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koolbreez

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I would just like to ask a couple of questions. One, I know that there is discussion about electric vehicles and charging them. If your electricity is generated from a coal fired plant, it will put more pollution in the air by charging your vehicle. Do you know where your electricity comes from?
Two, since electric vehicles don't use gasoline or diesel and therefore aren't paying taxes on fuel, does California add extra tax to an electric vehicle to compensate?
 
koolbreez said:
I would just like to ask a couple of questions. One, I know that there is discussion about electric vehicles and charging them. If your electricity is generated from a coal fired plant, it will put more pollution in the air by charging your vehicle. Do you know where your electricity comes from?
Two, since electric vehicles don't use gasoline or diesel and therefore aren't paying taxes on fuel, does California add extra tax to an electric vehicle to compensate?

Sorry, meant to write that when charging your vehicle, it will add more pollution to the air than running a gasoline engine, if your electricity is generated by a coal fired plant.
 
koolbreez said:
I would just like to ask a couple of questions. One, I know that there is discussion about electric vehicles and charging them. If your electricity is generated from a coal fired plant, it will put more pollution in the air by charging your vehicle. Do you know where your electricity comes from?
Two, since electric vehicles don't use gasoline or diesel and therefore aren't paying taxes on fuel, does California add extra tax to an electric vehicle to compensate?
Koolbreez, this argument has been tried before and the problem is that people using this argument are mixing apples and oranges. If you want to compare the emissions of an EV to an ICE, you have to start at the point where each vehicle actually receives its "fuel" and go forward from their. For an ICE, it's once you pump the gasoline into the fuel tank. For an EV, it's once you charge your batteries. From that point forward, there is no comparison. EV wins hands-down every time!

Now, if, like you are trying to do, you want to argue that EVs are more polluting because of the pollutants emitted during the generation of the electricity that it uses to charge its batteries, then you also have to consider the production of the gasoline the ICE uses.

In 2012, 37% of electricity generation was from coal power plants, 30% was from natural gas, 19% nuclear, 7% hydro, and 5% other renewables. Yes, coal is dirty. But newer, cleaner coal burning technologies are being developed and implemented. Also, nearly one-third of the country's power was from natural gas, which is even cleaner burning than coal. About one-fifth of the power was from nuclear, which has no greenhouse emissions at all. Cleaner and greener ways to produce electricity are being researched and developed every day. The use of wind, solar, geothermal, etc. are increasing all the time and are renewable and non-polluting. Eventually, the EV car COULD be powered 100% by renewable, non-polluting energy. In fact, they are many EV owners whose EVs are TRULY zero-emissions as they have installed solar chargers at their homes! The sun produces the energy in their cases. Absolutely NO pollution at all!

The same cannot be said for ICE vehicles. ICE cars burn fossil fuels and always will. No way around that. Of course, you could make an argument for bio-diesel fuels, but you still have to burn them, which emits pollution of one kind or another. Now, for the comparison of the energy generation for ICE vehicles. ICE cars burn gasoline. That gas has to come from somewhere. Oil companies extract oil from within the Earth's crust. That requires massive amounts of energy to tap into and extract the oil. That oil then has to be transported to a refinery via either ships, pipes, or trucks. All transportation methods to the refineries require huge amounts of energy to get it there. In the case of ships and trucks, you are burning fossil fuels in order to get the freshly-extracted dino gunk to the refineries. Then the refineries use multiple processes (requiring lots of energy) to refine the dino gunk into several different types and grades of fuel products. The gasoline then has to be transported to distribution centers, again via trains or trucks that are burning more fossil fuels. Then fuel trucks fill up at the distribution centers and transport the gasoline, once again burning fossil fuels along the way, to the gas stations. The gas stations use power to stay open, turn on their lights, and pump fuel into ICE vehicles. And of course, those ICE vehicles had to burn even more fossil fuels to get to the gas stations so they could refuel.

Soooooooo... after all that, which mode of transportation (ICE vs. EV) truly creates MORE pollution overall? In THAT contest, ICE definitely wins hands-down!!!

People who are, for some unknown reason, against EVs or developing alternative forms of energy really need to stop making silly arguments such as this. And you have to take into consideration the total chain of energy production on BOTH sides. You can't just simply say that the coal burned to produce electricity that my EV uses is waaaaaay more polluting than the little bit of greenhouse emissions expelled by your ICE. You aren't taking in the whole picture and comparing apples to apples!
 
RobbW, you fell for it. My impression is that koolbreez (who just joined this forum) was just egging us on with his completely off-topic post in the Tesla S thread. Since you responded so verbosely, I created a new title and moved both his and your posts into it, into the Off-Topic subforum.

IMO, not worth wasting our time on this subject on this iMiEV forum.
 
S'pose you're right, Joe. It's just that I get that argument ALL the time! Low-information people who just follow the talking points.
 
