ETA says plug-in cars could "speed climate change" unless we get off coal

[wtmusic]

"Think that plugging in your vehicle will protect the earth? Sure, this was the message that EPRI and the NRDC sent following a 2008 study that found that, if 60 percent of the U.S. fleet of light vehicles converted to plug-ins by 2050, CO2 emissions would drop by 450 million metric tons annually (the same as taking 82 million cars off the road) while electricity consumption would increase only eight percent.

Not everyone is convinced that plugs are the answer. The Environmental Transport Association in the UK, for example, believes that switching to electric cars could increase the rate of climate change, depending on how the electricity is created."

http://green.autoblog.com/2009/11/11/eta-says-plug-in-cars-could-speed-climate-change-unless-we-get/

If your electricity is created exclusively from coal this could very well be true, but there is a subtext to this study which has nothing to do with climate change: roadside repair, which is ETA's biggest business (electric vehicles have a fraction of the maintenance needs of IC cars).

http://www.eta.co.uk/breakdown

[TheWraith]

1. The ETA is wrong.

Studies have been done showing that even drawing off coal, EVs are cleaner.

[abqmufc]

5. I think many miss a bigger point....

I won’t counter the argument you all bring up….they seem good and well thought out. My biases towards POVs keep me away from some of the data.

However, I personally feel you all are missing a larger issue I see the ETA stating (and many more).

This is plug in hybrids are not a viable option for clean energy and curbing pollution if a Nation’s main source of energy is coal. This is something I firmly believe, and have worked on this specific issue for over 5 years. I have heard the US automaker reps and foreign automakers (Toyota and Honda) say at the EPA’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee meetings (public meetings, public record) that for a coal based country w/o strong controls coal powered cars could increase air pollution. (Toyota has a PP on the EPA’s website (type EPA Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, then on the page, click past meetings and find all sorts of PP’s you all would love to see).

According to the site I’ve listed (a DOE site), the US has “based on U.S. coal consumption for 2008, the U.S. recoverable coal reserves represent enough coal to LAST 234 YEARS.”!!!! This is at current use.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves

According to a similar U.S. DOE website “the US share of oil consumption for transportation is 71%.”
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_home#tab2 (data and statistics tab)

Of course 71% probably includes jet fuel, and other transpiration methods that don’t come into our discussion on POV’s.

But the point is folks if we have less than 250 years of coal and we shift somewhere near 40 to 50% of our oil dependency from oil to coal (for our cars), then we will run out of coal in half of 250 years…or 125 years. Add in the current rise of coal use due to natural population/demand increase…….well I hope you began to see POVs that use coal is not the answer. I don’t know what is….but I don’t like the switch to nuclear due to the costs we don’t discuss (storage, mining, transportation).

We need to hold off on POVs until more options for our power grid are available I feel. In the meantime invest in better pollution control measures for your car. I myself put a new exhaust system on a 1983 Nissan pickup and a new engine. The past 3 years since doing that, I have registered 0 for air pollution when I go through NM’s DMV annual exhaust test (done yesterday). I also put a new engine in, with all that I have 0 emission and 25 mpg (in town/ 35 on highway) pickup truck that is over 25 years old! Why would I want your new car that will pollute more (b/c the coal fired power plants in my neck of the woods are the worst in the country) than my truck currently does? In addition the total cost was half that of a new car.

We are not thinking this one clearly through. If we gave most Americans a check to fix their car we would drastic improvements in air quality (less exhaust) and better gas mileage. I know I did this. The state of AZ did this for older cars that failed emissions. You go to a mechanic listed/approved by the city of Tucson. You pay the first $250 and the pay up to the next $1500 to fix you car so that it can pass an emissions test! From beginning to end, I spent half what a POV would cost. I got a 7 year warranty (70,000 miles) on my engine….so I also have the peace of mind someone has with a new car. But I also know what I did is probably better than buying new car.

[abqmufc]

6. Toyota PP found

Please note the slide titled "Clean Power is essential". "The advantage is big in France where nuclear power generation is common. There is no advantage in China, which mainly uses coal-fired power plants." Of course USA is left out b/c this is a public meeting of a federal government Advisory Committee meeting to the EPA. But look at the graph of energy production (clean) US is right next to China as the second worse!

This is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. POVs push the pollution from your tailpipe to the "other end of your wall outlet". In most cases that "other end" is a smoke stack of an electrical generating unit that burns very dirty coal. It is a plant that is under regulating and spew of GHG, Nox, Sox, Co2, Hg, and so many more pollutants.

As I like to say we've just created the "not in my tailpipe" bumper sticker to come into play (LOL).

How is this today, a better option? (povs) Until we address clean power plants, POVs are ahead of their time!

http://www.epa.gov/air/caaac/pdfs/2008_09_Toyota.pdf


Next we can discuss the battery. Yes you can say "in the future the battery will be better/smaller". And to that I say "TODAY you can convert your current gasoline car/truck to a car that runs on Natural Gas. Your car will get the same mileage on one gallon that your POV gets on one charge. You car can hold a lot more than one gallon of NG. One battery weighs 100s of pounds and currently takes up your trunk. TODAY a gallon of NG weights less than 20lbs and will be stored where your gas tank currently is (thus you have your trunk back)." The air quality betwee a POV and NG is about the same.

[kristopher]

7. The use of coal is temporary

The goal is the end of a carbon based economy at all levels. How fast this can be done is a political question more than it is a technological or economic question. We can do it technologically and we can do it with a strong positive net economic benefit. The trouble is the change will create many losers who are now very, very powerful. Estimate the value of the coal in the ground and imaging that you own it to get an idea of how motivated those who do own it are.

As to the coal issue specifically the 234 year number you cite is widely used, but it is also widely known to be false. At current use rates with current extraction technologies, we have about 50 years worth of coal that it is economically feasible to extract. The rest is in narrow, hard to mine seams that will cost much, much more to mine.

This issue has been examined closely by a wide variety of independent analysts, and this paper summarizes the conclusions that these non-biased researchers find.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[abqmufc]

8. I get that but thats a GOAL not NOW.....

I am say lets look at now.

NOW we can....
Tax breaks to fix your car to get a new exhaust system (and better for older cars, than stock) and improve MPG. (Pima Country AZ did this back n the late 90s via Clean Air Grant from EPA Region 9)

Convert your current gas car to a NG. Pros no battery (as the battery brings up many issues currenlty - weight, size, disposal); 1gallon of NG = current Miles per batter charge (I state current, I understand the theory of batteries will get better)....or plant based, recycled fuels. (point is why buy a new car? clean up the car you have)

Put the money that is now used for POVs and put it to cleaning up our current energy sources, while we continue to move forward on new energy.

My point still stands unless we have clean energy now....why are we pushing POVs now? Chicken ort he egg?

We are too hung up on MPG when we should be worried about what comes out of the tailpipe.

If a car get 10 MPG but runs on vegtable oil (a pretty replenishable resource) and burns 100% "clean" then who cares what the MPG is?

[Statistical]

10. What is your definition of "burns clean"

1) No fuel source is 100% clean.
2) All hydrocarbon based fuels release CO2 in combustion.

[abqmufc]

12. Agreed but why get into the debate?

Don't we agree that Best Availble Control Technology (BACT) is not used to its fullest ability on our cars, trucks and power plants?

How often does one change a muffler or cat converter on a car in its lifetime? We should as we all get many benefits from doing this.


Yes everything has a "cost".....but gong down a road of POVs hooked on coal today is not (IMO) better than fixing the cars we have today to run cleaner UNTIL we develop the answer we are all looking for.

The numbers show if we do a market shift in 5 to 10 years time (even 20) to POVs for the masses...and not fix the coal issue. We will be out of coal in my lifetime. I am 38.

[Statistical]

16. My last attempt.

"but gong down a road of POVs hooked on coal today is not (IMO) better than fixing the cars we have today to run cleaner "

The cleanest hybrid vehicle getting 50+ mpg STILL emits more CO2 per mile than an EV powered 100% by coal.

There is no way to overcome that massive inefficiencies in internal combustion engines. None.

Internal Combustion Engine will ALWAYS emit more CO2 than electric vehicles even powered by coal. The longer we delay the switch the more we dump millions and millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Using our current grid and current mpg of vehicles. If tomorrow we magically replaced every single car on the road (from Prius to Hummer) with an EV we would cut CO2 emissions by autos in half (0.63 pounds per mile to 0.32 pound per mile).

That is with current technology and current mixture of power sources.

[abqmufc]

18. Thanks.

I appreciate the discussion. You bring up good points. I don't agree with all.

The combustion engine is bad. Agreed. I wonder if your numbers on car's are with "stock" parts? One can do alot with new "fuel effienct" products (again muffler, cat convertor) as they also catch more of the pollution than stock (in addition to improving MPG). I know we can improve a combustion engines air quality. One only needs to look at the Diesel retro-fit program the EPA is doing. (I work on this project often with tirbal nations)

We can clean up a combustion engine and we've not done that to the extent we should be doing. Older fleets, airport vehicles, ship yard vehilces are all part of this as is generators (stationary and non-stationary sources). But industry doesn't want you to clean up an old engine (at least not nation wide) as that would keep the blue collar employed (the mechanic) not the Boys on Wall Street (IE: Detriot). If one buys new, sure a assembly line keeps jobs...but how many machines versuses man do that this days? When we buy new, don't need mechanics b/c of warranties. I'd really love to see the numbers of how many people (blue collar) keep a job if we "save Detriot" versuses how many mechanics can we employ (over the next 5 years) if we follow my idea?

again I argue the the numbers as where I live, I have at least 5 of the dirtiest 25 coal plants in a 500 to 750 mile radius....and in that 500 miles nothing else but federal land, tribal land...some call it "nothing". I call it home...and I see the impact of dirty coal plants and the nuclear industry.

I just say the EV today is a BETA VCR wait 5 years and follow the suggestions I've given to hold you over with the car you have.

cheers.

[wtmusic]

20. What impact do you see from the nuclear industry? nt

[abqmufc]

22. Posted that one before...but here are some books.

"If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans" ~ Peter H. Eichstaedt

Is a great book discussing the impacts of Uranium mining and the Navajo (and Pueblos) Nation and the problems of DC based compensation policies (marriage cert, death cert, english only forms (many speak Navajo only). Today well over 100 uranium tailings pile exist on Navajo land still w/o any concern b/c its Indian land. We've lost a generation of men and women on reservations due to the impacts of mining. Kids are sick, animals are sick.

Many more books on that issue. Too many to list, Amazon has many.

Yucca Mtn. and WIPP the two storage facilities are in the SW, both flawed in the science of their safety. Yucca (now a dead deal we hope) is a dormant volcano on a fault line and sacred to over 10 tribes. WIPP is a salt flat in S. NM.

Transportation of waste - 90% of all nuclear waste will go through tribal lands and less populated areas. Rail lines will be used. Places like Albuquerque and Flagstaff we will have the waste go right through town and the tracks don't detour. Risk assesments assure us a major spill during shipments to long term storage facility. 1 out 10 trains will carry nuke waste through flagstaff at peak transport times. Flagstaff in 2000 (when I last lived their) got over a 100 trains a day running through town. Over 10 trains a day in the middle of town carrying nuke waste.

Much of the uranium in the SW is either on tribal lands or federal lands. Lots of its near the Grand Canyon and Monuments in S. UT. Private land holdings by folks with the last name of Babbit want to mine again....so we risk the potential pollution of places like Coyote Buttes, Verminllon Cliffs, Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Grand Canyon, Mt. Taylor, on and on.

we have cancer clusters in places like Gallup, Shiprock, Churck Rock. We have wells in places like Churck Rock, NM where tribal members cannot drink the water b/c of uranium poisioning.

Also Albuquerque, NM aquifer (public water supply) sits below Kirkland AF base and Sandia Lab. The Labs nuclear waste dump will leach into the aquifer within a decade according to state hydrologists.

so really how is nuclear clean?


In the northwest we have Hanford Nuclear site in Washington. 2 tribes were kicked off their land to build this nuke facility. 12 tribes called that land home for hunting and had treaty rights....now that land is poisoned, destroyed from the years of nuclear spill and leaking into the Columbia River.

It goes on and on.

Yucca Mountain (storage), the mining, the transportation, Sandia Labs, Los Alamos Labs, WIPP....the southwest was labeled a desert wasteland by the US government in the 50s and would be used b/c nobody cared at that time it was only tribes. Today its home to major US cities like Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, and gems like Santa Fe, Sendona, Durango, Telluride, and Taos.

Type in american indian tribes nuclear (legacy) in an internet search....you'll get a lot of info.

[wtmusic]

25. Actually I was more interested in what you had personally seen

and internet links...

On DU suggesting someone else purchase books on Amazon or do an "internet search" is asking them to do your work for you.

Everyone's responsible for backing up their own POV or...it don't mean a thing.

[abqmufc]

30. sure...here

First, yeah I get the whole "if we don't hand feed it to DU'ers, then its considered BS." But really? Are we that lazy that we (ourselves) can't verify ourselves? It isn't asking you to do my work (that I am offended by)....I am asking you to see what I've spent $90,000 on getting a Master's degree and 12 hours short of a PhD in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. I just can't hand you my thesis as its at NAU and you need a password to access the library achives....plus I'd like to keep my name out of it.

Crap I spent years researching, I've given you the best book on the subject (and by saying Amazon, I've given you a place to read a review or two and view the first couple pages...in short Amazon is an easy place to verify the book's info). I am asking you (and all) to not read what I write, but to search the things I talk about. I trust someone more when they give info for me to search out, rather than spoon feed it.........

What I have seen:

I have seen a radioactive handheld meter go crazy during dust storms outside Gallup, Grants, and Monument Valley b/c of radioactive dust. This is a result to unattended tailings pile.

I have seen horses, sheep, cows, rotted from the inside out b/c the water they drank out of the Rio Puerco (home to the worst US nuclear accident) River and other sources is so contaminated from uranium and other metals from uranium mining. (a great picture of this is in "Ecocide of Native Americans" pg 202)

I have seen a Navajo (and Pueblo) man/woman who lost their wife, husband, grandfather, grandmother, child, grandchild b/c of a cancer that we know (but can't prove due to lack of funding from IHS) was due to a poorly managed nuclear industry on tribal lands.

I have seen an entire community have to ship water 100 miles b/c they can't drink their well water.


