Tailpipe Emissions and Beyond

Sustainability always used to be part of green. Remember in elementary school - reduce, reuse, recycle. I was read the lorax when I was a little kid. Now you want us to forget all that and switch to an inconvient truth. That's the corporate political people dumbing down green to sell it to you. Most of the country has rejected that. Now we have california saying if you cut down old growth forests and plant tree farms -its good for the state. Using all our resources in one area, then using most of the rest of the worlds is not green, even if it might in the short run produce less ghg. I hate the idea of redefing green to only mean carbon footprint.

There is a lot more wind, natural gas, sun, and coal than gasoline. Since electric providers can switch electricity is certainly more sustainable. I use wind as does drinnovation, hill and gwmort use solar, its not all coal out there. You may have missed the headlines - the price of natural gas power dropped bellow the price of coal power, massive amounts of ccgt gas was generated instead of coal. The price of gas may go back up above that level and we switch back, which is why we need some kind of cap and trade (not the nasty one congress tried) or carbon tax to keep the coal plants off. I don't think you can be my kind of green and ignore changing the grid.

The best way is to slowly replace it with wind, solar, and natural gas. I have nothing against the prius phv. Its a good car and a good choice. Cleaning the grid is going to reduce a great deal more unhealthy pollution - SO2, NOx, mercury, particulates - than the choice between phevs. In texas more plug-ins mean we build more wind. If we all cut electric use and do nothing else, utilities don't have the cash to switch away from coal. We can pay and regulate our way to a cleaner grid though.

I hope you can understand air, ground, and water pollution along with sustainability are important parts of being green. If its only about carbon foot print but you pollute the water with oil sands and use up all the easy resources I don't want to be green. The comment was just to say what the chart is all about.

Plug-ins reduce air pollution especially in cities and substitute towards more sustainable resources. How can that not be green? They do in many places produce higher ghg than a prius. Carbon footprint isn't a major reason to switch to a plug-in instead of a hybrid. Your chart says that. Switching the vehicle fleet to more electricity and less oil is very green though.

 

I replied that electricity was more sustainable than gasoline - even though we can make gas from electricity.

I refuse to dumb down the argument to the one put forth by opec. That if you don't use gas you need to use coal. That simply is not true. If you switch your transportation to electricity, you can then swap your fuel source. At current rates we have what 50 years of easy oil, 200 years of easy coal, an unlimited number of years of electricity. If we use all that easy oil, it gets more and more environmentally unfriendly. The time to switch is before you run out. If you use the natural gas in the oil sands to make syn oil to make electricity instead we get more sustainable

Your chart is quite misleading in what sustainable means.

 

Natural gas,sure way to go due to abundance and lower price. Solar, and especially wind, will lose their attractivness at the end of . If the gov't doesn't renew tax credits, wind powered electricity will get pricey. Then, again not many "green technologies" survive and start showing profits in this country. They are a hard sell to investors ( they want to see a ROI on their investments). They are not sustainable to generate profits, in the free market.

DBCassidy

 

Using coal and a Prius PHV is only good if you don't really care to be green, just look that way. The PHV is a good car for those that cannot charge, or, more likely, it is is the easy way to try to look green. It is why its important the Prius (and leaf) is so distinctivly shaped. The Prius is great for people that cannot plug in (e.g. apartments dwellers). The attitude of having your cake and eating it too is the same shallow view.

If you really want to be green, you want to shift as much as reasonably possible to renewable energy. The bigger EV range more more ne can shift. The Telsa allows the most, Volt/leaf some, the PHV just a bit. Its a great car for those that don't want to commit to buying renewable energy and still be somewhat green.

