Which waste less, EV or ICE?

I w2as watching a special on electicity on the history channel a day or so ago and they talked about different means of making power. One thing that shocked me was the fact it takes a pound of coal to light a 100 watt bulb for an hour. Not only do you have the exhaust generated from the, the nuclear material that is released, but also ash left over.

Kind of made me ask, are EVs that are plugged in any cleaner or do they just shift the pollution?

The answer is very simple.



It depends.




A Hummer converted to BEV is more wastefull than a 50cc Honda motorcycle. Both will transport one person around town with equal ability. You'd have to look for specific models that were produced with bith drive trains.

The example quoted above (pound of coal to light a 100 watt bulb for an hour) acknowleges the fact that some of the coal waste is solid. Most people worry more about the pollution that goes into the air. There's also almost no way to use coal in an internal combustion engine, so you're back to comparing apples to oranges.

The pollution attributed to ICE typically does not include fuel spills, oil tanker spills or gas storage tank leaks. The pollution from burning coal typically ignores the hundreds or thousands of square miles of land that are strip mined. Even if they are replanted, it's never quite the same.


Daniel

Electric vehicles are still going to be more efficient no matter how the electricity is generated. If you made a generator from a V8 car engine, and used that to charge up your electric vehicle, you would get more mileage than if you just drove the vehicle with a V8 engine. Mostly because the generator is set up to run efficiently at a constant speed, rather than stopping and starting and running at all kinds of different RPMs like it is in a car. Also, powerplants are much more efficient at getting a certain amount of electricity from a certain fuel...becuase the more efficient they are, the more money they make.

I was going on a bike ride once, and I saw a man mowing the part of his lawn that falls between the sidewalk and the street. He was using an electric mower....plugged into a gas generator.

I found it to be quite funny.

I wonder how that compares to just using a gas powered mower or using an electric mower with the power generated at a power plant.

I have to disagree with Battery Charger about the assertion that "If you made a generator from a V8 car engine, and used that to charge up your electric vehicle, you would get more mileage than if you just drove the vehicle with a V8 engine."

There are at least two problems there.

The first is that in any conversion of energy there will be some loss. There are losses in an ICE, in the generator, in the battery charger, in the battery, in the motor controller and the in electric motor. Whether theses losses are greater than the losses of a transmission depends on the cars in question.

The second problem is that this assertion assumes that the car does not have a relatively well designed transmission. A car can be designed so that it is extremely efficient at a particular speed in a particular gear. It may not be optimal for other speeds, acceleration, etc, but that was not in the equation.

I'm pretty sure that Darell's web site showed a Watt Hour per mile based on energy drawn from the battery as well as Watt Hour per mile based on energy drawn from the grid to charge the battery. I seem to recall a 25 to 30 percent loss in the battery charge-discharge cycle alone.

Daniel

Easily an EV.

Even powered from "dirty" power sources, the EV is much less wasteful, why? The gasoline companies are the largest users of electricity in the nation. Take the actual gas out of the solution and just look at the overhead. It takes tons of electricity to pump the gas out of the ground, pump it through a pipeline, refine it, pump it into a truck that uses...gas, to transport it to a gas station, pump it into the ground, run the lights and pumps at the gas station. I have no hard numbers, but I'm sure that quite a bit of the electricity used to do all this comes from coal.

Now look at the overhead of getting electricity into an EV, burn the coal, spin the generator, and run the electricity through power lines. Sure there's some losses, but electricity is inherently more efficient to transport than gasoline.


Plus with an EV and some solar panels you cut out the coal, and you cut out the transmission lines. Now you're generating the electricity on the spot from a non-polluting source.

Some say that disposing of the batteries makes EVs dirtier, but the fact of the matter is that batteries can be recycled, and it's a lot easier to contain and clean the nasty chemicals that make batteries work than it is to clean up the air coming out of a coal burning power plant.

id admit before i read a lot of what darrel wrote i thought ice was better.but now im going with ev.specaily if ya do how he does with his panels.i still want them to improve range signifacly though .

Honda has a car with a 16 hp regenerating motor. It gets better mileage than the standard V6.

Also, it's not losses in a transmission. A car engine when not being run at peak torque is being inefficient. No way around that. I'd still bet that a small engine being used to charge a battery is going to use less fuel than a big engine used to put put around town.