"In February 1978, however, the Department of Energy released a Nuclear Waste Management Task Force report that said that people living near the tailings ran twice the risk of lung cancer of the general population. The Navajo Times carried reports of a Public Health Service study asserting that one in six uranium miners had died, or would die prematurely, of lung cancer. For some, the news came too late. Esther Keeswood, a member of the Coalition for Navajo Liberation from Shiprock, N.M., a reservation city near tailings piles, said in 1978 that the Coalition for Navajo Liberation had documented the deaths of at least fifty residents (including uranium miners) from lung cancer and related diseases."......


INFO on the worst nuclear accident in the US - Navajo Nation.

" Thanks to its location between the United States' media capital, New York City, and its political capital, Washington, D.C., as well as the coincident opening of the movie "The China Syndrome," Three Mile Island was America's best-publicized nuclear accident. It was not the largest such accident.
The biggest expulsion of radioactive material in the United States occurred July 16, 1979, at 5 a.m. on the Navajo Nation, less than 12 hours after President Carter had proposed plans to use more nuclear power and fossil fuels. On that morning, more than 1,100 tons of uranium mining wastes -- tailings -- gushed through a packed-mud dam near Church Rock, N.M. With the tailings, 100 million gallons of radioactive water gushed through the dam before the crack was repaired.
By 8 a.m., radioactivity was monitored in Gallup, N.M., nearly 50 miles away. The contaminated river, the Rio Puerco, showed 7,000 times the allowable standard of radioactivity for drinking water below the broken dam shortly after the breach was repaired, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The few newspaper stories about the spill outside of the immediate area noted that the area was "sparsely populated" and that the spill "poses no immediate health hazard."
Since 1950, when a Navajo sheepherder named Paddy Martinez brought a strange-looking yellow rock into Grants, New Mexico from nearby Haystack Butte, the area boomed with uranium mining. Grants styled itself "the Uranium Capital of the World," as new pickup trucks appeared on the streets and mobile-home parks grew around town, filling with non-Indian workers. For several years, before the boom abruptly ended in the early 1980s, many workers in the uranium industry made $60,000 or more a year. The local newspaper displayed an atomic logo, and blamed the publicity that followed the spill on "Jane Fonda and the anti-nuclear weirdos have scared the hell out of people . . ."

quotes from this site.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/UraniumInNavLand.html

[wtmusic]

39. I don't want to read your whole thesis

What I would like to read is selected excerpts from it that back up your point of view.

Did you also ask faculty to "verify themselves" what you'd written in your master's thesis? Did you refer them to Amazon to read the first pages of books you had referenced? Didn't think so. That's not the way it works there, it's not the way it works here. I'm sorry you're offended by it.

All this to say I'm not even doubting your POV. I've lived for twenty years within a mile of an EPA superfund site in CA and I've seen the gross negligence and corruption that goes on when it comes to cleaning these messes up. I attended a hearing once and stood up and asked how much vinyl chloride their cleanup plan would put into the air. They not only wouldn't answer my question, but they surrounded me gangster-style after the hearing and demanded to know my name and address. I told them to fuck off I didn't live in the Soviet Union (it was 1987).

What you have seen, to me, is valuable information - because eyewitness accounts are not always available in research. Not always credible either, but often are. I searched Wikipedia and got http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation which confirms most of what you're saying, but in general if you specifically source all secondhand information you post here you'll get a lot less grief about it.

[abqmufc]

24. Websites

DINE CARE (citizens against ruining our environment
http://www.dinecare.org/

Institue for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona University
http://www4.nau.edu/itep/
They are the institue who did the study in Church Rock, NM (Navajo Nation) on the water contamination. I was out there last week.

National Tribal Environmental Council (NTEC)
www.ntec.org (contact them)

Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)
http://www.ienearth.org/
Tom Goldtooth will talk to you for hours on the impacts of the uranium industry and tribes, not just in the SW.

National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)
www.ncai.org
Look through the resolution part and search nuclear, uranium and see all the resolution's soverign tribal nations have passed on the issue.


So please, when you put a "n/t" on my comments, note I speak the truth.

[abqmufc]

26. More

Citizen Action to Clean up Albuquerque's nuclear dump (great site)
http://www.radfreenm.org/

Moab (UT) nuclear dump site
http://venturacountytrails.org/News/0038-MoabWaste/NewsPage.htm

Info on proposed mine at Acoma Pueblo (60 west of ABQ, NM)
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/10/winona-laduke-acoma-uranium-forum.html

Info on Jackpile mine, Laguna Pueblo the once largest open pit uranium mine.
http://www.wman-info.org/photogallery/newmexicominephotos/jackpilemine/view


Need more??????

[wtmusic]

27. Yes, I need more.

"I call it home...and I see the impact of dirty coal plants and the nuclear industry."

What impacts of the nuclear industry have you personally seen?

[abqmufc]

33. Let me ask you this...

What do you want? I've given you sites to visit a book to look at. Spend 10 minutes to view yourself.

I am 38 I am white, I've lived in NM for 5 years, before that AZ for 15. The nuke industry closed up in this area before i arrived. However, it is about the begin again. I see the left over impacts (tailings, an aquifer for a million people about to be polluted b/c uranium dumps). B.c I work with tribes on a daily basis on environmental issues, I see what they see, but they have lived it.....I am lucky. But if I live here the rest of my life then the risk is greater for me (cancer and other health related issues linked to exposure).

Furthermore, we can't see it all......with places like Sandia Lab and Los Alamos Lab its impossible to know what goes on due to national security. But here is my final story. In July 2000, I worked for the US Forest Service as a hotshot (firefighter) out of N. AZ (Peaks Ranger Dist). We were called to the Cerro Grande Fire in N. NM, near Los Alamos National Laboratory. Upon arriving to the fire all personal signed a form waiving all rights to anything that may happen to them while fighting the fire or any health related issue that may be a result from fighting this fire. The choice was walk home or sign and work (and get paid). I signed.

The fire did cross onto the base and we fought the fire as sniper hide in the bushes (if we crossed a line we were subject to being shot...so the sign said). I saw every color flames you can imagine. Why? B/c the nuclear waste piles burned, the tress absorbed the waste from the piles over the past 50 years and when they burned they burned the radioactivity they had absorbed.

All state and federal air monitors where shut down during that fire. Only the Taos Pueblo kept their air monitors running (tribal sovereignty). During that fire, their monitors picked up all kinds of radioactive waste, hard metals and stuff to this day they are still looking and finalizing the data, and fighting a possible lawsuit by the lab and DOE/DOD if they release the data.

That is the worse thing I have seen the destruction of 48,000 acres most of which had absorbed nuclear waste from the labs.

Cerro Grande Fire-nice pics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Grande_Fire


http://www.sric.org/voices/2000/v1n1/Los_Alamos_Fire.html
Southwest Research and Information Center

[abqmufc]

9. 50 year - 100 years...how about 5 years.

I aprreciate your comments on the coal. I agree what I offered are conservative, but when you sit in a meeting with Duke Energy, US automakers, Pork Assoc, American Lung Assoc, EPA, and more, even the US government numbers can be a great resource! It
s also hard for anyone to argue those numbers...the 50years number is not so easy to prove.

Your number (50 years) would mean....if we all shift to POVs in 5 to 10 years time....we could be out of coal in 15 years due to the increase in demand create by many cars being fuled by a coal fired power plant. Can we make a complete shift from coal to......(name it) in that amount of time? I say no.

So I urge folks to look at cleaning up the big sources (coal power plants) and with repsect to our cars.....go to you mechanic and get a tune up or better....its the best we can do. you don't need a new car, just new parts for the car you have.

When I was about 10 years old, my family got its first VCR. Probably the first on the block as my dad worked for NASA. However, while it still worked great 5 years later...it was a dead technology as it was a BETA VCR. That gathered dust as did the government issed laser disc player we had.

POVs when powered by coal EGUs are not better than the laser disc and BETA VCR of the early 1980s imperefect and outdated before they hit the shelf.

We need to figure out a 5 year plan and have it be real...that plan seems to me fix what we have while we research something better. The POV is something Detriot had when they didn't have to foucs on the issue. Wait 2 years and focus on R&D and see what we get.....it will be light years above what the POVs is right now.

[kristopher]

19. Based on the time required to ramp up

Based on the time required to ramp up production of weapons platforms (planes, tanks, ships etc) during WWII we COULD replace all coal within about 10 years with off the shelf renewable technologies.

The 50 year supply is easily proven and a well known limitation to energy analysts. You have accessed different information. You've looked at raw resource, not information on economic limitations related to the quantity of coal available via mountaintop removal and other extraction techniques.

It's the difference between a professional level of understanding on a topic and talking with your buddies over a beer about something that you read about in the paper. No insult intended but the replies you've received here are true.

Think of it this way; the government money for this transition is seed money that is meant to have much more impact than it would if spent on directly buying carbon reduction technologies. If they do it right, for every dollar the government spends, there will be hundreds (if not thousands) of private dollars spent doing the same thing. So while your suggestions *might* result in some short term reductions in CO2e emissions, they will not 'prime the pump' to pull private investment into the technologies that will effect the really huge scale of change we MUST have.

[abqmufc]

23. trust me the feds don't accept 50 years of coal.

Maybe. I don't think keeping your old car and working on it is the best idea long term idea. But i do think its smarter to that now, wait 5 years to buy a new vehicle once we've actually committed some R&D to new car ideas. The current PEV is not the answer. I mean look at what the EU has bersus the US currently on the market we (US market) are so far behind.

While the 50 years is a good number to you....it was laughed at by many appointed officials in the EPA (last month) when it was discussed in the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee meetings. So many don't accept it, so I use a more conservative (US goverment) number, either way we agree there seems to be less coal than most other resources.

Yes in the past our nation and the world has proven it can solve great problems fast. But having worked in the public policy side of climate change for nearly a decade, I don't see things moving that fast. What I see most policy makers talking about (including in EPA) is technology that has been on the shelf since before GW came into office. They (Detroit, EPA) have dusted it off and said "hey here is something new" yet its not....its flawed to a point that I don't think it really solve much long term, so why invest in it?

Rather it just makes you go out and buy something new, and when they perfected the flaws in 5 years....you will go out and buy another one. What is the carbon footprint of the desposible society who swap out a car all the time?

[AtheistCrusader]

28. Nah. Not even.

So, I have a 1971 Volkswagen Bug. Pretty basic right? Through the power of science and sweat, it can be improved. For instance, it's current state is as follows:

71 bug pan. 73 bug body. 78 bus transmission. 82 rabbit watercooled 1.8l. 84 fox brakes and radiator.
And some other interesting mods.


I'm fully prepared to rip out and sell or recycle all the fossil fuel dependent components in my 2006 nissan frontier, with EV components, as soon as it is practical. I will gut it with a torch and a sledge, because there is no point throwing away the body, safety systems, frame, or anything else. I will make it work.

We can do a lot with the autos we already have, more than just 'tuning them up' a bit. I've even seen a bug running off a pile of car batteries and an electric motor, done deal, fully converted. It's not sexy. It only gets around town. Doesn't even reach freeway speeds, and the charging systems are pretty inefficient, but it's something. Better than what it was.

Edit: Also, the extra demand on coal fired power systems to charge a fully electric auto fleet for the entire country, is a lot less than you think. Unfortunately I think it would be so light, we will be somewhat discouraged to find a better source than coal, because coal will last a long, long time, and the pollution and mining side effects will remain largely ingnored until the undeniable reality of scarcity actually appears.

[Warren Stupidity]

38. great post!

And indeed, and once again, the problem is the kleptocracy in washington not technical issues or economic costs. We are stuck in a rut and the professional befuddlers are doing their well funded best to keep us there.

[Statistical]

11. Wrong.

"This is plug in hybrids are not a viable option for clean energy and curbing pollution if a Nation’s main source of energy is coal."

This is 100% wrong.

Our current power grid emits about 1.3 pounds of CO2 per kwh generated. This is our current grid, with current mixture of energy sources, and current technology.

One gallon of gasoline burned will produced 20 pounds of CO2. It doesn't matter who clean or unclean it is. It doesn't matter the mpg or size of vehicle. If you combust 1 gallon of gasoline you will emit 20 pounds of CO2.

EV gets about 3-5 miles per kwh so using current energy grid that is about 0.26 to 0.43 pounds per mile.
At 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon you would need to get 43mpg to 76 mpg to produce equals amounts of CO2 in internal combustion engine.
Even 100% coal powered electric vehicles are substantially cleaner than average internal combustion engine.

How can this be?
Internal combustion is insanely inefficient.
Tank to wheel efficiency for ICE is about 12% = 12% of fuel burned produces work the other 88% is wasted.
Battery to wheel efficiency for EV is in the 80%-94% range.
Gasoline can never overcome that

You keep talking about no pollution, and emission testing. You are aware that your emission testing doesn't even measure CO2 right. You can't combust gasoline or diesel (or natural gas, or propane) without producing CO2. It is impossible.

[abqmufc]

13. coal is still burning dirty from the source with an EV in todays system of doing things

If EV sources is coal and we dont' clean up coal power plants (and we are not at the rate techology has developed) then why not Natural gas in the car you have?

It's all I ask.

Yes when we are a solar/wind/coal/et/etc mixture then povs might work...but right now the masses burn coal for energy in this country and thus we will run out of coal too quick with a EV today.

[Statistical]

14. Natural gas internal combustion is STILL emits far more CO2 than dirtiest coal plant.

Hypothetically if right now we destroyed every non coal plant, burned nothing but 100% coal to power EV it would STILL emit less CO2 than internal combustion engines gasoline, diesel, or natural gas.

Of course nobody is suggesting that but your belief that coal powered electric vehicles is worse than internal combustion vehicles is 100% wrong.

[abqmufc]

17. interesting if true

That's interesting if ture. I'd love something to back up the theory. I'll look as well.

If it's true then it just leads us to the bigger probelm we run out of coal (the current dominat source of energy) not only for EV's but for our TV, Xbox, fridge, all other things we get our power from. I agree get rid of the combistion engine. But for me not for the current Ev's, something is better....something yet developed but somehting we could develop in 2 to 5 years time and get on the streets. So I say, do that develop something better, and in the meantime keep what you have (as a consumer)and fix it. Instead of the government focusing on checks for EVs/hybrids with the problems they have (battery size, weight, length), checks for a new muffler, cat converter, tuneup, tires, etc. and the rest of the money to clean up the nation's dirtiest power plants. You'd be amazed at what you can do today when you purchase a high flow muffler, and high flow cat convertor, air filter, fuel efficent tires, and sometimes even a brand new engine.

