Is an Energy Revolution at Hand?

This is a good deal for people with electric cars who get to drive for free. Maybe not such a good deal for whoever is paying for the "free" electricity. And it won't improve the air quality since 85% of the "free" electricity is from coal.

No facts, just innuendo. You are worse than they are.

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3

39% of power in the US is produced with coal (average) Where is the conclusion drawn from that 85% is from coal?

How is it free? I pay for my electricity. In fact, I subsidize the utility with high value peak production with a solar array I paid for.

I wish everyone would stop talking about using automotive technology to "improve air quality." When you buy a car, it is manufactured, and those environmental costs are significant, whatever the fuel. When you drive it, even with electricity, you are part of a cycle of producing greenhouse gas at it's best, and a host of other environmental and political disasters at it's worst. Maybe you are reducing the rate of destruction. But unequivocally, when you drive, you are not improving air quality.

39% of power in the US is produced with coal (average) Where is the conclusion drawn from that 85% is from coal?

From the article that they reference:

http://midwestenergynews.com/2015/07/24/chicago-summit-midwest-chomping-at-the-bit-for-energy-revolution/

"KCP&L gets 85 percent of its power from coal, meaning that the electric vehicles will still be carbon-intensive until more clean energy sources go online."

How is it free?

"The charging stations will be on the utility's side of the meter, meaning that the cost is picked up by ratepayers assuming that state regulators grant approval. Partners ranging from banks to grocery stores will actually buy the electricity from the utility, Bassham noted, and drivers will be able to charge their cars for free for at least the first two years of the project."

Like I said, it's free for the drivers, at least for the first two years.

It's all in the article.

"I wish everyone would stop talking about using automotive technology to "improve air quality." When you buy a car, it is manufactured, and those environmental costs are significant, whatever the fuel. When you drive it, even with electricity, you are part of a cycle of producing greenhouse gas at it's best, and a host of other environmental and political disasters at it's worst. Maybe you are reducing the rate of destruction. But unequivocally, when you drive, you are not improving air quality."

All points Rixter either made, or implied. Maybe you should read more carefully, before you state "You are worse than they are."

You don't make debate points by falsely accusing your opponent of a position he emphatically did not take.

Or did I misread you, and you are somehow in favor of the "Green-ness" of electric cars? Rixter certainly did not seem to buy into the clean, free energy claims.

I was supporting his claim that "green energy" does not reduce CO2. That is just an idiotic stance. You cannot reduce CO2 by producing CO2. Maybe, by supplanting one apparatus for another, over time, you will reach your reduced atmospheric CO2 goal.

His other premise is equally idiotic. (that's why using poor logic makes him as bad as they are) Electric cars do in fact many times (depending on the source of electricity) provide transportation that results in less CO2 production than gasoline or diesel vehicles, and equally relevant, even using electricity produced with coal, fewer toxic byproducts, both atmospheric and terrestrial. An improved electrical grid infrastructure would help this scenario immensely, as it would lower over-production of power in order to meet minimum demand. This is probably the greatest challenge. Like ozone, or toxic pesticides, or leaded gasoline, or cigarette smoke, or asbestos. You can deny it if you like, or recognize it and try to solve it.

US coal and gas fired electricity power stations have efficiency rates varying between 35% and 55%. Add power transmission losses of 4-7% and efficiency losses within the vehicle of 10-15% and you are consuming a lot of energy per mile to run a car that is CO² free at the point of use. Your argument also fails to take into account the CO² impact of replacement batteries. A typical 24Kw car battery needs replacing when its usable capacity drops to 16Kw. Nissan recently stated that it loses money on replacement batteries, so I must assume that the current loss leader price is being used to promote sales and will not be available when cars being sold now come to have their batteries replaced. Lithium-ion battery recycling yields 3% of the battery manufacturing costs in recovered lithium but slightly more in cobalt and nickle. Current technology only recovers 22% of the recycling cost. As a result batteries are not being recycled now nor will they be in the foreseeable future. Changes in battery chemistry to manganese or phosphate based batteries would make the economics of recycling worse. The proposal to reuse ex car batteries as home based or wind farm based buffer storage assumes that householders and power companies would be prepared to purchase second hand batteries when they have no idea of previous use/abuse of the battery meaning that it's remaining life is unpredictable.

Thank you for shedding light on murky subjects, and you have covered several.

I like your answer, for the depth of data it supplies, and the level of research it implies. I feel like I recognize your company name, and it seems to be one I associate with great integrity, and quality of work. Nonetheless, it would be useful to have reference material cited, so those of us who are harder to convince of the "rightness" of your statements could see for ourselves.

Can you cite such material? I FEEL like you are right in all of the implications of your statement, but that only makes it easier for me to believe you to be right. I would like to be able to authoritatively quote you.

35-55% US coal and gas fired power station efficiency, from data included in Fourth Assessment Report to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change via Penn State University web site.

