Goehring & Rozencwajg put together a fantastic article on the illusion that EVs are more energy efficient. This is a guest post by Goehring & Rozencwajg.
The Norwegian Illusion – Guest Post
Starting mid-point last decade, the investment community became convinced EV adoption would quickly surge. EV penetrations would become so great that global oil consumption would imminently peak, or so consensus opinion widely believed. 2019 was repeatedly referenced as the year that oil demand would peak and then decline. In retrospect, these concerns were misplaced. Despite the massive COVID-19 disruption, oil demand in 2024 should reach 103 m b/d – 2.3 m b/d greater than 2019. Undeterred by the surprising surge in demand, many analysts remain convinced that “peak oil demand” is still imminent. The investment community’s belief that EVs will displace the internal combustion engine remains as strong as ever. We vigorously disagree.
In our last letter, we predicted that global energy demand would consistently exceed expectations for the next twenty years. Never before have so many people been simultaneously in their period of energy-intensive economic development. Our essay focused broadly on total energy demand and specifically avoided oil consumption. Our choice was deliberate: we wanted to highlight the critical drivers of total energy demand and avoid getting distracted by the debate on EV penetration. Today’s essay focuses on oil and explains why we believe demand will surprise the upside for years to come.
Our research shows that EVs will struggle to achieve widespread adoption despite massive subsidies and the growing threat of outright internal combustion engine (ICE) bans. After carefully studying the history of energy, we have yet to find an example where a new technology with inferior energy efficiency has replaced an existing, more efficient one. Despite claims to the contrary, our research suggests EVs are less energy efficient than internal combustion engine automobiles. As a result, they will fail to gain widespread adoption.
Our claim is controversial; most pundits insist EVs are far more efficient. We believe the ICE is clearly the winner once the energetic costs of both the battery and the renewable power required to make “carbon-free” EVs are considered.
Although governments can encourage EVs through either subsidies or ICE bans, these measures will likely fail, as consumers will ultimately refuse to embrace a new technology that sports inferior energy efficiency. Better examples couldn’t exist than Ford and Hertz dramatically scaling back their EV initiatives due to lower-than-expected consumer interest.
Mitigating carbon emissions is central to the case for electric vehicles. Advocates argue that displacing fossil fuels is essential to curbing global warming. We disagree. Replacing ICEs with EVs will materially increase carbon emissions and may worsen the problem. Manufacturing an electric vehicle consumes far more energy than an ICE. Most of this additional energy is spent mining the materials for and manufacturing an EV’s giant lithium-ion battery. Mining companies use energy-intensive trucks, crushers, and mills to extract each battery’s nickel, cobalt, lithium, and copper. The manufacturing process consumes vast amounts of energy as well. Many analysts eagerly tout the carbon savings from displaced fossil fuels without adequately accounting for the battery’s increased energy consumption. Once these adjustments are made, most, if not all, of the EV’s carbon advantage disappears.
If our models are correct, EVs will fail on two fronts: they are less energy efficient than the ICEs they are trying to replace and their adoption will do little to mitigate carbon emissions.
Policymakers often tout Norway as the ultimate EV success story. Thanks to massive subsidies, EVs made up 80% of all Norwegian new car sales in 2022 and currently account for 20% of the total car fleet. Policymakers hope all developed countries will ultimately adopt Norway’s model. However, upon closer inspection, Norway’s experience does more to warn of EVs’ shortcomings than advocate for their adoption.
The first problem is financial. The Norwegian government offers consumers massive subsidies to purchase an EV. New vehicles are exempt from several onerous taxes and the 25% VAT. On average, a large new ICE would be subject to $27,000 in various taxes; an equivalent EV would pay none. Next, Norway exempts EVs from any road or ferry tolls and allows them to use bus lanes, offers free parking and charging in municipal areas, and ensures “charging rights” in apartment buildings. Although Norway rolled back some of these operating subsidies starting in 2017, an Oslo resident can still expect these benefits to total $8,000 annually.
Norway is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP of $106,000 in 2022. Despite its impressive wealth, the government must still financially incentivize its citizens to purchase EVs.
The benefits are starting to take their toll on Norway’s finances. At nearly $4 billion annually, Norway spends as much on EV subsidies as on total highway and public infrastructure maintenance. The program has also raised significant issues around equality in Norway. EV subsidies favor high-income urban citizens, who take advantage of free tolls, parking, and charging and avoid the onerous tax on larger luxury vehicles. Several populist-leaning political groups in Norway have made so-called “elitist” EV subsidies a focal point of their platform.
Amid growing scrutiny, the government has actively sought to reduce several subsidies. Municipal parking is no longer free, and passengers (although not the vehicles themselves) are subject to certain tolls. The government also introduced a partial purchase tax on new EVs. Proponents have warned that any rollback of subsidies will surely harm EV penetration and offer Sweden as a case study, where, in 2022, the elimination of several subsidies precipitated a 20% drop in EV sales.
More important, EVs in Norway have not affected fossil fuel demand or carbon emissions as expected. Although oil demand and carbon emissions have fallen by 15% since 2010, most of this is unrelated to EV sales. Over the period, total oil demand fell by only 34,000 b/d, with gasoline and diesel making up a mere 10% of the decline. Most of the decline came from heating, lighting, and petrochemical demand, which we estimate collapsed by more than a third. Despite 20% of all vehicles on the road now being electric, Norway’s gasoline and diesel demand fell by a mere 4%.
Our data suggests that Norwegians are reluctant to give up their ICE vehicles, even after purchasing an EV. We calculate that two-thirds of Norway’s EV households own at least one ICE vehicle. From 2010 to 2022, Norway added 550,000 EVs, but the number of ICE vehicles on the road, rather than falling, increased by 32,630. While the population grew by 11%, the total number of passenger cars grew by 25%. When an EV household prefers to avoid a road or ferry toll, have access to free parking or charging, or avoid congestion by using bus lanes, they use their EV. When they visit their hytte in the mountains, they use their ICE. The impact has been so material that advocates have lobbied for a government-funded ICE scrappage program,- another veiled EV subsidy.
