More anti-ev gibberish

[Norbert]

The problem with those programs is it really doesn't change the actual emissions.

My assumption would be that the extra cost of such programs, plus the usual portion of the fees used for investments, will be used towards investments in wind and solar, for example. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

You can pay extra for all the green energy you want, but if you're in an area where coal ramps down at night then when you plug in they'll toss in a few extra lumps to compensate for the increased load. Similarly if you buy a PV array and pump electrons into the grid during the day then plug your EV in at night. Yes you are adding clean power to the grid during the day, but you could have done that without buying an EV, so plugging in the EV at night is still increasing emissions. I do agree with your earlier premise that early EV adoption will occur in areas that are greener than grid average, but the actual numbers of night charging won't be as good as you projected.

There should be a way to keep them from ramping up coal at night, and use at least NG instead. I'm still reading the above text, but so far haven't found a convincing reason why it needs to be coal, yet. I like SByer's post on that subject.

In any case, I checked my "local" supplier in San Francisco, PG&E, and since PG&E claims to serve 5% of the US population, I thought this would be worth posting:

Clean Energy Solutions

PG&E serves 5 percent of the country's population, yet we emit less than 1 percent of the total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with the nation's electricity production. On average, approximately half of the electricity PG&E delivers to its customers comes from a combination of renewable and greenhouse gas-free resources.

PG&E customers benefit from more than 90 MW of wind energy generated from an Iberdrola Renewables site in Sherman County, Oregon. Photo courtesy of Iberdrola Renewables.
The power mix we provided to our customers in 2009 consisted of non-emitting nuclear generation (20.5 percent), large hydroelectric facilities (13.0 percent) and renewable resources (14.4 percent), such as wind, geothermal, biomass and small hydro. The remaining portion came from natural gas (34.6 percent), coal (1.3 percent), unspecified sources (15.0 percent), and other fossil-based resources (1.2 percent).

So a large area here (5% of the US population) is using only 1.3% coal, after all. Not sure what that says about the rest of California, though.

[JRP3]

My assumption would be that the extra cost of such programs, plus the usual portion of the fees used for investments, will be used towards investments in wind and solar, for example. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

Right but it doesn't change the emissions profile while you are charging now, it's more an investment in the future.

There should be a way to keep them from ramping up coal at night, and use at least NG instead. I'm still reading the above text, but so far haven't found a convincing reason why it needs to be coal, yet. I like SByer's post on that subject.

I think it needs to be coal because coal can't be used as a peaker plant during high load times. Coal can ramp up and down but slowly, NG can fire up and down quickly. If you use NG as baseload at night you can't quickly ramp up the coal to fill in the peak demands during the day and the coal plant needs to keep running at a certain level all night anyway. You can't shut down coal the way you can NG. The only answer is to replace coal generating plants with more NG plants, or nuclear. I don't think we can really do much without looking seriously at nuclear, specifically LFTR, liquid fluoride thorium reactors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdRJqi__Z8

[dsm363]

I agree that the 'green energy' I pay extra for (wind here in Texas) probably doesn't have a big environmental impact but it's more of a show of support. The more people willing to pay for green energy allows them to deploy these sources more widely which hopefully helps drive the cost down to the point where the cost difference isn't significant.
Yes, the subsidizes to the oil and coal industries need to stop. Also, I think that if gas goes up to over $4 a gallon this summer, I think anyone who bought a large truck or SUV or any car with crappy gas mileage for personal use (not required for work) should have no right to complain.

[Norbert]

Right but it doesn't change the emissions profile while you are charging now, it's more an investment in the future.

I know that on Seeking Alpha, they are always trying to keep the discussion limited to the current energy mix, but the CO2 problem is not a problem we have coming Monday, CO2 is a long-term problem (even if short- and mid-term improvements are most welcome). Therefore investments in the future is what we need.

I think it needs to be coal because coal can't be used as a peaker plant during high load times. Coal can ramp up and down but slowly, NG can fire up and down quickly. If you use NG as baseload at night you can't quickly ramp up the coal to fill in the peak demands during the day and the coal plant needs to keep running at a certain level all night anyway. You can't shut down coal the way you can NG. The only answer is to replace coal generating plants with more NG plants, or nuclear. I don't think we can really do much without looking seriously at nuclear, specifically LFTR, liquid fluoride thorium reactors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHdRJqi__Z8

Are you sure you haven't been misled by tricky polemics?

The document you pointed to seems quite vague on this point:

In this work, it is assumed that these plants will be operated at constant capacity utilization, equal to their daytime maximum, and that the excess power generation at night will be used for PHEV charging. It was assumed that the generation from non-coal EGUs would not change.

"It is assumed", "It was assumed" ? Why? No reason is given why the coal plants would not keep their "diurnal profile", and why Natural Gas would not be increased instead.

Of the traditional fuel sources used for electricity, coal- fired power plants without controls release the most CO2, NOx, and SO2 throughout the life cycle [18] and so using coal generated electricity to charge PHEVs would represent a worst-case scenario for EGU emissions, assuming only existing capacity is utilized, and only at night.

