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(long) Re: PROPOSED GOVERNMENT DRIVING RESTRICTIONS



In article <3uv6i7$244@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> sorandi@wam.umd.edu (Persepolis) writes:

   PLacey@intr.net wrote:
   : Environmental types want electric cars.  Fine.  How many coal burning
   : or nuclear power plants are they willing to have built to generate the 
   : power to charge the darn batteries?  There is no free lunch.  You can 

   I am not an environmentalist (nor do I play one on TV) but I can tell you 
   this, you have completely left out wind, solar, hydro and geothermal 
   alternatives-  This unfortunately is the same logic used by advocates 
   of fossil fuels: "Choose the lesser of two evils: Fossil or Nuclear"

   <description of geothermal project plant deleted>

====
One hears this line of argument all the time from alternative fuel
proponents; the problem is not that the technology can't be made to
work, it's that the infrastructure involved to generate the energy is
way too expensive and inefficient at this time.

Now, don't get me wrong; I would love to see solar or wind power
working, but the studies I've seen show that at most these particular
technologies could only supply a small fraction (something like 10%)
of today's total energy demand of the US, given weather patterns and
other factors.  This is before considering the growth in electricity
demand with the adoption of electric vehicles, and the cost of
implementing such a solution.  The problem with these technologies is
that the energy density is so low that you need a huge powerplant to
capture a "reasonable" amount of energy.

Geothermal has great potential; I don't know enough about how viable a
technology it is, but from your description, I would guess that a
powerplant with a large enough energy output (i.e. megawatts) would be
expensive, and an environmental hazard on par with nuclear fission
(assuming the working fluid is something exotic).

Hydro power - well, considering the environmental preservation efforts
to block construction whenever a new dam is proposed, I'm hard pressed to
believe that environmentalists would be pleased with this solution.

Even assuming that the electricity can be generated efficiently,
looking at the thermodynamic efficiencies of transporting, storing
in batteries, and then converting to motion the electrical energy, I'm
not sure how much better off you'd be than if you burned fossil fuels
at the end point (i.e. in the vehicle) in the first place.

Combine this with the research underway to create clean-burning gas
powered vehicles which meet the Ultra-Low emissions standards, I'm not
sure where electric vehicles will end up in the final analysis.  After
all, we are now at the point where the emissions from new vehicles are
much, much cleaner than they were for new vehicles 10-15 years ago, and
fuel economy is also way up.  At the same time, the amount of power-
per-liter displacement is at an all time high.

I am in favor of increasing the standards as a way to encourage
progress in this area - I am also confident that the automakers will
be able to deliver the needed increases in technology required (after
they really start to work on it).

In summary, I do believe that we should study energy alternatives and
electric vehicles, but I don't think that we can handwave the
arguments for or against either one.

ed

--------   Ed Hahn | ehahn@mitre.org | (703) 883-5988   --------
The above comment reflects the opinions of the author, and does not
constitute endorsement or implied warranty by the MITRE Corporation.
Really, I wouldn't kid you about a thing like this.


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