Electric Vehicles

[owbc]

1 hour ago, nate82 said:

I still believe methane is probably the best option at least for heavy equipment.  Methane when mixed correctly can have lower emissions than diesel.  The diesel engines would also be a lot easier and cheaper to upgrade and adapt to accept methane.  The US also has a lot of methane either naturally or from our large landfills.  It is also a good renewable when mixed correctly to emit lower green house gases. 

I don't think methane is a good source for consumers but for heavy construction equipment and even semi trucks this would be an improvement over diesel without sacrificing efficiency.

I think for hydrogen the biggest improvement for that will be with airplanes especially commercial jet airplanes. 

At least here in Seattle they already switched all of the garbage trucks over to natural gas. 

[Samurai Bucky]

21 hours ago, owbc said:

Some interesting news yesterday with major automakers investing $1 billion in an EV charging network. I have a feeling we're going to start to see superchargers popping up everywhere in the next few years -- especially at restaurants/retailers along major highways. 

I will be stoked when charging a vehicle can be done in minutes instead of 10's of minutes.  Of course, as I get older, it takes me longer to "take care of business" at a rest area.  So, maybe it won't be a big deal for me. 😉

[Fear The Chorizo]

We haven't figured out how to mass produce hydrogen with green energy. 

To be fair, we haven't figured out how to mass produce green energy, either.  Not just economically (it's still all heavily dependent on tax incentives), but also environmentally.

There are some readily scalable options to mass produce hydrogen that can be used as a fuel source utilizing nuclear power.  

[owbc]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:27 PM, Fear The Chorizo said:

We haven't figured out how to mass produce hydrogen with green energy. 

To be fair, we haven't figured out how to mass produce green energy, either.  Not just economically (it's still all heavily dependent on tax incentives), but also environmentally.

There are some readily scalable options to mass produce hydrogen that can be used as a fuel source utilizing nuclear power.  

Solar and wind are both cheaper than fossil fuels when you account for oil/gas being heavily subsidized by tax incentives as well. Solar is now the cheapest energy in history. The issue has always been storage but that has been pretty much figured out as well. 

There is an environmental cost for everything -- at this point it's clear that the #1 priority is to get net CO2 emissions close to zero by the middle of the century so if there are other externalities from mining, manufacturing, etc we'll just have to deal with that. 

We're never going to see the average person fueling their car with hydrogen (who would want to do that when home charging is so easy), but hydrogen produced by nuclear to power heavy machinery has potential. The main issue with nuclear continues to be the cost relative to other green energy sources. I know much of that cost is caused by people being irrationally scared of nuclear, but that's a real problem that has to be solved to scale it. 

[igor67]

Just for comparison, statistically a noticeable portion of the cost benefits to EVs are way fewer parts, and lower expected repairs. For the actual owners out there how has that looked/ felt in the real world?

[wallus]

On 8/4/2023 at 5:11 PM, igor67 said:

Just for comparison, statistically a noticeable portion of the cost benefits to EVs are way fewer parts, and lower expected repairs. For the actual owners out there how has that looked/ felt in the real world?

I am almost to three years with my EV and all I have done is rotate tires.

[nate82]

24 minutes ago, wallus said:

I am almost to three years with my EV and all I have done is rotate tires.

Tires are one thing you are going to be buying more with an EV as they weight more than equivalent combustion engine cars.  

[wallus]

53 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Tires are one thing you are going to be buying more with an EV as they weight more than equivalent combustion engine cars.  

My car weighs 3500 lbs, much less than a full size pickup truck. I realize that isn't apples to apples. I think the fact that it has low resistance tires and the high torque will mean more.

[nate82]

1 minute ago, wallus said:

My car weighs 3500 lbs, much less than a full size pickup truck

So your car is a full sized pickup truck?

[wallus]

1 minute ago, nate82 said:

So your car is a full sized pickup truck?

Quote the rest of it now

[nate82]

Just now, wallus said:

Quote the rest of it now

Must have edited it before I quoted you.

[Fear The Chorizo]

On 7/31/2023 at 12:39 PM, owbc said:

Solar and wind are both cheaper than fossil fuels when you account for oil/gas being heavily subsidized by tax incentives as well. Solar is now the cheapest energy in history. The issue has always been storage but that has been pretty much figured out as well. 

