issue.My response is nearly as hand wavy as many of the above. It is because a real answer to the question is very difficult to come by, and will probably only be found by experience. Just as we learned the problems of fluorocarbon refrigerants when we used them on an industrial scale.I believe that electric is the better answer, but am humble enough to say I don't know and jaded enough to say that I don't think anyone does.

author: redkitedesign
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 02:06:38 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 02, 2022, 12:14:53 pmThere is no development ever where the full effect can be known in advance, by definition. However, if would have been an argument in the past, we would never have had weels, let alone ICE. However, if we would have started with converting to sustainable once the side effects of fossil fuels were reasonably sure, we would all have had an electric plane in 1999 (okay, the plane part might be an exaggeration)Handwaving and concerns are nice, but given 2 options, were option A is almost certainly bad, and option B might have unforseen consequences only a fool would argue that those uncertainties should be a reason to stick with A.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 02:13:41 pm
content: Quote from: sleemanj on October 02, 2022, 04:31:44 amOK, so you wave your hand three times and the problems disappear!1. If that is true why is electricity getting so expensive in some areas? Perhaps even if there were adequate power plants, we'd still need fuel for them and perhaps expanded distribution networks? Not trivial issues IMHO.2. "not yet..." LOL. Perhaps both 1 and 2 will be solved with the imminent introduction of commercial nuclear fusion plants. Oh, wait....3. Mine didn't and I'm not alone.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 02:25:55 pm
content: Quote from: redkitedesign on October 02, 2022, 02:06:38 pmWhy not let B naturally progress instead of 'we' deciding to go all-in on only one option?And just to give a stark example, Germany decided to 'push' green and clean energy by simply shutting down their coal and nuclear power, thus forcing the adoption of solar....and nice, clean Russian gas. A 'fool' (the one and only Donald Trump) argued against this and was ridiculed for it. Now of course they are regretting this and looking to put off the nuclear plant shutdowns that haven't happened yet. I don't know if they can practically recommission any of the coal plants that have gone offline.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 04:07:44 pm
content: Quote from: redkitedesign on October 02, 2022, 02:06:38 pmYour argument could be used to explain why we should never develop electric cars (or planes). Because personal automobiles are really a bad solution from a variety of perspectives. We should eliminate single family dwellings, build arcologies and use only trains for long distance transport. Yeah, there is massive capital investment in making that change, but think how wonderful it would be.

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 05:43:28 pm
content: We can easily get totally independent of fossil fuels.......its just the power-struggling and rat-racing thats going on that stops it....Here is a German town that is self sufficient in energy...all from green sources.....Everywhere could be like this if we had battery storage all over the place....which is easily possible, Australia already does it.....MooraBoolIn UK recently, a farmer was killed and his death faked as suicide...all because he had a wind turbine erected on his own land...https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1552390/Farmer-kills-himself-after-opposition-to-wind-turbines-on-his-land.html

