Diesels greener than electric cars, says Swiss gov report Swiss boffins have mounted an investigation into the largely unknown environmental burdens of electric cars using lithium-ion batteries, and say that the manufacturing and disposal of batteries presents no insurmountable barriers to electric motoring. However, their analysis reveals that modern diesel cars are actually better …
I put petrol equivalent so that normal fuel car drivers would have a 'easy to understand' point of reference - nothing more.
Regarding performance - true lower calorific value thats why the the kits tend to use much larger injectors to really minimise the loss of performance. Which for a heavy old 2.5litre auto SUV is absolutely so small as to be not even noticeable. Ditto with my 1.6 Hatch. In fact I think your only going to notice it perhaps with sports cars...which I don't own.
I'm not claiming it uses less fuel..because it just doesn't. I am claiming that it costs less hard earned wedge to run it. That has the merit of being completely true.
It is greener but to be frank I really couldn't care less about that. It's just....er whats that phrase oh yes....FAR CHEAPER TO RUN! It does produce far far less HC's at the tailpipe as I have a readout / Certificate to prove it. Less CO2 as well. So thats no scam it is green. Especially if otherwise the LNG would have been flared off.
I agree thats just an anomaly of the tax situation (for some years) ...long may that continue! So I'm taking advantage of a 'kink' in the tax situation. Thats what it's there for isn't it.
I didn't know that some petrol cars have DMF's I do know that a LOT of diesels do and I'd avoid any vehicle with a DMF like the plague.
If I have to choose between a cheaper to buy, cheaper to run petrol/LPG car and a idiotic ugly battery thing that only does 70 miles then needs hours of recharging and has Li Ion batts that wear out in five years at huge cost. Then it's really an easy choice..Bye bye leccy.
The 'battery as environmental baddy' meme is already quite entrenched so it's good to see this work corroborating existing life cycle assessments.
But as ever Lewis is spinning like crazy in order to push his belief that EVs aren't a good solution to decarbonising personal transport and reducing oil dependency.
A significant weakness in the study, as far as I can make out, is that they've assumed constant carbon emissions from grid electricity (they've gone with the European average which is a bit lower than the UK's grid factor).
But in reality, our electricity supplies are going to steadily decarbonise over the coming decades so while the diesel ICEV has the same emissions for its entire 14 year lifetime, the BEV emissions will steadily decrease so overall BEV lifecycle emissions will be lower even than the best diesels on the market.
Plainly put, anything you do is going to cost some environmental impact. Even if you're just going to walk (because making a bicycle also consumes resources and causes pollution) you're using up food (which cause quite huge amounts of pollution per Jule compared to other forms of transportation) and your exhalations are also adding CO2.
The point is to find the types of transport which allow for the least pollution and most effective use of resources. In such case the most promising seems to be hydrogen fuel-cells: Hydrogen being the most common substance in the universe, and fuel cells using a lot less resources to manufacture than a Li-Ion battery, lifespan on fuel cells are also a lot longer than the standard 5 year battery life, and only H2O is produced as by product (i.e. WATER).
But then nothing is said about the fact that nearly nowhere is hydrogen found in it's pure form. It's always combined with some other element (e.g. H2O). Thus to provide the H to add to your fuel-cell's tank it first has to be broken off the O by extremely high voltages ... again, we're back to using power plants. So even here we still have the fuss of coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, etc. And BTW, if you look worldwide (i.e. not just 1st world), coal is the overall most used power plant in existence - i.e. the most inefficient, most pollutant fuel possible would be the one used to "fill-up" your H on average.
And then there's other sources of H, e.g. through catalytic extraction from alcohol. But then where do you get the alcohol? Sugar-cane & fermentation? As if that doesn't have any impact on the environment! And what happens with the carbon residue after the H has been extracted? Landfill? Or are you going to use it in coal power stations?
And if you find an abundant easy to extract source of H. You're in effect adding more and more H2O - water vapor to the atmosphere. Uhmm ... anyone ever seen how quickly a man-made hot-house heats up when adding more water-vapor? Forget CO2! If you extract it from existing water, at least you're keeping a balance.
