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Excess Nightime Grid Energy Could Power More Than 70% Of Electric Vehicles |
19 Comments |
| By Michael d'Estries in Green Living, Travel | September 3, 2007 | ||
According to a recent U.S. Department of Energy study, there is so much excess energy on the U.S. grid nightly that if every light-duty car and truck in America today used plug-in hybrid technology, 73 percent of them could be plugged in and “fueled” without constructing a single new power plant. So much for the myth that electric vehicles will cause more emissions.
The Portland Press has a great article on the potential benefits of harnessing this excess energy and making the switch to plug-in vehicles. Apparently, each night there is a large amount of renewable power generation capacity that sits idle. Tapping into this source by plugging in our vehicles at night would harness a vastly unused portion of the U.S. grid. From the article,
“Studies have shown that plug-in hybrids produce at least 67 percent fewer harmful emissions than a standard gasoline-powered car. Even when accounting for emissions from the production of electricity, national studies have shown greenhouse gas production would fall by almost 40 percent if plug-in hybrids became commonplace. Plug-in hybrids could easily be expected to get over 100 miles per gallon of gasoline, and owners would do most of their refueling at home where the equivalent cost of electricity is about $1 per gallon.”
The most interesting thing about this revelation is that the infrastructure is already there. We don’t have to worry about supporting plug-in vehicles with refueling stations or special sources of energy. Every home is a source of fuel. The grid is more than happy to accommodate the extra load. Seems like a pretty good way to reduce oil consumption, drop emissions, and save a buck. Are we almost there? Hit the article for more!
Andrew said,
The anti social effects of automobiles would remain. A switch to mixed-use, walkable communities utilizing urban ecological agriculture and localization generally, combined with clean (non-fossil fuel-powered) public inter-urban and intra-urban rail transit would be the most ecologically sustainable and energy efficient system to have.
Nontheless, this is an interesting point about the mis-allocation of resources in the U.S. (and Canada, and the world) of resources for personal and corporate gain/profit at the expense of public and ecosystem health.
Peace,
Andrew Basham
Winnipeg, Manitoba
CANADA
Ariel said,
Sigh. You didn’t understand what you read.
It means that lots of power stations are turned off at night, and could be turned on to generate power.
If they turn them on then you get emissions, simple.
There is no such a thing as generated power that is not used. (What you think of when you write excess power.) It’s simply impossible to do that with electricity.
Oh, and those stations that get turned on and off each day? They are the ones with the worst efficiency, and the worst pollution. (The best ones are left on all the time.)
I suppose if every night lots of people used power they would build some always-on, low pollution stations to work with it. But that doesn’t exist right now.
Every bit of electricity produced must be used. If there is too much you HAVE to shut down power plants. (Otherwise you will burn up the grid with an over-voltage, or damage the power plant.)
Tom Konrad said,
The study (which I have read) was most interesting in that it predicted a drop in the average price of electricity because we would be using the electric infrastructure more efficiently (plants would run more of the time.) But one weakness was that they did not model the effect on coal and natural gas prices, which would have to be burned in copius quantities. They simply assumed that these commodities would rise 25-50% in price, which I believe is unrealistic, especially with regard to natural gas, where we are already very close to capacity.
Yes, the infrastructure is there to make this much electricity, but we probably do not have the fuel available to do so.
But there’s plenty of wind in the Dakotas!
Wesley said,
The study itself is at http://www.oe.energy.gov/DocumentsandMedia/PHEV_Feasibility_Analysis.pdf
Some of the energy would come from renewable sources, but a lot wouldn’t. The study says that 73% of light-duty vehicles could be charged without BUILDING more plants, but the plants would still have to RUN, using coal or wind or whatever. Greenhouse gas emissions would be down, sulphur and particulate emissions would be up.
Oh boy... said,
Man, do you guys seriously NOT understand how electricity generation works!
Electric plants (by and large) aren’t “all or nothing” generators. Case in point would be a coal fired electric plant. I know, I’m talking about the devil of all devils, but since we’re talking about the electric grid for the ENTIRE DANG NATION, you have to think about the grid in the *entire* nation, and a lot of the nation still runs on coal.
Back to the plot, that coal fired plant doesn’t sit around at night dumping precious coal into their ovens to boil water that they would then turn around and WASTE. To think they’d do that is simply moronic! No, at night that coal plant scales down the fire and feeds far less coal into the monster. More to the point, it *significantly scales down* the amount of crap it is belching into the atmosphere! So a nation of plug in hybrid vehicles would for large sections of the country simply be trading one form of pollution (vehicle hydrocarbon) for another type of pollution (electrical plant)!