Unsurprisingly, electricity demand has surged as Norway shifted from fossil fuels to electricity for transportation, heating, and lighting. Since 2010, Norwegian electricity demand rose an impressive 20%. Total primary demand for all forms of energy increased by 5%. The data suggests that a widespread shift to EVs did little to reduce overall energy consumption despite claims they are far more efficient.
The shift from fossil fuels to electricity has reduced Norway’s CO2 by an impressive 16%, an achievement lauded in the press. Far less discussed, however, is how the US lowered its emissions by 16% over the same period, by switching from coal to natural gas in its power generation.
Using Norway as a model for CO2 reduction would be a mistake. Far more than any other country in the world, Norway benefits from its vast hydrological potential which generates nearly 92% of all electricity carbon-free. Therefore, a move from fossil fuels towards electricity will significantly impact Norway’s carbon emissions more than anywhere else on Earth.
Furthermore, Norway imports all domestic EVs. As we discussed, EV manufacturing is incredibly energy-intensive, mainly to build the battery. In Norway’s case, none of this additional energy is reflected in their domestic demand figures. China manufactures most lithium-ion batteries and 80% of all EVs. Coal accounts for 60% of their total energy supply.
We estimate an average EV consumes 60 MWh to manufacture, of which the battery represents half. Therefore, manufacturing Norway’s 579,000 EVs (all the EVs on the road today in Norway) requires 35 twh, equivalent to 25% of the total annual Norwegian electricity demand. Given that China emits 600 grams of CO2 per kwh (China is where almost all of Noway’s EV batteries are manufactured), we calculate Norway’s EV fleet would emit 21 mm tonnes of CO2. Norway’s gasoline and diesel consumption fell by a meager 3,200 barrels per day or 50 mm gallons per year. Assuming 9 kg of CO2 per gallon of gasoline or diesel, Norway’s entire EV fleet mitigates a mere 450,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, compared with an upfront emission of 21 mm tonnes. In other words, it would take forty-five years of CO2 savings from reduced gasoline and diesel consumption to offset the initial emissions from the manufacturing of the vehicles. Since an EV battery has a useful life of only ten to fifteen years, it is clear that Norway’s EV rollout has increased total lifecycle CO2 emissions dramatically. Incredibly, this is true despite Norway having the lowest carbon hydroelectricity in the world. Even if China were to reach its overly ambitious targets for wind, solar, and nuclear power by 2035, we calculate that the carbon “payback” would still exceed twenty years. Realistically, the only way for EVs to reduce lifecycle carbon emissions would be with a widespread move to carbon-free energy in EV manufacturing. Most EV advocates hope renewable energy will be the solution. Unfortunately, we do not believe this will prove feasible due to their inferior energy efficiency.
Instead of serving as a model, Norway’s program should warn of the unintended consequences of large-scale EV penetration, particularly when consumers purchase an EV in addition to an ICE. Countless articles claim EVs are far more energy efficient than ICE vehicles. Moreover, these authors argue EVs will be more efficient and more carbon-free once renewables replace coal and natural gas. Our analysis, unpopular and controversial, suggests the opposite.
Most articles list EVs as anywhere between two and three times more energy efficient than the ICEs they replace. The basis for this claim is that internal combustion engines are only 40% efficient and that nearly 60% of the energy contained in gasoline or diesel fuel is “wasted,” –mainly in the form of heat and friction. On the other hand, an electric motor transfers nearly 90% of its electrical energy directly to the wheels. The difference leads many to erroneously conclude that an EV is almost three times as “efficient” as an ICE.
This common argument is fundamentally flawed for three reasons. First, it fails to capture the energy needed to make the battery; second, it fails to distinguish between thermal and electric energy; and third, it fails to account for the poor energy efficiency of renewable energy.
An EV uses 32 kWh of electricity per 100 miles traveled. The vehicle’s battery, meanwhile, consumes an incredible 24 MWh in its manufacturing. Assuming a useful life of 120,000 miles, the battery pack consumes 20 kWh per 100 miles traveled, two-thirds as much as the direct electricity itself. Most analysts we have read fail to include this onerous energy burden when touting the EV’s superior efficiency.
Next, most efficiency arguments fail to distinguish between thermal and electrical energy. While most of us have been taught that energy is fungible, several distinct forms of energy have differing degrees of usefulness. Although it is beyond the scope of this essay, the distinction surrounds the randomness, or entropy, of the energy carrier. The more entropic an energy source, the less useful work it can perform. Burning fuels of any kind always has high entropy. Electricity, on the other hand, with its orderly string of moving electrons, has extremely low entropy. Upgrading from thermal to electric energy always introduces predictable inefficiencies based on the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.
When pundits claim an EV is three times more efficient than an ICE, they fail to make this distinction. In a combustion engine, the driver converts gasoline (high entropy) into forward motion with approximately 40% efficiency. Electricity (low entropy) drives a motor with approximately 90% efficiency in an electric vehicle. However, electricity does not exist in nature but instead must be generated. Burning natural gas (high entropy) to generate electricity (low entropy) is only 40-50% efficient. The EV is not inherently more efficient; instead, the inefficient “upgrade” from thermal to electric energy occurs off-stage and is conveniently omitted by most analysts.
Last, most efficiency arguments fail to account for energy generation in the first place. For example, as we saw with Norway, the only way to lower automotive carbon emissions is by converting to renewable energy for both the manufacturing and powering of the vehicle. Unfortunately, renewable power is prohibitively inefficient. This may be surprising. After all, neither wind nor solar “burn” fuel, and so are not subjected to the inefficiency of moving from thermal to electric energy discussed earlier. However, wind and solar suffer from incredibly low energy density (consider the heat from a gas stove compared to a stiff breeze). To capture useful quantities of power, windmills must stand 300 m tall, and solar farms must spread out over thousands of acres. These large installations require raw materials like steel, cement, copper, silver, and polysilicon. These materials, in turn, consume vast quantities of energy to both mine and process. By comparison, oil and gas extraction is highly efficient.