4-7% transmission losses, US Environment Information Agency (EIA)

10-15% vehicle operating losses, Nissan published lab test report on Leaf Charging Efficiency. Charging efficiency when charging at 240volts 91% (Note this drops to 78% when charging at 120volts), plus a typical running efficiency of electric motor 95%

Nissan loses money on replacement batteries, quote from Jeff Kuhlman Nissan Vice President for Global Communications

3% lithium recovery, from an article by Aswin Kumar of Frost Sullivan automotive division

Variable residual life of old batteries affected by number and depth of discharge cycles, personal observation during 40 years as an electrical engineer

Thank you, and a GA from me. This is the kind of "back up data" which offers authoritative punch to arguments in favor of not legislating "green-ness" too quickly. When even the "greenies" (Nissan and the Leaf, others) cite less than stellar results, it certainly leaves individual "freedom of conscience", (and of budget) with the decision football firmly in hand.

And as to your last point, there may be those who would downplay your experience as a judgement factor, but I'd say 40 years is a good baseline. And, incidentally (or not) it matches my observations over the same period. And that is regardless of the breathless claims for wonderful new battery technologies. They DO improve, as I'm sure you've seen, also. But they don't seem to improve nearly as much as they are claimed to do so. And THAT shows up after the "early-adopters" have, once again, drunk the kool-aid.

Electric cars reducing "green house gases" is a complete fabrication--a myth. It is as much a myth as the science behind "green house gases". So whether we produce electricity by burning natural gas or coal, there will be no reduction in CO2. At issue is whether CO2 is a harmful gas. The real science says it is not harmful. The earth really is a black body radiator. It maintains itself at a zero energy state, relieving itself of excess heat energy by its rotation. CO2 is washed from the atmosphere by rain; it is transformed into O2 by photosynthesis and also used to make calcium carbonate by both fresh water and ocean water life forms. Fact is, crustaceans are able to "condense" CO2 into a very dense, compact form; CO2 is obliterated. Ever wonder how much limestone there is in the world, all formed from sea shells? Ever thought about how much more is being produced everyday in our oceans from atmospheric CO2?

Ever wonder how one would average temperatures all over the world, at any one time, much less over days/weeks/months/years? Depends much on how one measures it, doesn't it? And then, what algorithm one uses to average that data? Garbage in, garbage out. Make it read what one wants to. And.....ice is disappearing in the north pole........(but on the down-low, it is INCREASING at the south pole). Yes, I believe in climate CHANGE CYCLES. Oh, and one last thing......what ever happened to the growing OZONE HOLE at the poles all the environmentalists where so worried about in the 1990s??? Amazingly, it just STOPPED, didn't it?......When it got no traction by scientists and wealthy environmentalists.......

" So whether we produce electricity by burning natural gas or coal, there will be no reduction in CO2"

Rather convenient that you exempted nuclear, hydro, wind and solar from this fine analysis. I agree, however, that your statement is largely true, although devoid of useful information. Burning coal or natural gas will not reduce CO2 levels. Producing less CO2 and giving the black body time to regain balance will. We are out of balance due to our activities.

The issue is, of course, also about the additional noxious pollutants released during combustion and the environmental destruction wreaked by extraction.

It is not amazing that the ozone hole issue has improved. Try this http://www.businessinsider.com/antarctic-ozone-hole-is-healing-2015-5

I honestly agree that CO2 reduction should not be at the top of the 'green" movement. There is no doubt in my mind that it is a real phenomenon, It just seems that a far more pressing agenda is clean air and water, and an undamaged ecosystem capable of supporting the incredible diversity of life on Earth is more important. That is a pragmatic approach; a clean energy solution could get you both.

I didn't conveniently leave out nuclear, hydro, wind and solar. It just wasn't on-topic to mention it. Nuclear produces byproducts that take 1000s of years to mediate. Where is the "clean" energy in that? Hydro, wind and solar are maintenance nightmares. No free lunch. And solar cells have a hard time producing electricity at night, or didn't you know that? And producing all of these "free energy sources" produces a very large carbon footprint of their own, just to mine the minerals to manufacture them, transport them, and manufacture any finished product that produces all this "clean, free, renewable" energy. And exactly where is your evidence that there is any "heat buildup" going on in the world? As I said, "garbage in, garbage out". Temperature measurements are very easily manipulated. Exactly who says we need time for the earth to regain its supposed balance? I spent time (2 years) at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research facility in Bermuda. They have been measuring CO2 levels in air and ocean for over 50 years. Guess what? No measurable changes over the last 50 years. So, to say there is a temperature increase at all, attributable to CO2, is folly. So, if not from CO2, then where is the heat coming from? Fact: There is no increase in heat. Where there is a local cycle in heating, there is an offset cooling cycle elsewhere on the globe.

Welcome to CR4. Seems you have a noisy entrance crashing right into it.

You might find one or the other believer from the climate church here.

If you have not done it yet read some of the former posts on CR4. I think searching for "global warming" does the trick.

Good to get some first hand knowledge from the research base.

As said

Welcome to CR4.