Hybrid vehicle, Battery plug-in [EV] or Bio-fuel car?

Hybrid vehicle, Battery plug-in [EV] or Corn gas car?

With an EV, you will be able to drive scott-free for a limited time. Governments are devising ways to extract road taxes from highways users who do not buy gas or diesel. The following 10 comments debate should quickly bring you up to speed and help you decide what to drive.

I foresee a time when EV owners may be required to drive through a kiosk and pay a mileage tax in order to support highways the way fossil car owners do.

Do not miss your gas tax holiday. Try to enjoy that EV or even a compromise hybrid soon. The following may help you choose your next ride.

This exchange from the comments at: Autobloggreen.com [ A Great Blogsite BTW ]

(Page 1)
1. Corn...does a car good. I wish all cars would go green.
Posted at 11:58PM on Apr 27th 2007 by Steve Shickles



2. Well,
now that the public understands the difference between corn and cellulosic ethanol, it's time to complicate it again. There's two forms of cellulosic ethanol: 1)Enzyme, which you just mentioned and 2) Gasification, such as what the DOE just funded and you covered.

Gasification involves burning the biomass in the absence of oxygen, and taking the resulting "syngas" and converting it into liquid through the Fischer Tropsch process. Gasification will produce much more ethanol because it is more flexible. MIT claims they can convert Municipal Solid Waste into ethanolwith that process for $.10-.95/gallon. They further state that there is enough MSW to replace 25% of the gasoline we consume today. This is the technology that will truly take ethanol to the nest level.


http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18084/

http://www.energy.gov/news/4827.htm
Posted at 8:44AM on Apr 28th 2007 by Rick

3. Once an EV battery pack is made, it requires only charging for its 10 year life, or 12 year life. [ AltairNano Ca.]

Biofuel, on the other hand requires ...

Land and cultivation
Labour for processing
BTUs for processing
Trucking of crop
Trucking of waste
Trucking of finished fuel product
Blending and pumping of product
All this on a daily basis

Not to mention the required ICEngine and all the cooling, ignition and exhaust systems that requires.

Biofuels must be a short term stop gap measure. = TG
Posted at 12:31PM on Apr 28th 2007 by TG

4. Corn derived biofuels are vastly more expensive than we may realize.

How practical is a fuel source that creates dietary and financial hardship for millions of Mexicans and South Americans who rely on the corn tortilla staple food?

What is the true price of corn based fuel when it pushes up the price of beef and hogs?

Fools rush in.. eh? = TG

Posted at 12:58PM on Apr 28th 2007 by TG



5. TG,
2 points.

I agree with your assessment of Altair. I am a stockholder and major advocat. And the nanosafe could displace 80% of the gasoline mileage today. I hope a major battery manufacturer buys them out soon, for, maybe $10/share. ;-) But there will be a need for ethanol for years because of heavy transport, trucks, etc even if all cars become electric only.

However, the jobs, labor, land, etc that you talk about for biofuels as a negative is actually a positive. Up until now, it has been impossible for small farms to compete with commercial farms in the production of food crops. Now, with prices at this level, farmers all over the world are back tilling the soil and growing much more food than they consume and the rest will be sold for fuel. Net effect? Jobs, jobs, and more jobs in countries all around the world for farms and all the products in that commercial chain such as tractors, fertilizer, etc, etc.

This is only the first crop year since prices have gone up. The Agriculture Dept released crop figures in late March and 16% more cropland went for corn than last year. Even more, the "setaside acreage", the land the govt has been paying farmers not to produce, is going back into production now, slowly. There were something like 30 million of those acreas last year. Fewer subsidies, more crops, more money flowing in the economy, everybody benefits.

Trust the free market system a little more. The laws of supply and demand really do work. We are just spoiled by cheap energy and food prices. In fact, the corn crop i mentioned, which was up 16%, only takes us back up to WWII levels of production. The gov't has been trying to slow down production of crops for decades because they were driving prices through the floor with excess production. Farmers are revving up and it is very good for the economy. Worldwide.

Do you really believe all those people in S America are going to starve when all they have to do is plant some corn, eat well and sell the excess for some extra jingle?
Posted at 3:57PM on Apr 28th 2007 by Rick



6. TG,
Go back to my original post and factor in 1)the MIT MSW-to-ethanol scenario along with the 2)AltairNanoSafe battery(or any other battery that will get the consumer 60miles/day of gasoline free driving) and:

1)The MIT proposal displaces 25% of gasoline consumed today with ethanol from garbage.

2) Since 80% of all drivers go less than 60 miles/day, the Nanosafe(or any other equal battery) would eliminate a corresponding amount of gasoline consumed.

If this country set out to implement ONLY THESE TWO EFFORTS, you could make a case for an American economy that eliminates the purchase of all offshore oil. And since we import about 20m bbls/day, that is a $1.2Billion/day impact on this economy!

The terrorists have a window of only about 5-7 years to disrupt our economy by taking out Saudi Arabian oil or other significant sources.

Now, we only replace about 6% of all automobiles each year so my outlook is optomistic, admittedly, but i believe it is an accurate prescription of what COULD BE DONE, it we set about it.

Posted at 4:59PM on Apr 28th 2007 by Rick

7. Rick,

There are always two sides to every debate and you filled out the picture in excellent form.

There are conditions in flux having to do with agra-corporations, and manipulative wholesalers, where some of the good things you outline may fade somewhat.