So if even petrol engines can be made to take in totality less energy and creating less pollution (used during extraction, manufacture, supply & use) than another form of energy - then that should be the preferred method between the 2. Please someone, could you find a few empirical studies to show the FULL IMPACT of comparable energy sources? This "testing with blinkers on" is causing more problems than it's solving. I can't seem to find any which even takes account of one source's total life-cycle (i.e. prospecting -> construction -> mining -> transportation -> conversion -> distribution -> usage -> by products), never mind comparing even 2 using these full-costs.
Think I'll stick to the pushbike thanks - 20 miles to the office on a cup of coffee & a bowl of porridge, which I'd probably have anyway. Time from door to door? ~1h 10m give or take. Enjoyment factor 95% most days.
Acc to the El Reg converter, that must equate to at least a sackful of Bulgarian fun bags.
Run the power plants on diesel to feed the leccy cars? :P
Seriously though, having the offending agent (the powerplant) in one place away from towns and cities can be a good idea, especially if any of those ideas I have heard about cleaning up powerplant exhaust actually work and can be implemented. (I don't see us ceasing to burn hydrocarbons in one form or rather for a while unless some real bright spark solves the fusion problem).
Then all you have to worry about is the leccy car tech.
So, yes, I'm for leccy cars... But guess what? I can't bloody afford one...
Generate electricity send it somewhere, store it in a battery, then use it. Whats that about 30% efficient? Diesel would wee all over that in terms of efficiency.
Real green thinking is using the minimum fuel in the most efficient manner.
Storage Batteries are NOT in any way as efficient
"Whats that about 30% efficient? Diesel would wee all over that in terms of efficiency."
Really? How about the other equation? Get tons of drilling equipment out to sea on large ships. Assemble drilling rigs. Transport workers backwards and forwards by helicopter. Dissasemble the whole shebang when you can't find anything, and repeat again on a different site. Repeat several times until you strike oil. Assemble new equipment to pump out oil. Maybe use hot vapor or other energy consuming methods to extract the oil. Transport it to refinery - by pipe or ship or any other energy consuming method. Hire out and operate large ships to maintain the underwater pipes, complete with divers to repair them. Hire out more ships and equipment - and spend energy cleaning up when some of the oil is spilled or escapes. Spend energy refining it. Then transport it to the petrol station by ship and/or train and/or lorry/truck. Also, factor in the energy spent on building said petrol station - and operating it. Only after all that start using it in a car. How much energy have you spent already - before you even get to put into a tank? Then waste a wad of it as heat output by the car engine - and get only a fraction to the wheels. How much energy have you already spent in the process? Maybe you should redo your calculations.
Well, the title should really read "Some diesels cleaner then battery cars". There are only few diesels which in real life use will achieve those figures, so the title is a bit on the misleading side.
On the other hand, I've always loved diesels and their efficiency. The fact that you can get so far on a single tank. And I agree with the other posters. A hybrid has extra complexity - which costs more money and energy to produce and to maintain. A modern and efficient diesel will be lighter for the same amount of power then a hybrid, have more interior space, be cheaper to buy, simpler to build and maintain - and achieve very similar economy figures - specially if you compare like for like (interior space, useful/working load). So between the two - my vote goes for an efficient diesel. The extra energy spent in producing the extra components of a hybrid will easily surpass the small difference in efficiency. As well as the extra money spent to buy the hybrid.
Then again, there is much to be said about the extreme mechanical simplicity of pure electric cars compared to both hybrids and pure internal combustion engines. No internal combustion engine lubricant (with corresponding lubricant renewal intervals), no fuel pumps, no injection and ignition systems, no radiator and traditional cooling systems, smaller or no gearbox, no fuel tank. The power plant is smaller and lighter - for the same amount of power. The list goes on and on. There is also much to be said about the greatly reduced maintenance - be it in terms of financial savings - or in terms of energy savings.
There is also much to be said about the energy processing flexibility of electric cars. Maybe today one will be using electricity generated in a coal fired plant - but just as easily electricity can come from a different source in the future - and the car will stay the same. While in the case of an internal combustion engine - the energy source and processing equation stays the same - petrol or diesel will always come from a refinery - and before that, from the ground. So I accept the fact that electricity might not come today from clean sources - but that can be changed without changing the actual cars.
I wonder how many of these facts are correctly fed in when people analyse the environmental impact of various types of cars.
...you believe the innocuous gas, H20, that we breath out and that plants need to survive is in any way damaging us.