You have to realize I started by saying many solutions exist. Regional approaches is the answer (IMO), and please look at the region of the Colorado Plateau. Look at the number of "dirty coal plants" there are in my neck of the woods (Albuquerque, NM)Mojave, San Juan, proposed Desert Rock. The first two were exempt from the Clean Air Act! So burning more coal at my source for my home/car is not a good idea until they put the scrubbers on that the rest of the country has.....let alone what technology right we should be having on (as the Act requirement is way behind the technology we have)

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Most of my power is hydroelectric.

Dunno what you're doing wrong. ;)

[abqmufc]

34. no water in NM.....

and we don't get power from the dams on the Colorado River. We get our power (as I said) in New Mexico from the dirtiest coal fired power plants in the USA, two of which where grandfathered into the CAA and thus are not regulated under the Act!

Rio Grande can't even hold a boat let alone a hydro damn. Besides on the CO, the Glen Canyon dam has half the life they thought b/c of silt build up. More of a push in the West to deconstruct dams than build. Also know in ME dams are going down, not up.

[AtheistCrusader]

44. Yeah, some environmental groups want to breach our dams

for certain species of fish, so basically we have low/no carbon emission environmentalists getting ready to knife fight the salmon protection and other forms of environmentalists.

Meanwhile, the global climate change deniers are laughing at us.


I'd like to see an expansion of the dams here, with fish ladders and other measures to protect the native fish species, and ban human fishing of these species to compensate. Then see where we are. Hydro has a large carbon investment up front (making concrete), and then pretty much nada from then on.

[AtheistCrusader]

31. Natural gas is a lot less efficient, for one.

If your car gets 20mpg on gas, it's going to get less on NG. Certainly has on every dual-fuel vehicle I've ever driven. NG just has a lower density, so you get less energy out of it. You can see the same thing with NG versus Propane or LP/LPG, on home Generac generators. A 13kw generator only gets 13kw on Propane, and really gets around 10k-11k on NG.

[abqmufc]

35. Not what I've heard.

I'll look this up but i recall on EPA's site they would state not so. I have heard "you get the same mileage out of one battery charge (on a PEV, which is what 50 miles right now) that you get from one gallon of natural gas, and you can hold a lot more than one gallon of NG in your car."

NG gets more mileage than gasoline and more than a PEV b/c NG weighs less and you can carry more than one gallon.

Even if it doesn't get better mileage.....is mileage or emissions the issue? I saw emission not MPG. If the fuel is renewable (hemp, plants) then who cares the MPG. We need to clean the air. We care about MPG b/c our fuel right now is so dirty we want to burn less.

From the site below, the number (MPG) is less than I say but more than you say.
http://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/f78/why-i-love-my-natural-gas-vehicle-23109/

[abqmufc]

15. zero emission according to NM DMV levlels which....

of course only care if your car is in the limit of "clean". For a 1982 truck to register for 3 years running (after the mods I did) is damn impressive (as all have said at DMV, EPA (that i've talked to) and my mechanic). So you are right my car pollutes...but it pollutes lower than the level of most cars on the road that (like the new subaru) are "practically zero emissions". So $25,000 for a new subbie or a total of $6,000 for the same thing from a 1982 truck?

the point is why are why not telling folks to tune up the car, change a muffler and keep your local mechanic employed....while it won't save Detriot (what has so far) it will save your mechanic. A new car puts him out of work b/c of a 10 yr warranty.

Think about it.

thanks.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. I'm sure there's an explanation for this

I know there is, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment...

How do you get 20 lbs of CO2 out of 8 lbs of gas?

[kristopher]

41. Weight of the O2. nt

[AtheistCrusader]

42. And there it is.

Thank you.

[Statistical]

43. It is a common question. This link goes into little more detail.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/co2.shtml

[NNadir]

40. You are waving your hands here a bit.

You are ignoring entirely the relationship between our current grid and a putative future grid.

About 21% of current US electricity comes from nuclear energy, and about 7% from hydroelectricity, according to the YTD (2009) figures from the EIA. Despite years and years and years and years and years and years of blathering hype about the power of so called "renewables" - equivalent to years and years and years and years and years of blathering hype about alternative fuel cars - they produce about 3% of US electricity, and a large part of that production is in fact from burning garbage, much of it oil related plastics and wood. The wind and solar industries remain what they have always been: Trivial. The reason for this is that they don't work very well.

I'll cite something called a "reference."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html">Electrical Generation By Energy Source.

Thus your appeal to the "current grid" is nonsense, since obviously a grid providing power to a bunch of stupid car CULTure electric cars would be very different from the current grid. It would most likely be, given the general public ignorance, dangerous natural gas fueled and coal fueled.

I note that stupid dumb fundie anti-nukes are running around spewing ignorance designed to destroy the nation's largest, by far, source of clean electricity, nuclear power.

When they're not doing that, they are agitating through overt appeals to ignorance to enlarging the only proven scalable form of clean electricity.

Thus, using your unfortunate use of mixed U.S. units and metric units, which are approximately correct - the actual carbon output of electricity is 0.1 pounds higher than you say per kwh - 1.2 pounds per kwh is not likely to prevail in a putative electric car CULTure, which will not actually come into existence in any case and is simply a fantasy, since earth's atmosphere will almost certainly collapse before any such infrastructure could be built.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/excel/tbl_statesector.xls

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/RecentTotalElectricGeneration.xls

(My carbon to electrical energy ratios come from the 2005 data provided by the EIA.)

In 2005 the electrical power industry produced 2,397.1 million metric tons of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide, whereas the transportation industry produced 1,981.3 million metric tons of this dangerous fossil fuel waste.

It follows that a slight reduction may be possible in theory (but not in reality), but it's not even close to an amount that will actually matter.

The dangerous car CULTure is not sustainable by any fantastic gyrations and nothing can or will save it.

[happyslug]

58. But I notice you ignore Electrical to Battery loss, nor the loss of Coal to electricity,

A ton of Coal produced only 2000 Kilowatt-hours of Electricity.
http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/prog/energy/coal/electricity_conversion.html

Thus according to the US Government, 1 pound of coal produces 1 KWH of electricity NOT 1.3 as the author claims. Now the 1.3 may probably includes Hydro, Wind and Natural Gas generation, but it is 1 KWH per Pound of coal if only coal is being used.

Once you have the 1 KWH, the question is how much is lost just charging a battery. If that number is 50% (Which seems to be the number) you are down to .5 KWH before you even get to the issue of loss in battery to engine (only a 10% loss) but that put you into about .45KWH per pound of coal

50% Battery Efficiency:
http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Sealed_Lead_Acid_Battery_Applications

Battery Charge Time Efficiency Calculator:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/batterychg2calc.html

According to the EIA you produce 2.117 pounds of CO2 per 1KWH of electricity if coal is the sole source of power.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html#electric

Thus to provide power in a car (.45 KWH) you are producing 2.117 pounds of CO2.

Now the EIA also points out Gasoline produces 19.4 pounds of CO2 per gallon
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm

The problem is we can NOT compare these two numbers directly. We are discussing we different ways to move people. The real test is how far can you go with .45 kwh? And how far can you go, in the same size vehicle, with 1 gallon of gasoline? Another way to look at this is how many KWH does it take to go the same distance in a Gasoline powered car?

Now the EIA has numbers for Gasoline and CO2, but those are for electrical generation, but in out hypothetical we are NOT using gasoline to produce electrical power, instead it is a direct drive mechanism so that number is NOT valid for out comparison.

Wikipedia gives 5 mile per Kwh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_battery

Remember one pound of coal produces .45 KWH and 2,117 pounds of CO2. To get to 1 kwh you have to double the CO2 to 4.234 pounds (and the actual number is greater for by doubling I am using .5 not the .45 I mentioned above). Then to get to 20 miles (what the average American car gets) you have to increase the CO2 level by 4 or 16.896 pounds of CO2.

Another way to look at this is to take the 20 mpg American Car and reduce by a 1/4 (or 4.85 pounds of CO2 to go 5 miles compared to the 4.234 if electrical generation is used).

Now, most electric cars are much smaller then the average American car, thus the numbers are NOT as good as I am making them out to be. Most cars that are the same size as most electric cars get 30-40 mpg, which clearly shows you produce less CO2 with a gasoline engine then with an electric car if the source of electricity is Coal.

[kristopher]

64. Using coal as the sole fuel is wrong

You MUST consider the fuel mix, not just one component of the mix.

Imagine trying to derive calories/unit of protein in a recipe where 50% of the calories are from butter and the other 50% are from lean beef.

If you just use the butter to derive the number of calories/unit of protein you are not getting an accurate measure of the benefits of what you ate.

This fact is one of the most complicating factors in an analysis because while the information on characteristics of a national mix is readily available, the regional data is more important to predict where problem areas will exist.


Also, it is well known for about 10 years that the round trip efficiency for lithium batteries is between 90-95%. State of the art lithium is approaching 99%. Lead acid isn't a player for this application.

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20080721/altair-nanotechnologys-battery-faster-cooler-more-efficient

[happyslug]

65. The EIA site, clearly show when it comes to generation of Electricity, not much difference.

Energy Information Agency (EIA) gives the following CO2 per one Kilowatt-hour of electricity generated:

Coal 2.117
Petroleum 1.915
Gas 1.314 1.321
Other Fuels 1.378
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html#electric

While Natural Gas is better then Coal, it is NOT that much better, about 40% less CO2. We also have to understand when Coal, Hydro and Natural Gas is used in the generation of Electricity AND when we expect to charge the batteries.

First, the tendency is to keep back the easiest method to turn on and off, that is Hydro-electric generation. Next easiest to turn off and on is Natural Gas. Petroleum is rarely used since the 1970s, thus the next easiest to turn on and off is coal and then Nuclear energy. Yes, do to the difficulty in turning Nuclear and Coal plants on and off these tend to be your "base" loads. Hydro and Natural Gas are kept back for peak use. I bring this up for when it comes to charging Cars the intention is to do so OFF PEAK and thus the main source of electrical generation would be coal and Nuclear power. We can ignore wind for it is use as part of the base load (For you can NOT keep it in reserve) but wind is less the 2% of all power generation.

As to nuclear power, no Nuclear plants have been built since the 1960s and thus any increase in base load is going to be in additional coal plants for at least the next ten years. In simple terms such Nuclear plants electrical power is already being used and is NOT available for electrical power in plug in cars for at least 10 years (And that 10 years assumes designing new Nuclear plants today, and no new nuclear plants are in the planning stage in the US that I know off).

Thus once you look at everything, the electricity that will be used by any new plug in electrical cars will be generated by Coal, and thus the CO2 released by coal burned to generate the electrical power used to charge such cars are the issue. We can ignore that unpleasant fact, we can put rosy glasses on to avoid the issue (i.e. "my car is being charged by Hydro power/Nuclear/Wind power, while your lights are being generated by Coal).

[kristopher]

78. Accepting *for the sake of argument* your claims it is still assembled wrong.

Baseload is "base" as in minimum and "load" as in generated electricity. It refers to the minimum level to which the existing technology can be dialed back each day and still meet the next day's needs. Because of the way they are built, coal and nuclear generators can't be shut down at night, they can only be disconnected from the grid as demand drops in the evening and reconnected when it rises the next day. Furl is still being consumed and CO2 emissions are still being produced whether the power is used or not.

This means there is a lot of unused electricity being "spilled"; enough, in fact, to power about 70% of the personal transportation fleet if it were EV.

[Warren Stupidity]

37. Ok so the total deal has to include not substituting coal for oil, duh.

This whole thing is just more deliberate wrecking - obstructionism. Yes of course substituting coal for oil would be stupid. Electric vehicles alone will not solve the climate problem. A sustainable renewable electric infrastructure that includes support for a transportation fleet centered on electric vehicles is required. It is the whole package, it is not an a la carte menu.

[Statistical]

2. BS. EV powered 100% from coal is cleaner than internal combustion.

Internal combustion is insanely inefficient. Tank to wheel efficiency is something like 12%-20%. That means out of 5 gallons of gasoline burned (and 100 pounds of CO2 produced) only one gallon is useful energy the other 4 is waste heat dumped into atmosphere.

Of course the goal wouldn't be 100% coal but even 100% coal is cleaner than gasoline.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2emiss.pdf

Coal produces about 2 pounds of CO2 per kwh. Most EV get about 4 miles per KWH. So that is about 0.5 pound of CO2 per mile. Gasoline produces 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon burned. Take typical car at 33 mpg. 20 pounds / 33 mpg = 0.6 pounds of CO2 per mile.

So 100% power from current low efficiency plants is already cleaner than gasoline. Of course coal is the "dirtiest" form of power natural gas is roughly 35% cleaner making EV running on natural gas making the CO2 cost more like 0.3 per mile. Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (produce electricity from both direct heat and steam) are about 50% more efficient bringing CO2 cost per mile into 0.2 pounds per mile range.

For the record the current US power grid has an average CO2 emission of about 1.3 pounds per kwh. That works out to roughly half the CO2 emissions of gasoline powered internal combustion engines. Of course the goal would be over time to upgrade plants to more efficient systems, replace fossil fuel with no CO2 sources, and close the dirtiest and most polluting plants. There is no reason why we can't have something like a 20 year plan to bring average CO2 "cost" per kwh to 1 pound per kwh. That would make EV roughly 3x to 4x cleaner than internal combustion engines.

Internal combustion is simply utterly mind blowing off the charts inefficient. It has only survived this long due to momentum (cheap to produce, well understood, existing infrastructure = fueling stations, etc). If the automobile didn't exist today and we were building one for the first time given technology available we never would have produced internal combustion engines.

Imagine if the IRS burned 4 tax dollars for every 5 tax dollars collected (leaving only $1 out of $5 for actual services). That is how inefficient internal combustion engines are.


The ETA is likely pushing some kind of agenda

[physioex]

3. I call BS as well.....

Electric cars do have their efficiencies. For example regenerative braking means on a round trip as you go down the hill you generate some of the energy that you can use on your way back up the hill. Also in heavy traffic the car is using far less energy than an internal combustion engine. Ofcourse getting energy from coal is bad we are not in denial. However it is a step we can take towards working on better sources of electrical generation.

[Greyskye]

4. Do they take into account nighttime charging?

When the grid is most often underutilized?

Doesn't look like it to me.

[rollingrock]

21. The premise of your OP is invalid and false

Our electrical power comes mainly from natural gas, NOT COAL. Natural gas fired power plants accounts for 41% of electrical power in the US. Coal fired power plants accounts for only 31% of power in the US.

70% of total electrical power in the US comes from non-coal sources including natural gas, nuclear power, hydroelectric, wind and other renewables.