Anyone who would argue that continuing to power personal vehicles with oil and all of the negatives that entails is preferable to ANY more modern technology is just living with their head in the sand

When we compare the negative footprint of ICE powered cars with any other means, lets look at the total picture for oil. Count in the lives lost due to religious radicals in the middle east, the damage caused by oil spills in drilling for the oil and also in transporting the oil around the world and the spills we see here at home from pipeline leaks

Everyone knows there are better ways to produce electricity than by burning coal and the country is rather quickly moving away from coal, thanks in large part to environmental laws passed during Nixon's presidency which are finally coming on line. One day soon electricity will be much cleaner - About all that can be done to clean up gasoline and diesel vehicles has already been done and one day they will be phased out too and the world will be all the better for it. Can you imagine a day when Saudi Arabia and Iran can find no buyers for their oil? THAT will be something to celebrate!

Don
 
How come it seems that everytime this question is brought up your power must be coming from a "coal" plant----and not just any plant, the oldest, out of date, no scrubbers or contorls of any kind, etc. burning some kind of waste slurry from shale oil production. There is very little coal in the mix where I live but I don't care if there is or isn't. YOUR COAL ISN'T COMING FROM SOMEONE WHO IS TRY TO KILL US ! That's the bottom line for me. Also people seem to forget the cycle efficiency of a BEV is much higher then a ICE and the point source emissions from the power plant (whatever kind it is and however much it is producing per KWH) isn't directly coming from the bumper in front of you and into your car while sitting in a mega ICE traffic jam. BTW--how much electricity is used in gasoline refining and what kind of emissions come from the refinery?
 
Ah, the long tailpipe argument...

Even at 100% coal generated electricity, that puts an EV on par with an ~80MPG gasoline car.

Also, gasoline does not appear out of thin air, either. A lot of energy goes into finding oil fields, test drilling (the BP oil spew was a test drill), extraction takes a lot of energy including a lot of electricity, and transportation, and refining, and more transportation, and even pumping into your car's tank. And that doesn't include tar sands bitumen, which is takes about 1 barrel worth of energy to get 2 barrels of "oil".

For conventional oil, it probably takes about 7.5-8.5kWh of electricity PER GALLON of gasoline - so if you count the overhead for an EV, you have to add it to gasoline as well. Tar sands bitumen may take as much as 13kWh per gallon of gasoline.

So, just use that electricity directly in an EV - and skip all the carbon in the gasoline altogether! It takes as much, or more electricity to run a gasoline car as it does to run an EV.

We are paying over $1 BILLION dollars PER DAY for foreign oil. If we drove EV's then we'd have plenty of money to repair our roads and infrastructure. And have plenty left over to improve our grid and railroad systems.
 
Dont forget, that half a gallon of electricity used for making a gallon of gas is made of carbon mostly, because that is cheapest. Worst case: Keep that oil down in the earth and give me the electricity saved to drive my car. Im am still better than those gassers.

Cheers
Peter and Karin
 
In my rant about "coal" and EV's I forgot about the OP's question about taxes. Sure, there are taxes collected but in my case not road taxes. Like everyone else, I pay a tax to license my car---I assume the money spent isn't just to pay for the plate. Also, although they aren't as high, my taxes on the electricity I use to charge the car are about 8.6% per KWH. I feel my road taxes are being offset by my emissions credit. Until recently my CNG powered car was assessed road tax via a annual calculated tax sticker in lieu of a tax paid at the "pump". This tax was far higher then a normal ICE vehicle would have paid (and has now been dropped here in Florida). Don't worry about taxes as I am sure creative legislators are spending nights awake figuring out how to seperate us from our money. I really ticks them off when their cost per mile to drive is higher then ours--heck they are even upset about fuel efficient ICE's not paying enough :evil: !
 
In NJ, our power is 50% Nuclear, 30%Natural Gas, 11% coal & 9% other including solar, hydroelectric & waste-to-energy. Electric motors are far more efficient than ICE powered motors which is why driving electric causes less environmental damage.

There is not a critical mass of EV's yet to be concerned about the effect of lost revenue for road maintenance, but some legislators are trying to add an EV tax to compensate for that.
 
Even if the facts were to prove that EV's and ICE's used roughly equivalent 'power' and had about the same carbon footprint (and I don't believe for a second that they do) we should still favor EV's because of their efficiency. About 15% to 20% of the energy in each gallon of gasoline is used to move an ICE powered car - The rest is wasted in one form or another. Most of it is wasted as heat which the climate certainly doesn't need, but the waste continues when people preheat their ICE's in the winter, they waste energy in stop and go traffic, they waste energy sitting at stoplights . . . . heck, they even waste energy keeping the A/C running to keep the dog comfortable in the car while they are shopping

Whatever method we choose to power personal transport vehicles, we should be looking for something, anything which doesn't produce such a tremendous amount of WASTE!!

