Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!
Clay asks: Have you seen this Zero Hedge article this morning? The study director Christoph Buchal will be knocked off soon.
My reply: I have – and I fault the author for not questioning the “save the world” premise behind the EV putsch. Which depends on acceptance of the idiotic idea that carbon dioxide is an “emission,” as that term has been understood.
Of course EVs “emit” more C02 than IC cars. This is because they are almost all high-performance/luxury cars that happen to be electrically propelled, which requires the E equivalent of a high-horsepower engine… which is a high-capacity battery and high-performance motor. These use more power – just like a high-performance IC engine – which takes more energy – with the difference being the EV’s power generation is sourced somewhere else.
But the “emissions” of carbon dioxide are “emitted” regardless, just not at the tailpipe.
Which would mean they are just as “dangerous” if “emitted” at the tailpipe, in terms of “climate change,” if “climate change” weren’t a shoddily concocted hoax designed to frighten the ignorant into accepting energy austerity.
But it is a shoddy hoax.
The “climate” is and always has been constantly “changing,” because the biosphere is a phenomenally complex system affected by myriad factors, of which C02 concentrations in the atmosphere is but one factor. And the amount of C02 generated by human industrial activity has never been shown to be the source of the minor warming trend which has been hystericized into an imminent planetary catastrophe.
EVs are just a stalking horse – presented as the solution to a problem which does not exist – in order to justify energy austerity, control of mobility.
Once EVs are used to eliminate IC cars, EVs will be eliminated in their turn. Because the true agenda has never been “the environment.” That has served as the window dressing. What’s behind the window dressing is a regime in which most people no longer control their mobility but rather are controlled by the people pushing this agenda – who will not have their mobility curtailed, for the sake of the “environment” or any other reason.
. . .
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It all depends on where one is as to how much of an EV’s power will come from what source. Some regions of the country rely more on coal fired power plants, while others are more reliant on natural gas, nuclear, etc. For example, West Virginia gets about 93% of its electricity from coal, while Delaware gets 89% of its energy from natural gas. It all depends on where one is. Plus, many EV owners have solar panels on their homes, so they take little, if any, energy from the grid.
That said, even if an EV is charged from a coal fired power plant, it’ll still emit less because it’s more efficient. An EV’s motor is about 60% efficient; that is to say, that of the potential chemical energy in the batteries, 60% of that energy will be expended for propulsion. With an ICE, your typical gasoline engine will achieve 25% efficiency, while diesels will average approximately 35%. IOW, the vast majority of the potential chemical energy in each gallon of fuel will be lost; only a small percentage of that energy will go to propulsion.
That said, I think EVs should stand on their own; do away with the subsidies. I’d like to see gov’t get out of the car designing business, i.e. no CAFE standards. Let people buy what they want; let them buy what works best for them. BTW, I wish the old station wagons hadn’t been fatwa’ed out of existence, because it’s a ROYAL PITA to see what’s ahead of an SUV…
I think you need to redo your calcs.
60% efficiency at the electric motor. What about all the losses getting the electricity and transferring it to the batteries and back out again?
I was only talking about the efficiency of extracting the potential energy on board the car itself-both for EVs and ICEVs.
Well, if we had a real free market, it would probably be producing more V8 and V6 powered cars and trucks due to the price of gas being pretty low. Can’t have that you know…….
Posts like these are what keeps me coming back – you are one of the few websites to peel away the smiling Green mask of the EV/Hybrid/Autonomous “revolution” and reveal the shrewish, snarling face of the control-freak nanny state underneath.
In non-bizarro world, a new technology or device must have at least equivalent (or better) utility than what it is replacing to be viable – else the public will (rightly) reject it and it will fail in the marketplace.
However, in the present, incestuous kleptocracy we are fated to live in, 2 plus 2 equals 5 – we are being force-fed a gimped, inferior, overpriced product, subsidized by theft from the pockets of the average citizen, to further certain political and social agendas whose end game is a new feudalism, where freedom of movement (let alone speech/conscience etc) is a distant memory. That feudalism will see our tech and political masters living in mansions on the hill, while the expendable serf class below struggles for scraps in Third-World squalor.
At least until the lid blows off…
This uncomfortable truth can’t be stated often enough. If only more of us were listening.