If, like me, you don't think it's a problem, you should buggar the expensive diesel and go for the leccy car which you can currently top up for free at most places where you can find a charger, and you get to skip the Congestion charge too -- Win-Win!
Diesel-electric cars.
Electric drivetrain, small battery, small diesel generator.
The battery can be charged from the wall, the generator and regenerative braking.
The genny runs when the battery drops below x% charge and tops it up to y%.
Run the genny at its most efficient output level unless the battery has dropped too low (z%), in which case rev it up to charge faster. (Size the genny and motor so this could only occur if the car is breaking the speed limit for a long time)
Unlike a Prius, this would actually be more efficient than a modern diesel.
So why has it not been done?
(It might be a bit odd for your engine to appear to randomly start and stop, but you'd get used to it pretty quick.)
For an example of a not-quite-so-modern diesel, my car is a 5-seater people carrier, and I get a genuine 47 mpg on my London commute. Long-distance, car packed to the roof, I get about 60-70mpg (depending on how much of the the M1 is being dug up again)
"The Opel Flextreme is a plug-in diesel extended range electric vehicle (EREV)—the third variant of GM’s E-Flex electric vehicle architecture—that offers up to 55 km (34 miles) of all-electric range. A 1.3-liter turbodiesel powers an onboard generator to replenish the 16 kWh li-ion battery pack and extend the vehicle’s driving range to a total of 715 km (444 miles)."
Eventually they had to make a choice though, and the powers at GM favoured the smaller/lighter petrol IC generator - since it's developed for a world market, there's wider avialability of spark-ignition fuels that can be used in largely unmodified petrol IC units; wood alcohol and other miomass-derived stuff, regular rock oil petrol, LPG, and even good old Hydrogen - okay, some mods required for that, but BMW ran a small 'proof of concept' fleet of 750's, which caught my attention since they used the full-fat V12 IC unit and not some odd turbine or fuel-cell system.
Before anyone pips in about biodiesel, most diesel generators need specific mods to withstand the greater corrosive power of fuel from chipfat, rapeseed oil, waste KFC stuff etc, despite what many folk say - modern high-pressure systems are not tolerant of 100% homebrew as it tends to be a bit too sticky, but blends with 'regular' mineral diesel work fairly well - most pump diesel is already a blend anyway.
LPG blended with diesel works well too. LR Discovery Mk2 TD5 runs smoothly with very useful boosts in economy, power and a very clean exhaust - the lighter LPG helps the diesel to burn 100%, rather than 85% or so. Needs a lot longer to pay back than petrol/LPG, can't run it on 100% LPG, but a mix of 90%diesel/10%LPG is typical.
..because that is where the leccy will come from. For at least 5000 years. In the year 3500 it will be renamed "Deuterium Car", because then Fusion will finally be ready.
We will also have Thorium Houses, Thorium Dishwashers, Thorium Fertilizers, Thorium Plastics, Thorium Water Heaters and so on. All can be made/powered with Thorium for 5000 years.
Thorium and U-238 (that's the stuff wasted by the USAF while perforating old Russkie tanks) can deliver energy cheaply and reliably right now. The Chinese are building nuclear plants in the dozens right now. They have plans for hundreds.
They are using European, Candian and US technology:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU-Reaktor
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_THTR-300
Meanwhile, Europeans and Merkins have submitted themselves to the rule of technology-illiterate Greeny Scaremongers and slide back in the Windmill Age.
Mine is the one with the Mandarin textbook in the pocket.
Mostly it hasn't been done because it's expensive - both electric and diesel drivetrains cost a fair bit. Peugeot have announced a new through the road diesel hybrid:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/08/3008-20100824.html
I believe range extender development is mostly focusing on petrol units, at a guess because they'll be lighter?
That's diesel-hybrid. I think hybrid cars are actually a pretty silly idea now that electric motors and control gear can easily drive a car at well over 70mph.
A real diesel-electric does not have a diesel drivetrain - the diesel engine drives a generator, and does not drive any of the road wheels.
The road wheels are driven by electric motor(s) only - for best performance, one motor per wheel, which also eliminates the propshaft, the differential(s), the gearbox and the clutch.
So a real diesel-electric is mechanically much simpler than any hybrid - with pancake multipole motors you could literally bolt the motor straight onto each wheel.
Plus you get all-wheel-drive with really good traction control for free!
