[LINK] Standards, please! The third coming of electric vehicles

[Karl Auer]

On Fri, 2012-04-20 at 10:40 +1000, David Boxall wrote:
> As the military, aircraft manufacturers and airlines have realised, 
> algal biofuels work quite well. They're considerably more expensive
> than fossil fuels at present, but feasible. There are interesting 
> developments in bacterial biofuels, as well.

... all of which are AT LEAST a decade away, and more probably two or
three decades away. We have emissions-free[1] electricity right now, and
production can be ramped up easily, cheaply and locally.

> Bioreactors don't need land devoted to them at all, certainly not
> arable land. Feedstock can be industrial waste, which is an
> environmental positive. Interestingly, carbon out of the exhaust pipe
> can be less than carbon into the process, so they're potentially
> carbon-negative.

You'd hope so! However, the term "carbon out of the exhaust pipe" is
interesting. EVs don't have any.

The biggest problem with liquid fuels (including FF of course) is the
vast amount of the stuff that must be produced. We collectively chew
through around 70 million barrels of crude per *day* worldwide. Not all
of it goes to fuels, of course - some goes to plastics and suchlike. But
let's assume that about half of that- around 55 gigalitres[2] - is used
as liquid fuels. That is a vast, truly VAST amount of liquid to produce,
store and transport. The production areas will not be the same as the FF
production areas (probably they will be more distributed), so while some
storage facilities might still be extended or re-used, the transport
network will have to be rebuilt. Not to mention the transport networks
for the raw materials[3]. And we have not even considered the
by-products of the production of these fuels. Some may be good - but
some may be bad, depending on the fuel concerned.

In any case, we are talking decades before such fuels can be practically
viable - whereas you can have an EV today if you want one, and no
problems at all getting fuel. Fuel which you can even "grow yourself" if
you want, for a few thousand dollars invested in wind or sun, while at
the same time shunting excess clean power into the grid for fun and
profit.

> In converstaion, the service manager at my local Mitubishi dealership 
> mentioned that the company recommends full-body protection for people 
> servicing its electric vehicles. I've no idea why and maybe it's just 
> Mitsubishi, but there might be a problem there.

Fossil fuels are dangerous too - just in different ways. I would suggest
that electricity is a great deal easier to manage than petrol. An air
gap is enough. Petrol leaks, flows downwards, smears across surfaces, is
a pollutant even unburned, has a vapour state which is a thousand times
more dangerous than its liquid state and which it assumes as soon as it
is exposed to air, is a solvent, is dangerous to breathe, ingest or
touch... but we've learned to deal with it. The nice thing about
electricity is that we've learned to deal with that too.

> I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. To me, battery-powered 
> vehicles are unlikely to be more than shiny technobaubles (within my 
> lifetime, at least).

I'm trying to get a handle on what you don't like about them, why you
thing they are impractical. It seems to be because batteries are
themselves an environmental problem (production, disposal). In answer,
I've said that yes they are, but these are problems that are *simple* to
address. This is in stark contrast to the many and complex problems of
changing the world over to a new liquid fuel source or (far worse)
staying with fossil fuels.

You also said that EVs just relocate the emissions; I explained how this
may be true but does not have to be, and again is *simple* to fix. Not
only that, but it can be fixed *today* using existing, available and
cheap technology i.e, solar panels. Or just buy "green" power from your
friendly electricity retailer.

Yes, there are other paths we could follow; the paths you have mentioned
(espoused?) all have long lead times and require massive infrastructure
changes. EVs are available now, slot neatly into the current system, and
allow very fine-grained take-up, ranging from the direct use of
coal-fired power (little gain) through to local sun/wind generation
(large gain).

Regards, K.

[1] Well, nothing is emissions *free*, but the production of a solar
panel has an energy payback time of about three to five years, while
fossil fuel is pure loss.

[2] I think it's gigalitres. Calculations done in my head, in a
hurry :-)

[3] "Using waste" is an oxymoron. Anything that can be used becomes
not-waste, which is why the idea of using "waste wood" for chipping or
wood pellets rightly disturbs anyone trying to slow the destruction of
old-growth forests. Using waste is a good thing ONLY if it does not
result in a demand for more waste!

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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