There is an environmental cost for everything -- at this point it's clear that the #1 priority is to get net CO2 emissions close to zero by the middle of the century so if there are other externalities from mining, manufacturing, etc we'll just have to deal with that. 

We're never going to see the average person fueling their car with hydrogen (who would want to do that when home charging is so easy), but hydrogen produced by nuclear to power heavy machinery has potential. The main issue with nuclear continues to be the cost relative to other green energy sources. I know much of that cost is caused by people being irrationally scared of nuclear, but that's a real problem that has to be solved to scale it. 

Solar and wind haven't had to deal with the costs of managing/dealing with wastestreams when large scale panel arrays and windfarms are done generating energy (that's going to start being an issue in the next 10 years, and renewable developer clients I work with are freaked out about it)....and saying storage is "pretty much figured out" is very much wishful thinking.  If the answer to everything is making more batteries out of toxic materials to the scale of anywhere close to where it would have to be to power the developed world's electrical grid and auto fleet without still leaning on fossil fuels to maintain consistent capacity, it's just not being realistic.

So the #1 priority is to get net CO2 emissions close to zero in 25 years...for whom?  Everyone on the planet?? The environmental cost of raw materials mining, manufacturing, and end cycle waste management for the amount of battery storage capacity and solar panel installations necessary to achieve that sort of goal would be immensely worse for the planet's health than having increased CO2 emissions but avoid generating billions of tons of toxic waste and completely destroying sensitive habitats for mining purposes.

And don't just dismiss hydrogen fueling - it may be easy now to plug in your car at home to charge it, but that doesn't mean a significant technological advancement will make EVs obsolete before they ever become the best option (both economically and environmentally) for the general public.

[owbc]

On 8/5/2023 at 9:26 PM, Fear The Chorizo said:

Solar and wind haven't had to deal with the costs of managing/dealing with wastestreams when large scale panel arrays and windfarms are done generating energy (that's going to start being an issue in the next 10 years, and renewable developer clients I work with are freaked out about it)....and saying storage is "pretty much figured out" is very much wishful thinking.  If the answer to everything is making more batteries out of toxic materials to the scale of anywhere close to where it would have to be to power the developed world's electrical grid and auto fleet without still leaning on fossil fuels to maintain consistent capacity, it's just not being realistic.

So the #1 priority is to get net CO2 emissions close to zero in 25 years...for whom?  Everyone on the planet?? The environmental cost of raw materials mining, manufacturing, and end cycle waste management for the amount of battery storage capacity and solar panel installations necessary to achieve that sort of goal would be immensely worse for the planet's health than having increased CO2 emissions but avoid generating billions of tons of toxic waste and completely destroying sensitive habitats for mining purposes.

And don't just dismiss hydrogen fueling - it may be easy now to plug in your car at home to charge it, but that doesn't mean a significant technological advancement will make EVs obsolete before they ever become the best option (both economically and environmentally) for the general public.

I don't really see the difference between mining for renewable energy components vs. drilling for oil. Both are terrible for the environment, both cause geopolitical problems, both are expensive. If we're going to keep drilling for oil, we're going to eventually have to drill some of the spots that have been off-limits such as in Alaska wildlife refuges. And the Canadian tar sands will have to massively expand. 

It would obviously be better if we built denser cities, had better public transportation, and had a significant reduction in the number of miles that people drive in personal vehicles. But that clearly isn't going to happen fast enough to be much help. Hence the massive need for battery-powered cars. I agree that it sucks and it's not ideal but the cost of not decarbonizing is so high that we have no choice. 

Maybe we'll figure out fusion power and maybe we'll come up with a way to make hydrogen-powered vehicles cheaper than battery-powered ones. I don't know. The ongoing massive expansion of the supply chain for battery-powered vehicles is a pretty clear indicator of where we are headed in the next 10+ years. 

 

 

[CheezWizHed]

Energy storage is the key to what we are talking about.  Gas is a natural "storage" device.  Electric takes batteries; Hydrogen takes fuel cells.  The main EV problem is the scalability of electric (on the grid) and battery manufacturing.  Oil drilling isn't great for the environment, but it has less impact being underground.  Digging out ore tends to be more strip mining.