I mentioned range extenders but they're mostly (all?) petrol and I suspect are likely to remain that way for a while yet. I believe that petrol engines operate better at constant speeds than diesels - can't remember why though.
I seem to remember people looking at turbine extenders which would burn diesel and the guy who developed the segway was looking at stirling engine extenders which would run on just about anything. HCCI is also an option.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html
"* Mainland China has 12 nuclear power reactors in operation, 24 under construction, and more about to start construction soon.
* Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world's most advanced, to give more than a tenfold increase in nuclear capacity to 80 GWe by 2020, 200 GWe by 2030, and 400 GWe by 2050.
* China is rapidly becoming self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the fuel cycle. "
I will be thrilled to see diesels replaced with electric propulsion, even if it's at a small cost of extra CO2, because it will get rid of the giant clouds of Stinking Black Death that come out the back of every diesel that's ever been made, yes including the ones with HC cats and particulate filters. The latter two features just make the Stinking Death less visible, they don't make it magically healthy. All articles mentioning diesels as a solution to anything should really touch on this!
Small, turbocharged petrol engines driving generators and a reasonable-sized (say 30 mile range) battery pack would be the best solution possible right now in terms of overall benefit to everyone - good economy and relatively healthy tailpipe emissions.
Could you please back up your claims with hard evidence ? Clean Diesel technology works by filtering the exhaust and then burning off the particles into non-poisonous CO2.
They don't stink and you can't see anything. I am sure the beer you drink and the stinkers you (or the guy next to you) smoke are much, much more dangerous.
And don't get me started on the particles worn off each and every tyre, including tyres of electric cars.
Most electric power is generated in power stations which burn Coal or Gas. Produces CO2 and lots of nasty stuff including heavy metal oxides, particles, sulfur oxides and acids, etc,etc.
The Greenies hate nuclear energy and scared us off that tech, after the commies blew up Tchernobyl. A cunning plan to sell Russian Gas, my tinfoil conspiracy hat says :-)
Burning Diesel directly in the car is cleaner than burning coal and gas in a power plant. That's what the study says.
I did a little internet research and found a German paper done by a scientist under contract for the German environment ministry. It contains a lot of english references at the end. Also, you can possibly use google translate.
The major statements are:
* many more detailed studies are required
* Diesel Motors without filters are related to 18000 deaths per year in Germany. Life expectancy is reduced by about three months.
* A certain class particles (2.5um and below) are mainly generated by unfiltered Diesel engines.
* Modern filters and catalyzers could reduce those particles (and other stuff like CO and NOx) by up to 99%. The mortality rates would drop linearly with that reduction.
"Abschätzung positiver gesundheitlicher Auswirkungen durch den Einsatz von Partikelfiltern bei Dieselfahrzeugen in Deutschland"
http://www.umweltdaten.de/publikationen/fpdf-l/2352.pdf
Now that the EU has mandated particle filters, the problem seems to be addressed. 180 people killed by clean Diesel is acceptable, as car traffic kills about 4000 people per annum in Germany. (Yeah, I can hear your screams, but that's the rational conclusion, not the "crazy housewife logic").
Every town and city in the EU is now required to monitor particle emissions and I have seen the installations in a small town. Still, more research is definitely needed.
It starts off, as its report title would suggest, by looking at the environmental impact of using Li-Ion batteries to the Environment. It then quickly concludes this is of little impact so then quickly goes rather off-topic in using the generation of power as the argument that diesel engine tech is ‘greener’ than battery engine tech.
This is not comparing the two technologies at all, and further more fails to address the balance by not including the environmental impact of generating the diesel to balance that of electricity into the equation.
It probably has not done this since its only measure on environment impact is MPG or CO2 output, which ignores the many other environmental issues that are associated with energy generation and distribution, in particular oil. So in this environmental context, the BP oil spill for example has no environmental impact since it produced little CO2.
It also fails to adequately take into account the local environmental impact, in which electric cars, despite being rubbish, are environmentally way ahead than their diesel counterparts.
This whole carbon thing really does annoy me. It’s going the way of the ‘speed kills’ road campaigns, where there, as long as you drive slow you’re a safe driver, now it’s as long as your carbon footprint is low, you environmentally friendly. Now, to slowly run over an old lady before doing my bit for environment by trashing my perfectly good car for an environmentally friendly one.
