How about electric cars?

[Fearless]

The US produces and uses 4.0682 trillion kwh/yr of electric energy. The new Telsa Roadster runs on a 53 kwh battery and lasts 245 miles. There are 243,023,485 passenger cars in the US.

If one in ten is replaced with a Telsa Roadster then the amount of energy for one 245 mile charge would be 1,288,024,470.5 kwh. (24,302,349 cars X 53 kwh = 1.288 billion kwh).

Likewise, the average number of miles a year that a driver drives is 12,000 miles. Of course we have to understand that not all 243 million cars on the road are driven that far, but it would be safe to assume that at least 10% of those are.

12,000 miles / 245 miles per charge = ~48.9796 charges per year (or roughly 49 charges/yr).

Therefore, 1,288,024,470.5 kwh X 49 charges = 63,113,199,054.5 kwh/yr or ~1.551% of the present total yearly production.

The problem arises however when more than that amount start using electric cars. If 100% of the population used them then 631,131,990,545 kwh/yr would be necessary or ~15.51% of our yearly production. This would cause the system to experience widespread brown and black outs.

Ways to remedy this... create a second power network solely for the powering of electric cars, use current infrastructure with minor adjustments and major add ons (costing undetermined billions to build new production stations) and / or make sure cars are only charged in off-hours, non-peak usage times (i.e. at night) but this in unenforceable unless the only place you can recharge your car will be at special stations (like gas stations) as to charge cars you would need special voltage anyways. This would be inconvenient at best. And during the summer power outages will still occur because air conditioner usage is still used at night in major cities. Regardless of the way it's done, we would have to find an inexpensive and non-bureaucratic way to transfer power between grids with need and grids with excess. And it has to be watched so that electric companies don't begin price fixing (it is debatable as to whether I should say continue to price fix, particularly on the west coast).

However, we also cannot be fooled that this would be a completely clean energy source. Electricity in the US comes from a variety of primarily non-renewable, carbon releasing sources:

49.1% (1.995 trillion kwh) comes from coal which releases energy at a rate of 2.1 pounds of coal per kwh or 4.1895 trillion pounds (2,094,750,000 short tons, US) of coal a year. And, coal releases an average of 2.86 short tons (2000 pounds in a short ton) of carbon dioxide per 1 short ton of coal expended. With 2,094,750,000 short tons of coal consumed each year, you will expect to emit 5,990,985,000 short tons of carbon dioxide a year already without adding on the new amount for the electric cars.

If coal will be burnt proportionally for the new energy demand for electric cars then: 63,113,199,054.5 kwh/yr X 49.1% = 30,988,580,700 kwh/yr by coal. This would add another

30,988,580,700 kwh/yr * 2.1 lbs/kwh * (1 short ton / 2000 lbs) * 2.86 short tons CO2/short ton coal = 93,058,707.8 short tons (186,117,415,600 pounds, that is: 186 billion pounds) of CO2 extra per year or about 1.55% more per year from coal.

If all cars, instead of just 10%, were to become electric then the following would be true:

930,587,078 short tons of extra CO2 (1,861,174,156,000 pounds, that is: 1.86 trillion pounds) or ~15.5% more by coal emissions than before from coal.

This number only describes the amount of CO2 released by coal however. Petroleum based combustion does make up 21.7% of the total used to create this nation's energy, but it comes in various forms (oil, diesel, natural gas, petroleum coke, and traces of others, which I'm sorry to say I don't have the patience to do all the math for, as each releases CO2 at different rates and each has different mitigating factors such as refining that I also don't want to tackle. It should also be mentioned that I do not account for the CO2 emission created by moving the coal to power plants or mining it in the first place, nor the potential heath hazards of doing so, nor the damage of strip mining on the environment (though it's not widely used).

-HOWEVER-

I must add two more statistics to this demonstration... The amount of carbon emission removed from the atmosphere by not burning fossil fuels in cars (as we are turning over to electric in this experiment).

Scenario: 100% turn over from gas cars to electric Telsa Roadsters (only).

World CO2 emissions each year is 27044Tg, and US emissions is 22% of that or 5,949,680,000,000,000 grams. 14% of US CO2 emissions came from cars. Totaling 918,175,938.5 short tons of CO2 (or 1,836,351,880,000 pounds, 1.84 trillion pounds) in 2006.

If all car owners turn to electric 2008 Telsa Roadsters then the amount of CO2 released will be 1,895,289,360 short tons extra by all electrical sources in proportion for cars in the US. (930,587,078 short tons C02 by coal * 100% of electricity / 49.1% by coal = 1,895,289,360 short tons of CO2 extra by all electrical sources in proportion for cars in the US.)

Therefore, the amount of CO2 emitted from cars TODAY, as we said, is 918,175,938.5 short tons. And the amount that would be released into the atmosphere if everyone traded in their cars for the 2008 electric Telsa Roadster (as described by the manufacturer) and they all worked at optimum conditions is 1,895,289,360 short tons of CO2. That is 977,113,422 short tons MORE CO2 per year. And, the byproducts of coal, heavy metals such as mercury, would also have to be dealt with care.

KEEP IN MIND HOWEVER
That there are cleaning processes that can keep much of the emissions that are coal related from entering the atmosphere. It works at a 80-90% efficiency rate, however it can cost up to 41% more energy to do so and cost the consumer up to 91% more money (up to 10 cents per kwh).


SO THERE YOU HAVE IT.

Make your own assumptions and please, if anyone finds something wrong in my math itself don't hesitate to tell me. I know I didn't cite properly, but the numbers are accurate as I saw them from online sources ranging from the DOT to Wikipedia to the US Census website. Honestly I don't feel after this like going back and finding them all again, I hope you understand.

