Biomass Ethanol + Plug-in Hybrids = 95% less emissions?
Posted by Glenn on October 9, 2006 - 10:54pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: electricity, ethanol, global warming, hybrids, new york city, oil, peak oil [list all tags]
Can this be true? I need your help debunking this one, TOD readers...
The emerging market in biomass is another opportunity for New York. Soon, we will make ethanol from cellulose contained in fast-growing trees and grasses, many of which can be cultivated in New York. Indeed, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, in Syracuse, is already a leader in research on using willow trees as a biofuel stock. An increase in annual biofuels consumption from today's five billion gallons to the projected 80 billion gallons needed to provide backup engine fuel for all the cars on American roads today , could spur the construction of over 2,000 biorefineries in the United States, many of them in New York.New York City and its suburbs are an ideal proving ground for plug-in hybrids. The city is already encouraging the introduction of hybrid vehicles into its fleet of 13,000 taxis in order to reduce emissions. But plug-in hybrids with alcohol-fueled engines can reduce tailpipe emissions even more -- by as much as 95 percent.
Can this be true? 80 Billion gallons of ethanol? 95% less emissions?
I need your help TOD readers. First, are these calculations correct? Second, if these numbers are correct, and plug-ins plus ethanol can be scaled do reduce emissions by this much, how would this be ramped up?
These seem wildly optimistic assumptions to me on the face of it, but I'm open minded. Is ethanol that scaleable to 80 Billion gallons? Can we increase electricity generation (even during off peak times) to satisfy the demand for plug-ins? What's the current range of plug-ins and how much gas / ethanol would they require for back-up for the average person? What about the emissions fuel used to create the electricity? That's not counted in the "tail-pipe emissions, but it matters for Global Warming.
Please submit your ideas, thoughts and comments here and I will invite Mr. Morris to respond. Together, I would like to be able to separate fact from fiction and see if there is general agreement on some policy options for NYC and the rest of the country concerning ethanol and plug-ins.
Waiting for you to debunk this.
Waiting for you to debunk this.
Robert Rapier has debunked just about all of this. He just debunked it when other people (like Khosla) made similar claims. Plug in hybrids are a joke. The battery tech simply isn't there yet. Very expensive batteries and a short life cycle = no thanks.
What is it about the Tesla that you don't think falls into this category? By my calculations - confirmed by others pretty close to the process - you will have to replace around $50,000 worth of batteries in less than 100,000 miles of driving.
I love what the guys at Tesla have done, and I am 100% in agreement that we need to electrify our transport. But the Tesla is not close to being something the public can afford.
Please do your homework before 'debunking' this.
LOL! Who fed you that line? After all, you have to replace 6,831 cells. Do you know how much those cost? You not only have $50K in cells, but you have assembly + control circuitry + safety parts + packaging. That was pulled reluctantly out of a Tesla representative after I showed him my numbers and asked about replacement costs.
Please do your homework before 'debunking' this.
LOL again. You are a piece of work. But go ahead and show me your homework.
Don't consider this a dig at Tesla. Again, I support what they are doing.
Will you ever forgive me?
BTW, I LOVE the Tesla, and I think we will be seeing more cars move towards this style of construction. Remember, 68% of US oil consumption is used in transportation, meaning that if an apollo scale buildup of these vehicles took place, we could possibly replace every car on the road inside of 10 years.
Since 9.8 million bpd alone goes to gas for cars, thats a 46% drop in our daily US wide oil consumption. Thats a decline of 4.6% of oil every year, FAR less then the projected decline in world wide oil consumption.
Vehicles like these, coupled with renewable alternatives and peak oil is mostly a nonissue as far as I can tell, but please point out the negative :/
Will you ever forgive me?
Not yet. Where he pulled that number from, I have no idea. But it isn't realistic. Maybe someone at Tesla told him that. Maybe they are counting on batteries getting much cheaper by the time they need to be replaced. But the fact is (again, confirmed by someone who works for Tesla) is that it will cost you $50K.
But here is your homework assignment. Tell me how much 6,831 cells cost, and then show me a source. Note that these are 18650's, if that helps.
Or how about this gem which promises to increase capacity by a factor of 100x 'though im betting on 20 to 30x' and is made out of plastic? How ironic: a product of oil used to dramatically reduce our reliance of oil!!
All it takes is a convergance of these technologies with government, or even a wealthy investors backing and we could see a 'total package' if you will in the way we drive. Throw in wind, solar, nuclear, tidal, geothermal and ethanol and we have a sustainable, nearly pollution free alternative to our oil addiction!!
These AREN'T 'pie in the sky' dreams: its a reality that is taking place before our very eyes! The Tesla is just the first embodiment of such progress. These kinds of advances should turn any rational doomer into an optimist like myself.