EoR
My 14 year old diesel BMW gets between 70-80 UK miles per gallon of fossil fuel (work out your own double decker bus lengths per Bulgarian air bag!)... I run it on 50/50 with recycled vegetable oil just mixed in the tank.
I pity anyone on a diet who happens to be following me though... Chip shop.... hmmmm...
The diesel was not invented in the USA, but Caterpillar, Cummins and other jump started the success of the diesel in the world. The diesel is still the most efficient type of engine we have.
Everything heavy is moved by diesel, like trains ships and so on, (if not bye electricity, perhaps produced bye diesel).
Next GM and other (fools) introduced diesel engines in cars. The most disgusting and most hopeless diesel engines ever produced (and that includes the Soviet Union) in the world.
No wonder the reputation of the diesel engine was killed in the US like also, perhaps, luckily, the reputation of the US car industry Europe.
I would advice every American to try a 2-3liter turbo diesel made in Europe.
It is an absolutely fantastic engine, (and never mind its good fuel economy), just feel the spirit.
To compare engines burning something to electrical engines is hard as it is all about how that electricity is produced, how the batteries are produced and disposed of.
One fine solution for energy saving , he he, is the bike. Especially in the USA where the whole population could bike to the moon and back only on their obesity.
Sorry I am not normally like this, could it be the beer, anyway, I am serious about the superiority of a diesel engine (and the bike).
..but the US does not manage to build a good Tank Diesel. Instead they use a gas-guzzling helicopter turbine for the M1.
Everybody else uses Diesels and reduces the logistics burden. AFAIK the best Diesels are made by MTU and MAN.
http://www.mtu-online.com/mtu/products/diesel-engines-overview/#c2328
MAN Diesels achieve more than 50% efficiency in slow-running ship variants. I assume a hybrid car would best be powered with such a Diesel (smaller of course).
is absurdly biased and negative.
It essentially consists of two writers with very limited knowledge about the subjects they're covering. One disses any clean tech solution that he doesn't like, the other disses the IPCC and climate science and attempts to force his personal agenda on the reader, often without the option of a public response.
Not one story is in any way positive or contains anything approaching actual journalism.
It would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic.
Roger Mew
Electric cars
Posted Friday 3rd September 2010 13:52 GMT
I was an electrical engineer but electric cars, well there is an unseen problem, they should not be allowed near pedestrians, animals and the like. Why? You cannot hear them coming. My dog hears a car, goes to side of the road and sits and waits for the vehicle to pass. My cats hear a car and hide, not run etc just hunker down and hide. The local blind man makes sure he is in a safe place and waits for the car to pass.
With the electric vehicle, dog does not hear it, nor do cats, nor does the blind man. Yes we live in the country and there are no footpaths and the roads are narrow. These cars are a menace unless an audible is on all the time, not a horn but a noticeable noise so that they can be heard coming.
Or of course limit them to milkfloat status!!!
I have loved reading the register for years but most of the articles on electric cars and climate change seem to be extremely biased to the journalists point of view. Where has the impartiality gone?
Has anyone who read Lewis’s article bothered even to skim read the referenced report?
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es903729a
I just did and it seems Lewis has deliberately manipulated the facts to suit his preferred outcome. For instance in report there are two figures one for the each of the evaluation methods used. The first is the figure of 3.9L/100km that Lewis referenced and the second is a figure of 2.6L/100KM. The first figure only takes in to account the use of minerals and energy, while the second non reported figure also appraises toxicity to humans and ecosystems. Which is fairly relevant if you care about the health of your family.
“GWP, CED and ADP are driven exclusively by the use of minerals and energy, while EI99 H/A also appraises toxicity to humans and ecosystems.”
“Nevertheless, the operation of an ICEV alone causes impacts that are roughly just as high (CED, 92%; GWP, 125%; Figure 2) as the total environmental impacts of E-mobility (100%). A break even analysis shows that an ICEV would need to consume less than 3.9 L/100km to cause lower CED than a BEV or less than 2.6 L/100km to cause a lower EI99 H/A score. Consumptions in this range are achieved by some small and very efficient diesel ICEVs, for example, from Ford and Volkswagen (13, 39).”