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 06:16:35 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 02, 2022, 04:07:44 pmThat sounds like hell to me. I think I would rather be dead than imprisoned in an apartment in crowded urban city. A single family home on some land is the only arrangement I find tolerable. As it stands I can hardly wait for the day I can retire and move somewhere rural with more open space around me and fewer people clogging the roads. I have to go into downtown Seattle sometimes for work and I absolutely hate it there.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 06:24:20 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 02, 2022, 04:07:44 pmHave you considered a career as a scriptwriter for dystopian movies?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 07:29:38 pm
content: Quote from: veedub565 on October 02, 2022, 07:20:51 amIn theory yes.The big problem is that at this moment there are a lot of wheels in motion especially when considering there is a transition going on from using fossil fuels to 'fuels' (electricity and hydrogen) that are produced without CO2 or other air polluting emissions (nuclear, solar and wind). But to get there, we need fossil fuels. Currently BEVs have a large CO2 footprint simply because the factories are powered by fossil fuels. But that is changing gradually both where it comes to manufacturing and sourcing the electricity.But you need to look at cost versus distance driven to make a good estimation on what technology will end up on top. In the end the TCO (cost per distance driven) of a car is what counts to most people. Some people get lost in comparing efficiencies or looking at repair costs. Don't fall into that trap. Efficiencies don't matter because these are already being accounted for in cost per distance and repair costs are typically (*) dwarfed by 'fuelling' costs over the lifetime of a car.* The trick of buying a low TCO car is to make sure to buy a model which doesn't have a history of expensive repairs like needing complete engine / battery pack replacements.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 09:16:19 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on October 02, 2022, 06:16:35 pmHell might be a bit extreme, but it is way down on my list of desired futures. But this is a perfect example of why it is difficult to evaluate alternative approaches to constructing a future. Wind energy has been mentioned favorably here, but it is many peoples version of visual hell. How do you factor in the aesthetic costs. Or nuclear energy. The fear many feel of this, whether it is justified or not is real. How to factor that cost in? There really is no good analytics for this. But that is no excuse for just magically saying this or that problem is not real, or is simple to solve.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 09:25:36 pm
content: Quote from: veedub565 on October 01, 2022, 07:46:07 pmActually not. It uses batteries which needs to be replaced after several years and old batteries produce a lot of garbage which pollutes the environment with harmful substances. For example, one battery for Tesla contains 7104 small batteries. It equals to 7000 phones or other gadgets.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 09:28:44 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 02, 2022, 09:16:19 pmAs Sartre wrote in his play "Huis Clos" ("No Exit"), "Hell is other people."https://www.ttbook.org/interview/what-sartre-meant-hell-other-peopleBefore moving to a small detached single-family house in the city of Chicago, convenient to public transportation, I grew damned tired of noise from neighboring apartments.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 10:30:20 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 02, 2022, 09:16:19 pmFor me it isn't extreme, I absolutely loathe the urban environment, it makes me feel like a caged animal. I'm much like a cat, I need to have a territory, a personal space that is mine to wander, I don't enjoy being in close proximity to large numbers of people, it feels suffocating. Personally I find wind turbines beautiful and graceful like enormous kinetic sculptures and would love to have a view of a field of them from my back deck. I wonder if they would gain greater acceptance if they were given interesting paint schemes rather than plain white.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 10:33:38 pm
content: Quote from: radiolistener on October 02, 2022, 09:25:36 pmThe batteries should last 15-20 years in most cases, and they can be recycled to recover the materials. I suspect there will be a thriving business recycling EV batteries, and before that another layer salvaging and selling the cells for other uses. The latter already exist, companies like Battery Hookup sell salvaged rechargeable lithium batteries of many types. I have bought some of them to use in various projects.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 11:36:22 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on October 02, 2022, 10:30:20 pmHave you ever been close to one? The make a crapload of noise! You can hear them clearly from over 1km away. Trust me, you don't want wind turbines in your backyard!Where I live there are lots of wind turbines installed and I can't say it looks pretty. Hundreds of wind turbines as far as the eye can see and more are being added. I'd rather look at a forrest with waving trees or so. And throw in some mountains while you are at it.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2022, 11:56:16 pm
content: QuoteBut aint that part of your historical culture,windmills everywhere

