Debate question... No, not THAT debate!

In reply to Keith Tanner :

WRT recycling- Not yet, it won't be big effect.  According to the Edison Electric Institute- there are currently slightly over 1M EV's in the US right now.  If you recycled 100% of those cars, you would end up with.... 1M cars.  Normally, car sales in the US every year is 10-20M.  So if you recycled 100% of all the EV's in the country, you would be able to replace 1/10 of new car sales in one year. 

Ok, then add in Hybrids, right?  Gotta be a lot of those out there.  Sure- that's another ~5.5M cars.  So recycling every single hybrid and EV for one year, and you can make 6.5M new EV's in one year,  and that's it.  (ignoring the issue that hybrid batteries are not that large)

We are talking about the fleet of EVs, so we need to build 10M EV's a year, every year, forever, in the US.

There's no way that recycling is going to be able to support that.  And right this moment, recycling is insignificant if you look at fleet wide EV sales.  Sure, it's a big deal that we are planning on reducing waste a lot.  But to get anywhere near a fleet amount of sales of EV's, there's going to be some massive amounts of new materials that will have to be added to make new batteries.

Of course, if we immediately went to 100% BEV and stopped all production and sale of ICE vehicles, we'd have a problem. We'd have a bunch of problems. Luckily, it's not going to happen that way. Even if BEV adoption really ramped up right now, recycling wouldn't be a significant source of materials until a significant number of cars reach end of life.

But eventually, recycling will start to make a dent. It cannot be completely discounted as a factor in the long run. Look at a mature BEV marketplace and recycling will (in theory) be able to supply enough batteries for whatever the market size was when they went into service. We'd only have to mine enough raw materials to cover the growth in sales. That's assuming some pretty darn efficient recycling, but you get the point. "What will we do with the old batteries???" is a common EV-related question and that answer is very strongly "recycle them" from both an environmental and a financial standpoint. We just have to get them into service in the first place.

This is another point where ICE is the incumbent technology and has the related advantages. BEVs will have to grow into that maturity.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

I want to truly see numbers.  Cold hard numbers.

Cradle-to-Grave comparison of greenhouse gases for EVs vs ICEs.

The actual study is a pdf available for download in the article. It appears to me to only consider the greenhouse gas emissions, and doesn't consider the particularly harmful smog-forming emissions like NOx, Hydrocarbons, etc which are more of an issue with ICE operation than electricity generation. The study was also done in 2015, so electricity production has gotten cleaner since then, and battery chemistry is changing as well. Both should help the case for EVs.

Here's a much more recent study that came to similar conclusions

They found that while EVs are cleaner across the board, geography of both production and operation matter a lot. An EV with a battery made in China and driven in Poland (Electricity from coal) is about 20% cleaner than an ICE. An EV with a battery that's both made and operated in Sweden is about 80% cleaner thanks to cleaner electricity production and not being transported around the planet on a big, dirty ship or plane.

The big caveat I suppose is they seem to be assuming equal lifespans for EVs and ICEs in those studies. With fewer moving parts, an EV should theoretically last longer, but with how poorly supported software is, who knows how long they'll actually live without being replaced. That variable could massively impact just how much cleaner an EV might be in the cradle-to-grave sense. If they need less frequent replacement, then that's a huge plus (similar to your house construction story).

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Eventually, battery recycling will be significant, sure.

Until then it needs to be dug out of the ground and processed.  And that will be the significant source for many decades until EV's are well over half the total fleet.

Which is to say, recycling is cool, but not significant, to this debate.  For batteries at least. 

Unless someone comes up with an iron or aluminum base battery.  

In reply to STM317 :

I have not seen any regulations where power plants are anywhere near ICE's in terms of HC, NOx, or a bunch of other nasties that are not part of ICE's.  While stationary sources have gotten better, so have ICEs, and the rules upcoming are cleaner than power production.  As a fleet average.  Remember, the original EV mandate was struck down because it was shown that ICE's where cleaner than power plants, which then produced the PZEV vehicle as a compromise.  The standards that are fully phasing in a year are for a fleet average of PZEV.  

While modern NG plants are much, much cleaner than coal, they don't have the emissions controls anywhere near equal vintage ICEs.  And the ICE fleet is constantly being updated whereas power plants are pretty slow to change.

alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to STM317 :

I have not seen any regulations where power plants are anywhere near ICE's in terms of HC, NOx, or a bunch of other nasties that are not part of ICE's.  While stationary sources have gotten better, so have ICEs, and the rules upcoming are cleaner than power production.  As a fleet average.  Remember, the original EV mandate was struck down because it was shown that ICE's where cleaner than power plants, which then produced the PZEV vehicle as a compromise.  The standards that are fully phasing in a year are for a fleet average of PZEV.  