If you want to really look beyond the tailpipe, look at what choices you are enabling and supporting. I agree if people don't care enough to try to change their source of fuel the PHV is better. Then again if you don't care enough to change why does it matter if its better. Of course if one already lives in a low GHG eletricity state such as Cali, they don't have to do anything special. And while 35 states might requires an owner to do something special to reduce more with an EV or EREV, those 35 states are also in general where hybrids (and EVs) dont' very well to begin with -- the majority of people there don't care enough to want to pay to change their driving habits or their grid. All the more reason for people in those states that do care about GHG, to make it more of a statement and chose to do better.

 

​

Who is pushing for coal electricity?
The advocates for plug ins all seem to call for increasing the renewable percentage of the grid along with electricfying cars. Many plug in owners, and some with out plugs, here have taken steps to increase their renewable electric portion, and/or support it for their area's grid.

Maybe it isn't fast enough for some, but the coal percentage is dropping. Changes technologies and policies, and simple economics, is favoring natural gas over coal for new fossil fuel power plants. Why insist on using out of date grid mix data? Because it favors Toyota?

What will be the carbon emissions of a Prius running on syngas from coal? Price drops in the technology plus a plentiful supply of coal make this an eventuality.

 

Here is the problem with your reasoning, you stress grid electricity responsably. That is a meaningless concept. Say we have resource O that runs out in X years, and resource F that runs out in Z years, and resource R that never runs out. If you can pick car 1 that can only run on O or car 2 that can run on up to 30% F or R and the rest on O, or car 3 that can run on up to 80% F or R and the rest on O - then their is more utility of car 3. Its as simple as that from a sustainability point of view. When we realize that R is more expensive renewable, but causes very little environmental damage it doesn't really matter much if car 3 is a little less efficient on power source R than car 1 is on O.

Then we can create a utility function that each person could assign to power source and desireable car. We would expect these utility functions to be different for each person. For example J may highly value that car 2 is made by a manufacturer that he likes, or that it looks a certain way that his peer group likes. This will create irrational decisions for the group as it pertains to optimal energy sources and pollution. We should not decide that this irrationality behavior is focused on resources. This is why 97% choose straight ice and only 3.2% have chosen hybrid or plug-in year to date. If someone is most focused on ghg, not sustainability, or tail pipe emissions, it is likely they would pick the car that fit their needs and could go furthest on renewable even if it meant producing more ghg when using gasoline.

The prius phv is a good choice for many. When you comment on out of the box though it is like saying when a driver chooses a car they don't know there driving routine or where they live or if they want renewables. I would assume that most plug-in drivers, and it is a small number so far, know all of these things. Most of them know where they live and if they can buy renewable energy and at what cost.

Let's assume the comparison car gets 28 mpg - and we get EPA - YMMV. Further that you go 15000 miles a year. In one year
------------Gas Electricity
ICE -- 535 gallons
Prius -300 gallons
Phv -- 210 gallons -- 1550 kwh
c-max 160 gallons -- 2650 kwh
volt -- 145 gallons -- 3300 kwh
Tesla S -0 gallons -- 5700 kwh

Now if you are worried about fuel cost you can use your local rates. If you are only worried about ghg or gasoline usage, and charge with renewables you can ignore the electricity. If you can't buy renewables you can use your local grids figures.

But most of all any of these plug-ins are going to save gasoline and reduce ghg compared to the normal ice vehicle 97% of the population is buying. Other factors than ghg should probably make the decision between which plug-in

No one should care about the national grid in the decision. We can use pattern and energy source to see how much the vehicle changes the countries energy mix.

 

I am sort of with you USB. Prius HEV and Prius PiP are green cars becuase they are fuel sippers. Volt is also a fuel sipper and green, but not quite as efficient/green as Prius. Now we have some debate: EV is mainly a fuel swtching idea. Not greener per se.

However, the US enviromentalist (and to some extent Democratic party) agenda is that fuel switching away from oil is the politically correct and ethically correct path forward. Note I do not have an EV/PiP yet. There are several different enviro. camps, but some like coal because they feel that 100% USCoal is the only ethically acceptable bridge to the cleaner future. Then some other automotive engineer-type enthusiasts (not mentioning names) enjoy the technical aspects of EV (re: batteries/investment ops/career paths) so they want to say they agree with subsidizing EV to reduce oil use.