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 01:30:37 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 02, 2022, 11:36:22 pmSure, there are loads of them in Eastern Washington, I was just over in Ellensburg last week. I never got close enough to them to hear more than a faint swooshing noise, mostly they're up on the hills and not all that close to houses but I had a nice view of them. At night they've got red obstruction beacons that all flash in sync too, I thought it was cool. I've lived in a heavily forested and mountainous area my whole life, the forest of windmills is somewhat novel to me.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 10:40:06 am
content: Quote from: james_s on October 02, 2022, 10:33:38 pmAt the moment just about 5% can be recycled, but it cost too much, so they are just sent to third world countries and simply dumped in landfills, poisoning the environment, because it is more cheap. Yes, of course they said that they recycle it and get money for that recycle from government, but in reality this is lie. You can find evidence on youtube.So called "green technology" is actually worldwide corruption schemes to steal money from government budgets under the pretext of subsidies and benefits for "green" companies. They said that they need to increase taxes and utility rates in order to pay more money for protecting environment. But in reality they take money from citizens and give it to the oligarchs and worldwide private corporations who enrich themselves by using governments for their personal purposes. And unfortunately no one can stop it, because government have right to get your money and give it to the oligarchs, and you can't reject it.This is why solar panels and wind farms are so popular, these "green technology" allows scammers and corrupt officials to rob the citizens with high taxes and tariffs. In reality any engineer realize that solar panels and wind farms cannot provide enough energy for mankind and cannot replace oil, gas and nuclear technology to obtain energy.For example, current electricity cost price at nuclear power plants is about 0.014 USD per kWh or 14 USD per MWh (this price is taken from official reports). It includes all expenses for nuclear power plant. Just compare it with price which you pay, there is a huge margin due to taxes and earnings for intermediaries due to these "green energy" corruption schemes with solar panels or wind farms...In some countries government pays 0.00244 USD per kWh or 2.44 USD per MWh to a nuclear power plants, but at the same time government provides guarantee buy at 50 times more expensive price from these "green energy" private companies who produce electricity with solar panels and wind farms. All expenses are covered from citizens taxes and utility rate. This example shows why "green energy" is very interesting for government officials...I think the same story with EV... It looks cool, but it hides too many issues which mankind will realize 15-20 years later, when these spent batteries create a real problem for Earth environment... But at the moment it allows some enterprising people to make money on it with help of government, because this technology is actually too expensiveThe only technology which can provide mankind with enough energy at a cheap price is a nuclear technology, such as nuclear power plants.There is also thermonuclear fusion talks, but it looks like scam, the same as "green technology", because they spend a lot of money on research, but for many years there are no results in this area. So, it looks that they doing such research just to get more money from government...

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 12:51:04 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on October 02, 2022, 11:56:16 pmYes they are, but an old traditional windmill has much more appeal, at least to me, than these modern ones with a long steel tower and these huge, hard to recycle, fiberglass blades.And the density of the historical ones was never as high as what you see nowadays. To me, landscape pollution.As for the EV versus ICE, there are pro's and con's to list for either, but to think that EV's are going to provide a sustainable alternative is wishful thinking. To make them you still need lots of other resources that are finite, just the same as fossil fuels. The same applies to making the needed windmills and solar-panels to harvest the needed electricity to run them. I wrote this before, it is shifting the problem to be solved, not solving the actual problem.And recycling is all very nice, but it is expensive, requires a lot of energy and possibly harmful chemicals, and the latter can become another waste problem, where just as seen over many years, people don't want to pay for a proper solution, and the stuff gets spilled into nature, poisoning more of our valuable living space.

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 01:00:31 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on October 02, 2022, 10:30:20 pmI can relate to that. Just back from a visit to the in laws in the Netherlands, and even though not one of the bigger towns (Roermond and surrounding villages) I feel suffocated being there. Rather sit on my new terrace or look out of the windows and see the trees, meadows and hills around our house. Nearest neighbors >150 meters away, without them looking into your garden. Freedom and privacy.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 01:33:03 pm
content: Quote from: pcprogrammer on October 03, 2022, 12:51:04 pmSo we just wait a hundred years, when these are going to be the novelty, which are part of the the usual view of the coast.Or ask a 4 year old if they mind it.I rather listen to gentle whooshing from wind turbines, than to a hipster on a petrol moped. It's amazing that mopeds are not banned yet in Europe.