While modern NG plants are much, much cleaner than coal, they don't have the emissions controls anywhere near equal vintage ICEs.  And the ICE fleet is constantly being updated whereas power plants are pretty slow to change.

Whoa whoa whoa, that's something I do know a good bit about.

Any operating NG power plant in nearly every country (not China) has to operate, and be tested and specified to, very tight emissions. Single digit PPM for both CO and NOX. Running in noncompliance is allowed only under strange circumstances and there is a hefty financial hit. I left that company, so I don't have access to everything at the moment,

I guess the recycling is only irrelevant if you're talking about today instead of in a couple of decades.

One thing about software longevity - I think that will be directly related to how much interaction there is between the vehicle and the outside world. We're all used to our computers only lasting 10 years or our phones only surviving a couple of new OS releases. But the phones and computers mostly need to be updated because of the need to talk to other things or for security reasons. Meanwhile, the software in my 1985 CRX hasn't changed in 35 years because it doesn't have to do anything more than it did on the day it left the factory. Heck, even my first-gen iPod Touch still works despite the fact that it's a network device. It can't run the latest software, but it can run the same software it always did other than some apps that have decided to abandon it.

I think vehicle software will be closer to the CRX than my phone. There won't be the need for constant updates to keep the car functioning. And as I've mentioned, ICE software isn't exactly simple on a modern engine. If we introduce an app ecosystem (stupid idea), we'll be in trouble no matter what the powerplant is...

As for emissions, that's assuming a brand new car with no tampering of the emissions control system. I think we know how much of the latter there is, and of course the average age of the US fleet is more than a decade by this point so the real emissions we need to compare are fixed power plants today vs 10-year-old vehicles that have experienced the expected degradation plus owner modification. As noted, we're talking about today ;)

Keith Tanner said:

I guess the recycling is only irrelevant if you're talking about today instead of in a couple of decades.

One thing about software longevity - I think that will be directly related to how much interaction there is between the vehicle and the outside world. We're all used to our computers only lasting 10 years or our phones only surviving a couple of new OS releases. But the phones and computers mostly need to be updated because of the need to talk to other things or for security reasons. Meanwhile, the software in my 1985 CRX hasn't changed in 35 years because it doesn't have to do anything more than it did on the day it left the factory. Heck, even my first-gen iPod Touch still works despite the fact that it's a network device. It can't run the latest software, but it can run the same software it always did other than some apps that have decided to abandon it.

I think vehicle software will be closer to the CRX than my phone. There won't be the need for constant updates to keep the car functioning. And as I've mentioned, ICE software isn't exactly simple on a modern engine. If we introduce an app ecosystem (stupid idea), we'll be in trouble no matter what the powerplant is...

As for emissions, that's assuming a brand new car with no tampering of the emissions control system. I think we know how much of the latter there is, and of course the average age of the US fleet is more than a decade by this point so the real emissions we need to compare are fixed power plants today vs 10-year-old vehicles that have experienced the expected degradation plus owner modification. As noted, we're talking about today ;)

I think Keith hit it right here. If my Bolt, which has -0- OTA capabilities, continues to operate into the 2090s with manual replacement of battery cells, its software will be equally as capable as it is today. GM can't stop me without physically coming to get the car. The software in it is equally as stable as that of that CRX.

tuna55 said:

alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to STM317 :

I have not seen any regulations where power plants are anywhere near ICE's in terms of HC, NOx, or a bunch of other nasties that are not part of ICE's.  While stationary sources have gotten better, so have ICEs, and the rules upcoming are cleaner than power production.  As a fleet average.  Remember, the original EV mandate was struck down because it was shown that ICE's where cleaner than power plants, which then produced the PZEV vehicle as a compromise.  The standards that are fully phasing in a year are for a fleet average of PZEV.  

While modern NG plants are much, much cleaner than coal, they don't have the emissions controls anywhere near equal vintage ICEs.  And the ICE fleet is constantly being updated whereas power plants are pretty slow to change.

Whoa whoa whoa, that's something I do know a good bit about.

 

Any operating NG power plant in nearly every country (not China) has to operate, and be tested and specified to, very tight emissions. Single digit PPM for both CO and NOX. Running in noncompliance is allowed only under strange circumstances and there is a hefty financial hit. I left that company, so I don't have access to everything at the moment,

Quoting myself to add some data:

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/emissions/

The regulations themselves are complicated, but know that single digit NOX and CO are generally required. I don't think you're beating that in an ICE even with a converter, which nearly every NG plant does not run (though, surprisingly, they do exist. Unsurprisingly, they are extremely expensive)

Even with OTA, that's easy to turn off on the Tesla. Just take away the wifi password. Other than potentially being a security hole, the car does not rely on OTA updates to function. It makes it possible to download security updates should that be necessary, though.

