Plug-ins and power: promise and problems
A Wall Street Journal story today highlights the promise and potential problems with plug-in cars. More accurately, it highlights the problems and shoves most of the promise to the bottom. As automakers ready plug-in hybrids and electric cars for market, the sensational headline poses a clash of the titans: "Utilities, Plug-In Cars: Near Collision?" As gasoline reaches $4 a gallon, the benefit to consumers of transportation energy at about $1 per gallon (equivalent) is undeniable. And if one reads down to near the end of the story, one finds the studies that show the tremendous upside in terms of carbon emission and petroleum reduction. As the article makes clear, as long as most plug-in cars charge up at night, the American electrical grid can already carry the load of more plug-in cars than are likely to be produced for a decade or more. Of course, night time charging is also more convenient; most cars are parked at night and used during the day. Still, the utilities are already exploring ways to ensure cars utilize the low-cost, excess capacity existing while consumers sleep, including incentive pricing, time of use metering, and smart meters.
And the environmental benefits reported are extraordinary. If enough plug-ins were on the roads, we could see oil consumption cut by 6.2 million barrels a day and U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions cut "by 450 million metric tons annually, equivalent to scrapping 82 million cars." Where the grid is comparatively clean, as in California, switching to electricity is a no-brainer. More surprising, the story reports, "Carbon-dioxide emissions would probably fall even if coal-fired plants made the electricity, some studies have found, because they burn coal more efficiently than automobiles burn gasoline." Of course as the electric grid becomes cleaner and more renewable thanks to state and federal mandates, the cars charging actually get cleaner, too.
[Source: Wall St. Journal]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TIMMAH! 4:30PM (5/02/2008)
Of course the utility companies are also public companies so they're probably also trying to figure out how their charges can be in parity with gasoline for automotive uses... :-(
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marguerite manteau-rao 5:34PM (5/02/2008)
This seems like a no brainer to me. What are policy makers waiting for?
Of course the big elephant in the room is this:
http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/special-fossil-fuel-interests-blocking-progress-on-climate/
As discussed in the linked article, the obstacle is not technology, nor the will of the people, but rather the special interests of the big oil companies. Stuff like that just makes me mad, and wakens up the activist in me . . .
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jmspearman 5:58PM (5/02/2008)
It would be nice to see some kind of tax incentive/discount package that allowed people to buy a solar or wind system for their house to accommodate the additional electricity an EV requires. They could even be sold as packages in the car showrooms. Although most would be charging their EV's at night, a removable battery system could be employed for those who can't charge during the day.
It seems a natural fit for a company like Aptera to join with a startup such as Nanosolar. The green movement needs more cross-pollination.
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ug 6:51PM (5/02/2008)
How many more studies need to be made on this? I mean, come on, it's getting ridiculous already.
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jpm100 6:54PM (5/02/2008)
Funny how anything that threatens petroleum as the sole 'fuel' for transportation will cause a world ending disaster.
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Kevin Nugent 11:24PM (5/02/2008)
Well personally i cant wait for the day we use only 1 18ttenth on what our petroleum is now and see the middle east fall and beg us to buy more oil. Then we will see who is laughing
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why not the LS2LS7? 2:13AM (5/03/2008)
That photo op is hilarious. I had a friend come over in his Tango to my house two days ago and we charged it from my dryer outlet. The power cord and connector required to charge an EV are both a lot larger than those shown in that pic.
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jake 4:23AM (5/03/2008)
I think a while ago there was a similar report about some study on how plugins can negatively impact the environment if it is not primarily plugged in offpeak and it was done by a state with mostly coal generation. There also was a sensationalist title too. So for a lot of people who just skim, they probably remember the title the most and not really the details. But that's just media for you.
On the other hand, it has already been proven by muliple studies that even in conditions of 100% coal (again this is unarguably the worst case), plug-ins emit less CO2 than conventional gasoline cars. But SO2 is increased and overall emissions are not better than emissions of normal hybrids. Of course when you consider offpeak, and other energy sources like natural gas, nuclear, hydro, renewables, the SO2 problem disappears and the overall emissions decrease to the point of being near or better than hybrids. So environmental benefits of plugins depend A LOT on where you live and the power generation of that place. Luckily here in CA, our generation is fairly clean so we can benefit a lot from plug-ins.
Again a useful tool:
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/how-clean.html
Just put in zip code and chose power supplier and it gives you exact figures of CO2, NO, SO2 in lbs/MWh for your region of the grid, so it is fairly straightfoward to calculate what kind of emissions you can expect using the plug compared to gasoline. I assume when plug-ins are popular the fueleconomy.gov website will have some kind of link that does the calculations for you.
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Wildgoosechase73 3:16PM (5/03/2008)
Plug-ins sound great for homeowners but apartment and condo dwellers often don't have garages. I doubt that they would like extention cords running out to the parking lot either...
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