author: pcprogrammer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 02:15:13 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on October 03, 2022, 01:33:03 pmA hundred years is way beyond my time left on earth, and if the whole planet is going to be filled with these "novelties" then I'm glad that I'm not there to watch it. Asking a 4 year old about it is silly, because they don't have a notion yet of what the world is about, let alone a solid knowledge of history. Give them candy and they will agree with everything.Quote from: tszaboo on October 03, 2022, 01:33:03 pmHave not been close to a wind turbine, large or small, so can't say anything about the sound they make, but agree very much on not liking the sound of a not properly silenced combustion engine. Being it mopeds, hogs or roadsters on what ever number of wheels.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 02:31:39 pm
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on October 02, 2022, 02:13:41 pmThe fact that electricity is getting expensive is exactly aligned with the business opportunity angle here, not a refutation of the point. It's the "bat signal" that causes businesses to satisfy the demand for electricity.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 07:07:26 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on October 03, 2022, 02:31:39 pmYep. Time to install renewable electricity generation like there would finally really be a tomorrowGermany is already at 50% renewable electricity, just waking up to attack the other half (Yeah, they are very very inefficient at it)

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 07:22:20 pm
content: Quote from: f4eru on October 03, 2022, 07:07:26 pmYou act like that's some trivial thing to accomplish. The first 50% was the easy part in comparison. Trying to be 100% renewable is going to take decades and cost vast sums of money that has to come from somewhere.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 07:24:23 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on October 03, 2022, 07:22:20 pmIndeed. The last 5% of the work needs 99% of the effort. The hurdle to overcome at this point is putting storage into place which is neither cheap and easy to accomplish.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 07:26:00 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 03, 2022, 07:24:23 pmSure. Let's go to 95% fast, then take all the time needed to tackle the last 5%.Best cost/pollution investment ever.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 07:37:39 pm
content: Quote from: f4eru on October 03, 2022, 07:26:00 pmYou are way too optimistic... Getting to the next stage requires getting nuclear power plants, foreign wind + solar and hydrogen infrastructure, transport & storage going. The wheels are in motion but it will take at least another decade to have a significant effect. Meanwhile contribution from local solar + wind will reach a plateau.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2022, 09:27:18 pm
content: QuoteTotally Wrong.https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/de/veroeffentlichungen/studien/wege-zu-einem-klimaneutralen-energiesystem.html

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 12:34:04 am
content: Brush up your German because the report you linked to says hydrogen is a key buildingblock for the energy transition. The report also says that hydrogen will be used for energy storage and a lot of it will be imported from other countries. Local solar and wind alone simply are not enough to cover the energy needs (no surprise there given the location of Germany). And ofcourse nuclear isn't mentioned because at the time the report was written, Germany was still planning to halt nuclear power but it looks like the Germans are going to make a 180 on that.

author: redkitedesign
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 02:28:54 am
content: The cost of rooftop solar in .nl or .de is about 5ct/kWh. That used to be barely competetive with gas or coal powered generation, which would often drop below 4ct/kWh.However, without russian gas, electricity can easily cost 25ct/kWh.That makes rooftop solar (and offshore wind at 6ct/kWh) suddenly hugely competitive. So competitive, that solar installation costs have recently soared too...Converting electricity to hydrogen or methane is not really hard, however the yield is low (at most 80%). Converting that methane back to electricity makes the yield even lower (like 40%).However, with a summer price for electricity of 5ct/kWh, that would result in a winter price based on methane produced in summer of 12ct/kWh. Add a few cents for the equipement (current gas powered turbines are at about 1ct/kWh).Thats still less than the current fossil-gas based power cost, and less than the cost for new nuclear (20ct/kWh based on Hinkley Point C)Oh, and methane stores easily. As in Europe currently has a full winter usage in storage allready.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 06:07:44 am
content: Energy storage, yes, as a last resort for long term storage.Transportation, nope.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 07:46:11 am
content: Quote from: redkitedesign on October 04, 2022, 02:28:54 amYour numbers are off. P2G2P has a round trip efficiency of 60-70% today, expected to become even more energy efficient in the future. And it's a seasonal storage, unlike any energy storage method, battery or even hydro. Plus, you don't even need to think about the G2P part, because it is well understood and has been working for decades now. You can even just feed in the methane to the gas network, and turn ordinary houses heating system renewable, without any investment of the owner.It's the ultimate, low investment/high effect technology that likely be enough for this entire century. Considering that it literally reverses global warming with carbon capture.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 10:54:14 am
content: Quote from: f4eru on October 04, 2022, 06:07:44 amI hope you are aware that energy is being transported and stored on a large scale already? For the simple reason that there isn't enough energy avalailable in places where the industry / money is. That is not going to change so transportation and storage of energy is not going away.I wrote it before and I'll write it again: Hydrogen is going to be to new oil that will be hauled and pipelined across the globe. Heck, even the brand new Nord Stream 2 pipeline is designed to transport hydrogen.Quote from: redkitedesign on October 04, 2022, 02:28:54 amHinkley Point C is not valid to look at cost for nuclear. If you dig into the financials a little bit then you'll see that the French duped the Brittons into signing a very bad deal. A significant part of the cost of Hinkley Point C is formed by interest payments. Nuclear typically sits at around 4 tot 5 eurocent per kWh (including reserving money to dismantle the reactor and deal with the nuclear waste).