In short, there are two issues in this discussion, (1) being green by using less energy and (2) choice of energy sources. The latter is highly controverisal, like many issues in our society right now.

 

True, but appears that the areas embracing plug ins are taking the steps to switch to less carbon intensive power generation. The average coal percent of the grid for the nation has dropped.

An EV allows for a car purchased today emissions to improve with the grid. A gasoline one is stuck at where it is at now. While it doesn't appear likely now, the grid could get more carbon intensive. Proponents of fuel sipping gassers are overlooking that our sources for gasoline are getting more carbon intensive with time, and that can't be changed. More energy and emissions goes into tar sands, oil shale, deep ocean drilling, etc. than the light, sweet crude of the past. Just how things will go as the easy to get stuff dries up. Even the economics for making gasoline from coal are evening out, and the next major disruption of crude supply very well might mean coal is going into a non plug in Prius.

 

If you define green as good for the environment, there is no doubt that reducing gasoline consumption is green.

When it comes to using less electricity but more oil, it does get complicated and there are disagreements. That's why green or environmental is a bad term for this. Why do we need to dumb down environmental - green - to only mean carbon foot print. When its carbon footprint lets just say that.

As a nation, are we better off using more electricity and less oil? Will new electrical demand come from burning more coal or from renewables and natural gas? Will future gasoline be higher in carbon content than today' gasoline? We only know the answer to the last question, future gasoline will require more carbon dioxide.

That is why less carbon intense is a much better term, for a ghg chart. There are many dimensions to being environmental and the focus on efficiency or carbon footprint as the only measure is a bit naive. It is more efficient and provides a lower carbon footprint to cut down all the old growth trees and plant tree farms. But once the old growth is gone, its gone, and tree farms don't provide the biodiversity of a woodland. Somehow this destruction of the environment made it into AB32. Similarly burning through all the easy oil in the short term may be more efficient, but similarly short sited.

 

First of all, it is interesting that you are lumping Alaska in with California as green electric, I wonder how Alaska makes electricity?

Well, Leaf has the advantage of only one engine, so that is one fundamental advantage for Leaf. That is sort of what Monk and Ghosn are saying they feel 100% EV is the way to go vs. PHV. But so far their assumption seems questionable.

 

I just feel everyone slams petroleum to the point where the public totally forgets why oil is a valuable resource. It is a high density (liquid) energy source quite clean burning (after refining), but not much energy is needed in refining because basically God gave us liquid fuel in the ground. We don't have to grow it, or manufacture it, it is just there, pre-manufactured, many thanks to the dinosaurs. Yes the tar sands need a little more energy but no too bad. All this and oil is cheaper and cleaner than just about any alternative. So to argue other energy sources are cheaper/better, you have to invoke a lot of personal policy preferences and future predictions, otherwise I rest my case on cost of $vehicle + $fuel, which reflects the current cost of resources metals/fuels/etc.

If you read John Peterson, he is very negative on the amount of metals resources going into EV, he feels that is the limiting resource, not fossil fuel. Just saying you have one viewpoint, but there are other viewpoints. I only post Peterson comments once in a while, but he like Prius HEV.

 

As you have rested your case, then here is a "closing statement" from the other side.

What is the basis for saying driving on gas as a fuel is cheaper than electricity? Even in a PHV the gas cost .7 per mile for fuel and the EV mode is .032/mile (EPA milage, .12 per kWh, 3.50/gallon). Thus gas is 2x more expensive mode (except in a very few locations where electricity is muh more).

And how are you measuring cleaner? (Gas better in GHG than coal, but much worse than others sources of electricity, and its worse than Diesel)

With respect to the cost of cars, you would need to factor in other "assumptions', since they differ in many other ways not just fuel inefficiency.