As OTA is not the only potential security hole - I linked to the Jeeps that can be hijacked via cell phone earlier in this thread. And they cannot be patched remotely.

And the ICE fleet is constantly being updated whereas power plants are pretty slow to change.

I also have to elaborate on this one. I worked at one of the major companies producing power plants. Each year we would retrofit maybe 100 plants with newer emissions equipment. I worked directly in that group. Given that there are around 1800 NG power plants in the US (I don't have numbers for the world) and let's say 1/3 of my plants were US based, plus something like 20 new plants commissioned in the US that means that the fleet is getting 3% refreshed each year, compared to the US automotive market, which replaced about 6% of its fleet each year. Not exactly an order of magnitude difference here, and the most of those US auto sales were not taking old clunkers off the road.

Keith Tanner said:

Even with OTA, that's easy to turn off on the Tesla. Just take away the wifi password. Other than potentially being a security hole, the car does not rely on OTA updates to function. It makes it possible to download security updates should that be necessary, though.

As OTA is not the only potential security hole - I linked to the Jeeps that can be hijacked via cell phone earlier in this thread. And they cannot be patched remotely.

Good point. I guess the main takeaway here is that it is unfair to say that EVs are more susceptible to being disabled via software issues than an ICE car.

Agreed, it's an unrelated problem.

I just realized that my Jeep link was in a different thread, so here you go: Jeep's remote control Grand Cherokee problem

Note that it can only be patched with a visit to the dealer and there's no apparent ill effect to the owner, so I suspect there are still tens of thousands of these things still rolling around unpatched and able to be remotely accessed from anywhere in the US.

tuna55 said:

tuna55 said:

alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to STM317 :

I have not seen any regulations where power plants are anywhere near ICE's in terms of HC, NOx, or a bunch of other nasties that are not part of ICE's.  While stationary sources have gotten better, so have ICEs, and the rules upcoming are cleaner than power production.  As a fleet average.  Remember, the original EV mandate was struck down because it was shown that ICE's where cleaner than power plants, which then produced the PZEV vehicle as a compromise.  The standards that are fully phasing in a year are for a fleet average of PZEV.  

While modern NG plants are much, much cleaner than coal, they don't have the emissions controls anywhere near equal vintage ICEs.  And the ICE fleet is constantly being updated whereas power plants are pretty slow to change.

Whoa whoa whoa, that's something I do know a good bit about.

 

Any operating NG power plant in nearly every country (not China) has to operate, and be tested and specified to, very tight emissions. Single digit PPM for both CO and NOX. Running in noncompliance is allowed only under strange circumstances and there is a hefty financial hit. I left that company, so I don't have access to everything at the moment,

Quoting myself to add some data:

 

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/emissions/

 

The regulations themselves are complicated, but know that single digit NOX and CO are generally required. I don't think you're beating that in an ICE even with a converter, which nearly every NG plant does not run (though, surprisingly, they do exist. Unsurprisingly, they are extremely expensive)

We are meeting low single digits of HC and NOx in cars now,  Have to.  Most of the time, it's near zero.  To make 0.030 g/mi NMOG + NOx, you have to be close to zero all the time, since the cold start is hard to deal with.

According to the data here- https://www.bts.gov/content/estimated-national-average-vehicle-emissions-rates-vehicle-vehicle-type-using-gasoline-and - light vehicles and trucks are cleaner than plants if you do the math.  HD trucks, especially HD diesel, is where the vehicles are worse.  If you use that data for 2018, and just use cars and trucks, as well as the numbers from their other page- https://www.bts.gov/content/number-us-aircraft-vehicles-vessels-and-other-conveyances

I calculate a total of 1.38 million metric tons of NOx for cars and light trucks (using the emissions averages for cars and truck, number of cars and trucks on the road, and 15,000 miles per year), vs 1.48 million metric tons of NOx for the sum of the plants that you posted.

If anything, it points out that the segment that needs to be EV'd faster is HD trucks.  And motorcycles.  

Mind you, when the fleet average of cars and light trucks is 0.03 g/mi (nmog + nox), that's a lot better than the 0.289 g/mi (nox) average in 2018.  Which would suggest that to keep up with cars, plants need to do even more. 

tuna55 said:

And the ICE fleet is constantly being updated whereas power plants are pretty slow to change.