author: redkitedesign
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 04:00:34 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 04, 2022, 10:54:14 amExisting NPP might be able to reach 4 to 5 eurocent, but they were build with much laxer safety requirements and tons of government subsidy, especially by not having to pay interest on the construction cost. (Especially the French "resolved" any government debt from the 70'ties (when most of the NPP were build) by devaluating the French Franc. Poof, gone is the debt!)Hinkley point is arguably the only valid reference point as it is the only one being built on a commercial basis, comparable to how wind power plants are being built (the government selects a location, and guarantees a power price for commercial party that finances, buillds and operates the plant)..Arguably NPP can be build cheaper than Hinkley point if you were to build multiple of the same design, and let the government finance them as opposed to private parties. However, the latter argument is also valid for Wind Farms, and they are allready at an 6ct/kWh price point. Good luck improving Nuclear to beat that.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 07:54:38 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 04, 2022, 10:54:14 amNope.Hydrogen has absolutely none of the attributes of oil.... Zil. Nada....1) Oil is a primary energy, Hydrogen is just a storage form.2) Oil is very inexpensive on every metric, hydrogen is very expensive, on every metric3) Oil is easy to transport, has infrastructure, hydrogen is difficult to transport, has no infrastructure at all today...4) Oil is entranched in every part of our lives to a crazy degree, hydrogen use is a footnote of history.5) Oil is quite low tech, hydrogen is very demanding on all the chain6) Oil is relatively safe, at least in the common user forms, hydrogen is absolutely notIt may be used as a very inefficient seasonal storage, but only as a last resort, if we don't find a better alternative....As soon as we get a cheaper seasonnal storage alteernative, it'll be a dying horse...