We study the total energy required to produce various forms of energy, a metric known as energy return on investment (EROI). While a single unit of invested energy might generate fifty units of (thermal) energy over the life of a productive oil well, it will only generate ten units of (electrical) energy with wind or less than six from a solar panel. Furthermore, wind and solar power must be buffered by grid-level battery storage to avoid intermittency, which requires far more energy. Fully buffered wind likely has an EROI of six to seven, while solar may be as low as three. Claiming a renewable-powered EV is efficient because its motor operates at 90% fails to account for the poor upstream efficiency.
Instead, we have taken a completely different approach when calculating automotive efficiency: assuming 100 kWh of available thermal energy, how far can a driver expect to travel in an ICE compared with an EV. We prefer this methodology, as it aligns with our intuitive understanding of “efficiency:”: how much can we get out of a single unit of energy. Using this approach, the race isn’t even close –the ICE wins “hands down.”
An efficient ICE can expect to achieve 37 miles per gallon of gasoline or 98 kWh of thermal energy per 100 miles. The vehicle components require 20 MWh, or 15 kWh per 100 miles, when amortized over a useful life of 170,000 miles—according to Argon Labs. The ICE can expect to consume 112 kWh per 100 miles, of which 90% represents thermal energy in the form of gasoline. Oil extraction benefits from a very high EROI of 60:1 at the wellhead. In other words, 60 units of thermal energy, in the form of crude, comes up the wellbore for every unit of energy invested. Transportation and refining consume approximately 15% of the energy contained in the crude, lowering the EROI to 50. To be conservative, we are assuming an ultimate EROI of 45. Therefore, investing one kWh of thermal energy will create 45 kWh of thermal energy, propelling the ICE 41 miles.
A modern EV consumes 32 kWh of direct electrical energy per 100 miles. The battery requires an additional 24 MWh, which over the vehicle’s useful life of 120,000 miles equals 20 kWh per 100 miles. The remaining vehicle components consume 27 kWh per 100 miles. The EV can expect to consume 80 kWh per 100 miles, of which 95% is electricity.
Assuming the electricity is generated in a natural gas-fired power plant, the EROI is approximately 25 once transmission line losses are considered. Starting again with one kWh of thermal energy, we would expect to generate 25 kWh of electricity. The EV would, therefore, travel 32 miles – 20% less than the ICE. If electricity is generated using a mixture of unbuffered wind and solar, the EROI could be as low as 13. Therefore, one kWh of energy would only generate 13 kWh of electricity, propelling the EV a mere 16 miles – over 60% less than the ICE.
Never in history has a less efficient “prime mover” displaced a more efficient one. We believe this time will be no different. While governments may try to coerce drivers into buying EVs or even ban ICE altogether, these policies will ultimately fail as consumers insist on keeping their more efficient vehicles. A new battery breakthrough would help make EVs more energy efficient, and we are studying the space very closely. In particular, we are impressed with the work being done by the team at PureLithium, in which we have made a small private investment. However, we cannot identify any battery technology that would materially change this analysis. Until then, we expect internal combustion engines will continue to dominate, and EV penetration will disappoint.
End Guest Post
The above is an excerpt of the complete article which you can download here: The Norwegian Illusion Complete.
If you believe the authors are wrong, tell us where and how, in detail.
Biden Will Take Away Your Truck
In case you missed it, please see In the Name of Progress, Biden Will Take Away Your Truck
One problem with the comparison between EVs and ICEs is that it’s not taking into account the materials and energy needed to build the gas and oil rigs, and decommission them when the wells run dry.
Bottom line is, there is no such thing as “clean energy.” And no energy source so far is truly “renewable” or “sustainable.” All have high costs in environmental and human health degradation in their production, processing and use.
It is only in a prison where inmates discuss the way to achieve freedom.
Interesting article but I disagree that because
“Never in history has a less efficient “prime mover” displaced a more efficient one. ”
That this maxim will apply to EVs. Government can and do at times direct inefficient investments, in this case to take leverage away from oil producers, many of whom are unplatable to Western governments.
EV and Renewable Energy fanboys will HATE this documentary:
link to youtube.com
Ya’ll been played big time
That was a hilariously bad “documentary”. But it certainly appealed to cult morons who want to believe that global warming is a hoax. I bet you also believed it when “scientists” said that smoking was good for you.
I miss the IGNORE button.
The authors did not address global warming at all. Their point was that CO2 emissions overall with EV’s is greater than for ICE vehicles. Your attempt at misdirection is totally off-base.
The article raised some important points, but is clearly slanted against EVs. Still, I appreciate that it was posted here. Food for thought.
I have nothing against EVs. But as I frequently say, they are a distraction in the overall quest to reduce emissions and slow global warming. We can do much more by switching from coal use to natural gas than we can by switching from ICE to EVs. That is one thing in the article that is correct.
If an EV makes sense for you, then go ahead and buy one. Just don’t think that you will save money, or the planet.
There already has been a major shift from coal to natural gas, but the Dems have now targeted natural gas.
link to eia.gov
That link had nothing to do with your statement. Care to elaborate?
The link documents the shift from coal to natural gas for electricity generation.
Exactly. Something I already knew. But it says nothing about “Dems targeting natural gas”. Instead it shows that natural gas use is expanding under the current administration and coal use is going down.
Those numbers don’t say that Dems have targeted natural gas. That is happening apart from those numbers.
That was quite the looooooooooooooong article!
Fusion power will give us unlimited energy, like the sun. H2 fuel cells will replace IC and EV powered vehicles.
The deal breaker is containment.
The unhinged wingnuttery here is fun! And here we think the “progressives” have a corner on the crazy. LOL
Whatever. Have fun staying poor, I guess. I sure like paying ~5 cents a mile to get around when I need to drive.
It’s a cute analysis, I guess.
At the 120k mile “end of life” what does the model do with the batteries? In real life, they are already being re-used, up cycled, and recycled.
The biggest barrier to recycling? Insufficient supply.
Possibly more to the point, ICE can use exactly two fuels that can be produced at scale – petrol and diesel made from fossil oil. Biofuels are a joke. Hydrogen is a bad joke. There are no serious alternatives.