Don
 
Don said:
Whatever method we choose to power personal transport vehicles, we should be looking for something, anything which doesn't produce such a tremendous amount of WASTE!!

That's why EVs make the most sense for motorized personal transportation. Can not get any more effficient than taking energy from it's generated source and pouring that directly into our battery banks. It democritizes the fuel supply by giving us a choice of how and where we get our power from; solar, wind, local power distributor, hamsters in a wheel, etc. This is where I feel that EVs are hated the most by money grubbers, they can't hijack us anymore for cash like they could when we bought gasoline.

My power here in the Niagara region comes from the Niagara River, my car is essentially powered by water.
http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/news/ontario-the-coal-free-province/927542
 
Best case ICE...15-20% of the energy ends up at the output shaft.
Average electric motor 90%+ ends up at the shaft.

Auto trans in a petrol car soaks up about 30% of that energy before it gets to the wheels.
Direct drive electric soaks up about 5%

ICE cars in stop start are running all the time.
Electric cars are running only while moving.

A big powerplant operating at a constant speed is muchore efficient than running an engine up and down.

Not all power comes from coal and the percentage is reducing


Yeah, I'm sure electric vehicles are SO much more polluting than ICE........
 
NeilBlanchard said:
We are paying over $1 BILLION dollars PER DAY for foreign oil. If we drove EV's then we'd have plenty of money to repair our roads and infrastructure. And have plenty left over to improve our grid and railroad systems.
This is what I try to point out. Surprisingly, there haven't been many to point it out, but some have questioned road tax. We, as a country, use too much oil (and pretty much everything else) and people don't realize how much it costs. There are untold millions (probably billions) of dollars that come straight out of the Federal budget every year straight to a handful of oil companies' checking accounts. Take that money and redistribute it among infrastructure, education, social security, etc. IN ADDITION to what these programs are already getting.

Worried about my few cents on the gallon for road tax :roll:

ps. Saw a sign this morning advertising gas at $8.88. I was thinking, "That's more like it, true prices shining through." Too bad the sign was only in test mode.
 
carnut1100 said:
Best case ICE...15-20% of the energy ends up at the output shaft.
Average electric motor 90%+ ends up at the shaft.

Auto trans in a petrol car soaks up about 30% of that energy before it gets to the wheels.
Direct drive electric soaks up about 5%

ICE cars in stop start are running all the time.
Electric cars are running only while moving.

A big powerplant operating at a constant speed is muchore efficient than running an engine up and down.

Not all power comes from coal and the percentage is reducing


Yeah, I'm sure electric vehicles are SO much more polluting than ICE........

BS!
If to compare full chain (from fuel to motion or even from natural resources used to travelled miles per person), then electric cars have usually much worse efficency than ICE cars. So much energy and natural resources are wasted for electricity production and distribution.
 
Kuuuurija said:
carnut1100 said:
Best case ICE...15-20% of the energy ends up at the output shaft.
Average electric motor 90%+ ends up at the shaft.

Auto trans in a petrol car soaks up about 30% of that energy before it gets to the wheels.
Direct drive electric soaks up about 5%

ICE cars in stop start are running all the time.
Electric cars are running only while moving.

A big powerplant operating at a constant speed is muchore efficient than running an engine up and down.

Not all power comes from coal and the percentage is reducing


Yeah, I'm sure electric vehicles are SO much more polluting than ICE........

[Expletive Deleted]
If to compare full chain (from fuel to motion or even from natural resources used to travelled miles per person), then electric cars have usually much worse efficency than ICE cars. So much energy and natural resources are wasted for electricity production and distribution.

What about the electricity consumed by fuel refineries? And the transportation of oil and gasoline, which must be transported to and from refineries and to gas stations? That's efficient?
 
Kuuuurija said:
<expletive deleted>!

If to compare full chain (from fuel to motion or even from natural resources used to travelled miles per person), then electric cars have usually much worse efficency than ICE cars. So much energy and natural resources are wasted for electricity production and distribution.
BS yourself, my obviously cultured and highly literate friend. Well to wheel studies show that a 100 MPGe EV powered 100% from coal is no more polluting, net-net, than a 40 MPG ICE car. There are a few diesels and a handful of eco-tuned tall-geared gasoline models that can manage that on the highway, but as far as I know only hybrids break 40 MPG overall city+highway.

But then again, we're on massive regional grids, about zero of which are powered exclusively by coal. So as noted here already, there really are no EVs powered 100% from coal. So forget 40 MPG - your ICEV is probably going to have to crack 50 MPG to support an "I'm cleaner than an EV" case.

None of this is debatable, but I don't imagine debating is really your style. Seriously, dude - troll much?
 
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