[ QUOTE ]
gadget_lover said:
I have to disagree with Battery Charger about the assertion that "If you made a generator from a V8 car engine, and used that to charge up your electric vehicle, you would get more mileage than if you just drove the vehicle with a V8 engine."

[/ QUOTE ]

This is how the hybrids already work, and obviously they are more efficient. A V8 is probably a bad example here, but the hybrids get better mileage with the same engine because the engine runs at a constant speed generating electricity...it just does it while you drive.

[ QUOTE ]
cheesehead said...
Honda has a car with a 16 hp regenerating motor. It gets better mileage than the standard V6.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it does, but a large part of that is the way it stops the ICE when the car is stopped. No idling makes for much better mileage. The benefit drops when driving at a steady speed in the honda design.

[ QUOTE ]

Also, it's not losses in a transmission. A car engine when not being run at peak torque is being inefficient. No way around that. I'd still bet that a small engine being used to charge a battery is going to use less fuel than a big engine used to put put around town.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are losses in a transmisison. The friction of the gears, the viscosity of the gear oil, the torque converter, the presure of the seals.

A car engine when not being run at peak torque is being inefficient, but the question is whether it's less efficient than converting the motion to electricity to chemical storage to electricity to motion.

The assertion about put-putting around town is probbaly accurate. A small ICE to charge the battery to drive a motor may well be more efficeient than a large engine in stop and go driving. Again, that's assuming a large ICE and does not require that both cars have identical performance, noise, etc.

This position may seem strange to some who have read my posts on the Electric Vehicle thread. I am a staunch supporter of Hybrids. I own one and drive it all the time.

What I've responded to here are the blanket assertions that one technology is better than another without putting limits on the comparison. A serial hybrid (ICE driving a gen that charges bat that runs motor to drive the wheel) has many serious limitations. The design has to be just right to get the benefits that people expect, and even then there are drawbacks, like what do you do when the ICE has been off for 10 minutes and the calalytic converter is cooled down?

There's also the question of high efficiency that is also lowest possible pollution. We can make cars today that get much better milage, but they would also pollute more as they burn fuel at higher temperatures (more NOX).

We've known for at least 8 years that GM. Ford and Chysler could give 10 to 15 percent better in town milage if they used a system that killed the engine at stop lights. The technology is simple, requiring only a better starter motor and additional 12 volt batteries. It was even explained in Popular Mechanics magazine! I don't think that any production car from detroit has this feature, other than the hybrids.

I DO think that effective, efficient electric vehicles can and should be made. The recent developments in Li-Ion batteries (see toshiba's news releases) may make the design even more efficient and trouble free.

I hope so, anyway.

Daniel (who should not type after midnight)

[ QUOTE ]
BatteryCharger said:
[ QUOTE ]
gadget_lover said:
I have to disagree with Battery Charger about the assertion that "If you made a generator from a V8 car engine, and used that to charge up your electric vehicle, you would get more mileage than if you just drove the vehicle with a V8 engine."

[/ QUOTE ]

This is how the hybrids already work, and obviously they are more efficient. A V8 is probably a bad example here, but the hybrids get better mileage with the same engine because the engine runs at a constant speed generating electricity...it just does it while you drive.

[/ QUOTE ]

All of the current production hybrids change engine RPM frequently. The Prius and Insight use an engine design not normally found in a car.

The Prius and the Insight use an Atkinson cycle engine. That's a high efficiency, low power design with very little torque until it hits some fairly high RPMS. It's also a very clean design, providing more complete burning of the fuel without raising the combustion temperature. The addition of the electric motor allows good performance at low speeds where the atkinson cycle ICE is fairly unusable by itself.

The Prius uses a 78 HP engine that is not adequate for moving the car from a standing stop without the electric motor. The Prius drives the wheels directly from the electric motors, the ICE or a combination as the needs of the moment dictate. It does have a mode where a portion of it's power goes to the generator to power the electric motor, but that's not it's normal mode. The Prius ICE does change RPM frequently while running, but the CVT/power splitter allows it to stay in the power band. The engine speed has nothing to do with the speed at which the tires turn. The ICE can stop while the car is driving at 65 mph.