So that’s 72.43 MPG just to be as efficiency as a Golf converted to a BEV on the current electricity generation mix or 108.65 MPG to achieve the same levels of efficiency and air pollution as a Golf converted to a BEV on the current electricity generation mix. I for one don’t know of any current or future production pure ICE car that will get close to the figure of 108.65 MPG. I think both figures would be even higher if the report used a car built from scratch to be a BEV (Nissan Leaf) rather than a conversion. Also over time electrical generation will become cleaner and more efficient. The UK has a legal target of 15% renewable energy by 2020.
“Propelling a BEV with electricity from an average hard coal power plant increases the environmental burden by 13.4%. On the other hand, using electricity from an average hydropower plant decreases environmental burden by 40.2%. This results in a decrease for the operation from 41.8% (UCTE mix) to 9.6% when charging the battery with electricity from hydropower plants.”
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/energy_mix/renewable/policy/renew_obs/renew_obs.aspx
“The Renewables Obligation (RO) is the current main mechanism for supporting large scale generation of renewable electricity. Since its introduction in 2002, it has succeeded in more than tripling the level of renewable electricity in the UK from 1.8% to 6.64%1 and is currently worth around £1.42 billion/year in support to the renewable electricity industry.”
“Transport service affects the environment largely by contributing to global air pollution. PM10, SO2, and NOx traffic emissions contribute significantly to environmental problems such as acidification and eutrophication (SO2 and NOx), photochemical air pollution (NOx) or have adverse effects on human health, for example, cell toxicity, damage to genetic material by means of oxidative stress or by triggering allergies (PM10, SO2, and NOx). With respect to the LCI results for the pollutants PM10, SO2, and NOx, transport with a BEV leads to higher environmental burden than transport with an ICEV. However, the emissions caused by the production of the vehicle, in particular the Li-ion battery, are located in industrial areas where the population density is rather small. The releases of emissions from operation are prevalent in urban areas with a high population density. The NOx-emissions from an ICEV that originate prevalent from operation, consequently have a high damage potential to human health.”
Lewis also makes no mention of the concluding statement of the report that Li-ion battery production does not negate the potential benefits of the higher efficiency of BEV compared to an ICEV!
“All the facts taken together, the results of the LCA, the various sensitivity analyses, the modelling applied for EOL, the assumption for the used electricity mix, etc., suggest that E-mobility is environmentally beneficial compared to conventional mobility. The Li-ion battery plays a minor role in the assessment of the environmental burden of E-Mobility. Thus, a Li-ion battery in an BEV does not lead to an overcompensation of the potential benefits of the higher efficiency of BEV compared to an ICEV.”
I will be trading in my 226g/km (CO2) spewing steam age based tech Audi TT for a Nissan Leaf come March next year and I for one hope it will make future BEV’s cheaper. No one will need more than 637Kb of memory for a personal computer and ICE cars will still be around in 30 years.
Yes, this feature does seem as if objectivity has become a bad word for the journalist(s). But is that any surprise? A journalist is after sensationalism, he want's to sell the story. And a lame story of there's no real knowledge of what is better is not going to cut it. So you need to take every thing which spews from any journalist's keyboard with a liberal dose of salt ... unless of course that's not "green" :) ...
Oh yes, out of sight out of mind! It might work for the time being, since you're not seeing the pollution (unless you want to go to the country side where your exhaust pipe has been moved). But what happens when that causes climate change? Or a change in wind direction blows that over a populated area?
This is just a form of sweeping the SHT under the carpet. Somewhere along the line it's going to squish when someone steps on it. And then the fan blades are going to throw it right back at you.
Sorry for mixing metaphors, but what the hell? I like mixing it up ... causes a stir!!!
Yes please! If we can get something which doesn't pollute (as much) or cause as much ecological damage, then I'm all for it! Can it produce enough for what's needed though?
More efficient burning & filtering in power stations? Maybe, if at all possible.
Fission? It's not as clean as you're told. The mining & enrichment is extremely dirty. And then there's the waste. And to a lesser extent the accidents. We're all humans, we all make mistakes, so don't tell me accidents are avoidable - they're inevitable! Who knows, the control PC might just run Microsoft products - now that's a recipe for disaster if ever I've seen one!
Hydro? Maybe? What about the huge tracts of land which has to be flooded? And it's not really an option for a dry climate is it? Maintenance? How many damns will be needed, do we need to swap our cars for boats?
Wind? Again, maybe? How many "wind-mills" would be enough? Can they all fit onto the earth? Would we be able to move around between them? What's the maintenance cost?