Sweet dreams doomers :)
As contrasted with my "Maybe they are counting on batteries getting much cheaper by the time they need to be replaced." As far as "economies of scale", do you not think all the laptops using these batteries today are a pretty huge scale.
What we do know, is that given the technology we have in hand, it will take $50K to replace that battery pack at today's prices. If prices go down by 80% in the next few years, then you will have a point.
Sweet dreams doomers :)
In case that's aimed at me, I am not a doomer. I guess I am an optimistic realist.
Gervasio's solution was to use the alkaline compound borohydride. A 30% solution of borohydride in water actually contains one-third more hydrogen than the same volume of liquid hydrogen.
"The difference is that the borohydride is at room temperature, and it's stable, non-toxic and cost-effective," Gervasio says.
Notice how this means that we can now effectively store hydrogen at room temperatures AND it's not only SAFE, but it stores far more hydrogen then when hydrogen itself is compressed into a liquid, a process that I'm sure you know as VERY energy intensive. Ironically enough, this idea was originally meant for gasoline.
Now my own thoughts on the matter: I still say skip the middle man so to speak. Making hydrogen via electrolysis and then using said hydrogen to power a vehicle still leaves a lot of room for waste. A smarter way to go about this is simply improving on battery recharge and storage technology and making sure they are not only cost effective but last long enough for the average driver.
That being said, I could very easily see this being widely adopted by both oil companies and gas stations en mass, as it allows existing infrastructure to be used, and doesn't put 17,600 gas stations out of business. That is, unless they chose to provide 'power up' stations for all electric super fast recharging cars :P
Your thoughts?
No combo of "alternative" energy will be able to displace hydrocarbon depletion--as hydrocarbon reserves were created over geological time.
Perhaps you believe that the earth was created 6000 years ago... maybe that is why the concept of a "hydrogen economy" has such great appeal to you?
See hundreds of millions of years of stocket up solar energy in the form of hydrocarbons is not the same thing as paltry energy per sq meter absorption on the best solar panels (which, as stated before, cost thousands of orders of magnitude too great for average "consumers"). Not to mention the net gain in solar energy in the form of chemical energy when growing "biofuels" (please understand the basic statistics of energy consumption and efficiency patterns before going off on an ignorant pollyanish idea that biofuels can solve our energy perdictament) is wholly unrealistic.
Hydrogen is not a SOURCE of energy--anyone who believes such a thing is absolutely ignorant on the science. Hydrogen needs to be ripped away from H2O. That takes energy. It's called electrolysis, look up it in your new science there. See you need electricity to make hydrogen--and where does electricity come from? 50% coal, 20% natural gas, 20% nuclear, some hydro, then less than 1% is solar and wind added together. Now, you want to add more to the burden of this system, the grid?!
Lets now power hundreds of millions of automobiles with electricity in addition to burning the billions upon billions of tons of coal a year we already incinerate?
Hrm, forgive me if I remain skeptical of your dream fantasy "alternative replacements" for a depleted, finite, geologically old, hydrocarbon endowment. Energy doesn't come from nowhere.
You DO realize that I said that we shouldnt concentrate on the 'hydrogen' economy even with interesting new technology that I've linked. And you are a fool if you believe that I said we should concentrate solely on solar for our alternatives. I'm advocating a basket of renewable and some non-renewable energy systems. Let me go down the list for you again:
Solar, Wind, Tidal, Hydro, Geothermal, Nuclear and Biofuels CAN offset our 'fossil fuel' consumption and allow us to enjoy a future world based on sustainable, low polluting energy. Individually, none of the above listed alternatives can hope to replace Fossil Fuels, but together, they just 'might' be able to get the job done.
As for your hydrogen rant, you only repeated what I ALREADY SAID. It takes energy to produce hydrogen from water, and it seems moronic to then 'burn' that hydrogen in any kind of combustion engine. It makes slightly more sense, albeit still a bad idea, to take said hydrogen, store it in a stable compound and use it in a fuel cell which has 2.5x the efficiency of a regular ICE. I know that hydrogen is a energy carrier, not an energy producer. Thats why I think the future is in EVs and perhapse some unique hybrid-biofuel vehicles.
HYDROGEN IS AN ENERGY CARRIER!!!
I know this, so stop trying to make an issue out of this :P
If that is the case then I would like to direct you to this article If it works as its stated too, the 'hydrogen' economy might actually work.
Then you say:
The last problem being that it takes way to much energy to create hydrogen, and ergo it shouldnt even been explored as a widescale alternative.
Can you please make up your mind?
The hydrogen economy will never work. The problem isn't the fuel cells it's simple laws of physics that prevent us from making hydrogen cheaply.