Given total U.S. electric capacity of 1,075,677 MW, coal provided 31.2% of U.S. electric capacity in 2005 – second only to natural gas (41.2%) in the share of U.S. power capacity, and far ahead of nuclear (9.8%), hydroelectric (7.2%), oil (6.0%), or renewables (2.5%).


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Existing_U.S._Coal_Plants

[abqmufc]

36. Thanks but not in my region, and I stated regional approaches......

maybe national its NG or hydro...but where i live its coal. And the coal is burned dirty. So today PEVs would not solve the issue in place like AZ, NM, S. UT, and S. CO.

[JohnWxy]

45. According to the Energy Information Administration for 2006 Coal procuced 49% of our electric power

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html

Table 1.1. Net Generation by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors), 1995 through July 2009
(Thousand Megawatthours)
COAL: 1,990,511 Total: 4,064,702

That works out to about 49%

[JohnWxy]

46. A GAO study concluded much the same thing. for PHEVs to achieve full potential requires producing

electricity from clean sources.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09493.pdf


For plug-ins to realize their full potential, electricity would need to be generated from lower-emission fuels such as nuclear and renewable energy rather than the fossil fuels—coal and natural gas—used most often to generate electricity today.

~~
~~

(pg 9)

The adoption of plug-ins could result in several benefits by reducing petroleum consumption, such as reduced emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. However, the environmental benefits depend on whether the electricity used to power plug-ins emits fewer greenhouse gases and pollutants than the fuel it replaces, as well as on consumers adopting plug-ins, who may be deterred if plug-ins are not cost-effective. The cost-effectiveness of plug-ins will be determined by the cost of batteries and trends in the price of gasoline relative to the price of electricity to charge the vehicles.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and getting off coal won't be easy and will take time. Replacing coal with wind power, probably the quickest (and safe) way it can be done will take decades. We may be able to replace 10% of coal with wind power in 20 years. It's possible to do better like maybe 15% but I don't see people getting behind it enough to pull that off.

[JohnWxy]

47. Careful. If you make any statements re PHEVs that qualify how much GHG savings they are likely to

achieve, to one local zealot you're OBVIOUSLY a PHEV HATER! OHHHHHH, YOU'RE BAD, YOU'RE BAD! A HERETIC! Villagers, get your torches. Tie this heretic to the stake!

[kristopher]

48. Not really

This local zealot just knows when someone creates a piece of crap spreadsheet that uses totally fabricated data and idiotic assumptions in order to try and make a case for feeding the ethanol pigs at the public trough while PRETENDING they give a damn about climate change.

For example, how long did you predict it would take for this?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7015598&mesg_id=7015598

[JohnWxy]

49. DISINFORMATION ALERT!

Now, I do not like to spend my time being drawn into pointless, entirely nonsensical debates with 14 yr olds re fantastical allegations about my posts. HOWEVER, I do wince a bit when disinformation and false representations are made about my statements or my work. Therefor....

for the reader who may want to be be allerted to fantasies and dis-information....

I point out the following as the reader may not be familiar with what the internet pundit refers to in the following statement:

"spreadsheet that uses totally fabricated data and idiotic assumptions"

The link http://sites.google.com/site/truthisstrangerthanfictionx/voltz.xls">Voltz will take you to the speadsheet in question which I built some time ago to estimate how long it would take for Plug-in electric vehicles to make a significant contribution to GHG reductions - using the GM Volt as the basis of the estimate. THe whole purpose of the spreadsheet was to enable the users to test various assumptions and see how much they affected the outcome of the calculations - that is, the time required to produce a given fractional reduction in the GHG emissions of the transportation sector.

In the Voltz spreadsheet the user can choose and enter (moving from one input cell to the next using the TAB key) the following values:

1) intial miles per gallon for Volt (i.e. PHEVs)
2) intitial miles per gallon for a comparable ICE powered car. (I used a Toyota Corolla with 30 mpg, but this could be changed by user)
3) miles driven per year on average, I had 12,000 entered but this could be changed by the user.
4) the target fractional reduction of total transportaion emissions (e.g. enter '.3' for 30% reduction) to be achieved by PHEVs
5) vehicle (Volt i.e. PHEV) SALES for the initial year of sales
6) annual rate of sales growth
7) Quantity adjustment for sales price (user enters a 1 for "Yes" or 0 for "no" Quantity adjustment to sales price. I have a '1' in that cell as a quantity adjustment is appropriate (that is, as volume of production goes up sales price comes down.) I was using a 98% curve as I felt that the manual inputs to building cars nowadays is not that great with the industrial robots being used in auto production. So I felt a 98% curve was appropriate. PHEV technology will have very large fixed investments to be paid off and the manual input is not so big a factor compared to materials costs (batteries) and fixed investments in capital equipment and R&D costs.

(Note that I used a Toyota Corolla as it is comparable in terms of weight and payload to the Volt. HOwver, the user can enter a different mpg than the 30 I put into the celll for mpg for the ICE powered vehicle.)

Now, since virtually no emperical data existed at that time, re the miles per gallon that PHEVs were likely to obtain, when I introduced this spreadsheet, the values for the mpg for the prospective GM Volt had to be assumptions. For the starting year of the calculation I assumed a miles per gallon for the Volt of 100 mpg. I further assumed an efficiency for the Volt (or PHEVs in general) for the end of the period being examined of 433 mpg - or virtually NO GASOLINE BEING CONSUMED BY THE PHEVs (per mile) in the out-years (20 to 30 or more years in the future). I would say, given that the Nissan Leaf has lately been talked about as capable of 100 mpg and the Volt has had estimates of 48 (EPA) to 150 (Argonne National Laboratory) (averaging to about 100 mpg) that my assumption for the starting year mpg for the PHEvs wasn't all that bad. But remember, I set up the spread-sheet SO THE USER COULD CHANGE THE STARTING MPG FOR THE VOLT (PHEV) IF THEY DIDN'T LIKE MY NUMBER.


So as of necessity, all the parameters were assumptions (except of course for the mpg for the Corolla). BUT the user could change the key parameters, initial years sales, annual growth in sales, intitils miles per gallon for the PHEV. As I stated at the time, the spreadsheet allowed users to try out their own estimates (assumptions) of these parameters to see how they affected the outcome of the spreadsheets calculations.

I am happy to discuss these matters with grown-ups and anyone with an open mind about these issues but really I do not want to spend my time engaged in nonsense debates with adolescents bent on showing how brilliant they are (who lately were probably arguing heatedly about whether Stars Wars II was better than Star Wars I or some other very monumental matter) ...so PLEASE, non-grown-ups need not respond to this message as I will not respond to yours (though I know how much you relish getting my attention so this admonishment will no doubt go unheeded by he who most needs it.)


OF course the pundit still has not answered my question, "How many years will it be till PHEVs achieve a significant reduction to GHGs (say 20 - 30%)." It seems asking this question is what get's him all twisted in a knot, fraught with fright and fury and filled with impotent childish rage.


That's all the little fella has to do is answer the question: "How long till PHEVs achieve an appreciable reduction to GHGs?"


Oh, yes, with regard to Nissan's statement about the Leaf. They say they will "price" it around $28,000 but what was left out of referenced article is that that price presumes leasing the $10,000 battery pack to the buyer which, when you add the lease payments on the battery pack to the payments for a $28,000 car gets you to roughly the same payments you would be making on a $38,000 car. Yes, there will be very considerable tax incentives ($7,500 I understand) but still, that is a pretty hefty price (for most people) to pay.

Maybe we can get to 126 milllion PHEVs in 2030 as Google's Clean Energy 2030 indicates (41% of approx 307 million cars) but you are still talking 20 years out. And as Climate Scientists have been trying to tell people - WE DO NOT HAVE 20 YEARS to get some appreciable reductions to GHG emissions. THat's the only point I have been trying to get across to people. THere is no (hysterically alleged) plot on my part to kill off electric cars - merely a recognition that we will have to do something much sooner than that if we want the emissions gains we hope to get (and I think we likely WILL get) from electic cars to mean anything in terms of saving the Earth from catastrophic warming.

[joshcryer]

50. Hey JohnWxy, love your posts, they have heart. What you seem to not realize...

...is that the pundit in question doesn't give one fucking shit whether or not we actually fix the problem. Basic math says we're not doing enough, so what we are doing "is acceptable" and everyone else is stupid, ignorant, lame, etc.

[JohnWxy]

51. You nailed it but, given our predicament, it hurts too much to laugh!

[kristopher]

52. You have at least one answer (As I said ALL of them contradict you)

You have at least one answer (and as I've said, ALL of them contradict you) from Google and I did give you another from NREL so your claim that I haven't addressed your crap is just more crap.

You wrote: "Maybe we can get to 126 milllion PHEVs in 2030 as Google's Clean Energy 2030 indicates (41% of approx 307 million cars) but you are still talking 20 years out. And as Climate Scientists have been trying to tell people - WE DO NOT HAVE 20 YEARS to get some appreciable reductions to GHG emissions. THat's the only point I have been trying to get across to people."

As I recall the heart of your spreadsheet when you introduced it predicted an absurd rate of penetration for PHEVs with less than 1,000,000 cars after more than 20 years. You also assumed only one manufacturer was producing EVs and derived your rate of penetration based on the impact of that single maker's production - in short it was crap.

As to your motives, I only know about you what you show me. You have consistently misrepresented the ability of ethanol to meet our energy security and carbon management needs. I see you've at least abandoned the insane distortion of Hansen's remark that we had a 4 year window of (political) opportunity to do something about climate change. But I'm going to bring it up now to provide another sample of the misinformation your posts are noted for. You took that quote, which CLEARLY referred to a window of opportunity for political action, and stridently hammered on it as some sort of deadline to achieve the large reductions Hansen calls for over time. Why did you do that? It could only be to create a false sense of urgency. While the situation is undeniably urgent, the action required within 4 years is political, not gouging the taxpayer for virtually no real benefit in the large view. The ONLY reason for such an act in your post is to support an argument for funding ethanol when it is an obviously poor choice in the creation of a REAL strategic plan to address energy security and climate change.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[JohnWxy]

53. your capacity for lieing is truly amazing. STATE IN YEARS HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE FOR ELECTRIC CARS TO

SAVE AN APPRECIABLE FRACTION OF THE TRANSPORTATION SECTORS GHG EMISSIONS.

THE QUOTE YOU KEEP PASTING DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT A TIME-FRAME.

LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN PRINT THE NUMBER OF YEARS TO SAVE SAY 20% OR 30%

I'LL BET YOU CAN'T DO IT.

YOU STATE:
"You have at least one answer (and as I've said, ALL of them contradict you) from Google and I did give you another from NREL so your claim that I haven't addressed your crap is just more crap."

I HAVEN'T SEEN ANY ANSWER FROM YOU IN PRINT AS TO THE NUMBER OF YEARS FOR PHEVS TO SAVE A GIVEN PERCENTAGE OF GHG EMISSIONS OF OF TRANSPORTATION SECTOR OR REDUCE GAS CONSUMPTION.

AND YOU'RE ALSO LIEING ABOUT THE SPREADSHEET.

YOU STATE: "As I recall the heart of your spreadsheet when you introduced it predicted an absurd rate of penetration for PHEVs with less than 1,000,000 cars after more than 20 years."

OF COURSE YOU USE "AS I RECALL" TO WEASEL OUT OF BEING NAILED FOR LIEING.

TO GET 1,500,000 CARS IN 20 YEARS FROM THAT SPREADSHEET YOU WOULD HAVE TO INPUT TO THE SPREAD-SHEET REQUESTING AN ESTIMATE OF YEARS TO SAVE 3 TENTHS OF ONE PERCENT OVER THAT SAVED BY IMPROVED EFFICIENCY OF ICE POWERED CARS - WITH 50,000 PHEVs SOLD IN THE FIRST YEAR AND ONLY A 4% ANNUAL GROWTH RATE IN SALES. THOSE ARE THE VALUES YOU WOULD NEED TO GET 1.5 MILLION PHEVs IN 20 YEARS. I NEVER USED VALUES THAT LOW IN THE SPREADSHEET. (THE VALUES I USED VARIED - THAT WAS THE POINT, TO TEST VARIOUS VALUES. BUT THE VALUES I USED ORIGINALLY WERE 50,000 AND 100,000 FOR FIRST YEAR SALES AND ANNUAL SALES GROWTH RATES OF 20% AND 30%. NOTICE I VARIED THEM AS I WASN'T PREDICTING ANY ONE VALUE FOR INITIAL YEARS SALES OR ANNUAL GROWTH RATE AS WOULD NOT ATTEMPT TO PREDICT ONE VALUE FOR ANY OF THOSE PARAMETERS.

ANYONE CAN TEST ME ON THIS. OPEN THE SPREADSHEET. IN CELL I8 ENTER .003 (3/10ths of one percent) and tab to C19 and enter 50,000 units for intitial years sales. then tab to D19 (one tab from C19) enter thE number 4 (formatted as percent this cell will treat a 4 as 4%. YOU WILL SEE THAT THE NUMBER OF UNITS AFTER 20 YEARS IS 1,564,286 (IN CELL J8). THE NUMBER OF YEARS IN CELL E19 IS 20.69.

NO, I NEVER SUGGESTED VALUES SUCH AS 4% ANNUAL SALES GROWTH AND NEVER SUGGESTED LOOKING AT 3/10THS PERCENT OF TOTAL GASOLINE CONSUMPTION SAVED OVER WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED BY ENHANCED EFFICIENCY ICE POWERED CARS (SPECIFICALLY 39 mpg (cell G4). GET REAL, 3/10ths OF A PERCENT? THIS IS WHAT YOU'D NEED TO ONLY GET 1.5 MILLION PHEVs OVER 20 YEARS, AS YOU CLAIMED I POSITED. BULL-SHIT. A 14 YR OLDs ATTEMPT TO SQUIRM OUT OF TROUBLE.

THIS SHOWS UNEQUIVOCALLY HOW FULL OF SHIT YOU ARE. YOU BETTER STICK TO ARGUING STARS WARS I WAS BETTER THAN STAR WARS II. THAT'S MORE YOUR SPEED.