One can easily get the impression that the authors simply wanted to calculate the "worst-case" scenario, not knowing that others would use their study to suggest that such a scenario would be a given consequence. It seems to be an assumption the study is based on, not a result that the study would have shown to be actually true.

The graph in Figure 3(a) shows that the coal plants are able to increase and decrease their level of activity. In Figure 3(b), the "valley" is filled with coal, instead it should be very possible to fill it with Natural Gas. If someone wants to use this as a big argument against EVs, then a very convincing reason would have to be given, not just pure speculation.

[dpeilow]

A similar discussion kicked off on Bobbyllew's blog where I made this point:

I am on a green tariff with SSE. Every kWh I take from the grid has to be matched by SSE putting one in from a renewable source (on my plan, it's hydro). This is audited by Ofgem.

Thus the money I pay them has to be spent on renewable sources. If all customers signed up for this tariff, they'd have to make a lot of investment in renewable sources. Maybe that is one reason why SSE just opened the country's first new full-size hydro station for 50 years and have so many new hydro and wind schemes coming online soon: SSE - Project portfolio


So while green and brown electrons mix in the grid, if you are paying for green ones to be put in, you are entitled to say that you are taking green ones out. If more customers vote with their wallets, the proportion of green ones will rise.


However there is another way we can power our cars that is often overlooked in these discussions and that is domestic solar.

A 3kW peak system costing around £10,000 is about 20 sq metres of panels - enough to fit on a typical 4x5 metre garage. Such a system will generate enough juice for 10,000 miles of EV driving a year, even in sunny ol' Britain (in the south of England it's about 11,000 miles and in Scotland about 9,000 miles per annum). You can check results for your location here: PVGIS home

As the EV would most likely be plugged in at night, you'd need to store the energy generated in the daytime. Some people would use the grid as the battery, but to be more independent you can store the energy in static batteries at home. 10,000 miles a year is under 28 miles per day - which is typically under 7kWh of electricity use in an EV. That would require 5 boat/caravan 130Ah "leisure" batteries costing £95 each for daytime storage. In the winter you'd still have to top some up from the grid (or another local source like wind), but you'd put it back in the summer.

Furthermore, in the 25 years that a solar panel is normally guaranteed for, a 50 mpg diesel car will burn over £30,000 of fuel to cover the same distance (at 2011 prices), so your initial £10500 outlay really pays for itself.

So everyone with a garage or house roof that does average mileage (according to the AA) in this country could be driving net emissions free and at significantly reduced cost per mile than they are now. The difficulty is getting over that "hump" of having to pay £10,000 before you enjoy decades of free motoring. Sounds like we need a new class of bank loan or mortgage extension to enable people to do this and perhaps legislate that all new-builds should have it as standard.

[JRP3]

I know that on Seeking Alpha, they are always trying to keep the discussion limited to the current energy mix, but the CO2 problem is not a problem we have coming Monday, CO2 is a long-term problem (even if short- and mid-term improvements are most welcome). Therefore investments in the future is what we need.

Without a doubt, and frankly even the fastest possible uptake of EV's even if all charging is done with coal would produce no more emissions than the "noise" in the current system for quite a few years.

"It is assumed", "It was assumed" ? Why? No reason is given why the coal plants would not keep their "diurnal profile", and why Natural Gas would not be increased instead.

One can easily get the impression that the authors simply wanted to calculate the "worst-case" scenario, not knowing that others would use their study to suggest that such a scenario would be a given consequence. It seems to be an assumption the study is based on, not a result that the study would have shown to be actually true.

The graph in Figure 3(a) shows that the coal plants are able to increase and decrease their level of activity. In Figure 3(b), the "valley" is filled with coal, instead it should be very possible to fill it with Natural Gas. If someone wants to use this as a big argument against EVs, then a very convincing reason would have to be given, not just pure speculation.

It may be the simple economics of power generation that create those assumptions. It's probably cheaper to shut down the NG plants and fill in with the already running coal plants instead of keeping two separate systems running. Efficiencies of each system are probably higher when they are running closer to peak, so running both at reduced loads would hurt the efficiencies of both. Maybe

[JRP3]

A similar discussion kicked off on Bobbyllew's blog where I made this point: I am on a green tariff with SSE. Every kWh I take from the grid has to be matched by SSE putting one in from a renewable source (on my plan, it's hydro). This is audited by Ofgem.

Do they have excess generating capacity that they are holding back until you plug in, or turn on a light? If so why are they not simply putting everything they have available into the grid at all times, allowing coal and NG plants to reduce output?

[dpeilow]

Yes in effect they do - it's called pumped storage and they are developing hundreds more MW, perhaps even a GW of it at the moment. Many of the new schemes are being developed in conjunction with nearby large windfarms.

[stopcrazypp]

Do they have excess generating capacity that they are holding back until you plug in, or turn on a light? If so why are they not simply putting everything they have available into the grid at all times, allowing coal and NG plants to reduce output?

Coal plants can't be easily ramped up or down, which is why they keep them on even at night. NG plants are more flexible, which is why they use them for peak hours.

[JRP3]

Coal plants do ramp down at night, but stay running. Check the link I provided a few posts back.