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 08:29:20 pm
content: Quote from: f4eru on October 05, 2022, 07:54:38 pmBuzzzz. Wrong at the first point already.Oil is stored solar energy. Nothing more, nothing less. Just like hydrogen that will be generated on a mass scale using solar panels. Only the cycle is much shorter time wise.Maybe read more into the subject and you'll find that the world already knows that when electricity needs to be stored for more than a couple of hours, hydrogen will be cheaper compared to batteries. Why do you think hydrogen conversion, transport and storage infrastructure is being built all around the world? The answer is simple: hydrogen will take over from oil / gas /coal as a universal energy carrier.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 08:39:55 pm
content: I see absolutely no traction of hydrogen so far, what few trial uses we have had in the USA have been limited to the single state of California, to my knowledge there is nothing else planned. I know you are a big advocate of hydrogen but I just don't see it ever being a serious contender. The vast majority of hydrogen that we do use is extracted from fossil fuels. Generating it by using electricity to crack water is inefficient and then once you generate it, you have to expend further energy compressing it into a form that can be reasonably stored. Then you have a very dangerous flammable gas that will burn explosively in almost any ratio with air and that also has additional challenges like embrittlement of metals. Maybe it will achieve some widespread use somewhere but I am extremely skeptical. In the USA it has pretty much been written off already so if it does go somewhere it will be elsewhere in the world.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 08:51:43 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on October 05, 2022, 08:39:55 pmI'm not advocating anything. I just look at the big picture that is laid out in front of me.You are just looking at one single 'experiment' in California to test the technology. The uptake of hydrogen is slower because a lot needs to be done including sourcing hydrogen from renewable sources. If you look at the hydrogen projects and projections on a world wide scale, you can not come to another conclusion that hydrogen is going to play a major part in the energy transition. On top of that all reports on transitioning towards renewable energy sources will tell you hydrogen plays a major part at least where it comes to transport and storage of energy. Sourcing hydrogen from renewable sources is a first step that needs to be taken. World wide there are hundreds of projects planned, under construction with several already finished to make that happen. It simply makes no sense to claim hydrogen is a dead end at this moment. I guess Trump made the US lag behind but I'd be surprised if the US is not going to have hydrogen projects -at least announced- in the next 5 years. From what I can find in reasonably recent information, the US already has a strategy for renewable energy that includes hydrogen as part of the plans.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:02:27 pm
content: Quoteit failed in america so it wont work,sorry but there's a big world outside your borders,and as much as you'd like to think so, you aint the be all and end allQuoteIf you've access to unlimited free green electricity who cares about efficiency.Iceland could become the next saudi if they play there cards right

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:41:13 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on October 05, 2022, 09:02:27 pmCan you give us a specific example where hydrogen is currently being used cost effectively?Due to subsidies and sheer determination there are a small number of Mirai and Clarity fuel-cell vehicles roaming the California highways, as well as a few specialized stations for fueling them. I believe that the cars have been or will be discontinued and the result of the experiment is that hydrogen is not practically competitive even in an optimum environment. There have previously been a very limited number of hydrogen-powered buses as well, although I'm not sure if any are still running here as I think they reached the same conclusion. The only example I know of where hydrogen has been anywhere near what you'd call a success has been indoor forklifts in large warehouses.As for being the 'be all and end all', when it comes to alternative energy we just might be. The only thing I can think of that isn't done here is tidal power.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:48:38 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on October 05, 2022, 09:02:27 pmThat isn't what I said, but can you point out somewhere in the world where hydrogen has achieved greater success than it did in the USA? As far as I know, California is one of the first and most ambitious places in the world where it was tried, and it failed. Maybe it will succeed elsewhere but as I said, I have seen no evidence of this. If it is out there I would be interested in seeing it.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:52:41 pm
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on October 05, 2022, 09:41:13 pmWhere are you? Tidal power is only viable where it gets concentrated, either by a continental shelf, or a funnel like configuration between land masses. There aren't many places which are a good match. The global tide away from those places is only about half a metre, so the energy is so spread out you would need a vast system to gather very much. This is unfortunate, as the total energy in the tides is really big.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:53:14 pm
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on October 05, 2022, 09:41:13 pmYou may believe that but Toyota is still releasing model updates for the Mirai. They would not do that for an obsolete model. Additionally, in 2023 Toyota is planning to launch a hydrogen powered version of their very succesfull Prius and Corolla models.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 10:01:15 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 05, 2022, 09:53:14 pmToyota recently released a completely new Mirai, based on the high end Lexus LS platform. Its a lot cheaper than a Lexus, though, so its pricing doesn't seem to make any sense. It looks like another compliance stunt.The older Mirai is so unattractive to potential customers in the second hand market that Toyota offers them with basically free hydrogen.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 10:04:45 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on October 05, 2022, 10:01:15 pmCompliance for what? Toyota doesn't need to sell Mirais (or BEVs) to stay withing their CO2 emission qouta. Their hybrids do that just fine by themselves; proving that Toyota's strategy for fuel reduction by a hybrid drive system was the right choice. When Toyota put the Prius on the market everyone was laughing though. Nowadays Toyota is ahead of everyone else with their hydrogen cars. And people are laughing again. I'm taking Toyota more serious this time...