YOU CLAIM TO HAVE PASTED ARTICLES THAT CONTRADICT ME. WHAT HAVE I CLAIMED? WHAT I HAVE SAID IS THAT GOOGLE'S ESTIMATE PROVIDES US WITH A WORKABLE BENCH-MARK. HOW MANY YEARS ARE THEY STATING FOR 41% SAVINGS IN TOTAL (INCLUDING SAVINGS FROM IMPROVED EFEICIENCY ICE POWERED CARS) ..WHAT THEY ARE STATING IS 20 YEARS. AND THAT IS ASSUMING ALL THE COAL IS REPLACED WITH ZERO EMISSIONS POWER SOURCES FOR ELECTRICITY. I HAVE STATE THAT I THINK THAT IS A LAUDABLE GOAL BUT REALISTICALLY, I THINK 10% TO 15% REDUCTION IN COAL USE IS MORE REALISTIC. NOW IT THEIR IS THAT AMOUNT OF COAL BEING USED TO MAKE ELECTRICITY THAT MEANS THE GHG REDUCTIONS BY PHEVS WILL BE LESS - AND NOT INSIGNIFICANTLY LESS.



I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN HANSEN'S STATAEMENT EITTHER. WHY THE FUCK WOULD I? HE SAID OBAMS MAY HAVE 4 YRS TO SAVE THE EARTH. THAT IS ENTIRELY CONSISTENT WITH WHAT OTHER CLIMATE RESEARCHERS SAID (10 YEARS, MAYBE, STATED ABOUT 5 YRS AGO. THAT'S ABOUT THE SAME AS SAYING 4 YRS FROM RIGHT NOW.

[kristopher]

55. Suuuuiiiiiii...

You have at least one answer (and as I've said, ALL of them contradict you) from Google and I did give you another from NREL so your claim that I haven't addressed your crap is just more crap.

You wrote: "Maybe we can get to 126 milllion PHEVs in 2030 as Google's Clean Energy 2030 indicates (41% of approx 307 million cars) but you are still talking 20 years out. And as Climate Scientists have been trying to tell people - WE DO NOT HAVE 20 YEARS to get some appreciable reductions to GHG emissions. THat's the only point I have been trying to get across to people."

As I recall the heart of your spreadsheet when you introduced it predicted an absurd rate of penetration for PHEVs with less than 1,000,000 cars after more than 20 years. You also assumed only one manufacturer was producing EVs and derived your rate of penetration based on the impact of that single maker's production - in short it was crap.

As to your motives, I only know about you what you show me. You have consistently misrepresented the ability of ethanol to meet our energy security and carbon management needs. I see you've at least abandoned the insane distortion of Hansen's remark that we had a 4 year window of (political) opportunity to do something about climate change. But I'm going to bring it up now to provide another sample of the misinformation your posts are noted for. You took that quote, which CLEARLY referred to a window of opportunity for political action, and stridently hammered on it as some sort of deadline to achieve the large reductions Hansen calls for over time. Why did you do that? It could only be to create a false sense of urgency. While the situation is undeniably urgent, the action required within 4 years is political, not gouging the taxpayer for virtually no real benefit in the large view. The ONLY reason for such an act in your post is to support an argument for funding ethanol when it is an obviously poor choice in the creation of a REAL strategic plan to address energy security and climate change.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[JohnWxy]

56. Can't state how much GHG reductions achievable with PHEVs and how many years requred.

Nothing you have pasted contradicts me, no matter how many times you keep repeating it.

You cannot print an answer to the questions: "How much GHG reductions will PUEVs achieve?"

and "how many years will it likely take to achieve this reduction/" Let's see two numbers. Not paragraphs of pasted material that do not address these questions. If I am wrong, then prove it, here.

[kristopher]

61. It was EPRI that studied GHG reductions with PHEVs.

The Medium deployment scenario is graphically displayed here:


Combining the medium deployment scenario with a scenario plotting a medium CO2 intensity** for the energy mix yields 486 million metric ton reduction in annual GHG emissions by 2050. The low deployment/high CO2 intensity scenario resulted in 163 annual MMT reductions by 2050 and the high/low scenario brought about 612 MMT annual reduction. Cumulative reductions to 2050 between the scenarios ranged from 3.4 - 10.3 BMT.

The scenarios re carbon intensity were described thus:

The scenarios represent different levels of CO2 intensity for the sector.
High CO2 intensity scenario: There is limited availability of higher efficiency and non-emitting generation technologies and a low cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs in this scenario. Total annual electric sector GHG emissions
increase by 25% from 2010 to 2050.
Medium CO2 intensity scenario: Advanced renewable and non-emitting generation technologies, such as biomass and IGCC with carbon capture and storage, are available in this scenario. There is a moderate cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs. Total annual electric sector emissions decline by 41% between 2010 and 2050.
Low CO2 scenario: Carbon capture and storage retrofit technology for existing coal
plants are available in this scenario. In addition, there is significantly slower load growth indicative of a nationwide adoption of energy efficiency, or other demand
reduction, and a high cost to emit CO 2 and other GHGs. Total electric sector emissions decline by 85% in this scenario from 2010 to 2050.

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

If you believe that ethanol is able to make a difference, great, pursue its use aggressively on the private market; it is a solution that does not merit the diversion of scarce government funds.

You can download the full EPRI report here: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2

I have provided this information to you previously.

[JohnWxy]

70. Seems whenever this report talks about emissions reductions projections they are for the year 2050.

they also show estimates for 2010 values, but in the "Results" section (see below) they refer to the emissions reductions projected for 2050. (unless my arithmetic is wrong, that seems to me to be 40 years from now)

I had a hard time finding this report using link provided. I found the report at http://www.cfr.org/publication/17230/
(click on "Full Text document")

NOw, here are a couple quotes from report:

in the Electric Sector Simulation REsults it says:

"PHEVs have lower GHG emissions in all nine cases than either the conventional or the hybrid
vehicles, ranging from a 40% to 65% improvement over the conventional vehicle to a 7% to
46% improvement over the hybrid electric vehicle." ...EPRI

...NOte, as I stated above, they are talking about projections for the year 2050 here (some of the scenarios include those which show zero emissions from electricity sources - i.e. 100% zero emissions electricity - which I think, is a legitimate possibility for 2050.. but that is how they get the 65% improvement over conventional vehicles (gasoline powered CVs).


But what about when you get a 41% market penetration of PHEGs and electrics(this is the fleet penetration that Google projected in Clean Energy 2030)? How do the projected range limits of 40% to 65% lower emissions over conventional vehicles (2010 vintage vehicles?) turn out in terms of total savings for the entire fleet? Well, if you are getting 65% lower emissions per vehicle per mile traveled (remember this is with NO emissions from the electricity generation) and if you have 41% market penetration of PHEVs and electrics your aggregate emissions reduction (due to PHEVs) for the entire transportation sector is 26.7% (.41 x .65). And what about for the 40% lower emissions per vehicle, what is the aggregate reduction with a market penetration of 41%?? ..... It comes to 16.4%. Averaging the extreme values is one way to normalize estimates of widely varying values. IF you average these values from the limits of the projected range you get an aggregate (fleet) reduction of GHGs of 21.5% given a market (or fleet) penetration of 41%.

[kristopher]

81. Aggregate emissions between now and then is the important measure

Trying to make it seem otherwise is an attempt to alter the goal that is acknowledged by EVERY LEGITIMATE CARBON MANAGEMENT PLANNER.

The report is linked in the OP to this thread and the page I gave you is specifically for downloading the full report so, if you had trouble finding it I presume you fit the profile of that old saw "couldn't find your ... with both hands."

10 billion metric tons of aggregate reductions is what percentage of total US emissions, John?

[JohnWxy]

94. 16.4% to 26.7% GHG reductions from PHEVs by 2030 - Electric Power Research Institiute. .

THE RANGE AVERAGES OUT TO: 21.5% THIS USES THE EPRI ESTIMATE OF 41% PHEV PENETREATION IN 2030.


THAT'S FROM http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/000000000001015325.pdf#page=12


The following figure compares GHG emissions of model year 2050 conventional and hybrid
vehicles to the three PHEV types (10, 20 and 40 miles of electric range) in each of the three
electric sector scenarios (High CO2, Medium CO2, and Low CO2 Intensity).


PHEVs have lower GHG emissions in all nine cases than either the conventional or the hybrid
vehicles, ranging from a 40% to 65% improvement over the conventional vehicle to a 7% to
46% improvement over the hybrid electric vehicle.

[JohnWxy]

57. Just a repittion of an article which says nothing about time-frame or % GHG reductions by PHEVs

[JohnWxy]

59. Not surprised pundit thinks Jacobsen "study" is good. It's fake-science using absurd assumptions

For those interested in (as a matter of self defense) the techniques of disinformation, the Jacobson "study" should be a required reading:

Response to Mark Jacobson E85 Study

Mark Jacobson of Stanford University has recently published his analysis of E85, which purports to show that E85 blends will increase ozone-related deaths. There are several major problems with his analysis.

Summary of Issues

Conflicts with U.S. EPA Analysis and Other Agencies

E85 and other high blend ethanol/gasoline fuels warrant further analysis. However, Jacobson’s study already stands in stark contrast to work done by U.S. EPA, the California Air Resources Board (ARB), the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD). Consider, for example, the following table released by NREL:

Figure 10: Lumina VFV Ozone Forming-Potential (mg/O3/mi)

Fundamental Premise of Study Misleading

Professor Jacobson assumes (that is he bases his calculations on this assumption._JW) that E85 will completely replace gasoline as the predominant motor fuel by 2020. {Seriously now, nobody would consider this a realistic scenario. This is NOT science. It is patent propaganda.__JW} Not even the most optimistic ethanol supporters suggest that this is possible; 1 percent of today’s vehicles are E85 certified. While it may have been useful to model this scenario among many others, it is questionable from a public advocacy perspective to base definitive predictions about increased death rates on one highly uncertain and unlikely 2020 scenario.

Jacobson’s Final Conclusions Extremely Uncertain

Air quality modelers generally do not attempt to forecast emissions more than a few years into the future, because of statistical and regulatory uncertainties. Professor Jacobson is clearly overreaching; trying to make definitive predictions where definitive data does not exist. His alarmist statements appear to conflict with the report itself, which states that, “because of the uncertainty in future emission regulations, it can be concluded with confidence only that E85 is unlikely to improve air quality over future gasoline vehicles.”

Core Assumptions Are Controversial & Not Well Supported

The main driver of Jacobson’s ozone analysis is his assumption that E85 will reduce vehicle NOx emissions by ~ 30 percent, and that this NOx decrease will result in an ozone (smog) increase. Both of these foundational assumptions are highly controversial in the air quality community. With regard to the impact of E85 on vehicle emissions, a recent California Energy Commission (CEC) analysis concluded that, “ review of the

Summary of issues prepared by the Renewable Energy Action Project (REAP)

certified emission levels of 2005 FFV models sold in California reveals minor differences between the E85-versus-gasoline emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), non-methane organic gases (NMOG) and carbon monoxide (CO), with very low emission levels of these pollutants on either fuel.”2 Regarding the impact of NOx on smog, SCAQMD modeling shows the value of mass NOx emissions reductions for smog control.

Ignores Critical Data

Professor Jacobson asserts that his emissions inventories are “high resolution.” In fact, there are major questions about his assumptions.

.... First, they are based on fuels that are now obsolete (MTBE blends).

....Second, the 2002 National Emissions Inventory database on which Jacobson bases many of his assumptions does not include recent data from ARB.

....Third, the study ignores “permeation” (evaporative hydrocarbon emissions) data recently released by the Coordinating Research Council (CRC). His assertion that E-85 vehicles “increase non-methane hydrocarbons” is therefore highly questionable.3


In addition, ARB test data for 2005 MY vehicles indicate that Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) – vehicles actually certified to run on E85 ... provide substantial compliance margins relative to NOx and NMOG:

chart for: ARB data on: NOx and NMOG emissions  




Misrepresents Role of Acetaldehydes

Professor Jacobson assumes that acetaldehyde emissions will lead to an increase in PAN emissions that will in turn lead to greater ozone levels. This assumptions directly conflicts with ARB observations: “Despite the acetaldehyde increase associated with higher ethanol blends, levels of PAN and its cousin, PPN are not predicted to vary … in 2003 … PAN has dropped by a factor of 10 over the past 3 decades, apparently due to reductions in all hydrocarbons under California’s ozone control program … Even in Brazil, where ethanol and acetaldehyde emissions are very high, these compounds are not the major contributors to PAN formation.”4

Suspect Toxics Analysis

It is well recognized that gasoline exhaust contains higher levels of benzene and 1,3 butadiene in comparison to E-85 exhaust, while E85 is generally associated with higher formaldehyde and acetaldehyde levels. Most experts have concluded that, because benzene and 1,3 butadiene are far more toxic than formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, gasoline emissions are more toxic to humans. Professor Jacobson utilizes a highly sophisticated modeling approach, but relies on 1991 vehicle data for establishing inputs to the model (there were virtually no cars certified for E85 use in 1991). The report also seems to ignore that formaldehyde emission rates from recent FFV certification results indicate that formaldehyde emissions from both gasoline and E-85 are well controlled by latest catalyst technology, and both fuel / technology combinations provide a substantial margin of compliance with ARB’s strict 15 milligram per mile HCHO (formaldehyde) standard, as shown below:5

Mercedes FFV C 240 and C 320 2005 MY Certification

Does Not Account for Vehicle Advancements

Professor Jacobson mentions but does not incorporate likely vehicle advancements into his analysis. Significant benefits could arise from optimized E-100 or E85 vehicles, which will be able to take advantage of unique properties of ethanol, such as its much higher latent heat of vaporization, which allows for cooler and denser and hence more efficient charge density in the combustion chamber. Leaner engine operation, coupled with higher compression ratios, can also lead to further improvements in efficiency, as demonstrated in the Saab 9-3 and in SAE papers by Lotus.6 {http://www.ethanolboost.com/"> also note the Ethanol enabled Direct Injection Engine developed by MIT professors who formed a company with Ford MoCo to manufacture them. This engine gets 30% BETTER mpg than a similar powered gasoline only powered engine and can be manufactured at an extra cost of $600 to $1,000. It uses only 5% ethanol and 95% gasoline.__JW}


Ignores Climate Change Impacts

The Jacobson study completely dismisses the impact of climate change (and increased ambient temperatures) on public health and increased ozone formation. The “business as usual” approach (unmitigated petroleum consumption) is becoming an increasing threat to public health and the environment. There is no adjustment for this impact.

Ignores Technological Improvements in Ethanol Production Recognized as readily achieveable

{The most recent research, by the University of Nebraska, published in Yale University's Journal of Industrial Ecology, establishes that the current ethanol industry is producing ethanol with an efficiency which results in GHG reductions relative to gasoline of (on average for the U.S.) 51%. __JW} New efficiencies and the development of cellulosic ethanol production could result in greenhouse gas reductions from E85 in the vicinity of 86 percent.

