Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:17:01 GMT | no comments
One of the factors that we often forget when comparing Electric Vehicles (EVs) to gas powered cars is that it takes a lot of energy to extract and refine oil into gas.
For instance, in California it takes about 14kWh of electricity to get a barrel of oil out of the ground, and about double that to refine it. About half a barrel of oil gets refined into gas, which means this 20 gallons of gas takes about 21 kWh of electricity.
It also takes a lot of natural gas to refine oil, and if this natural gas was used instead to produce electricity, it would produce about another 20 kWh of electricity.
Therefore in a typical gas car that 20 gallons will last 400 miles. But if we just left that barrel of oil in the ground and used the electricity and natural gas for an EV instead, we could go about 120 miles or about 30% of the distance of the ICE car.
So the next time a comparison is made between the efficiency of gas cars and EVs, remember even before the gas gets into the tank, we are already giving up 30% of the energy that we could have used to power an electric vehicle.
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 12 May 2009 16:13:05 GMT | no comments
- Michael Reilly, Discovery News, May 11, 2009 – Forget peak oil, a series of new estimates of the world’s coal supply suggests reserves may be vastly overestimated, and if the planet isn’t running on a majority of alternative energies within the next few decades, we could be facing an unprecedented global energy crisis.
On the flip side, a dwindling supply of coal could also throw the breaks on global warming, some argue.
Common knowledge about coal is that major producing nations like China, the United States and Australia, have enough to last hundreds of years, far beyond the reach of oil, which may already be in its twilight years. But worldwide coal production could plateau as early as 2025, according to one new estimate, and a growing group of scientists are concerned that fossil fuel supplies may begin dwindling by mid-century.
Last year, David Rutledge of the California Institute of Technology analyzed the coal production patterns of five regions around the world – eastern Pennsylvania, France, Germany’s Ruhr Valley, the United Kingdom and Japan – each of which was producing at less than a tenth of its peak levels.
He found that each of the depleted regions followed a rough bell curve of production; initial production was followed by a steep ramp-up, a plateau near peak levels, and then a consistent decline.
When he applied the same formula to coal data from around the world, the results were startling: the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s maximum estimate for extractable coal is about 3,400 billion tons. Rutledge’s calculations suggest just 666 billion tons.
Read more...
Posted in Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 12 May 2009 15:55:33 GMT | no comments
by Steven Kopits, Managing Director, Douglas-Westwood, New York, 5/11/2009
NEW YORK: In seeking to explain the run up in oil prices from 2004 to 2008, commentators often turn to “speculation” as the primary cause. While speculation – or at least a kind of piling-on – may have explained the very late stages of the oil price rally, the willingness to attribute oil prices primarily to financial investors – as the CBS news show ‘60 Minutes’ did a few months back – risks drawing the wrong lesson from the period. Let’s re-wind the clock and recall the events of the time.
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Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:47:25 GMT | no comments
Many organization are looking for ways to reduce their garbage and increase composting of the disposable cups. However, it turns out that the styrofoam (also known as extruded polystyrene foam or XPS) versus paper question is more difficult than it first appears.
One big problem is that the coating on the paper cups which keeps it from leaking also makes it difficult to recycle or compost. And the cups themselves contain very little recycled paper.
An old study from Science shows that on almost every count, except cooling water and biodegradability, the styrofoam cups are more eco-friendly.
A newer study also concludes that to process the raw materials about six times as much steam, 13 times as much electric power, and twice as much cooling water are consumed to produce the paper cup as compared to the styrofoam cup.
The same study found that landfill disposal of the two items under dry conditions will occupy similar landfill volumes after compaction and neither will decompose much. Under wet conditions, styrofoam will not readily degrade but may help other materials to do so, while the paper will decompose giving off methane, a significant greenhouse gas.
Another possibility is to recycle the styrofoam cups, although this is hard to find. There are mail in recycling centers in Redwood City and Hayward that take them and Imagine Surfboards makes surfboards out of used styrofoam cups.
It is too bad that there isn’t an easy solution to making disposable cups more eco-friendly.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:47:19 GMT | no comments
Negawatts is term coined by Amory Lovins to describe “negative watts” or conservation. It makes sense – instead of constantly building power plants to add more megawatts to the grid, why not let people bid on saving power through negawatts? That’s what New England’s independent system operator started doing last year.
In its Forward Capacity Market, the ISO projects how much power the region will need three years ahead and then runs a descending-clock auction for the right to provide it. The ISO doesn’t care whether it gets its power from increased production of megawatts or from conservation through negawatts. Result: money saved in power plants and wires, more stable electricity bills, and a homegrown incubator for getting bright green ideas off the drawing board.
(Source: Wired Magazine Trade – Electricity Like Pork Bellies)
Posted in Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:31:25 GMT | no comments
A recent study by Mark Jacobson at Stanford ranks clean energy options and found that wind was by far the most promising. The best to worst electric power sources Jacobson found were:
- Wind power
- Concentrated solar power
- Geothermal power
- Tidal power
- Solar photovoltaic
- Wave power
- Hydroelectric power
- Nuclear/coal with carbon capture
Jacobson also comes down hard on biofuels, “Biofuels are the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels.” He added, “Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels.”
(Reference: Wind, water and sun beat other energy alternatives, study finds)
Posted in Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:48:45 GMT | no comments
I admit it – I am a numbers geek. I love to play around with numbers and think about them, and no more so than with electric vehicles. So imagine how happy I was too see some fantastic numbers about the Tesla Roadster!
The first of these graphs shows how much energy it uses at different speeds. The fact that energy goes down to a certain point is not surprising – all cars have a sweet spot where they operate most efficiently – but what is surprising that it is about 20 MPH versus about 55 MPH for gas cars. Another interesting point is that at 65 MPH the Tesla uses about 280 Wh per mile. This is measured from the battery to the wheels, so adding in the charging losses will decrease it to about 3 miles per kWh, which is the figure I normally use.
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:38:23 GMT | no comments
What does it cost to build a new electric power plant? Here is a graph that shows this:
However, you do need to adjust this for utililization, since nuclear operates about 90% of the time, while solar operates only about 20% of the time:
(Source: What does Sustainability Mean for Energy?)
Posted in Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:25:54 GMT | 1 comment
Sometimes people talk about "running out of oil", but the world will never completely run out of oil. There will always be some oil remaining somewhere that can be scavenged from old fields, reclaimed from tar sands or stripped from oil shale.
There is, however, a limit to how fast we can pull oil out of the ground. Peak Oil will occur when the world hits this peak in production – and this will likely happen soon!
Read more...
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Sun, 08 Mar 2009 05:22:16 GMT | no comments
Previously, I posted a table showing how oil in the US is used. Here is a graph that shows the same information in a prettier form:
(Reference: Year 2000 data from Ending the Oil Age)
Posted in Peak Oil