EVs can run on solar, nuclear, gas, wind, hydro, coal, fusion, geothermal, anything you want.
Stop wasting your time on wildly biased nonsense like this.
Rather than dismissing the article as being biased basically because it does not fit your pre-defined narrative, what about the article is wrong? Show us wheree EV batteries are being recycled for example.
The relentless — and ever accelerating — rise in energy demand of oil extraction threatens to upend centuries of economic growth; with or without wind, solar and nuclear. Together with a decline in conventional oil production it will eventually cap off the net energy returned to the economy, making any further expansion to our material world impossible.
In fact, there is a good case to be made that we have already passed this point, and that the economic pains we endure at the moment are just a quiet prelude to the massive crash to come as a result.
link to thehonestsorcerer.substack.com;
Nonsense. Peak oil has been forecast for over 50 years and has yet to materialize. For example, the amount of shale oil reserves in the Middle East is more than the world’s recognized oil reserves but they are still producing massive quantities from their sandstones so they havent even begun to tap shales.
It’s not about running out … it’s about the cost of production … the easy stuff gets burned first… then what’s left is costly — and costly energy is the enemy of economic growth.
And as we have seen for the past 20+ years… the only way to battle the headwinds of expensive energy — is massive stimulus… record low interest rates… and a deluge of money and bail outs…
Question – if there is so much cheap and easy oil left — WHY DO WE STEAM OIL OUT OF SAND?
I used to work tar sands where “steaming” is done. It happens because the places where it is done (mainly Canada) are not part of OPEC. If OPEC wanted to they could provide all of the world’s oil but as long as Russia, US etc. are producing anywhere close to what they are now, having OPEC increase production would only crash prices which of course Saudi et al don’t want. The breakeven price for heavy oil developments (wells, production facilities, pipeline, special modified refineries etc.) is about $60/barrel. When prices drop below that figure, (technically the incremental cost of production) you see the amount of “steamed oil” drop. Likewise the breakeven price for horizontal, multi-stage frac shale oil is about $50/bbl and you see the same thing happen. When prices had dropped a couple of years ago to about $35/bbl, U.S. crude production dropped by several million bpd and development of new wells almost totally stopped. Current production from Saudi, USE, Iran etc. is about $10/bbl. They don’t like continued low oil prices but they very much like the occasional drop in prices every 2-3 years because it causes the marginal producers (US/Canada mainly) to stop development and production of high-cost reserves which gives OPEC a larger market share. This game is continuously played all the time. Other than Venezuela, whose oil reserves are almost all heavy oil needing “steaming” the others do not need to develop and produce the stuff with a $50/bbl breakeven for quite a while. There will come a time when they do but it appears to be 30-40 years away.
Wrong. They steam oil out of sand because the type of oil in the tar sands is used to make diesel … shale oil is not conducive to making diesel.
So the reason we steam oil out of sand is because it’s the only substantial source of this type of oil left. i.e. we have drained most of the other sources
Educate yourself here:
According to Rystad, the current resource replacement ratio for conventional resources is only 16 percent. Only 1 barrel out of every 6 consumed is being replaced with new resources
link to oilprice.com
Conventional Oil Sources peaked in 2008 and the Shale binge has now spoiled US reserves, top investor warns Financial Times.
Preface. Conventional crude oil production may have already peaked in 2008 at 69.5million barrels per day (mb/d) according to Europe’s International Energy Agency (IEA 2018 p45). The U.S. Energy Information Agency shows global peak crude oil production at a later date in 2018 at 82.9mb/d (EIA 2020) because they included tight oil, oil sands, and deep-sea oil. Though it will take several years of lower oil production to be sure the peak occurred. Regardless, world production has been on a plateau since 2005.
What’s saved the world from oil decline was unconventional tight “fracked” oil, which accounted for 63% of total U.S. crude oil production in 2019 and 83% of global oil growth from 2009 to 2019. So it’s a big deal if we’ve reached the peak of fracked oil, because that is also the peak of both conventional and unconventional oil and the decline of all oil in the future.
Some key points from this Financial Times article: link to energyskeptic.com
Shale boss says US has passed peak oil | Financial Times link to archive.ph
Our fossil fuel energy predicament, including why the correct story is rarely told
link to ourfiniteworld.com
link to ourfiniteworld.com
And for an encore… this lengthy paper written by the head of research of a major energy trading company… explains what caused the GFC… read p 59 first… and I am sure you will be intrigued to then read the entire document
SEE PAGE 59 – THE PERFECTSTORM : The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. Butt he critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel link to ftalphaville-cdn.ft.com
One would hope that this would shut up the EV groopies.
But never underestimate the delusional thinking of a cult
for performance cars, ev is the way to go. for everything else, plain old hybrid is the best (not plug in hybrids).
Wrong.
A mate of mine owns one of those every expensive Teslas…. at the time I had a 911… and we were discussing acceleration…
He said – the acceleration is phenomenal … BUT… cornering is a frightening experience BECAUSE the car is very heavy … due to the battery weight … therefore trying to reduce the speed quickly on a corner is hairy….
EVs are a joke – in all respects. They have ZERO advantages over an ICE vehicle.
Except the ability to exhibit sanctimony.
Personal EVs are a hot mess waste of resources. There are 2 big factors to convert to EVS:
-The oil supply is going to run out
-The oil supply can be put to better use than burning it up-plastics are petroleum products
-Getting the US off dependence of oil countries is a national security must.
Sadly, the 3rd point will just make us dependent on 3rd world country minerals, not oil. And there is less rare earth minerals than remaining oil.
What has not been spoken of is that the US especially has a terrible, slow public transit option. In Europe, I don’t really feel like I need a car for much. In the US, all our shopping, homes and work are far away from each other. Plus there is no investment in transit and as such, the solutions are a terrible mishmash. So at least the wasteful commuter problem has a solution, California decided to start building a high speed train to nowhere, starting in nowhere because developers wanted to front run the property and have the state buy it at inflated prices. Another reason why transit fails here-corporate capture and regulation is all for business and not for public good.