In any case the people in the stands here will make their own conclusions shaded by our input.
Posted at 6:15PM on Apr 28th 2007 by TG



8. Our underlying motives are the same.

To make North America able to function without the need for very much ME oil.

To devalue oil to a more realistic level and deprive Acmahdinejad of the means to build a nuclear reserve. [ The Russians are annoyed with his *Slow pay* policy now]

To enable the good people of Iran to take back their country from extremest Islamofascists. [ unemployment is high - economy is rough.]

=========== That part so we live a bit longer.

To free ourselves from the gas pump and it*s uncertainties.

To free ourselves from the old fashioned ICEngine and all the attached energy wasting systems.
[No anti-freeze. Fewer animals will die.]

To free ourselves from the stench of gasoline, the exhaust poisons and the volatile risk.

To breath cleaner air. [ Clean coal tech for gen plants in China, India, Asia and North America would do vastly more, however.]

Full steam.. er. NanoSafe batteries ahead. I can*t wait. = TG
Posted at 6:23PM on Apr 28th 2007 by TG

9. #3
TG, you fail to mention that to charge the EV battery pack someone needs to mine coal, uranium or drill for natural gas. Also, recall that coal and nuclear power plants are far less efficient than combined cycle plants fueled by natural gas. Natural gas which is in short supply in North America.

While a handful of persons may charge an EV with solar power, that is far from economically viable or practical in large numbers. I think it will be far easier to have biofuels meet most of our transportation needs than to generate trillions of kWh from renewable sources.

#4
Ethanol production from yellow field corn does not impact tortilla production from white corn. This myth has been discussed extensively.
Posted at 12:27AM on Apr 29th 2007 by Jimmy

10. Even though some grid power is provided by coal plant generation, it is far more efficient to tap the grid rather than have millions of power plants scooting about on four wheels.

There is capacity in the NA grid to support the overnight charging of 180 million EVs without stressing the system.

Air conditioners are far more demanding. That*s why there can be brown-outs during a heat wave.


Posted at 2:49AM on Apr 29th 2007 by TG

Gas engine vs Electric Motor or EV [vehicle]

Gas engines lose efficiency at every junction from drilling crude, pumping, refining, storage, tanker loading, transport, unloading , pumping at retail sales points and it burns at about 22% energy efficiency. [Ethanol has much lower efficieny and costs more, but does help displace some barrels of crude imports.]

Not so with electric engines:

[ Hydro power is derived from gravity pull of water through a turbine spinning a generator and fed directly by wire to your wall plug. Battery charging normally occurs from 1 to 6 am during off peak demand.]

When the power gets flipped on, the engine goes. Delivery of power to the engine is not as big of an issue. Most electrics also only have two gears, forward and reverse, so drivers don't get stumped by a mis-shift. Additionally, very little of the energy gets lost.

Mr. Wright, engineer of the X1-EV said . .
*Of the energy you take out of the wall, almost all of it ends up on the road,* he said. *They are so close to nearly perfect that there is no point in inventing anything else.*

This is the link


Electricity is also comparatively cheap. The X1 consumes about 220 watt-hours per mile in city driving. That's the equivalent of 170 miles per gallon: The vehicle's vanity license plate reads 170 MPGE.[+-42 MPl.]

It can be charged from a 110-volt wall socket and will be compatible with the faster chargers Tesla will bring to market.

The problem is the batteries, which effectively serve as the gas tank on an electric car. The 538-pound battery in the X1 can hold about the same amount of energy as three liters of gas.
As a result, electric cars can only travel so far without recharging. The EV1 from General Motors could only go 130 miles before it needed a recharge, and it needed a special charger. [ All drivers LOVED their EV-1s in spite of the short range. =TG]

The all-electric Xebra from ZAP doesn't go on the freeway. The Tesla Roadster, an electric sports car coming from Tesla Motors, can go 200 miles before its 6,831-cell lithium ion battery peters out.
The X1 can go around 100 miles under regular conditions and might only go 25 miles in racing conditions before it needs a recharge.

*Batteries are also intrinsically expensive things,* Wright said. *There's a lot of R&D involved.*

The *Better Battery* could come from Chevron , as they hold the patents [from Ovonics], for the *Large Format NiMH battery*. But, I suspect Chevron bought the rights in order to keep the efficient battery from cutting into fuel sales.

Rumours mention that the secretive German based firm, Eestor is onto a *Super Battery*. Question is; will the designer of the better new battery sell the rights to Exxon or Chevron for quick profits, or will they actually go into production? = TG

GM volt EV plug-in

General Motors will roll out its new Chevrolet Volt Concept later today. The sedan is powered by GM’s new E-flex hybrid system. The plug-in four-seater has a brace of lithium-ion cells that can be fully charged in six hours using a standard 110-volt outlet, giving the Volt a range of 40 city miles.

When the batteries are depleted, it then employs its turbocharged, 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine to replenish the cells, theoretically giving the Volt up to 150 miles-per-gallon. According to GM’s car czar Bob Lutz, “More than half of all Americans live within 20 miles of where they work (40 miles round trip). In that case, you might never burn a drop of gas during the life of the car.” Like seemingly every new GM car these days, the Volt’s tri-banger is also amiable to running on E85, giving it even greater credibility among the environmentalists.

http://news.windingroad.com/concept-cars/naias-gm-rolling-out
-volt-plug-in-hybrid-concept-today/

Winding Road Mag

=== Winding Road Magazine = TG