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E13.pdf
I don't see current prices as a reliable indicator to the future for two reasons:
I've read claims about both the FePO4 and titanium spinel cathodes which claim that the cycle and calendar lives are greatly improved. Iron phosphate and titanium dioxide are both very cheap materials. There's a lot of room for the cost of these things to drop, and we can expect it to do so.
When I did my back of the envelope, I went with the cheapest 18650's I could find to come up with my estimate. Someone from Tesla told me it was in the ballpark, and your estimate is closer to mine than to Hothgor's. That is good news that you can get them for less, but still out of the reach for the public at large.
Don't get me wrong, though. I still think electric transport is the way we need to go, and Tesla has made a valuable contribution.
One thing that we will need to keep an eye on is whether the batteries actually last 100,000 miles. Some people who know more about batteries than me have expressed concern about this.
He also said that with current price trends they expect to purchase the same cells for $12k in 5 years.
He said they guarantee the 100k mileage (roughly 250 miles/cycle x 400 cycles) and 5 year life on the current packs, and hope for more. This would be much better than is usually seen with laptops, but laptops have very primitive battery management, where the Tesla has very sophisticated power management and cooling - heat is the enemy of li-ion life - think how hot your laptop battery gets.
$20k for 100k miles works out to $.20 per mile, which is competitive with a 40mpg car and $8 gas (actually, more than competitive as electric cars have much lower maintenance costs). $12k would equal $.12 per mile, and compete with $4.80 gas.
A123systems' battery is perhaps the most advanced (marketwise) of the next generation of li-ion batteries, which promise much greater cycle life and much faster charging. They're available at retail on Amazon in Dewalt 36-volt packs for $169 and (IIRC) 80 watthours and 2,000 cycle life minimum. With a wholesale 40% discount and 215 watt hours/mile (Tesla's figure) that works out to $1,267/kwhr (about 3x tesla's current cost for conventional li-ion's), about $.14 per mile and $5.60 gas.
So, battery tech isn't quite competitive at current gas prices. OTOH, these costs will fall (and probably very quickly - the 2,000 cycle guaranteed minimum life for next gen li-ion's appears to be very conservative - I've seen tests which yielded 10,000 cycles), and gas prices will rise. I expect that the lines will cross in the next 5 years.
Robert, does that make sense?
I presumed from Hothgor's comment that they must be counting on prices coming way down, because I certainly couldn't come up with a $8-10K replacement cost. Even that was mentioned as being high for the average consumer in the article Hothgor referenced.
OTOH, battery prices are falling relentlessly, and the A123systems' batteries are competitive even now with the costs of the average vehicle when gas hits around $3.70/gallon.
So, it's quite clear that batteries will be up to the job of replacing gasoline, and fairly soon.
Another way of thinking about it: the average cost/mile of operating a vehicle is $.445, per the IRS. An electric vehicle, even at current prices, is likely to cost less than $.05 more, taking all things into account. I'd say that there's no question that Kunstler's vision of the suburbs being abandoned because of prohibitively expensive driving is obsolete.
For anyone interested there is lots of good info here:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/symposium/presentations/presentations.htm
The A123 presentation seems to have been removed for some reason :-)
On the one hand, it's another indication that next-gen batteries aren't quite competitive with gasoline yet. OTOH you can see that they would be usable as is, if you really had to.
So, not quite ready yet, but clearly good enough to use in a oil-depletion emergency, and almost certain to get better reasonably quickly and very likely to get to where it's just as good as gasoline is today within roughly the next 5 years.
Does that sound right to you?
They add $.02 to the cost of driving (US average price of $.10/kwhr x .215 kwhr/mile), and raise the $/gas breakeven point by $.86/gallon (for a 40 mpg car - all breakeven numbers are proportionately less for a comparison with the average US light vehicle at 23MPG).
I use the Tesla numbers because they're well documented (e.g.,estimates for the Prius's kwhr/mile vary from 200 to 250), and because the calculations are the same as for a hybrid.
The only difference between an EV and an HEV is that the number of charge/discharge cycles per year is going to be much higher for an HEV (multiple times per trip, vs once per several days), and therefore the new generation Li-ion batteries, which tolerate greater depth of discharge, and have a much greater cycle life, will have an advantage.
Robert Rapier was wondering about battery life: an interesting note here is that the Prius, using very sophisticated battery/power management appears to be getting many thousands of cycles from NIMH batteries, which is much better than would be expected from routine NIMH battery experience.
BTW, if I had anything to do with it, I would have picked Alan Drake as a lead speaker at ASPO-USA in Boston. The guy is a national treasure when it comes to light rail, trolley cars, etc.
A question that Alan would ask: which system could have been built in the early 20th Century?
Volkswagen has a (working) 200 mpg prototype 2 person car. (google it). We glorify these hybrids but look 200 MPG! Why are we so damn excited about 60 MPG? Semi trucks have better Lb. miles/gallon.