<VV> New tech. The Volt, for one.

[jvhroberts at aol.com]

It's more like 60% of our juice comes from coal, but more importantly, 
almost none of it comes from oil.

Also, even if electric cars were VERY successful, it'll probably take 
10 years to replace less than half of the cars on the road with 
electrics. At that rate, power plants can be built to keep up.

I also believe even electrics will have an engine/generator on board to 
deal with long range issues, not to mention an on board genset will get 
rid of the risk of running out of power in the middle of nowhere.

What will make electric cars succeed once the technology has acceptable 
goals, is the reduction on dependence on petroleum first. Reduction of 
CO2 output is nice, and will certainly help marketing, but probably 
won't be first and foremost in most buyers' minds.

-----Original Message-----
From: GPARob at aol.com
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Sent: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:48 pm
Subject: <VV> New tech. The Volt, for one.

I'm sorry, but I've got to comment about the Volt and pollution. I'm a 
two
Corvair owner- one is a rusted out electric vehicle. The other is a 
convertible
  I bought to put the EV parts into, but fell so much in love with her, 
that I
 won't change her out. So, I'm looking for another someday to convert.

ANYWAY.  I also own a Fiero EV, and a Kewet (look that one  up...).  As 
a guy
on the Volt list, hoping for one (Actually, I'd prefer an  all electric 
for
cheaper, with more range), I've heard some misconceptions here.

First. a HUGE portion of our electricity production comes from Coal. I
believe it's 40 percent.
As EVs charge off the grid normally at night, NO additional power 
plants or
infrastructure needs to be built for a long time. Here's what happens.  
The
"Cheap electricity"- Nukes, for example, run full bore day and night. 
Power
companies have to cycle up the power production as demand increases- 
usually 10
am to 4pm.-- ish.  So, they wind up starting up additional plants- 
running
more expensive fuel- be it coal or natural gas. Both are used.  For the 

forseeable future, NO additional power plants are needed, and the 
demand for  power
will smoothe out somewhat, enabling power companies to reduce the  
expensive,
and sometimes polluting, start up and shut down cycles.  GM has  used 
the
number of millions of EVs.  Find a single guy involved in electric  
power
production that will dispute this.

A power company guy last  week did the math. If we got rid of EVERY 
SINGLE
gas burning car, and went  exclusively to EV, the power companies 
estimate that
they'd need an additional 6  percent power generation and transmission
capability. SIX percent. And, that's  over 10-15 years to get ready for 
it.

I'm a little suprised to see the argument that power companies  pollute 
as
much as cars, and EVs pollute by switching the source to the  plant.  
Setting
the pollution of solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and nuke  aside for a 
minute, do
you really think that coal and natural gas plants pollute  as much as a 
car
for the same amount of energy used?  Do you think it's  harder or 
easier to
clean up exhaust from a moving single vehicle, or a large  scale, fixed 
location?

A gas engine car driver forgets that a battery EV  is about 90% 
efficient.  A
gas engine car is about 15% efficient, and I'm  being generous. When I 
drive
the Fiero or the CorVolt, I have the energy  equivalent of one half 
gallon of
gas on board, in twenty old school 6  volt lead acid batteries, 
weighing 57
lbs each!!!  That gives me 75mph  capability, and 70 mile range in warm 
weather.
yes, it's a  VERY heavy way  to carry energy. But, still, very 
efficient.
That's part of why they  pollute so much less. The last argument I saw
attributed between 10% and 20% the  pollution of a gas engine car, only 
if the plant
was burning the dirtiest fuel  possible- coal. (Makes you pause when 
you see
those "Clean coal" ads,  huh?)

Check this stuff out. It's fascinating.  Like, if you convert water to
hydrogen, then put it in a fuel cell, and power your car, it takes 
three times  the
energy required to just charge the batterys in your EV to go the same
distance?  Amazing stuff.

Rob Neighbour





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