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 10:09:14 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 05, 2022, 09:53:14 pmOK, I looked. The Mirai was redone last year and I think it is due to continue on for a while. The Clarity FCV was completely discontinued last year. The numbers of these are still vanishingly small, you are more likely to see a Rolls Royce than a Mirai even in California. As for the hydrogen Prius, I suppose they'll try anything to meet their alternative energy quotas and subsidy requirements, but I don't think there will be very many sold. Those are going to be a hydrogen-powered ICE/PHEV, not an FCV. It is really hard to see what the advantage is going to be over a BEV as the range on hydrogen with an ICE is going to be pretty limited.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 10:10:49 pm
content: Hint: lower fuel costs and faster refilling. Running a BEV from public charging is extremely expensive. BTW: just an hour ago I read an article about driving a BEV while towing a caravan. Turns out the car needs charging every 100km (instead of 400km) and the caravan needs to be decoupled because the charging spaces are not suitable for cars with a caravan.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 10:13:20 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 05, 2022, 10:04:45 pmCompliance with California laws requiring a certain percentage of vehicles sold to be completely EV/FCV or perhaps NGV. It is a complicated formula, but it drives many of the decisions regarding vehicle type and design. My Ford is entirely a compliance product, Ford lost a ton of money selling it to me. Even Tesla's battery exchange stations were compliance driven as they got more points in the formula that they could sell as credits to other manufacturers.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 10:17:43 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 05, 2022, 10:04:45 pmSpecific laws and government run pilots schemes in specific places. California is the main one. Where it doesn't benefit them to sell the Mirai them they don't sell them. They only recently offered them in the UK, but you can't really use one here, unless its for local use around one of a handful of fuel stations. Looking at the Toyota UK web site, they seem to have removed the Mirai. It was shown there for a while, with prices. Hyundai still has their Nexo on their UK web site, and that site shows where the UK's hydrogen stations are. They seem to have removed the pricing, though. They are basically supplying a government run scheme.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 10:32:59 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on October 05, 2022, 09:02:27 pmIf you have access to unlimited free electricity (green or otherwise) just about anything works. But Iceland has limits on their thermal and hydro energy sources. They are large relative to the requirements of the relatively small population but small relative to world energy consumption. And it isn't free. Initial purchase and maintenance are real costs, which will never go to zero.Hydrogen has a a few fundamental problems that make it tough for use in the energy chain. Foremost it is difficult to store. It permeates through almost anything, requiring expensive materials to contain it. It is the tiniest molecule and slips through the tiniest of cracks so sealing joints and connections is difficult. These are not insoluble problems, but the solutions are typically not cheap. But it is urgent to solve them completely because hydrogen is hard to detect and explosive. Hydrogen, in addition to leaking has nasty effects on what it is around. Read up on hydrogen embrittlement. Again solvable problem, but every one of these things adds manufacturing and maintenance costs. Finally it is low density. While airlines are looking at hydrogen power they are finding that large tanks with high drag penalties and weight penalties are required for even modest length flight segments. It isn't obvious that the number of tickets that can be sold will pay for operating hydrogen powered aircraft. In the automotive world the penalties are not as critical, but range anxiety will definitely be a problem. And the big concern in the auto world comes back to the first comment. Can you imagine making these critical highly technical connections to the fueling system using the same public that mistakenly puts diesel in gasoline powered vehicles and visa versa?None of these says that hydrogen can't be made to work. But it isn't a slam dunk panacea that substitutes seamlessly at low cost with for existing systems.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 01:12:50 am
content: Quote from: bdunham7 on October 05, 2022, 10:09:14 pmAccording to data I can find, there are "up to" 8,000 hydrogen powered cars in California, out of 35 million registered vehicles. I didn't find a breakdown by state but there are up to 15,000 in the entire USA.That's what, 0.02% of the market in CA and far less than that in the country as a whole? That's statistically insignificant, it may as well be zero and without large subsidies and laws mandating or encouraging use of alternative fuels it would be. Is there anywhere else in the world that has more of them?