You have the energy dependency backwards. The USA is a large producer of coal, NG, and oil. There are many other countries producing oil, NG, and coal also so there is a lot of diversity in oil/NG/coal production. OPEC has an important influence, but OPEC is a rather weak cartel often with its members breaking ranks.
Compare the diversity in production of oil/NG/coal to the control exerted by China on minerals required for RE and EVs. China has an iron grip on the supply chain.
At 77 and 72, me and wife will keep our sweet, presently 117,000 miles, 2011 Ford F-150 3.5L XLT Super Cab ’til the good Lord calls us Home, or the American Gestapo forcibly removes it from out possession. 🔦✝️
Isn’t the work-from-home trend (which is killing office and commercial RE) also making society way more efficient, with far less road commuting? Let’s take the win, and stop letting climate cultists push unnecessarily restrictive and unworkable edicts about EVs, which don’t really help the climate or reduce pollution, and mainly help the CCP gain more power.
Trying to correct a post with errors in it, the automatic censor spammed me. Below is my rebuttal to the argument made by the guest author. What is not discussed is the co2 content of driving by the guest author. Yet according to the this article renewable energy system minus fossil fuels is the most efficient kind of transportation. 40 to 70% efficient is superior to the other forms of energy.
/publication/344860096_Comparison_of_the_Overall_Energy_Efficiency_for_Internal_Combustion_Engine_Vehicles_and_Electric_Vehicles
The tremendous growth in the transportation sector as a result of changes in our ways of transport and a rise in the level of prosperity was reflected directly by the intensification of energy needs. Thus, electric vehicles (EV) have been produced to minimise the energy consumption of conventional vehicles. Although the EV motor is more efficient than the internal combustion engine, the well to wheel (WTW) efficiency should be investigated in terms of determining the overall energy efficiency. In simple words, this study will try to answer the basic question-is the electric car really energy efficient compared with ICE-powered vehicles? This study investigates the WTW efficiency of conventional internal combustion engine vehicles ICEVs (gasoline, diesel), compressed natural gas vehicles (CNGV) and EVs. The results show that power plant efficiency has a significant consequence on WTW efficiency. The total WTW efficiency of gasoline ICEV ranges between 11-27 %, diesel ICEV ranges from 25 % to 37 % and CNGV ranges from 12 % to 22 %. The EV fed by a natural gas power plant shows the highest WTW efficiency which ranges from 13 % to 31 %. While the EV supplied by coal-fired and diesel power plants have approximately the same WTW efficiency ranging between 13 % to 27 % and 12 % to 25 %, respectively. If renewable energy is used, the losses will drop significantly and the overall efficiency for electric cars will be around 40-70 % depending on the source and the location of the renewable energy systems.
just cuzz your masters say C02 is poison, doesn’t make it true
CO2 is a green house gas.
Particulates are prominent in diesel engines which are proven bad for us
Birth defects are substantally higher near fracking zones.
Coal waste from burning poisons the water table below and has health consequences for those living nearby
I could go on and on.
Renewable energy ;can build renewable energy eventually getting around all the problems that fossil fuels cause.
What is renewable about digging up millions of tonnes of dirt using diesel machinery — crushing the rock — smelting metals out … using more fossil fuels… then using more fossil fuels to power the factories that make things like solar panels?
How is that renewable? How is that green?
Duh
If you can’t think of it happening, therefore it can never happen? Do I get that right? The mining equipment manufacturers are designing the equipement and some of it is ready for show time.
Are you still part of the flat earth society? I think you should drop your membership.
Trees seem to love C02…
If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle. The only thing sillier than EV zombies ignoring the environmental rape needed to make the batteries is pretending we charge them all with windmills and solar panels.
Clean energy which includes wind and solar, is expanding rapidly. Better go talk to those people and tell them how silly they are. I’ve driven over a 100,000 miles on electric. It’s working for me very well.
This laughably biased article ridiculously and baselessly assumes that an EV uses a different source of electricity than any other electric-powered device. As for manufacturing, other studies show that the energy requirement is the same for ICEVs and EVs, including the batteries.
There are definite downsides to EVs — the low energy density of today’s batteries, and secondarily the slow charging rate and relatively rapid degradation. If the hype surrounding solid state batteries winds up being true, ICEVs will disappear just as whale oil and kerosene lamps did when electricity and lightbulbs replaced them. The free market will do it.
These are engineering issues, and this article is insultingly stupid. By the way, I own a 1-ton, crew cab, 8 foot bed diesel pickup; a mid-sized gas SUV; and a subcompact EV. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. The utter bullshit on both sides of what passes for a “debate” about EVs is outrageously ignorant, empty, and full of outright dishonesty.
Any study that says the energy requirements for manufacture of ICE and EVs are equivalent is garbage. There’s a reason why the initial purchase of a normal sedan ICE costs half the enormously subsidized EV of similar size. I don’t know why anybody is debating this. Price is often a great stand in for energy. If the lifetime cost of my unsubsidized ICE vehicle is less than the unsubsidized EV then obviously the ICE vehicle is more energy efficient. End of story.
Supporters of EVs are in a cult… facts do NOT matter to them
“If the hype surrounding solid state batteries winds up being true,…”
Duh! If hype was true, we’d live forever.That’s why it’s called hype.
I am both a skeptic and a cautious optimist on solid state. Skeptic because there is a long list of battery “breakthroughs” that did not pan out. Cautious optimist because the latest boomlet is supported by the involvement of numerous heavy hitters in that industry, as opposed to prior “breakthroughs” that were little more than grant-seeking university research projects.
I think we will know within 5 years whether or not solid state EV batteries will happen at scale and acceptable cost. If it happens, it will take another 5 to 10 years for manufacturing economies of scale to kick in. Probably less time than it took for the liquid electrolytes now used, because the manufacturing infrastructure is already in place.
In any case, this comment thread makes me laugh because of the emotion and the unrestrained political horseshit over what, in the end, is and will be no more and no less than engineering. Also arguing for solid state is that those batteries already exist for cellphones and laptops. The same thing happened on the liquid side in the teens.