The areas served by nukes aren’t really in the same position… from a strictly carbon standpoint they’re far better off. But then you have the ugly “robbing peter to pay paul” syndrome, because now you have *nuke* spent fuel to deal with, which is no picnic either!
Further, the idea of “let’s just run the generators and grid at full power all the time” is really a simpleton’s way of thinking. What about unanticipated equipment failure? What about maintenance (or as some would say, anticipated equipment failure
) ? There are darn good reasons why a portion of an electrical generation plant needs to go offline sometimes. (Try NOT EXPLODING for one!) Similarly, transmission lines also occasionally need to be taken off line for similar maintenance. Finally, mother nature likes to throw a curve ball or two in there from time to time. ALL of these (plus some more that I’m probably missing) can AND DO dramatically effect the amount of power that can be delivered en masse to people’s homes. To suggest that we run at full power all the time is pure folly; put simply the grid NEEDS the downtime to stay running properly!
More problems… That linked article talks about how if you use all the electrical capacity in the grid that the price for electricity would drop. What kind of super duper detroit crack is that guy smoking? Seriously, he’s taking the idea of supply and demand and literally turning it inside-out! If you use all of it, it becomes MORE EXPENSIVE! *duh!*
“studies have shown that ” blah blah blah… I’m all for electric vehicles like the GEM, but if you’re going to cite a study you have to actually CITE the study. Don’t just hand wave and say some number that sounds conspicuously like you pulled it out of your ass. Back up the claim, or don’t make it.
Despite it all, I think that plug in hybrids are actually a good thing. But they’re only a good thing for the portions of the country served by nukes or environmentally friendly means like hydro, wind, etc. (Strange to be lumping nukes in with hydro…) But IMHO for the vast swath of the country that derives their energy from coal, they’d just be treading water (pollution-wise), at best!
Jesus said,
Trading car emissions for electrical plant emission may not reduce total emissions now, but who says that power plants must all be coal fired? There are many places where it is not.
And the real benefit to drivers would be savings (if the price of electricity stayed the same, which it would not.)
Driving an electric car 150 miles would cost you something like $2-3 in electricity. Driving the average car now 300-400 miles costs about $40-50 at current gas prices.
I’ll take it.
BlueBlogsTV said,
It’s far easier to clean a few dozen coal plants than to clean 50,000,000 cars (and less expensive).
As far as all-electric cars not having enough range (more than 70 miles… the average daily use), I still like the idea of a small towable trailer (w/ an IC generator) for those long trips. It would also double as a backup genset for your house or camping.
Xebra Driver (zapworld.com) said,
Pacific Northwest Labs (also part of the DOE) did a study last year that determined 84 percent of our current cars could be powered with the excess energy in the grid. It’s not bullshit, it’s just plain fact. see
http://www.pnl.gov/news/release.asp?id=204
Thomas said,
A lot of these points mentioned with regards to coal and natural gas are true, however, don’t forget we need to stop reliance on OIL. It’s not just the political issues with the middle east either, it’s also that oil and gas companies need to be prevented from energy market monopolies, which they now enjoy in spades.
Tight regulations (get rid of repugs to help in this regard) on electric company emissions (look at Japan to see what can be done) and the use of newer/cleaner technologies would make electric cars a HUGE help to both the economy and the environment. Electric cars work and work well, there are many studies that show the statistics on this, simply google them. It IS better for the environment.
Simply put, embrace change. You will one day whether you like it or not.
Mr. Breeze said,
What’s the range on the common electric car? What happens when you need to exceed that range is that you will have to plug it in during the day. Also, what happens with night workers? They’ll have to plug in during the day as well. And more importantly, what about all the batteries that will be needed for electric vehicles? The third world countries where they all would end up coming from would build more factories to produce them, build more coal powered plants to power them, and we all know what the environmental track records is in those countries. No, electric is not the cure all. It might make you feel good until reality hits you. And no Ariel, they do not shut power plants off at night. That’s the most rediculous thing I’ve ever heard. They will adjust their power output, but only to the level necessary to prevent problems (and save them money.) Really, does anyone here believe that power companies are producing electricity each night that no one is paying for?