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 02:56:52 am
content: I think the bulk of those are fleet vehicles, where the owner also provides the local fueling facility. The infrastructure isn't there for the general public, in most cases.

author: redkitedesign
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 05:33:36 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 05, 2022, 10:32:59 pmHydrogen has a very easy, exothermic reaction with CO2. The result is CH4 (and some water), also known as methane, or natural gasWe know very well how to store, transport and use natural gas. The biggest disadvantage of this reaction for the American market is probably that it was discovered by a Frenchman (Sabatier).And if you use CO2 from the air to produce methane, you inherently compensate for the CO2 released by the use of that methane.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 06:41:31 am
content: Quote from: coppice on October 05, 2022, 10:17:43 pmThat doesn't make sense. The number of Mirais sold at any place does not make a significant impact anywhere in the world (IIRC Toyota sells about 40k units per year). So there has to be a long term strategy behind their hydrogen cars. Otherwise Toyota would have been selling BEVs like anyone else if they needed to make compliance sales. The only country where Toyota is selling BEVs in large numbers is China.

author: richard.cs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 12:32:50 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on October 04, 2022, 07:46:11 amSo what technology are you proposing for the G2P part of P2G2P to achieve this 60-70% round trip efficiency? It certainly is not the "well understood and and working for decades now" combined cycle gas turbine. Taking the best current numbers for electricity to hydrogen as 80% and the best current numbers for CCGT fuel gas to electricity as 64%, I get a round trip efficiency of 51% ignoring any further energy losses due to compressing for storage, etc.QuoteYou can, although it burning it to convert to heat with an efficiency of perhaps 95% works out worse (by around a factor of two) than converting to electricity at say 60% efficiency and feeding a heat pump with a coefficient of performance of three or more.QuoteIt's only global warming reversing carbon capture if you stick the synthetic methane in the ground and never burn it.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 02:07:21 pm
content: Quote from: redkitedesign on October 06, 2022, 05:33:36 amI am not an industrial chemist so I can't comment on converting hydrogen to methane. But I do know that those pushing a hydrogen fuel cycle generally aren't pushing methane as the storage and distribution method. I agree, natural gas is a well understood technology.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 02:33:02 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 06, 2022, 06:41:31 amToyota hasn't sold 40K Mirais in all of history, it's more like 9-10K in the US (mostly CA), 7K in Japan and 3K in the rest of the world. The new model from 2021 forward is less odd and more luxurious and they are making/selling a few more than before. The FCV vs BEV makes sense if you understand the details--they get 7 ZEV credits for every FCV. And in any case Toyota is a huge company that can afford to have projects that don't make money.Mirai sales are very heavily subsidized here, both by Toyota and various government entities. The new model is a luxury car that costs $70-80K in gasoline hybrid form but is priced at $50K. Then discounts, rebates and tax credits will drive that price down well under $20K and they throw in three years of free maintenance and fuel. If I lived near one of the dozen or so available H2stations I might get one myself--just pick out a new one every 3 years and throw the old one away.An ultra-cheap subsidized luxury commuter car in CA and they still only sell miniscule numbers. That's tough to pitch as a market success.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 03:17:30 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on October 06, 2022, 06:41:31 amI assume engineering is a hobby for you. If you'd ever worked professionally this would not seem odd at all. Pretty much every engineering company, of any discipline, has a thing they can't let go of, and keep pouring money into. Often it disables the company so badly they end up bankrupt. Toyota pretty much got batteries in cars off the ground with the Prius. They were an early investor in Tesla. However, somewhere in that organisation someone influential must have kept plugging away at the fuel cell concept, and they are only now trying to break free and use lithium batteries. Will they succeed? Well, their first serious attempt at a lithium battery powered EV (they've had pure compliant cars, like a battery powered RAV4 in the past) recently saw a very early recalled for a bizarre reason. Was that internal sabotage by the fuel cell advocates? It wouldn't be the first time.