If you choose to believe in the lithium sacristy arguments, that is your choice. Luckily the metal in batteries is 100% recyclable, though it is currently 4-5x cheaper to make it from raw brine. But when its price grows it will become cost effective to recycle it. And if the price of lithium were to increase by 10x, it would only increase the cost of a EV battery would rise by about 1%.. so there is sufficient elasticity for when recycling becomes cost effective (which is likely if the supply is actually as constrained as JP thinks it is.. though with major discoveries this year and last, I think there is still a lot of cheap lithium to find. But no matter what compared to oil/coal, being 100% recycleable means its supply is not near as much of an issue.

 

But, then again, everything IS recycable. Some forms just take longer than others to achieve this (IE: oil, natural gas, coal) .

DBCassidy

 

It's virtually indispensable for plastics, asphalt, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, and as basestock for other the other everyday chemicals we use. So why the rush to burn it all?

The lightest petroleum pumped from the ground, the stuff becoming less and less available, is at most 20% straight gasoline. That is the gasoline that can be recovered by just distillation. Most of the crude now available doesn't have as high a fraction of straight gas. Even if it did, it wouldn't meet our gasoline needs. It hasn't been usable straight into a car engine for several decades. The octane is to low.

The needs of modern engines and huge demand for gasoline means the fluid at the station is anything but pre-made. For the level of engine efficiencies we now see in cars, a minimum octane is required. To get that octane, and the required gas not in the crude, the hydrocarbons are cracked and reformed. The days of simply distilling out the gasoline and pumping it into a car are long gone.

Diesel is likely a larger portion of the crude, but again we have modern engines which require a certain minimum level of fuel quality. It also requires sulfur removal for emission requirements.

Petroleum is not clean burning. It's clean coming from cars now because we choose to do so. When I was a kid in the late '70s and early '80s, snow along the side of the road would be literally black from the exhaust. Now I'm surprised it was ever that way. It's clean now because of engine and exhaust treatments. Progress has greatly reduced the penalty of these treatments, but they do reduce efficiency and power.

Consider the other environmental cost and it isn't not too bad. Oil shale is worse. The oil there is misleading. It is actually in between oil and coal in physical properties. Even if the energy required to get it out of the ground isn't much more than current drilling, converting tar and waxy solids into usable fuels does have a greater energy requirement.

Deep wells and deep ocean require more energy with greater environmental risk. That is simply going to be the norm as the easier oil dries up. So, again, why rush to burn it?

It isn't cheaper than natural gas for electricity production.

Petroleum does have pluses as a fuel. It is why it is so prevalent. But focusing on improving efficiencies in petroleum burning vehicles is short sighted. Electrical generation produces about 500 million metric tons more CO2 emissions than the transportation sector in the US. http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/Downloads/ghgemissions/US-GHG-Inventory-2012-ES.pdf Focusing on which minority purchased vehicle has lower carbon emission by some tens of grams isn't going to do much. If carbon isn't a concern, then the other emissions from coal are reason enough to close the old plants and replace them with something cleaner.

The grid needs to be cleaned up. Power generation emissions may be less of a concern for the populace than transport emissions, but carbon is a global concern, and the other emissions(NOx, SOx, mercury) also have long reaching impact. The good news is that the coal portion is dropping. We are heading in the right direction. As the grid gets cleaner, plug ins get cleaner.

On the flipside, carbon emissions don't have an immediate impact on the local community. So the difference between vehicles in emission levels driving down main street won't be noticed by residents. The other emissions can be. Diesels have room for improvement, and gassers have pretty much hit the point of diminishing returns. The only way to hit zero at the street level is to go EV in some form.

DrInnovation covered the battery materials, but we aren't limited to batteries. Mazda's production regenerative braking system uses a capacitor. There is/was 12 volt batteries there are combo capacitor lead acid. The possibility exists for capacitors and batteries being used in an EV to reduce the use of limited resources.