Cheers,
NTF

[GaYellowDawg]

1. I'd like another number.

How many point sources of pollution would you have when going from all these gasoline-powered cars to coal-fired plants? I ask because it seems like it'd be a whole lot easier to come up with CO2 scrubbers for a few thousand coal plants than a few million cars.

[Kucinich4America]

3. Build your own solar power station

Even if you can't run your whole house on it, you could always wire it directly into your garage and power the car that way.

No gas emission. No coal emission.

[robinlynne]

6. In addition you can add a solar panel to the top of the car.

[Fearless]

4. I just readdressed that at the bottom in an edit

[Kucinich4America]

2. The old excuse is that "electric cars are all butt ugly"

That excuse is now officially DEAD.....



www.teslamotors.com

downside is that it ain't cheap. Hopefully the price would come down considerably if such a vehicle went into mass production.

[Fearless]

7. I wouldn't buy it for environmental reasons though... and I believe it has 248 horsepower

For $98,000 I'd buy something with a bit more kick.

[robinlynne]

5. No. Solar energy will easily power our electric cars and ALL the rest of our

energy needs. We don't need anymore coal-powered electricity. We only need a willing government.

[Fearless]

8. If you read it you'll see I came to a close conclusion

[wuushew]

9. Your math is off

First it would be better to find the carbon footprint of ONE car before multiplying by some larger population number.

If what you said is true the Tesla roadster if only powered by coal would have annual emissions in the ballpark of 2+ metric tons of CO2.



Go to the EPA's website to get a freely available mileage and carbon footprint figure for any recent car. You can specify any number for total mileage and mix of driving.


http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm




The average emission rates in the United States from coal-fired generation are: 2,249 lbs/MWh

http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/coal.htm

2.25 lbs of CO2 per kilowatt hour * 49 charges * 53 KWh = 5,843 lbs

[biermeister]

10. there are several problems to be solved

before we will see electric cars being used in any real numbers. The problems involve electricity production and distribution. We lose something like 6% of the electricity that is being produced just through t&d (transmission & distribution). In addition, we produce 60% of the electricity in this country from coal which pollutes as it is mined and burned. There is technology available to clean up the burning but there's not much effort being made to enforce the laws.

Rent the film "who killed the electric car". It really does a great job of telling the story of the EV-1.

Probably the biggest reason we're not seeing more progress with electric cars has to do with the people (corporations) that control our government. They make a shit load of cash from oil. Money talks and poor folks walk.

[robinlynne]

11. several corrections: Electric cars can run on regular old standard electricity.

One was built from a Prius in just a few hours at the recent LA car show. It plugs into any standard household plug.
Another: tesla is a sports car, using much more power than any other electric car, so it shouldn't really be the standard used. Most of us will never be able to afford a tesla anyway. better to use EV-1 as a standard, for
example.

Also, the amount of electricity used to charge the battery is tiny. I don't know where you got your measurements from, maybe from Tesla, but if you go to plug-in america.com or can get the actual amounts of electricity needed to power an average electric car. It comes out to approximately 3 pennies worth of electricity per the amount of power created by one gallon of gasoline. That being the case, there is no way that 3 cents worth of electricity creates more pollution than burning one gallon of gas. Even if it were from coal, which is not what any of us want. Obviously switching from coal to solar, and to a lesser extent wind, is the way of the future.


In other words, electric cars using solar power = NO carbon emissions. 0. nada.
except for those needed to build the solar panels and the cars, which I'm sure are comparable to those used to build gas stations and cars today.

[Tesha]

14. Horsepucky.

> It comes out to approximately 3 pennies worth of electricity
> per the amount of power created by one gallon of gasoline.

Horsepucky. A gallon of gasoline contains the equivalent
of far, far more than 3 cents worth of electricity; the
last time I did the math, it was more like $1.00 - $1.50.

Tesha

[robinlynne]

15. http://www.pluginamerica.org/

A 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV will travel 100 miles on 30 kWh of electricity. At 10 cents per kWh, this is $3.00.
from FAQ on the front page of pluginamerica

[Tesha]

17. FYI: That supports *MY* number.

Follow it through; that supports *MY* number.

A typical bitty Toyota will get about 33-40 highway MPG
so will consume 3 gallons of gas. So if the electricity
costs $3.00, that's the equivalent of about $1.00 gallon.

Only in my area, electricity *DOESN'T* cost $0.10/KWH,
it costs about $0.16/KWH. So that makes electricity the
equivalent of $1.60/gallon gas. Still a winner, but not
the panacea people talk about. Now if the electricity
were from entirely-green sources...

Tesha

[robinlynne]

16. actually it comes out to 2 or 3cents of electricity per mile, not per gallon.

which does not change what I said at all. The point is, no it does not create as much pollution from electricity as the gas creates, EVEn if you were to use coal-powered electricity.

[Tesha]

18. It's likely that a hybrid car creates less CO2 than a coal-fired power plant.

> actually it comes out to 2 or 3cents of electricity
> per mile, not per gallon which does not change what
> I said at all.

I'm amused that you think that a factor of 50 mathematical
error (for a 50 MPG car) doesn't affect your point, but
I'll gladly let that go ;).

But it's likely that a hybrid car creates less CO2 than a
coal-fired power plant.

The point at which electric cars *WILL* make sense
is the point where all electricity comes from renewable
or nuclear sources. But a lot (most?) of my electricity
still comes from coal which makes an electric car a
somewhat-dubious trade-off for me. (The rest of my
electricity comes from nuclear and hydro sources.)

Tesha

[Saturday]

12. Google "plasma waste converter"

We can power electric cars with our garbage!!!!

[juanapm1]

13. The Air Car Not a Joke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

[lectrobyte]

19. Thanks for the numbers. I've been thinking about oil depletion, and

definitely think electric cars are in our future, assuming we don't fall into something like this:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/