And finally Andrew. That’s one nutty idea. No one in their right mind will buy into that garbage. First off, we don’t have the money to make your utopian dream happen. Second, not everyone wants to live like that. Third, the US is far too large to make that sort of thing work. That’s a big reason why rail systems aren’t as popular as countries like Germany or Japan. It simply is not possible to get rid of the automobile. Besides, people like me actually enjoy driving, whether on or off the road. It can be a vastly rewarding way to see this country, and it is the best way to get to most places. It’s also one of the biggest freedom’s a person can experience. Anyone who doesn’t live in a large city can understand that. I’m guessing you don’t.
Bruce said,
If I had a plug-in hybrid that could go 40 miles on an overnight charge, I probably wouldn’t burn any gasoline during the week. Furthermore, I have enough exposed rooftop and sunshine to create that electricity using photovoltaics during the day and feed it into the grid, providing peak electricity when it is needed. At night, I’d use off-peak power to charge my car. Granted, not everyone happens to have enough sunshine to charge a car, but we could do a lot with plug-in hybrid cars and photovoltaics.
One thing we need is to change the law so the power company will pay me for the excess energy I generate from solar panels. Then I would offset even more peak power by covering my roof with solar panels.
Thomas said,
Mr. Breeze, your old school crap doesn’t sell anymore. Plug-in HYBRIDS (you know GAS and ELECTRICITY, hence the name HYBRID) can out-distance gas or electric. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that dinosaurs like you won’t go extinct…but you will, and so will your gas guzzling, polluting automobiles.
NW Guy said,
It is unfortunate the phrase “…excess energy on the U.S. grid…” confuses the point. Hydro and to some extent almost all generation systems waste the primary energy (falling water, heated water, wind etc.) during low need periods. Yes, they “turn it down” but there is enormous momentum in all of these plants. On the other hand there isn’t any excess electricity in the “…grid…”. The system is built for peek need and is terribly wasteful the rest of the time. Charging at night spreads the load and, even utilizing oil and coal fired electricity, increases our overall efficiency and is very meaningful on an intermediate basis.
alamac said,
Ever heard of the Tesla?
This is a pure-electric (not a “hybrid”) which can go over 200 miles on a charge, and will outperform nearly all gasoline sports cars in the process. The key is the battery: a lithium-ion (like in laptops & cellphones) which has been scaled up to work in large-capacity applications. This technology is taking off; the company is licensing other manufacturers to produce the batteries for other uses.
This is most of the answer to all the above objections: clean, fast, fun to drive, and adequate for 95% of daily driving.
I have seen the future–and I LOVE it!!!
Nobrainer said,
Plugin hybrids are a good thing. To some degree they can cut carbon emissions and improve overall energy efficiency (depending on how you measure the impact of the entire life-cycle of the technology).
Other than that you’re almost entirely wrong and completely ignorant of the facts.
Mr. Breeze said,
Thomas,
As long as there are people out there who love and enjoy the internal combustion engine, there will be such vehicles on the road. People like myself who love cars will continue to maintain them, restore them and drive them. Now, do I think that we shouldn’t come up with other alternatives? No. I think that it is completely necessary to do so. But the problem is paying for it. The gentleman above makes reference to photovoltaic’s on his roof. That costs money. Until the prices of those come down then they will belong only to people who afford them and care to bother with it. Also, the next problem I mentioned that no one else cared to tackle is the batteries. Messy, dangerous and produced in large part by third world countries with low environmental standards. It’s the equivalent of shifting our polution to another part of the world.
I’ll admit that I didn’t realize that the article was referring to plug in HYBRID’s. But while these may help the problem, they remain expensive to produce, purchase and they still have negative environmental impacts (batteries).
BTW, I am no dinosaur. I am a 24 year old man and will own at least one gasoline powered car for the rest of my life which I will pass along to my kids when I die. And not just for the fun of it. But also so I can stick it to holier than thou jerkoff’s like yourself Thomas.
Thomas said,
Yup, spoken like a true dinosaur. Your kids don’t even have a chance, you’ve already screwed their heads up before they’re even born. Sheesh dude, get some therapy before it’s too late.
Mr. Breeze said,
Yup, spoken like a true enviro-nut. I’m happy with my way of life.
The Sunburnt Land Has Plenty Of Energy In Store | Green Energy Global - Daily Green Energy News said,
[...] of view). * The Energy Blog – Honda Aims to Produce New Hybrid Design * Groovy Green – Excess Nightime Grid Energy Could Power More Than 70% Of Electric Vehicles * Washington Post – Beyond Wind and Solar, a New Generation of Clean Energy * Buckminster [...]