If solid state happens and fulfills the promises, ICEVs will not disappear right away. There is a huge installed base of vehicles that have a long life. But if it does happen, the market will eliminate new ICEVs very quickly, just as digital cellphone networks killed off new analog phones right away. It will take longer with vehicles because of the replacement cycle, but it will happen if solid state turns out to be real.
This is how most people react when confronted by The Truth.
They get angry hahaha
They don’t even bother to try to pick apart the argument … cuz they can’t … so instead they resort to vitriol
Hilarious stuff
It’s like trying to explain to a Vaxxer that all those people with cancer, heart attacks, strokes, neuro diseases — and death…. is a result of injecting billions of people with a substance that has no long term testing profile … cuz it was developed and released in less than a year
They get very angry too … if they aren’t dead
I never got angry about it, but I would like to see the evidence.
There is an entire article filled with evidence above
About vaxxes? LOL
The great thing about those vaxxes is the Vaxxers are always sick, maimed – or Dead
Another Vaxxer ex mate of mine is the latest in my circle – turbo stomach cancer – terminal…. dropping like flies
I assume you are fully boosted? Just wait till you get cancer Jake… or a heart attack… or a stroke…
How’s your immune system doing? How many times have you had covid?
Funny thing … most of the staff are Pro Vaxxers and despite my warnings most of them are fully boosted.
There is not a day that multiple people are not off sick… often very sick taking multiple days off work.
One died of a heart attack right after a booster.
But nobody is connecting the dots…
You told me to look at the article for evidence about vaxxes. The article is not about vaxxes. You are unhinged.
I know and respect these guys from their work and tend to agree with them though I can’t evaluate their various numbers. But I was wondering how they were able to say, “An efficient ICE can expect to achieve 37 miles per gallon of gasoline.” I don’t know of many that actually get that and I’d suspect that even if an efficient one gets that, the existing fleet of ICE vehicles doesn’t even come close.
“Can” and “does” are entirely different animals.
That’s exactly the case for hybrids: ICEs can obtain such efficiencies, but only in a narrow range of power outputs. Say, 55mph flat and calm. The ICE achieving that for a 2 ton family car, will be grossly oversized,hence inefficient, for 5mph bumper to bumper. Enough so that the payback from hybridization shift to electric propulsion for the latter sort of driving, is great.
Victoria Nuland’s America!
link to anderweltonline.com
Alex, we don’t use bad words on this forum.
Apologies!
Technology will evolve to the point were it makes more sense to use an EVvehicle. except for niche markets. If you look at the evolution of the cell phone from a big brick what it is today, most people can’t live without their smart phones.
Τhe same is trying to do with physical media, that having a big war with digital media. But on the world pay for everything-own nothing-be happy, this is the norm. And the ICe vehicles, isnt going to be niche market.
“Technology will evolve to the point were it makes more sense to use..” a teleportation device. A self teleporting one. Invented by an AI. Yeah! Since, like, some illiterate guy in New York, like, “invested” monopoly money in, like, something!
And my smart phone battery is just under two years old and I’m having to keep it on the charger more frequently…
Seems technology has its limits
That almost certainly happened because you toed it off from a high state of charge. Each charge is a charging cycle, and each cycle degrades the battery. This is why EV makers advise waiting until the battery is down to 20% before recharging, at least ideally.
Much like the battery in your car, your Google Pixel™ or Samsung Galaxy® phone battery will degrade over time. Typically, your phone battery is good for 2 to 3 years. link to asurion.com
A quick guide to how much energy that it takes to produce something, in the actual cost of the product itself and the cost of it’s operation. The total energy costs could then be extrapolated into consequential pollution created. EV,s fall short of the glory of well designed ICE and Hybirds.
I won’t buy a hybrid. The battery warranties are around 8 yrs…. and the replacement cost will run $6000+
Try reselling a hybrid when it is closing in on or past the warranty period…. only a fool would buy it — without a massive discount
Gee, the government was wrong. Again.
They’ve kept their perfect record! 0%
I’ve yet to find embedded energy into a battery as this article seems to imply. What I can find is kg co2 per kw-hr. Exhibit 2 in the Mckinsey article shows the United States co2 embedded in the battery bank. At 74 kg. co2 per kw-hr times 82.5 kw-hr for my car puts me at 6,105 lbs co2 embedded in the batteries. At 15,000 miles per year at 30 mpg car will burn 500 gallons at 20lbs co2 per gallon is 10,000 lbs co2.
Lets take the energy equivalent of gasoline co2 per gallon. 20 lbs co2 per gallon of gasoline. 20 into 6,105 lbs (rough estimate of co2 embedded in my battery bank) and we get 305 gallons worth of gasoline co2. 305 gallons gasoline times 33.6 kw-hrs / gallon gives 10,256 kw-hr. Assuming the guest made a very large decimal mistake by a factor of over a hundred, even dividing by a 100, its still over twice as high. Take into account Tesla battery banks are good 300,000 miles, again this looks very much like big time number fudging.
One thing the ICE car can never win at is the game of pollution. This is a distraction from the seriousness of co2 warming of the earth. Nice try guest author, go back to the drawing board.
Another words this looks more and more like FUD from how the numbers were manipulated
link to mckinsey.com
Embedded energy is reflected in the unsubsidized cost, as Christoball said.
The EV hits about break even in about a year with embedded energy of ICE vs EV. Its from there the EV pulls ahead and wins the race. The ICE vehicle has the handicap and still looses the race.
Seems to me the decision to buy an electric or ICE vehicle or anything else should be an individual’s choice based on his specific criteria with no outside subsidy or tax penalties to assure the right individual selection and the sum of everybody’s choices assures the correct global selection. Government mandates are rarely if ever optimum and are fertile grounds for corruption, waste and abuse.
That’s why you have been told that you cannot purchase incandescent or fluorescent lamps for illumination. It has been decided that you must use LEDs for everything, no matter what the long term outcome.
I had a new house built in 2017, and part of the process was to visit the lighting store to pick out fixtures. They pitched LEDs, and I pushed back hard because I had bought LED bulbs when they first appeared. I hated them because the light was harsh, they flickered, and they didn’t work on dimmers.