I've long been a hydrogen supporter as the cycle is theoretically cleaner (production of hydrogen being the only issue - clean supply + clean "exhaust").  There is no reason why you can't produce hydrogen at your house either. But even if people don't want that, fueling it at a service station is still a legit possibility. 

I can't see charging a vehicle in minutes... that is a LOT of current you are talking about. 

As was said above, it seems fairly easy to turn public transportation - planes, trains, and busses into hydrogen driven opportunities. 

[Samurai Bucky]

23 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

 The main EV problem is the scalability of electric (on the grid) and battery manufacturing.  Oil drilling isn't great for the environment, but it has less impact being underground.  Digging out ore tends to be more strip mining.

I saw this video that shows how lithium mining may not be the best for the environment, either.

 

[Fear The Chorizo]

Independent of cost, in the end environmentally it boils down to the question of whether EVs on a global scale are better environmentally than ICE for personal automobiles - and not just in terms of CO2 emissions.  I'm removing freight/trucking/construction equipment from the conversation because quite frankly, they need petroleum-based fuels to deliver the power output necessary for effective performance.  My reasonably informed opinion is that there is a threshold the EV fleet can reach where that supply chain becomes environmentally worse globally than current conditions, and that threshold is much lower than 50% of the personal vehicle fleet.

Personal vehicles account for roughly 40% of global CO2 emissions at present, so turning that fleet from a majority ICE to EV would indeed put a dent into CO2 emissions - but it wouldn't address the remaining 60% of CO2 emissions if that's what someone is dead-set on slashing.  As of mid-2022, approximately 1.5% of the global personal vehicle fleet was EV - projections are for that total to triple by 2025, which would bring the worldwide EV share to about 5%.  The stick in the mud is, to scale the share of EVs globally to anything close to the level where it would significantly reduce CO2 emissions for personal vehicles, we're talking enormous, sustained increases in mining for battery materials whose extraction/manufacturing processes have a significant carbon footprint of their own and their byproducts generate a much more significant amount of hazardous waste. 

Unless someone has a dedicated solar array and battery storage unit at their home that their EV charger is powered by, EV vehicles should not be considered powered by renewable energy at present, IMO.  They still rely on fossil fuels that provide sustained grid power for energy - particularly during off-peak demand hours when most people may wish to recharge their car at home overnight, and as the amount of these vehicles on the road increase there will be grid capacity issues in certain markets.  Also, the batteries themselves are not efficiently recycleable at the moment, so there will be ongoing demand to mine more materials for new/replacement battery generation and increased hazardous waste management issues with spent battery materials as the initial EV fleets in developed countries age out of operating use.  Oilfields do have well-documented environmental issues of their own, no doubt - but once a well is established the environmental impact during extraction operations is quite limited, and frankly oilfields can be reclaimed and restored much more efficiently without destroying habitat compared to the type of mining operations needed for EV materials.  

The advances in ICE emissions control technologies have largely curtailed much more significant air pollution than carbon dioxide concerns across most of the globe over the past 30 years despite an exploding population and dramatic increase in total vehicles on the road.  There are also some emerging technologies focused on CO2 capture that could significantly reduce ICE greenhouse gas emissions to keep an eye on - although I think they may wind up being more readily utilized across the industrial manufacturing and freight transport sectors.   

There is a role EVs can play, particularly in cities/population centers of developed countries that have alot of routine suburb commuters driving 30-60 miles daily -  I think improved public transit options, city planning changes, and a general change in how people go about travel/routine schedule all play an even larger role in trying to reduce the amount of all cars on the road.  

[owbc]

48 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Independent of cost, in the end environmentally it boils down to the question of whether EVs on a global scale are better environmentally than ICE for personal automobiles - and not just in terms of CO2 emissions.  I'm removing freight/trucking/construction equipment from the conversation because quite frankly, they need petroleum-based fuels to deliver the power output necessary for effective performance.  My reasonably informed opinion is that there is a threshold the EV fleet can reach where that supply chain becomes environmentally worse globally than current conditions, and that threshold is much lower than 50% of the personal vehicle fleet.