I also have to elaborate on this one. I worked at one of the major companies producing power plants. Each year we would retrofit maybe 100 plants with newer emissions equipment. I worked directly in that group. Given that there are around 1800 NG power plants in the US (I don't have numbers for the world) and let's say 1/3 of my plants were US based, plus something like 20 new plants commissioned in the US that means that the fleet is getting 3% refreshed each year, compared to the US automotive market, which replaced about 6% of its fleet each year. Not exactly an order of magnitude difference here, and the most of those US auto sales were not taking old clunkers off the road.

Thing is- given the fleet average and the upcoming targets, the 6% change per year does make a significant difference.  According to the data that I posted, the car average has gone from 3.2 g/mi HC+NOx in 2000 to 0.6 g/mi HC + NOx in 2018.  Even with that small of change in turnover in the fleet, the average car emissions have dropped to 1/5 of what they were 18 years pior.  The current and upcoming requirements have new cars at 1/10 of the 2018 average today, and in 3 years, that will be 1/20 of the 2018 fleet average.  And that's just the legal limit at 150k miles.

alfadriver (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to STM317 :

I have not seen any regulations where power plants are anywhere near ICE's in terms of HC, NOx, or a bunch of other nasties that are not part of ICE's.  While stationary sources have gotten better, so have ICEs, and the rules upcoming are cleaner than power production.  As a fleet average.  Remember, the original EV mandate was struck down because it was shown that ICE's where cleaner than power plants, which then produced the PZEV vehicle as a compromise.  The standards that are fully phasing in a year are for a fleet average of PZEV.  

While modern NG plants are much, much cleaner than coal, they don't have the emissions controls anywhere near equal vintage ICEs.  And the ICE fleet is constantly being updated whereas power plants are pretty slow to change.

If we're going to closely examine emissions from electricity generation, then we also need to look at emissions created getting liquid fuels into a useful form. It's not as if the fuel in an ICE gets into your fuel tank without any emissions being created. What emissions are created to pump oil out of the ground, transport it to a refinery, refine it into fuel, transport it to a fueling station, and then pump it into a fuel tank? None of those things occur with highly regulated small vehicle emissions standards. Creating electricity from fossil fuels causes some of those same emissions to be created, and getting the oil from the ground into your engine uses some electricity too, so they're kind of linked. Turning natural resources into energy is going to have some environmental impact no matter what. But the oil refining process is what it is for the most part, while electricity generation can at least be much cleaner with renewables, nuclear, etc.

We went without electricity for over a week last month after a storm. Charging would have been an issue.

I think rare earths are mostly for the motors (right?).  Looks like we need to be nice to Australia, but this is clearly an concern:

BlindPirate said:

We went without electricity for over a week last month after a storm. Charging would have been an issue.

If you are entirely dependent on electrical vehicles and you don't have solar or a generator at home, that is not a good plan. 

aircooled said:

BlindPirate said:

We went without electricity for over a week last month after a storm. Charging would have been an issue.

If you are entirely dependent on electrical vehicles and you don't have solar or a generator at home, that is not a good plan. 

Or a way to get to a charging station. None of us can refill an ICE at home (other than a few jerry cans, maybe), so at that point it's the same as owning an ICE. 

Gas pumps don't work during a power outage either

stuart in mn said:

It won't happen overnight but the energy industry is moving towards cleaner sources of power.  As an example, my local electric utility has this to say: "By 2022, more than 75% of the energy you depend on will come from clean energy sources—wind, solar, and nuclear.  We plan to reduce carbon emissions more than 80% by 2030, and have a bold vision to deliver 100% carbon-free electricity to customers by 2050."  Also, the energy industry as a whole has cut their use of coal by nearly 50% just since 2007.

This is not meant  to be negative to you, stuart: I just wanted the quote... to point out that we should not believe every thing "they" say. Absolutely NONE of those promises are true...

Also, although it is true that a large power plant can be more efficient (per unit of energy) than a small ICE in a car, that does not address all of the significant looses in getting that energy from the huge power plant to the point of use.

03Panther said:

Also, although it is true that a large power plant can be more efficient (per unit of energy) than a small ICE in a car, that does not address all of the significant looses in getting that energy from the huge power plant to the point of use.

Energy transmission and distribution losses for electricity are about 5%, according to the US Energy Information Administration.  Meanwhile, about 20% of the fuel's energy - once it's been extracted and refined and put in a truck and delivered to a station and the car has gone to get some - 20% gets turned into work. Seriously, if we were having this conversation in a world where the BEV was the incumbent, it would be ridiculous. 

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

So ICE has a better pump-to-wheels than EV has well-to-wheels... I'm not seeing the validity in that comparison.