I was won over by demonstrations. LEDs now come in a range of light temperatures. They don’t flicker, and they are dimmable. As a result, out of about 100 lights in the new house, only one lamp uses incandescent bulbs. Once those bulbs wear out, I will replace them with LEDs. No government requirement has convinced me.
LED lighting is just as good, plus it uses roughly 1/8 the electricity for the same light output. Oh, and just last week I replaced my very first LED bulb. It lasted for 7 years in a spot (over the kitchen table) where it is used every single day for a couple hours. I laugh at anyone who wants to make this a political issue.
If LED’s are better, people will figure that out and choose them with being required to.
Do you even bother to read anything?
Mt experience with LEDs is the same as yours. The early ones were like the compact fluorescent ones. Harsh cold light. The new LED’s are indistinguishable from incandescent.
That said, I still use incandescent in closets, attic etc because a 25 cent bulb there lasts forever so no need for a $3+ bulb.
LED lamps don’t work worth a damn in my incubators, nor in my drying cabinets.
Then go buy incandescent bulbs.
yes it is the right of the stupid to make stupid decisions without doing research and/or ignoring the facts (as stated in this article and others)
I find it amusing that someone would pay a big premium for a vehicle … and not do thorough research on the downsides… of course that’s because they only read the MSM … which is littered with paid PR from the likes of Tesla telling the fools that these contraptions are awesome.
Kinda like how the same fools bought the Safe and Effective PR campaign… and loads of them are maimed or dead now.
EV’s wear out their tires twice as fast as ICE vehicles. Tires are made of oil.
Heavier vehicles wear out roads faster, asphalt is made from oil and concrete takes large amounts of energy to make.
There is actually an equation about vehicle weight and pavement wear. If you bothered to shake off your laziness, you would see that light vehicles do virtually no pavement damage whatever their weight.
It’s not the pavement wear.
It’s the tons of additional rubber/carbon particulates spread into the air we breathe.
The article failed to mention that an EV weighs significantly more than a similarly sized ICE vehicle. Therefore, it takes more energy to move an EV. Sedans are about 30% heavier and trucks/SUVs weigh about 2.5 times more. The additional weight increases the cost to maintain the roadways which uses energy. The added weight causes tires to wear faster, adding monetary and energy cost.
Also not mentioned is the efficiency of the charging device. On average an EV will lose 10% to 25% of the energy it took to charge the batteries.
“Norway benefits from its vast hydrological potential which generates nearly 92% of all electricity carbon-free.”
If Norway can’t make it work with such high levels of hydroelectric production, how can any other country? The US produces about 6% of its electricity from hydroelectric dams.
What really galls me is the attitude among greens that we just got to wait for that imminent silver bullet battery technology that’s going to save the day…it’s gonna happen…almost there…it’s inevitable…right around the corner (yawn).
“If Norway can’t make it work with such high levels of hydroelectric production, how can any other country?”
They can’t.
What they can do; and do, OTOH; is mindlessly claim to be able to. Not in order to achieve anything of the sort, but simply as an excuse to encourage/force less-connected productive people to fork over money to connected idiot “investors” in the latest hype; instead of spending it on infinitely better, more advanced, more intelligently designed and made products manufactured elsewhere, by people further removed from America’s ruling Junta.
That is what is going on. It’s the only thing that is going on. There is no real benefits, nor “breakthroughs”, nor advances, nor anything else real-world useful coming from any of the childish hype-drivel which America’s captive indoctrinati are being fed.Not from BEVs, not from “AI”, not from “self driving cars” nor from anything else.
Instead: The only real story is that 60 years ago, American science and industry enables walking on the moon. And, within a span of five years or so, developed, built and launched 727s,737sand 747s. Which are still, with very few alterations, the mainstay of all air travel. And put in place the internet. And., and.,and…….
“We” were a much,much more advanced society back then; both scientifically but in particular industrially; than we have any chance of being for at least another 2 to 3 generations from now. And as of current: We’re Argentina. Nothing more.
It’s completely irrelevant; as in 100% literally irrelevant how much pretend-money the utter retards whom debasement has transferred ALL wealth to, throws around on nonsense orders of magnitude beyond their peasized little brains while pretending what they are doing has anything in common with “investing”: NOONE(+- at most a percent or two) in the current US with any “wealth” has any brain nor ability at all. That is exactly what central banking set out to ensure, and that’s what going off Gold achieved once and for all.
None of the hype has ANY scientific, much less logical, backing. It’s all just stupid offspring of stupid parents who received loot from The Fed, pretending they serve some sort of purpose by babbling about things they’ll never, ever have the aptitude to comprehend. While, at the end of the day; we’re further from useful AI now,than Minsky was, further from EVs than San Francisco was when they first built a cable car. And ditto self driving anything.
While simultaneously being further from even 60s-era functioning 737s: Not only has the mal-investment and capital destruction stopped any possibility of forward progress; it has now gone on long enough to SEVERELY impede any attempt to even make up for the inevitable depreciation of what we already had 60 years ago.We’re a poorer country now, by almost any meaningful measure, than we were pre Vietnam. We’re a less educated country. Less scientifically advanced country. And a grotesquely less industrially advanced one. It’s not just hyperbole, or at least not more than 25% hyperbole, to state the now obvious: We are now Argentina. In the 60s, we were vastly more. But not any longer. Now; we can’t do anything. No matter how much mindless and braindead hype rank idiots enriched by nothing other than Fed Theft pretends to; we still can’t do anything. Hence won’t do anything. And, even if we did change, even completely into a properly free and capitalistic society, it would still take two generations, at least, to get back to where we were pre Vietnam. That’s what 1971, “investors” and “ownership society” theft rackets have wrought. And nothing else.
Stuki, we might no longer have the engineers like we used to, but thank goodness we have a lot of gender-studies majors.
Engineers is one thing.There are still bright individuals born in America. Even if perhaps more of them are encouraged to pursue a career in Applied Nonsense, rather than engineering, these days.