Wave / tidal? Isn't this much the same as hydro? Maybe not, more like wind I presume. I can just see how the greenies would hate to see a dolphin ground up in the gears!
Photo voltaic? Certainly! If they're not producing pollution at or before manufacture. How long is their life span. And again, would we be able to see the blue sky from below this canopy of glass and metal sheeting?
Fusion? Uhh ... maybe some aliens might say: "Here you go, that's how to do it!" Until then we've only been able to produce the H-Bomb ... not very clean IMO, and I wouldn't think you could "move" the power plant far enough! I'd also assume the worker turnover at the plant would be a bit high ;). That is until Scotty from Star Trek can finally say for real: "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain! "
Yes rain and evaporation changes the ration of H2O in the air. But if everyone starts driving cars using H-fuel cells and the H is extracted from something else than H2O (alcohol, natural gas, etc.) That means there's more H2O in totality. First off the vapor would go into the air, causing higher temperatures, much more rain, floods, etc. Ending with rising sea levels. Uhmmm how's that different from what the hot-house effect is foretelling? Oh wait, the CO2 effect simply states the balance is shifted temerature wise, causing existing water to be changed from ice to liquid. The H from other sources->H20 makes more H2O, not just more ice into liquid/gas.
Small amount? Certainly, but multiply with 6 billion people over a century. Even a minuscule bit starts becoming a problem. There were very clean skies in general at the turn of the last century, not so much now - and that's just because of the fossil fuel burning.
Yet still, this is simply a theory. Not established proof. There may be some other factor which may re-balance the H2O levels of its own accord -> making this concern irrelevant.
The point I was trying to make is to show there's no definitive and comprehensive research made. No point in jumping into a path without checking if there's some stumbling blocks up ahead. There may be no paths without stumbling blocks, but we should at least check to see which path have those which we can surmount.
Apart from the very high efficiency loss of storing electricity in batteries (the Li-Ion being the most efficient yet) , there's another problem. There's very few mines in the world producing Lithium:
http://www.lithiumsite.com/
Where will we get the Lithium if all goes to full-electric or even hybrid? Out of necessity we'll have to go with even worse batteries like NiCd. And these batteries all have a limited life span, after about 5 years you have to replace them. They can't be recycled, so you need to dig up more of that scare recourse and chuck the toxic waste into ... where exactly?
So obviously another form of storage is needed. Fuel cells have been mentioned. They're not only much more efficient, but have much longer life spans, and can much more easily be recycled. My previous post points out a possible stumbling block though - which has yet to be investigated. Maybe it isn't a stumbling block of great magnitude, but we don't know since no-one's checked.
Theoretically the most efficient storage would be a momentum wheel ... if you can get it friction free (i.e. in a vacuum with magnets instead of axles). Which means input and output is very difficult, and would probably cause their own efficiency loss as well. But you need an extremely big, heavy thing for it to be viable. Something in the order of miles in diameter. Not really feasible to put in the boot of a car is it?
Any future discovery? Maybe, but we haven't even investigated the current methods yet. Our current fossil burning is known to be bad, it can be improved, but we don't know how this stocks up against leccy stuff - since there's not any comprehensive check done. And it's only an opinion bashing for now. But we know we need a change, where to go from here? It's certainly better to do something than nothing, unless we choose a course which is actually worse than we have as is. Thus I'm against jumping into an unproven tech.; we don't know what the cost to the future is,we can only surmise.
See this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage
google search and google scholar might turn up more on this. Somewhat elegant, somewhat clunky because superconduction normally appears at quite low temperatures like the boliing point of nitrogen or lower.
Oh yes, and keeping it a 4 to 70K (that's -269C to -203C; or -452 F to -333 F) is not going to cost a lot is it? Have you seen the refrigerator units on trucks? And that's just to keep at or near 0C (32F; 273K).
Sure, this quote sounds nice: "As the stored energy increases by a factor of 100, refrigeration cost only goes up by a factor of 20." But read it again, i.e. you have the capability to STORE five times as much energy as you use to decrease the temperature. E.g. if you can store 500kWh, you will use 100kW (per hour) to *store* it (not create it). So after 5 hours you're using more energy than you're storing.
For space this may be feasible, as long as you keep your storage away from any type of heat causing radiation. In earth's atmosphere it's not even an option.
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