The Honda Insight also uses a smaller than normal engine (3 cylinder ! ), but the ICE runs whenever the car is moving, using a conventional transmission. The Honda uses the electric motor to spin up the engine after stopping as well as for power boosts. The Civic and Accord use the same technique with more standard sized engines. They do not generate power to drive the electric motor
while they are moving (or so I've been told).

The Accord even goes so far as to to use the motor as an "electric super charger" to boost power. It does save gas by stopping the engine at idle and
storing the power from regenerative braking, but that appears to be a side effect rather than a design goal.

It really comes down to the exact design and the way it's implemented.

[ QUOTE ]
cobb said:...shocked me was the fact it takes a pound of coal to light a 100 watt bulb for an hour.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your TV consumes power even when it is "off"; otherwise, how can it respond to the remote to turn itself on. I got a simple watt meter to see how much mine wastes just sitting there. If I only watch 2 hours of TV a day, my TV/VCR setup (even when off) uses the same amount of electricity the rest of the day just sitting there (off).

So... a couple of pounds of coal (or more) to watch a 2 hour program, and another couple of pounds of coal just doing nothing. The only way to beat this is to put your TV on a power strip and turn off the strip when you are done.

Just think about being gone for a week's vacation. A lot of the stuff you leave behind doing nothing is still burning up coal day by day by day.

Wouldn't it be cool to pull your car into the garage, drop in the charging thingy (inductive?), and look up at the big 'ol solar panels on the roof charging the car (and some R123's for flashlight fun)?

Bob

[ QUOTE ]
cheesehead said:
A car engine when not being run at peak torque is being inefficient.

[/ QUOTE ]

The RPMs at which an ICE is most efficient would only by coincidence be the same RPM at which it produces the most torque or power. Most efficient means the best ratio when comparing the energy used (fuel burnt) and the usable energy put out.

And: ICEs are *not* efficient, there's just an RPM number at which they are most efficient. Gasoline engines are in the 30% range, the best diesel engines in the 50% range. Electric motors can easily beat them in terms of efficiency.

[ QUOTE ]
pedalinbob said:
Wouldn't it be cool to pull your car into the garage, drop in the charging thingy (inductive?), and look up at the big 'ol solar panels on the roof charging the car (and some R123's for flashlight fun)?

Bob

[/ QUOTE ]

Replace the charging thingie with a boring old plug (Completely possible with current technology) and we're talking!

an electric motor might be efficient, but its not JUST the motor, you first had to convert the fossile fuels to electricity with a generator/alternator thing.
and the losses are high from both the generator, and the motors. although improvements are plenty.

the real question is would a "EV" being charged on a grid that is suplimented with coal and natural gas plants, be more energywize, than a Steam engine burning them same fuels (cleanly) RIGHT in the car itself.
other than start and stop and consumer operation and all the answer would be a definate YES, convert the fuel in the device that is USING it, without 2 tranducers, get real, it would be far more efficient.

the advantages of the EV are the likelyhood that it is Not being charged with coal and natural gas fired suplimental plants, because they are more applied during PEAK, and hydro, and nuclear are more likely to be the sources of thier charge when on-grid.

BUT if you take them stupid electric trains, that still dont have regenerative braking, that cost 2+ MILLION frigging dollers per car unit , that run ONLY during peak consumption times. they would be far more efficient burning the fuel and converting the energy with limited transduction and lossy transmission.
BUT
then how could they drive clean through the rich boy parts of towns, sticking people for billions in tax money, while they rain death and coal tar, and fumes on the POOR who have to live by the plants that provide the "clean power" to the great machine.

to top it off, the magic electric train, only encourages them with NO CAR to get jobs 50+ miles further away from where they could get a job, to later aquire a car and drive it to the same place.

Its all lies, one after the other.
the quantity of fossile fuels to aquire ORE out of the ground, and process it for nuclear plants, makes a person wonder if thier entire purpose in life is really to make nuclear bombs.

hey dont worry about the fact that making solar cells uses almost as much energy as you get out of them in 20 years, it builds JOBS, and economies that are propped up on toothpics, and drained out by ritch crooked politicians , NEED all them slaves running around in circles so they can live it up in glory.