Personal vehicles account for roughly 40% of global CO2 emissions at present, so turning that fleet from a majority ICE to EV would indeed put a dent into CO2 emissions - but it wouldn't address the remaining 60% of CO2 emissions if that's what someone is dead-set on slashing.  As of mid-2022, approximately 1.5% of the global personal vehicle fleet was EV - projections are for that total to triple by 2025, which would bring the worldwide EV share to about 5%.  The stick in the mud is, to scale the share of EVs globally to anything close to the level where it would significantly reduce CO2 emissions for personal vehicles, we're talking enormous, sustained increases in mining for battery materials whose extraction/manufacturing processes have a significant carbon footprint of their own and their byproducts generate a much more significant amount of hazardous waste. 

Unless someone has a dedicated solar array and battery storage unit at their home that their EV charger is powered by, EV vehicles should not be considered powered by renewable energy at present, IMO.  They still rely on fossil fuels that provide sustained grid power for energy - particularly during off-peak demand hours when most people may wish to recharge their car at home overnight, and as the amount of these vehicles on the road increase there will be grid capacity issues in certain markets.  Also, the batteries themselves are not efficiently recycleable at the moment, so there will be ongoing demand to mine more materials for new/replacement battery generation and increased hazardous waste management issues with spent battery materials as the initial EV fleets in developed countries age out of operating use.  Oilfields do have well-documented environmental issues of their own, no doubt - but once a well is established the environmental impact during extraction operations is quite limited, and frankly oilfields can be reclaimed and restored much more efficiently without destroying habitat compared to the type of mining operations needed for EV materials.  

The advances in ICE emissions control technologies have largely curtailed much more significant air pollution than carbon dioxide concerns across most of the globe over the past 30 years despite an exploding population and dramatic increase in total vehicles on the road.  There are also some emerging technologies focused on CO2 capture that could significantly reduce ICE greenhouse gas emissions to keep an eye on - although I think they may wind up being more readily utilized across the industrial manufacturing and freight transport sectors.   

There is a role EVs can play, particularly in cities/population centers of developed countries that have alot of routine suburb commuters driving 30-60 miles daily -  I think improved public transit options, city planning changes, and a general change in how people go about travel/routine schedule all play an even larger role in trying to reduce the amount of all cars on the road.  

I think we're mostly on the same page. Many large cities in the US now have plans to get to net zero. The blueprint is pretty straightforward -- it's pretty much 1/3 buildings (including industry), 1/3 transportation, and 1/3 electricity generation. Everything else is a rounding error. Reducing the number of car trips is worth about 2-3x the CO2 savings vs. transitioning to EVs. Much easier to do in big cities. I wish someone would come up with a good carshare system (possibly if we figure out autonomous vehicles) so that the average person no longer needs to own their own car. That could result in a significant reduction in car manufacturing. 

Assuming we're aiming for 2050 net zero, then if all new cars are EVs by the 2030-2035 range (which we're on pace for), then the ICE vehicles will be pretty much gone in the US by 2050. China is way ahead of us in that 25% of their new car sales are EVs already. China is also way ahead of us in solar. It helps that these transitions follow exponential curves. 

The mining and waste stuff feels like whataboutism that comes straight out of the playbook of the oil companies. It's nontrivial but it's not big enough of a deal to stop the transition. The recycling market will clearly emerge as more EVs age out and there is more supply of used batteries available. Remember when China stopped accepting our recyclables about 5 years ago? That problem has been largely solved already. 

I agree on carbon capture, this will probably be for big single source emission sources like concrete manufacturing. If we get good at carbon capture (for cheap), it represents a potential pathway to getting negative CO2 emissions which would be useful if we shoot up to 2.5 or 3 C and need to quickly get back down to 1-1.5 C. Fortunately the climate responds quickly to emissions reductions. 

 

[homer]

2 minutes ago, owbc said:

I think we're mostly on the same page. Many large cities in the US now have plans to get to net zero. The blueprint is pretty straightforward -- it's pretty much 1/3 buildings (including industry), 1/3 transportation, and 1/3 electricity generation. Everything else is a rounding error. Reducing the number of car trips is worth about 2-3x the CO2 savings vs. transitioning to EVs. Much easier to do in big cities. I wish someone would come up with a good carshare system (possibly if we figure out autonomous vehicles) so that the average person no longer needs to own their own car. That could result in a significant reduction in car manufacturing. 