{note: Research funded by the Environental Protection Agency shows that a Gas fired ethanol plant employing Combined Heat and Power design achieves a negative Carbon footprint. By retrofitting the current ethanol production facilities or with newly built facilities using Combined Heat and Power the current industry average GHG reduction vs gasoline of 51% would rise to 78%. __JW}




6 “Alcohol-Based Fuels in High Performance Engines”, SAE paper for 2007 Fuels and Lubes Meeting, paper offer 07SFL-105 .

This so called 'research' with its fantastical assumptions (E85 replacing ALL Gasoline by 2020!) and astounding pretermissions (e.g. of the most current test data on E85 vehicles) make it abundantly clear that this piece of work is not science but patent, Glen Beck style, disinformation.

--- It's effectivelness is determined by the simple-mindedness of people willing to eat it.

Seems like these days so many people are making up their own realities and proselytizing to others hoping they will induce others to become 'True Believers'. Well, given the number of uncritical thinkers and people who never go beyond the headlines, I guess this shouldn't be surprising.

[kristopher]

62. Poor John.

Of course "nobody (who is serious) considers this (the complete replacement of petroleum by by E85) a realistic scenario" because it ISN'T realistic. However a lot of the low information crowd DO consider ethanol an option to achieve the goals stated in Jacobson's paper.
BTW, when I started posting here you damned sure WERE touting ethanol as *the solution* to our energy problems. You were using the fact that Wang had finally figured out an accounting that put ethanol into the positive net energy realm for the first time to claim that ethanol was an ENERGY SOURCE instead of a way of storing fossil energy at a loss.

Jacobson addresses your main point in the first two paragraphs of the abstract:
"This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. 'b]To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85."

The paper rates solutions to three problems, global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security.

It is a strike against ethanol that it can't achieve these goals, not an indication of poor ethics or understanding on Jacobson's part that he choose to demonstrate for the public what would happen if the propaganda were to pave the way for a reality that all experts knew was impossible.

[JohnWxy]

67. incomplete quote of what I said and what Jacobson assumed: Jacobson made his calculations based on

ethanol replacing gasoline entirely BY 2020 - that is in 10 years. I do not know anybody who is forecasting that that is posssible.

THe Oak Ridge National Laboratory estimated that bio-fuels could meet about third of the transportations fuel demands within foreseeable future. This "foreseeable future" is important because it's tricky to make forecasts beyond about 20 yrs becausse new technologies can appear or be developed in 20 yrs or longer and that could change the assumptions.

Only a couple of years after ORNL made that estimate the MIT professors came out with the ethanol direct injection engine (EDIE) which uses only 5% ehtanol and 95% gasoline and achieves a 30% improvement in mpg over a gasoline powered car. Now, that means if we were producing 30% of the liquid fuel needs of the transportation sector (based on the ICE) technology of today (well, pre-Ethanol Direct Injection engine)that would mean if all the cars and trucks (this engine is entirely scalable, it can be used in small cars to large trucks) werer powered by the EDIE you would achieve a 30% reduction of gas consumption using a volume of ethanol equivalent to 5% of the total fuel requirement. That would leave the other 25% (305 - 5%) of the bio-fuel supply ailable for blending and displacement of the gasoline. THe total reduction of gasoline consumption then would be 30% (mileage improvement) plus 25% (by displacement) for a total of 55% of the total fuel needs. Thus the technology improvement brought by the Ethanol Direct Injection engine expanded the 30% biofuel supply (as a percent by volume of total fuel supply) to 55% of the total fuel supply (based upon the work done). The EDIE is of course possible because of ethanol's much higher octane rating of 113 (E85) compared to that of gasoline (92-93 for high test gas).

As pundit can't seem to remember I have stated many times that Electric cars are essential to the effort to reduce GHG emissions. What people who can read and comprehend already know is that my point is that unless we do those things we can right now, to get increased GHG reductions in the next few years, the reductions we will get from electric cars (in about 20 years) won't matter because Global Warming will have accelerated to such an extent that we likley will not be able to reign it in by then. Now, I do not know this FOR SURE, but to gamble that we won't need reductions in the next few years is a very high stakes bet. ONe, I don't think is worth risking.

[kristopher]

69. I didn't misquote anything.

You are just deliberately ignoring/misrepresenting the basic logic behind Jacobson's study since it is so devastating to the ethanol industry.

What you also ignore is the fact that I've said many times that IF the benefits you tout are real then you can compete in the marketplace without government support. There is no way you can justify diverting funds ANY funds from far more productive technologies to support building and operating a large infrastructure with very temporary and limited benefit.

The price of that sort of decision-making is a huge decline in the potential for aggregate emissions reductions when achieving the highest possible aggregate emissions reductions is the primary goal. To speak idiomatically, your argument is (at best) penny wise and pound (or dollar) foolish.

[JohnWxy]

77. the reader will note the 'pundit' is squirming again, caught in his misrepresentation of what I have

actually said.


you state(in reply 62) (NOTE THE QUOTATION MARKS):

"Of course "nobody (who is serious) considers this (the complete replacement of petroleum by by E85) a realistic scenario" because it ISN'T realistic.

HERE IS WHAT I ACTUALLY SAID:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Jacobson assumes (that is he bases his calculations on this assumption._JW) that E85 will completely replace gasoline as the predominant motor fuel by 2020. {Seriously now, nobody would consider this a realistic scenario. This is NOT science. It is patent propaganda.__JW}

AND NEAR THE BOTTOM OF MY REPLY:

This so called 'research' with its fantastical assumptions (E85 replacing ALL Gasoline by 2020!) and astounding pretermissions (e.g. of the most current test data on E85 vehicles) make it abundantly clear that this piece of work is not science but patent, Glen Beck style, disinformation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

READERS, PUNDIT IS REALLY OFFERING A REAL LESSON IN DISINFORMATION: PREVARICATION AND MISREPRESENTATION OF ANOTHERS ARGUMENTS IS A HALLMARK OF THE 'BLACK' ART OF DISINIFORMATION.

[kristopher]

79. You are kidding right?

That is so absurd I'm at a bit of a loss. Let's do this your way, then (without the psychotic use of crayons).

"Of course "nobody (who is serious) considers this (the complete replacement of petroleum by by E85) a realistic scenario" because it ISN'T realistic.

You claim this misrepresents your meaning but the editorial comment in () is to clarify your meaning.

You argue that no one makes the claim Jacobson uses to evaluate ethanol. Prove it. Give me a source to show that NO ONE has ever made this claim. If you can't prove it then you just making it up. etc etc etc...

Now back to reality:

Your entire point centers around a negative that can't be substantiated.
Of course "nobody (who is serious) considers this (the complete replacement of petroleum by by E85) a realistic scenario" because it ISN'T realistic. However a lot of the low information crowd DO consider ethanol an option to achieve the goals stated in Jacobson's paper.

BTW, when I started posting here you damned sure WERE touting ethanol as *the solution* to our energy problems. You were using the fact that Wang had finally figured out an accounting that put ethanol into the positive net energy realm for the first time to claim that ethanol was an ENERGY SOURCE instead of a way of storing fossil energy at a loss.

Jacobson addresses your main point in the first two paragraphs of the abstract:

"This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. 'b]To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85."

The paper rates solutions to three problems, global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security.

It is a strike against ethanol that it can't achieve these goals, not an indication of poor ethics or understanding on Jacobson's part that he choose to demonstrate for the public what would happen if the propaganda were to pave the way for a reality that all experts knew was impossible.

[JohnWxy]

83. Trying to run away from your misrepresentation of what I stated. inventing your own reality may

seem like a solution to being caught in your lie, but it's really not.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=216302&mesg_id=218662


the reader will note the 'pundit' is squirming again, caught in his misrepresentation of what I have actually said.


'pundit' alleges this is a quote from me(in reply 62) (NOTE THE QUOTATION MARKS):

"Of course "nobody (who is serious) considers this (the complete replacement of petroleum by by E85) a realistic scenario" because it ISN'T realistic.

HERE IS WHAT I ACTUALLY SAID:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Jacobson assumes (that is he bases his calculations on this assumption._JW) that E85 will completely replace gasoline as the predominant motor fuel by 2020. {Seriously now, nobody would consider this a realistic scenario. This is NOT science. It is patent propaganda.__JW}

AND NEAR THE BOTTOM OF MY COMMENT:

This so called 'research' with its fantastical assumptions (85 replacing ALL Gasoline by 2020!) and astounding pretermissions (e.g. of the most current test data on E85 vehicles) make it abundantly clear that this piece of work is not science but patent, Glen Beck style, disinformation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PUNDIT CLAIMS I SAID SOMETHING I DIDN'T SAY. PUDNIT CLAIMS HE'S GIVEN A QUOTE OF MY STATEMENT. HIS "QUOTE" OF MY ALLEGED STATEMENT IS NOT A QUOTE FROM ANYTHING I SAID AND DOES NOT ACCURATELY REPRESENT WHAT I SAID: THAT JACOBSON'S ASSUMPTION THAT E85 WOULD REPLACE ALL OF GASOLINE BY 2020 IS NONSENSE AND THAT NOBODY EVER PROPOSED WE COULD REPLACE GASOLINE WITH ETHANOL BY 2020. JACOBSON'S USE OF THIS ASSUMPTION IS UNREALISTIC AND SHOULD NOT BE PART OF ANY SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION OF ETHANOL'S LIKELY IMPACTS.

READERS, PUNDIT IS REALLY OFFERING A REAL LESSON IN DISINFORMATION: PREVARICATION AND MISREPRESENTATION OF ANOTHERS ARGUMENTS IS A HALLMARK OF THE 'BLACK' ART OF DISINIFORMATION.


READER WILL FIND A MOEE COMPLETE LIST OF 'ERRORS' IN JACOBSON'S "STUDY" IN MY REPLY 59.


REAADER SHOULD EXPECT MORE RANTING FROM PUNDIT WHICH ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY IRRATIONAL AND UNCONNECTED TO ANYTHING IN THIS THREAD.

[kristopher]

85. .

EPRI and NRDC 2007

The Medium deployment scenario is graphically displayed here:


Combining the medium deployment scenario with a scenario plotting a medium CO2 intensity** for the energy mix yields 486 million metric ton reduction in annual GHG emissions by 2050. The low deployment/high CO2 intensity scenario resulted in 163 annual MMT reductions by 2050 and the high/low scenario brought about 612 MMT annual reduction. Cumulative reductions to 2050 between the scenarios ranged from 3.4 - 10.3 BMT.

The scenarios re carbon intensity were described thus:

The scenarios represent different levels of CO2 intensity for the sector.
High CO2 intensity scenario: There is limited availability of higher efficiency and non-emitting generation technologies and a low cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs in this scenario. Total annual electric sector GHG emissions
increase by 25% from 2010 to 2050.
Medium CO2 intensity scenario: Advanced renewable and non-emitting generation technologies, such as biomass and IGCC with carbon capture and storage, are available in this scenario. There is a moderate cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs. Total annual electric sector emissions decline by 41% between 2010 and 2050.
Low CO2 scenario: Carbon capture and storage retrofit technology for existing coal
plants are available in this scenario. In addition, there is significantly slower load growth indicative of a nationwide adoption of energy efficiency, or other demand
reduction, and a high cost to emit CO 2 and other GHGs. Total electric sector emissions decline by 85% in this scenario from 2010 to 2050.

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

If you believe that ethanol is able to make a difference, great, pursue its use aggressively on the private market; it is a solution that does not merit the diversion of scarce government funds.

You can download the full EPRI report here: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2
I have provided this information to you previously.

[JohnWxy]

84. Jacobson's "study" is nonsense, and trivial bullshit. The critique I pasted into my reply 59 says it

quite satisfactorily. In the 'copy' produced by Jacobson there is nothing to take seriously, and nobody does.


pundit won't read this but for those who are interested here is the critique of and enumeration of the manifold 'mistakes' of the Jocobson "study".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=216302&mesg_id=218549

[kristopher]

86. Nobody takes Jacobson seriously?

I suppose that's why virtually *every plan out there mirrors his findings* in their recommendations.

EPRI and NRDC 2007

The Medium deployment scenario is graphically displayed here:


Combining the medium deployment scenario with a scenario plotting a medium CO2 intensity** for the energy mix yields 486 million metric ton reduction in annual GHG emissions by 2050. The low deployment/high CO2 intensity scenario resulted in 163 annual MMT reductions by 2050 and the high/low scenario brought about 612 MMT annual reduction. Cumulative reductions to 2050 between the scenarios ranged from 3.4 - 10.3 BMT.

The scenarios re carbon intensity were described thus:

The scenarios represent different levels of CO2 intensity for the sector.
High CO2 intensity scenario: There is limited availability of higher efficiency and non-emitting generation technologies and a low cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs in this scenario. Total annual electric sector GHG emissions
increase by 25% from 2010 to 2050.
Medium CO2 intensity scenario: Advanced renewable and non-emitting generation technologies, such as biomass and IGCC with carbon capture and storage, are available in this scenario. There is a moderate cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs. Total annual electric sector emissions decline by 41% between 2010 and 2050.
Low CO2 scenario: Carbon capture and storage retrofit technology for existing coal
plants are available in this scenario. In addition, there is significantly slower load growth indicative of a nationwide adoption of energy efficiency, or other demand
reduction, and a high cost to emit CO 2 and other GHGs. Total electric sector emissions decline by 85% in this scenario from 2010 to 2050.

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

If you believe that ethanol is able to make a difference, great, pursue its use aggressively on the private market; it is a solution that does not merit the diversion of scarce government funds.

You can download the full EPRI report here: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2
I have provided this information to you previously.

[JohnWxy]

89. Every "plan". You are referring to the Electric Power Research "Institute"?

THE utilities are all for PHEVs as it means more demand for their product. Care to relate that product to the Jacobson "study".

got any other ideas? "every "plan""? Got some documentation?


I referred to a critique which establishes the Jocoabson study is fraught with "mistakes" and "errors". This critique establishes the Jacobson copy as bullshit to put a technical term on it. NO scientific paper would have the unrealistic assumptions and questionable data selection his shows.

I am running out of time now, but I will post later another critique of Jocobsons product.

[kristopher]

92. You pointed to nothing John,

You presented a psychotic rant.

If you have an argument, try very hard to make it logical and understandable. Perhaps taking meds instead of dipping into your product would be a good idea.

[JohnWxy]

93. You seem to becoming less and less lucid. YOU said: "virtually *every plan out there mirrors his

findings" (after I had said Jocobson's findings (re ethanol which is what you pasted in one of your replies and which I provided devastating critism of by researchers in the field. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=216302&mesg_id=218549


to which I said in in 89: ]Every "plan"? You are referring to the Electric Power Research "Institute"?