My car gets 45+ MPG, and its NOT a hybrid? yet my motorcycle gets only 33mpg ?? there is efficency to be had, its just a matter of accepting that 25HP IS enough to drive, it was enough when they made the modle T, the model A, and it will be enough when we all run out and are back to the model z

lots of huge cities, have adapted to and use things like bikes, mopeds and small efficient cars, americans still arent comprehending the TOTAL costs of thier fuels, and arent adding in the 40% of thier entire lifes work in taxes into thier actual budgets. if you figure how much we REALLY spend on Fuels we get from other countries, we would be paying 5$ a gallon like all of europe /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

i love to conserve, i love solar, i like alternative energy, but i really dislike LIES. if were to suceeed in this stuff, it will be important to understand all the losses throughout the whole systems.

when people BELIEVE that compressed air is a practical fuel for an automobile, and they dont analize how the air gets compressed , i get DE_Pressed /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

there are many practical ways to USE or apply things that just PARK in off peak, to balance out the loads, and all, like making hydrogen with EXCESSIVE energy. but to fantasize that hydrogen (as clean as it is) magically flys out of the air , and is available in huge quantities, and wont take 2x the energy to create, is Arnold Schwartzenhagers job, not mine.
and as long as he is going to drive a HUMMER to transport 1 friggen person, and as long as 20million people are going to go the SAME WAY, with one person in the car.
then Hitchhiking is more practical, than the goverments IDIOT energy policies.

[ QUOTE ]
VidPro said:
...making solar cells uses almost as much energy as you get out of them in 20 years

[/ QUOTE ]

I've heard that too. But, since I've heard it, I looked into it. Near as I can tell the energy payback is more like 3 years for a solar cell. After that, it is delivering back "free" energy from the sun.

[ QUOTE ]
VidPro said:
My car gets 45+ MPG, and its NOT a hybrid? yet my motorcycle gets only 33mpg ?? there is efficency to be had, its just a matter of accepting that 25HP IS enough to drive

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Mine gets 45 mpg too! Although, mine has as much torque as a Honda Accord V6 and has plenty of power (it is a VW Golf TDI...diesel). Plus, I run on renewable biodiesel to boot!

Running biodiesel has allowed me to break the connection to imported oil. That is a good feeling. Although, what I really want is a plug-in hybrid with enough battery for 20-40 miles on all electric drive.

THanks, now I have a lot more to rattle around inside my mind and to bring up when my dad tells me evs are just as dirty as ices.

One thing that bothers me though. WHy is it these hybrids are not getting the millage of a geo metro or vw diesel dasher? I thought they were suppose to get better millage, here we have diesel and gas cars, some from decades ago that beat them.

Well, Cobb, there is a reason.

There's a big difference between Fuel Efficiency and Low Pollution. The initial run of hybrids were deisgned in response to California's law requiring ultra low pollution and zero pollution cars. They were designed to minimize pollution, not to maximize fuel economy.

The question about the Geo Metro was a good one. The fact that it was discontinued 7 years ago speaks volumes about what consumers want. The 1.0 liter model had great milage when driven conservatively but was dreadfully slow and cramped. On the other hand, the Prius seats 5, is more responsive and gives the same milage without special driving skills.

It would be interesting to see a Metro sized hybrid that was just as powerful as the 1 liter model and no bigger than the original metro. The Metro was liked by some people for short commutes.


Daniel

My dad had a metro he used to deliver papers and a chevy k1500, I could ride in either, but had to pay the gas. So, I choose the metro and for two large 300 pound 6 foot 2 guys it was fairly comfortable. He drove it more often than his truck because he hate paying 5 bucks a day in gas, of course that was when gas was about a dollar a gallon.

I can see your point pollution wise. I know my diesel use to blurp out a black cloud as you ran it through the gears. It was slower than the metro, but more fun to drive and had a nice throaty sound. My dad loved his golf for the same reason. SOmetimes when some punk in a convertible would honk behind him or ride his bumper he would pull out the cold start lever and drop it down a gear to smoke-em and immediatedly they swerved into another lane.

Amazingly I think I see mroe metros than sprints, escourts on the road. We had the 3 door, manual transmission one with ac. They made a whole series of cars, sedans and I believe even a convertible and auto 3 speed transmissions. I do not believe any of the cars other than the stock model got the high milage. After he racked up 200k miles on it and unable to get a cvc joint for it or axle he traded it on a suzuki swift. It was almost the same car, but had a 4cylinder 1.3l engine. I think he would of liked the geo better, except for the parts problem.