 

Thank you guys for the good responses.

I agree electric is cheaper energy than gasoline right now in USA. But that is not necessarily long term trend (could be if we go to nat gas as primary fuel). But you need a ~$15,000 Li battery to take advantage of it. So it is not cost effective without gov't supports. The reason gov't is supporting is (1) jobs jobs jobs*, and (2) speculative investment that EV car technology can be made to work economically someday.

I am not particularly a Li scarcity alarmist. Rather I am worried about scarcity of many things incl oil. Here is the big picture (you probably know it): In the next 25 years or so the number of cars is expected to double globally. That's a staggering number of cars + fuels. Some like Ghosn look at that future car growth and say, it would be impossible to have enough gaso to fuel conventional vehicles, so we need EV. I am not yet convinced EV is the best solution, but does seem obvious we may need broader variety of fuels for cars.

* Jobs- If Congress says, as it did, hey let's whack off 10% of the USA gasoline market and give it to corn based ethanol, does this create jobs? Probably yes many jobs were created with ethanol. Without ethanol, oil industry would have still downsized headcount to reduce costs. With ethanol we get hundreds of thousands of construction jobs for distilleries and so on ADM, farmers, transport, etc. So yes jobs created when Congress creates business opportunities via decree, which is basically Congress's main function.

 

Alaska uses Natural gas, hydro, oil, coal in that order. They are adding some wind and solar but its very small. I can't imagine Alaska getting a large percentage of plug-ins anytime soon, or is it much of a problem. The cold weather will make a pure ev mileage decrease. The ability to pre heat electrically and use egine heat may help future phevs work there. I would be extremely surprised to see a high percentage of plug-ins ordered in Alaska.

The reason government support started for plug-ins was to reduce oil consumption, not jobs. I don't really believe more jobs will be created, but national and economic security is increased with less imported oil.

The idea behind incubating plug-in tech, is for costs to come down and it to work without government subsidies in the future. Ford seems to be able to sell its energi at around $8000 more before subsidies than its similarly equipted ICE version. If costs drop to a $4000 premium by 2020, and it uses about 1/3 of the gas of its ice version, then that may be quite cost effective. It all depends what happens to the price of gas and electricity though in the future. The cost of the subsidy program for plug-ins is very very small compared to other programs to reduce imported oil.

methanol, biofuels, natural gas, and electricity along with hybrid technology to ween us off using so much oil. PHEVs seem the most likely today especially if they can be built to flex fuel E85/M85, but I would stop short of saying they will be the ultimate winner.

The Case for Killing Ethanol Jobs | Swampland | TIME.com

 

Good thoughts TB. I am well aware of complex chemistry of a modern refinery to make modern fuels. However, the point I am trying to make is that from a layman's view you can safely consider that some high tech dusting and cleaning, in the scheme of things does not cost much energy, and barely budges the cost of gasoline at the pump. Last I saw some oil companies were saying refining adds zero cost to a gallon of gaso (in other they words cannot recoup it). So therefore, as a first approximation, you should consider gaso + diesel as God's gift ready-made in the ground. I am not saying the gift is unlimited, need to save.

This is why growing biofuels may be "sustainable" but its not "greener". Why the heck manufacture biofuels from scratch including farming chemicals and energy use to distill and turn into liquids fuels? May have to due to gaso availablity but its not better compared to ready-made.

I don't even want to talk about shale oil (in Colorado) because most people don't know it exists. But you get +100 points for knowledge. That's is some really tough stuff if we ever go for it. I do not know energy balance compared to oil sands in Canada, but no one seems to be talking about it right now. Some will recall there was a big push to exploit Colorado oil shale in the late 1970's when everyone thought global oil supply would be depleted Year 2000. By early 1980's there was Black Friday when oil shale jobs (million jobs?) were shut down due to newly found cheap oil again.