THE utilities are all for PHEVs as it means more demand for their product. Care to relate that product to the Jacobson "study". {By which I meant, what is the relation of the EPRI paper to the Jacobson product. Did it draw on it?...HUH?}

Got any other ideas? "every "plan""? Got some documentation? ..end excerpt from my reply 89.

... SOOOO, IT IS UP TO YOU to provide some documentation to back up your statement: ""virtually *every plan out there mirrors his findings"

Now let me point out the obvious here that the Jacobson study also had postions on renewables such as wind power and many other researchers and activistss are proponents of using more wind power and solar power. THis does not mean Jacobson convinced them of the value of using renewables or that they were even influenced by his "study" in any way. JUst because there are others who agree with Jacobson on the value of renewables that doesn't constitute corroboration of his methodologies nor his conclusions (since the conclusions are only valid, and can be relied upon, if his methodologies are NOT flawed). Actually, I read one critique of the Jacobson 'copy' which described much of it as a "rehash of already known data".

Just because others agree with a person doensn't mean they were influenced by him ,nor does in mean that they endorse his methodologies or the quality of his research (or establish whether it was valid research at all). HOwever, it is true in casual articles people have been known to add as notes (I guess in hopes of bolstering their position or at least making it look like they did their homework) articles and studies that they may have only perused, and included them in there notes, merely as they agreed with their general conclusions.

Just because their are people who agree renewables are worth developing this does not constitute a corroboration and validation of someone's methodologies and thus a given person's work or in this case Jacobson's "study".


Rather than substantiating your claim that "virtually every plan out there" mirrors his findings (again mirroring someone's findings doesn't mean that they corroborate the other's methodology or his findings - given his methologies), you referred back to the EPRI paper again - without establishing any link between the EPRI paper and Jocobson's "study".

you then included from a previous reply this verbage:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This text you pasted in (from one of your previous replys is obviously about the EPRE paper:
"The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables."

.. this appears to be straight out of the EPRI paper.

NONE OF THIS REFERS TO OTHERS INFLUENCED BY, CORROBORATING, REFERENCING, OR OTHERWISE USING JACOBSEN'S "findings".
ALL YOUR ABOVE PASTED-IN COMMENTS APPEAR TO BE REFERRING TO THE EPRI STUDY AGAIN --- NOT THE JACOBSEN "STUDY"


This does not address the criticism THAT I PROVIDED of the Jacobson "study" segment you pasted about health affects of using ethanol.

I PROVIDED A CRITIQUE OF THE JACOBOEN "STUDY". WHICH APPLIED ONLY TO THE PART OF THE JACOBSON "study" which addressed the health affects of the use of ethanol. -- as this was the part you pasted in originally and is pertinent to your continued harangue against ethanol.

I DID NOT criticize the EPRI study. In fact, I took their results to beat you over the head with as this study confirmed the numbers I have been using for the time period required to obtain a significant reduction of GHG emissions by PHEGs. They themselves use the 20 year period which I often use. (Remeber the chart you pasted a link to and I asked you to state what year appeared at the bottom of the chart and how many years was that year form 2010 --which of course you would not answer (lol) )


AGAIN,,,,,,,I PROVIDE THIS RESPONSE ONLY FOR THOSE READERS WHO WANT TO BE AWARE OF AND DEFEND AGAINST THE TECHNIQUES OF DISINFORMATION. IF NOTHING ELSE THE 'PUNDIT' PROVIDES AMPLE OBJECT LESSONS IN DISINFORMAION. (ALTHOUGH, IT MAY JUST BE A LACK OF LUCID THOUGHT ON THE "PUNDIT'S" PART.)

however, the continued personal attacks are marks of disinformation, as are the defensive rhetorical techniques of personal derision - or they are to cover up an inablilty to explain what he has asserted (in other words the technique employed by someone caught in his own bullshit).

Let's see, I'm sure there will be more obfuscation and bullshit to come. LOL

[JohnWxy]

71. And now for the NRDC's statement of qualified support, ......from the report

NRDC Perspective



NRDC Perspective

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s purpose is to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants
and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends. The organization uses law,
science, and the support of its members to promote solutions to our environmental challenges.
Participation in this study does not imply NRDC endorses the power plant emission
control assumptions in the air quality report. The study’s air quality modeling and
analysis are based on an assumption that regulatory caps govern NOx, SO2 and
mercury emissions during the study period, and that EPA rules do not change during
the study time horizon. However, the actual situation is more complex—for example,
a number of states have declined to participate in EPA’s model cap-and-trade rule
for mercury in favor of more stringent approaches. In addition, EPA’s Clean Air
Mercury Rule and Clean Air Interstate Rule (resulting in tighter NOx and SO2 caps in
the eastern U.S.) are currently being challenged in court. NRDC firmly believes that
stronger emissions controls are necessary to protect human health. This study does not
attempt to determine the adequate level of power plant controls or adequate levels of
ambient air pollution and strives only to determine the specific impacts of large-scale
PHEV penetration given the assumptions of the study.

NRDC does not support trading off pollution benefits in some regions for pollution
increases in others regions. NRDC believes that no areas or populations should be
allowed to experience increases in air pollution exposures and that further emission
controls from all sources are needed in order to protect public health. Consequently,
NRDC supports more stringent emissions control requirements for the electric and
transportation sectors, as well as other economic sectors.

NRDC does believe that with sufficient emissions controls in place PHEVs have the
potential to improve air quality and to substantially contribute to meeting our long term
GHG reduction goals of 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

NRDC supports the introduction of PHEVs accompanied by substantial additional
improvements in power plant emission rates. In areas where there are potential
adverse impacts from air pollution as a result of PHEV charging, NRDC believes it
is not appropriate to promote introduction until the public can be assured that air
pollution will not increase.

[kristopher]

76. I concur completely

That's why spending money on ethanol that would otherwise be used to facilitate the transition to renewable generation is a boondoggle.

[JohnWxy]

87. You concur that PHEV use can depending on the power generation fuel mix add to air pollution.

NRDC:

"In areas where there are potential adverse impacts from air pollution as a result of PHEV charging, NRDC believes it
is not appropriate to promote introduction until the public can be assured that air pollution will not increase."


THat is, depending on the proportion of coal used in power generation used to charge PHEVs, introduction of PHEVs could make pollution worse.

You concur with that statement?

[kristopher]

90. I concur with the NRDC statement when applied properly.

NRDC supports the introduction of PHEVs accompanied by substantial additional improvements in power plant emission rates. In areas where there are potential adverse impacts from air pollution as a result of PHEV charging, NRDC believes it is not appropriate to promote introduction until the public can be assured that air pollution will not increase.

In areas where there are potential adverse impacts from air pollution as a result of PHEV charging...

Of course I agree but the evaluation isn't that simple. There are very few (if any) areas where that is the case and any such areas need to be identified and the funds you want to dedicate to ethanol should be channeled instead to changing the generating mix to eliminate the problem.

The most important thing about PHEVs and plug in EVs is that their use facilitates a reduction in emissions from the generating mix by providing storage for renewable generating sources. Any problem areas need to be identified, then a plan created that involves integration of renewables and V2G equipped PHEVs. While that might seem contradictory it revolves around the use of the word "promote". The minimum number of PHEVs needed to make a big impact on renewable integration is less than 1% of the local fleet. This number will be achieved with no promotion, so the onus is a focus on building the renewable base.

[JohnWxy]

88. you concur that the study's assumption that regulatory caps on various pollutants will remain

unchanged through-out the study's time horizon (2050) is too simplistic to be considered realistic, or will likely prove to be unfounded.


NRDC:


"The study’s air quality modeling and analysis are based on an assumption that regulatory caps govern NOx, SO2 and
mercury emissions during the study period, and that EPA rules do not change during
the study time horizon. However, the actual situation is more complex—for example,
a number of states have declined to participate in EPA’s model cap-and-trade rule
for mercury in favor of more stringent approaches. In addition, EPA’s Clean Air
Mercury Rule and Clean Air Interstate Rule (resulting in tighter NOx and SO2 caps in
the eastern U.S.) are currently being challenged in court."

[kristopher]

91. No I do not agree.

I don't think the cap and trade system is terribly relevant to the future of the effort. As stated earlier the main driver of change is going to be declining prices of renewables, storage via V2G equipped EVs, and the role of China in making manifest those price decreases.
Cap and trade is gravy.

I admit that contradicts nearly everyone.

[JohnWxy]

60. How many years till PHEVs achieve a appreciable reduction to GHGs? No answer? Nose in mud?

How many years, pundit? How much reduction?

Just mindless repetition of stuff that doesn't address this question won't cut-it pundit.

You want to do nothing but sit in your stie while the earth burns, huh?


Oh, now you're trying to hide your face in that other pig's ass. Get it IN there. THat's it!

Hey Oinkster, I'm still here waiting for an answer.

[kristopher]

63. Ah, he's in the bottle again...

EPRI and NRDC 2007 study

The Medium deployment scenario is graphically displayed here:


Combining the medium deployment scenario with a scenario plotting a medium CO2 intensity** for the energy mix yields 486 million metric ton reduction in annual GHG emissions by 2050. The low deployment/high CO2 intensity scenario resulted in 163 annual MMT reductions by 2050 and the high/low scenario brought about 612 MMT annual reduction. Cumulative reductions to 2050 between the scenarios ranged from 3.4 - 10.3 BMT.

The scenarios re carbon intensity were described thus:

The scenarios represent different levels of CO2 intensity for the sector.
High CO2 intensity scenario: There is limited availability of higher efficiency and non-emitting generation technologies and a low cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs in this scenario. Total annual electric sector GHG emissions
increase by 25% from 2010 to 2050.
Medium CO2 intensity scenario: Advanced renewable and non-emitting generation technologies, such as biomass and IGCC with carbon capture and storage, are available in this scenario. There is a moderate cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs. Total annual electric sector emissions decline by 41% between 2010 and 2050.
Low CO2 scenario: Carbon capture and storage retrofit technology for existing coal
plants are available in this scenario. In addition, there is significantly slower load growth indicative of a nationwide adoption of energy efficiency, or other demand
reduction, and a high cost to emit CO 2 and other GHGs. Total electric sector emissions decline by 85% in this scenario from 2010 to 2050.

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

If you believe that ethanol is able to make a difference, great, pursue its use aggressively on the private market; it is a solution that does not merit the diversion of scarce government funds.

You can download the full EPRI report here: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2
I have provided this information to you previously.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[JohnWxy]

66. Looking at the graphic provided, how many years is it till they project PHEV & electrics

will achieve a market penetration of 41% - 42% (that's what it looks like that to me, anyway). NOW, look at the year at the bottom of that chart. How many years is it from 2010 to the year they project the 40%-42% market share for all electrics?

Can you read the chart and put that number in print in a post.

BTW, This does not contradict anything I have said re time to achieve a given market penetration (I have been using Google's number) and the corresponding GHG reduction (note this is, as must be, a guesstimate as forecasting how the electrics and PHEVs will be received at a price of most likely around $38,000 (less a tax break of $7,500). This is quite expensive for most people. But I am satisfied to let others make this estimate as it is a difficult one to make (that's why I have been using Google's - with just mentioned proviso).


So then......how many years does Electric Power REsearch Institute (not a disinterested party) say it will take to achieve what looks like (by the chart provided) 40%-42% market penetration?

[kristopher]

68. They don't "say" any length of time.

they posit three basic rates of deployment. I presented the medium rate they hypothesized. Note the "percent of all new vehicles sold" curve as it is most relevant. Whether the car is all electric or hybrid is not key, since studies of driving habits show that series hybrids with 40+ mile range will also make a huge difference in CO2 emissions.

Your price estimate is like basing predictions of the rate of adoption for flat panel tvs on the price of a plasma tv in 1998. It ignores the effects of creating a mature supply chain and manufacturing base for a new technology. There is no reason that 10 years from now the cost of an electric vehicle would be any more expensive in today's $$ than an ICE drive is now. You know that.


AS for EPRI's bias, yes they are to a point, but that bias shows in the generating mix they think is an answer, not in their treatment of electric drive itself. The rate of market adoption is controlled much more by China's commitment to EV and battery manufacturing than any other single factor.

And that report does not support your claim that "we don't have time to wait". It clearly shows that diverting funds into programs and mandates for ethanol is a very poor use of our money to meet the goal of reducing CO2 emissions. That is, unless you can show how the pittance that ethanol can do justifies going from something like the cumulative 10+ billion metric tons of CO2 reductions to something more on the order of 3 BMTs.

[JohnWxy]

72. Therefore you were bull-shitting readers when you said you posted reports that contradicted what I

have said, that it will be some 20 years or so before PHEVs will be able to make an appreciable reduction (something like 20% or more) to GHG emissions from the transortation sector.

Prices for elecrics will come down. It all depends on how many they can sell. And that depends a lot on how affordable they are.
Forecasting how fast the prices will come down is very difficult. Hence it's difficult to predict just how fast PHEVs will be adopted in large numbers.

[kristopher]

74. Not at all.

Your main assertion was that the desirable course is to subsidize ethanol.

That is false and the data proves it.

[JohnWxy]

80. All scientific, legitimate data show ethanol is now achieving GHG reductions. But

you want to get off the point here. I have said, PHEVs will provide GHG reductions of appreciable amounts in 20 years or so.


The study you have referenced, by your own admission - NOW - does NOT CONTRADICT ME AS TO how long it will take to achieve these reductions. YOu just said the Electric Power Industry study does not even state when the projected GHG reductions will take place.

BUT, you provided a chart that does show a percentage of market penetration for PHEVs ...care to state what that chart shows? I DIDN'T THINK SO. THE CHART SHOWS A 40% TO 42% MARKET PENETRATION FOR PHEVs.....AND WHEN DOES THIS 40% TO 42% PENETRATION APPEAR TO BE ACHIEVED..... COME ON PUNDIT,,,, CAN'T SAY IT???? GONNA HIDE AMONG THE PIGS AGAIN?? THE CHART THAT YOU PROVIDED SHOWS THE YEAR AS 2030...THAT'S WHEN IT SHOWS A MARKET PENETRATION FOR PHEVs OF 40% - 42%.(unless I have read the chart wrong).