I wish more people would ride a bike.

[owbc]

47 minutes ago, homer said:

I wish more people would ride a bike.

Eventually US cities will get with the picture and build a safe network of protected bike lanes...but we're a long way from that. 

[LouisEly]

3 hours ago, homer said:

I wish more people would ride a bike.

Some of us sweat more easily than others.  That, and December through March.

I vote more working from home.  Especially on inclement weather days.  Do we really need to go into the office when it's raining?

[LouisEly]

5 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

I'm removing freight/trucking/construction equipment from the conversation because quite frankly, they need petroleum-based fuels to deliver the power output necessary for effective performance.

Long-haul trucking and heavy machinery, yes.  That will be the toughest to move from petroleum.  (An alternative already exists - rail.  The rail infrastructure overhaul is another topic.)

But what % of trucking is short-haul/less than 400 miles a day?  Box trucks?  Contractors/home repair?

And what % is local delivery vehicles (USPS, UPS, FedEx, Amazon)?  Only a fraction of those are EV/alternative fuel.

There's a lot of low-hanging fruit out there.

[nate82]

10 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Do we really need to go into the office when it's raining?

Yes you do!!!!!

More working from home would solve the problem however you are not going to get corporate America to buy into that.  More offices are being built and then you have others at about 60-70% occupied during the week.

It is a struggle to just keep hybrid at times.

2 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Long-haul trucking and heavy machinery, yes.  That will be the toughest to move from petroleum. 

Methane is an option and would allow farmers with heavy equipment to store and use a renewable energy source.  Could also be a cost savings to farmers where they won’t need to buy fuel as they will have an abundance of it.  Also landfills could also supply their own fuel for their heavy equipment.

 

[homer]

45 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Some of us sweat more easily than others.  That, and December through March.

I vote more working from home.  Especially on inclement weather days.  Do we really need to go into the office when it's raining?

OK don't bike for 3 months and don't bike when it's gonna be more than 80 degrees or get an eBike. Or use a Divvy in the morning and take the train home in the evening. Just bike more. It's less wear and tear on the infrastructure and emits only sweat and breath.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 minute ago, LouisEly said:

Long-haul trucking and heavy machinery, yes.  That will be the toughest to move from petroleum.  (An alternative already exists - rail.  The rail infrastructure overhaul is another topic.)

But what % of trucking is short-haul/less than 400 miles a day?  Box trucks?  Contractors/home repair?

And what % is local delivery vehicles (USPS, UPS, FedEx, Amazon)?  Only a fraction of those are EV/alternative fuel.

There's a lot of low-hanging fruit out there.

I agree with you on local package delivery vehicles and a good # of fleet trucks for contractors working locally (wasn't even thinking about that segment), but anything that needs to haul significant weights of materials, no matter how far the distance, is unlikely to be shifted to EV on a grand scale - at least with the current battery technology.  Batteries for those type of vehicles would take up too much weight to be road-worthy unless the freight they haul isn't very dense.  Rail infrastructure as currently designed is already at its max capacity and needs a ton of semi trucks to facilitate loading/unloading and transport on a local scale.  Long haul trucking is already heavily integrated with the rail system - there are just too many places freight needs to be in order for rail to be the most efficient on a time basis.  It would take significant infrastructure development to expand rail capacity in the US, and there are lots of hurdles to make that happen.

It also gets much tougher for work vehicles that are used for remote jobsites at distance to heavily go towards EV - particularly ones that are set up as diesel engines.  

[Samurai Bucky]

7 hours ago, owbc said:

The mining and waste stuff feels like whataboutism that comes straight out of the playbook of the oil companies. It's nontrivial but it's not big enough of a deal to stop the transition. The recycling market will clearly emerge as more EVs age out and there is more supply of used batteries available. Remember when China stopped accepting our recyclables about 5 years ago? That problem has been largely solved already. 

It appears that it is also coming from third world countries from which the materials are being mined.  It seems a little disingenuous to disregard the mining effects.

Oil companies are willing to look the other way to make sure they are getting what they want.  EV companies and its subsidiaries do that, too.  I would agree, though, that it isn't to the extent of the oil companies.