AND I SHOWED USING THE DATA FROM THE ELECTRIC POWER INDUSTRY'S STUDY THAT AT 41% - 42% PENETRATION, ACCORDING TO THE RANGE OF REDUCTIONS THEY PROJECT AS POSSIBLE (projected for 2050 actually) THAT WOULD YIELD A GHG REDUCTION FOR ALL THE PHEVs AS A PERCENT OF GHG EMISSIONS FOR THE ENTIRE TRANSPORTATION SECTOR OF 16% to 27%.....BY 2030.


NOW, with regard to ethanol, since you are nothing but a 14 year old little shit, i'm not going to waste my time wiping my ass with you. (for the readers information, the latest peer reviewed research, published in Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology, shows the ethanol industry(on average) is now for every gallon of ethanol consumed, reducing GHG emissions 51% vs gasoline. I have also posted an EPA study that shows that the ethanol process, using Combined Heat and Power, can achieve a negative carbon footprint (for the ethanol biorefinery phase) and that if the ethanol industry would adapt Combined Heat and Power that would boost the GHG reductions up to approximately 78% vs gasoline. I have stated on this site that we need to import ethanol from Brazil to combine with our domestic production to get ethanol up to a 20% market share within five years(then beyond 5 yeras go for a larager market share, perhaps 30%). There are other steps we should take which i have stated before (efficiency retrofits to buildings and in the design of new buildings and incentivising use of more efficient appliances and conservation techniques, among others). These are things we can do right now which will make the savings to be had in the future from PHEVs worth it. Without these current GHG reductions future savings from PHEVs will not matter. I have posted items here on ethanol and will, at times post more on ethanol... for the benefit of anyone who has an open mind.)

Now, let's see if the 'pundit' can admit the percentage of market penetratiion for PHEVs and the the number of years in the chart from the Electric Power Institute's paper he referenced - and which he said contradicted what I have said re PHEVs time to achieve appreciable reductions to GHG emissions. Don't hold your breath. He likes to redefine reality so he doens't have to admit he's mostly just bullshitting (and trying to impress us) (LOL).

but the pundit likes to get in the last word, relevant or not, so I'm sure he'll have some more shit to regurgitate for our displeasure (I'll bet on it! Any takers? No, I didn't think so).

[kristopher]

82. .

EPRI and NRDC 2007

The Medium deployment scenario is graphically displayed here:


Combining the medium deployment scenario with a scenario plotting a medium CO2 intensity** for the energy mix yields 486 million metric ton reduction in annual GHG emissions by 2050. The low deployment/high CO2 intensity scenario resulted in 163 annual MMT reductions by 2050 and the high/low scenario brought about 612 MMT annual reduction. Cumulative reductions to 2050 between the scenarios ranged from 3.4 - 10.3 BMT.

The scenarios re carbon intensity were described thus:

The scenarios represent different levels of CO2 intensity for the sector.
High CO2 intensity scenario: There is limited availability of higher efficiency and non-emitting generation technologies and a low cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs in this scenario. Total annual electric sector GHG emissions
increase by 25% from 2010 to 2050.
Medium CO2 intensity scenario: Advanced renewable and non-emitting generation technologies, such as biomass and IGCC with carbon capture and storage, are available in this scenario. There is a moderate cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs. Total annual electric sector emissions decline by 41% between 2010 and 2050.
Low CO2 scenario: Carbon capture and storage retrofit technology for existing coal
plants are available in this scenario. In addition, there is significantly slower load growth indicative of a nationwide adoption of energy efficiency, or other demand
reduction, and a high cost to emit CO 2 and other GHGs. Total electric sector emissions decline by 85% in this scenario from 2010 to 2050.

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

If you believe that ethanol is able to make a difference, great, pursue its use aggressively on the private market; it is a solution that does not merit the diversion of scarce government funds.

You can download the full EPRI report here: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2
I have provided this information to you previously.

[JohnWxy]

73. Here is the link to the chart you pasted into your reply 61:

chart identified as: PHEV Market Penetration





Do you see numbers representing years across the bottom of the chart? Or can't you admit what the last year on that chart is? And can you compute how many years that is from 2010?

[kristopher]

75. Aggregate emissions between now and then is the important measure

Not a bogus "ethanol in the next 4 years or we are all going to die!" bunch of crap.

[JohnWxy]

95. The year is 2030, the time period 20 yrs. The GHG reductions for transportation: 16.4% - 26.7% EPRI

For about a two years I have been saying electric cars will may achieve a 20% to 30% GHG reduction in 20 years. THe Electric Power REsearch Institute study which teh "Pundit" referenced corroborates what I have been saying.

IT DOES NOT CONTRADICT WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING AS THE "PUNDIT" CLAIMED IN THIS THREAD. I have never been opposed to developing electric cars. I have been for realistic evaluation of the technology to see what it can accomplish and WHEN IT CAN ACCOMPLISH IT. I have also said that we will need to use any and all techniques and technologies we can muster to gain more GHG reductions much sooner than in 20 yrs. I have referred to James Hansen and other climate scientists who have said we have perhaps 4 or 5 more years (from 2009) to start gaining some more significant GHG reductions than we have achieved so far or we will not be able to prevent catastrophic Global Warming.

If electric cars turn out to go down in price faster than expected (it's very hard to estimate this anyway, so nobody is SURE of their estimates) and the numbers on the road goes up faster than I (or anybody else ) anticipates, nobody would be happier than I. But even if the sales growth is very strong, it will still take a couple of decades to get enough of them on the road to start making significant reductions to GHGs). That's why we need to do more now, or what is achieved later will not matter.

READERS should note that it is my position that ethanol along with every other technique and technology available to us must be employed without anymore delay to preclude unrestrained Global Warming. "Pundit" in trying to present himself as some kind of "great thinker" attacks that position, with impotent rage and personal put-downs and ample use of disinformation, despite evidence which he himself has provided (e.g. the EPRI study) which contradicts his vacuous belief that electric cars, by themselves, will save the Earth.


Here is what the Electric Power Research Institute study results show:

16.4% to 26.7% GHG reductions from PHEVs by 2030 - Electric Power Research Institiute. .

THE RANGE AVERAGES OUT TO: 21.5% THIS USES THE EPRI ESTIMATE OF 41% PHEV PENETREATION IN 2030 along with EPRI's projection of approximately a 41% PHEV market penetration (see page 43 of EPRI report).


THAT'S FROM http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/000000000001015325.pdf#page=12 (please be patient this is 3 megabyte pdf file and it does take time to download).

The following figure compares GHG emissions of model year 2050 conventional and hybrid
vehicles to the three PHEV types (10, 20 and 40 miles of electric range) in each of the three
electric sector scenarios (High CO2, Medium CO2, and Low CO2 Intensity).


PHEVs have lower GHG emissions in all nine cases than either the conventional or the hybrid
vehicles, ranging from a 40% to 65% improvement over the conventional vehicle to a 7% to
46% improvement over the hybrid electric vehicle.

chart they are referring to above

The 41% figure for PHEV market penetration for 2030 can be found on page 4-9 of the EPRI report (just clik here).

[kristopher]

96. .

EPRI and NRDC 2007

The Medium deployment scenario is graphically displayed here:


Combining the medium deployment scenario with a scenario plotting a medium CO2 intensity** for the energy mix yields 486 million metric ton reduction in annual GHG emissions by 2050. The low deployment/high CO2 intensity scenario resulted in 163 annual MMT reductions by 2050 and the high/low scenario brought about 612 MMT annual reduction. Cumulative reductions to 2050 between the scenarios ranged from 3.4 - 10.3 BMT.

The scenarios re carbon intensity were described thus:

The scenarios represent different levels of CO2 intensity for the sector.
High CO2 intensity scenario: There is limited availability of higher efficiency and non-emitting generation technologies and a low cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs in this scenario. Total annual electric sector GHG emissions
increase by 25% from 2010 to 2050.
Medium CO2 intensity scenario: Advanced renewable and non-emitting generation technologies, such as biomass and IGCC with carbon capture and storage, are available in this scenario. There is a moderate cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs. Total annual electric sector emissions decline by 41% between 2010 and 2050.
Low CO2 scenario: Carbon capture and storage retrofit technology for existing coal
plants are available in this scenario. In addition, there is significantly slower load growth indicative of a nationwide adoption of energy efficiency, or other demand
reduction, and a high cost to emit CO 2 and other GHGs. Total electric sector emissions decline by 85% in this scenario from 2010 to 2050.

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

If you believe that ethanol is able to make a difference, great, pursue its use aggressively on the private market; it is a solution that does not merit the diversion of scarce government funds.

You can download the full EPRI report here: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2
I have provided this information to you previously.

[JohnWxy]

97. Electric Power Research Institute: GHG reductions from PHEVs : 16.4% - 26.7% by 2030

AVERAGING THE LIMITS OF THIS RANGE EQUALS: 21.5%. THIS IS THE TOTAL GHG EMISSIONS REDUCTION AS A 5 OF THE TOTAL EMISSIONS OF THE TRANSPORTATION SECTOR.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=216302&mesg_id=219069


For about a two years I have been saying electric cars will may achieve a 20% to 30% GHG reduction in 20 years. THe Electric Power REsearch Institute study which teh "Pundit" referenced corroborates what I have been saying.

IT DOES NOT CONTRADICT WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING AS THE "PUNDIT" CLAIMED IN THIS THREAD. I have never been opposed to developing electric cars. I have been for realistic evaluation of the technology to see what it can accomplish and WHEN IT CAN ACCOMPLISH IT. I have also said that we will need to use any and all techniques and technologies we can muster to gain more GHG reductions much sooner than in 20 yrs. I have referred to James Hansen and other climate scientists who have said we have perhaps 4 or 5 more years (from 2009) to start gaining some more significant GHG reductions than we have achieved so far or we will not be able to prevent catastrophic Global Warming.

If electric cars turn out to go down in price faster than expected (it's very hard to estimate this anyway, so nobody is SURE of their estimates) and the numbers on the road goes up faster than I (or anybody else ) anticipates, nobody would be happier than I. But even if the sales growth is very strong, it will still take a couple of decades to get enough of them on the road to start making significant reductions to GHGs). That's why we need to do more now, or what is achieved later will not matter.

READERS should note that it is my position that ethanol along with every other technique and technology available to us must be employed without anymore delay to preclude unrestrained Global Warming. "Pundit" in trying to present himself as some kind of "great thinker" attacks that position, with impotent rage and personal put-downs and ample use of disinformation, despite evidence which he himself has provided (e.g. the EPRI study) which contradicts his vacuous belief that electric cars, by themselves, will save the Earth.


Here is what the Electric Power Research Institute study results show:

16.4% to 26.7% GHG reductions from PHEVs by 2030 - Electric Power Research Institiute. .

THE RANGE AVERAGES OUT TO: 21.5% THIS USES THE EPRI ESTIMATE OF 41% PHEV PENETREATION IN 2030 along with EPRI's projection of approximately a 41% PHEV market penetration (see page 43 of EPRI report).


THAT'S FROM http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/public/000000000001015325.pdf (please be patient this is 3 megabyte pdf file and it does take time to download).

[kristopher]

98. .

EPRI and NRDC 2007

The Medium deployment scenario is graphically displayed here:


Combining the medium deployment scenario with a scenario plotting a medium CO2 intensity** for the energy mix yields 486 million metric ton reduction in annual GHG emissions by 2050. The low deployment/high CO2 intensity scenario resulted in 163 annual MMT reductions by 2050 and the high/low scenario brought about 612 MMT annual reduction. Cumulative reductions to 2050 between the scenarios ranged from 3.4 - 10.3 BMT.

The scenarios re carbon intensity were described thus:

The scenarios represent different levels of CO2 intensity for the sector.
High CO2 intensity scenario: There is limited availability of higher efficiency and non-emitting generation technologies and a low cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs in this scenario. Total annual electric sector GHG emissions
increase by 25% from 2010 to 2050.
Medium CO2 intensity scenario: Advanced renewable and non-emitting generation technologies, such as biomass and IGCC with carbon capture and storage, are available in this scenario. There is a moderate cost associated with allowances to emit CO2 and other GHGs. Total annual electric sector emissions decline by 41% between 2010 and 2050.
Low CO2 scenario: Carbon capture and storage retrofit technology for existing coal
plants are available in this scenario. In addition, there is significantly slower load growth indicative of a nationwide adoption of energy efficiency, or other demand
reduction, and a high cost to emit CO 2 and other GHGs. Total electric sector emissions decline by 85% in this scenario from 2010 to 2050.

This study was accomplished under a Republican administration hostile to - for want of a better term - "Gore's Plan" in 2007 and was based on work and circumstances extant at that time. Since then, we have a new scope of possibilities that affect the results profoundly; rendering them, IMO, very conservative.

The best evidence for this is the dedication to electric drive that is being displayed by China. There is no doubt that China has committed to a full court press on the use of PHEV and renewable energy. Since the only real obstacle to dramatic price reduction in renewable and battery technologies is the inflow of capital into mass production, and since the Chinese market alone is sufficient to provide the required amount of investment, that ends the uncertainty that existed when the report was drafted.

The difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables.

While we can expect the decline in renewable prices resulting from China's thrust to be an important factor for us, the roll out here is also affected by the need to overcome the resistance based on loss of value that will be incurred by the owners of existing fossil fuel energy sources. China doesn't face that obstacle, all they need to focus on is how rapidly they can get power their population.

In order to overcome the existing infrastructure dilemma our government must dedicate considerable resources to creating an alternative pricing structure not only by reducing the cost of renewable energy and raising the price of carbon, but we also need to provide strong temporary subsidies to renewable technologies.

As I said, the difference between the high deployment/low intensity scenario (good) and the low deployment/high intensity scenario (bad) is the dedication of government funds to create a pricing structure favorable to renewables. That means that when we spend a significant portion of that government money on the kind of temporary, limited reductions you claim for ethanol then we are making a decision to move away from the (good) and towards the (bad).

If you believe that ethanol is able to make a difference, great, pursue its use aggressively on the private market; it is a solution that does not merit the diversion of scarce government funds.

You can download the full EPRI report here: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=243&PageID=223132&cached=true&mode=2
I have provided this information to you previously.

[JohnWxy]

54. Here is a NREL study, it doesn't say anything about time to deploy any number of PHEVs

use this link to look at Figure 19: Net Vehicle CO2 Emissions Rates:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41410.pdf#page=27

It shows total emissions including power stations for PHEVs as being somewhat less than conventional hybrids but not a helluva lot. Now , this is based on the Colorado area, which has a higher mix of coal than the nation as a whole. But even assuming the 49% mix for the nation the PHEVs are still not a helluva lot higher than conventional hybrids.


But as I said, I can't find anything in here about time to deploy any number of PHEVs.