But the real killer, is the lack of an environment conducive to organizations doing advanced work on any scale. America still has a good share of tiny startups doing pure greenfield work, or very specialized work. Anywhere from 2 to 15 people, doing something novel.
But beyond that size, it’s almost like hitting a brick wall. Once you scale beyond an apartment and the original founders; costs and pointless burdens completely swamp any possibility of competing against, say, Chinese competitors anymore.
Suddenly you are hit up, by the leech army, for obscene rents, crazy insurance, constant frivolous suits or threats thereof etc.,etc. While, at the same time, there are NOONE around with any industrial experience. Noone not dead or retired, with any clue how to run nor manage neither larger parts of, nor the whole of, any productive enterprise on any scale. All we have, is a bunch of yahoos who were enriched by obscene Fed wealth transfers their way, in return for them neither doing nor comprehending anything at all.
And it is within larger, stable, long running organizations; that hard, fundamental work is done. A few buddies in Colorado may well,overthe course of a summer or two, come up with a cool alternative to shoelaces for certain highly technical niche footwear, and do so better than anyone; but beating Toyota at reliably building tens of millions of cars and distributing them and their parts across the world; requires organizations on a whole ‘nother scale. Ditto building planes carrying the world’s population across oceans without regularly falling apart midair more and more frequently. You can’t do that sort of work with a few guys writing presentations and making elevator pitches to morons who “made money from their home.”
And neither will we ever get back to an environment where the sort of people who CAN do those things; as long as we have a “system” set up specifically to transfer all wealth FROM exactly those sort of organizations, in order to maintain the trivially idiotic illusion that dumb people CAN “make money from their home.” Houses DECAY as they sit there. They DO NOT create value. The only way to maintain the illusion that Home Owners are somehow “making money” off of them, is to transfer all that money from productive organizations of the Toyota and once-were Boeing kind. Which, inevitably, will burden those organizations to the point where they can no longer compete. Nor even simply continue to afford doing things they had already long since figured out how to do, like building 737s which do not fall down.
The same holds true for picking random numbers;which is all that “investing in the stock market” is, for anyone not specifically “insider trading.” Unless someone is privy to asymmetric (“insider”) information, his buying and selling contributes NOTHING of value. hence; again; EVERY penny he “makes”, has to be first created by someone else. those “someone elses” again being America’s once-were mighthy, world beating, competitive industrial organizations. All of whom have now been bilked into effectively nothing; for no other reason than to pretend dimwitted negative-value-add mediocrities are somehow “making” “money” as “investors”, “owners” and in other purely Fed-transfer enabled “ownership society” idiot roles.
NONE of this pure drivel, has added ANY value. It has ALL been down hill and nothing but; all simple theft and destruction; year in year out ever since 1971 (and at an accelerating rate even prior…). That’s why we now are where we are. And don’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades to get back to even mid ’60s levels of wealth nor “advancedness” for at a minimum several generations. And no: No amount of making up nonsense of the xdc,tfp, ntg nor gdp kind and mindlessly insisting it “is up!!!” will make any difference at all.
You describe a world that is not fair. Shocking! Armed with this great “knowledge”, you can then choose to take advantage of it, or you can choose to sit back and complain about it.
My choice is to take advantage because complaining is a waste of time.
I’m not personally about to starve to death anytime soon.
Hence have a hard time getting all that excited over stealing candy from children who very well may face starvation.
The article failed to mention that an EV weighs significantly more than a similarly sized ICE vehicle. Therefore, it takes more energy to move an EV. Sedans are about 30% heavier and trucks/SUVs weigh about 2.5 times more. The additional weight increases the cost to maintain the roadways which uses energy. The added weight causes tires to wear faster, adding monetary and energy cost.
Also not mentioned is the efficiency of the charging device. On average an EV will lose 10% to 25% of the energy it took to charge the batteries.
Just to be clear, heavier cars and trucks don’t increase road maintenance costs. Their weight increase isn’t large enough to matter.
It’s Semi trucks and other really heavy vehicles (ones weighting 10x or more than cars) that wear out the roads.
That is exactly correct. The highway engineers figured this out a long time ago. By analogy, think of a tree branch. A motorcycle is a housefly. A car is a bird. A pickup truck is a squirrel. An urban delivery truck is a raccoon. A semi-truck or bus is a fucking anvil.
Moron, that is captured in the fuel economy data. Really, just how god damned stupid can you possibly be?
I’m wondering if this guest post is just plain FUD. Election coming up and Trump is very supportive of gas vehicles and hostile to EVs. AGW is alive and well and yet far right conservatives are hostile to this area of reality that is bad news for the business of fossil fuels for energy.
Energy/Crude-Oil/Big-Oil-Grows-Bolder-in-Transition-Pushback
Big Oil Grows Bolder in Transition PushbackBy Irina Slav – Mar 20, 2024, 6:00 PM CDT
“I’m wondering if this guest post is just plain FUD.”
It seems the FUD is warranted. Hertz is racing to offload their
EV’s, as they didn’t work out as hoped. Detroit has a problem as people are not knocking down the doors to buy their EV’s. Reality is that fossil fuels are alive and well, as they are still very much needed.
money/other/new-car-market-2024-why-auto-dealers-are-desperate-right-now/ar-BB1ksrYv
It appears the car market is depressed at the moment. This will pick up as consumers decide to start spending.
However, the current market is far from ideal. Dealers nationwide ended January with an average of 80 days’ worth of cars on hand, and while this number dropped slightly to 76 days by the end of February, it’s still significantly higher than the industry guideline. The excess inventory is a financial burden for dealers, as they often borrow money to buy cars from the factory and make payments on them. The longer vehicles sit unsold, the more they cost the dealers in interest payments.
Trump wants people to be able to choose EV or ICE. He’s on the side of most people on that one – and on illegal immigration and ending funding to the Ukronazis. He’s on the wrong side of Israel’s genocide, but so are 98% of American politicians.
He also takes pride in Operation Warp Speed.
Voting is pointless. They are two sides of the same coin.
How people have not figured that out by now is beyond me
If Trump wins, it will be the reason our democracy may fail. Trump is authoritarian, fascist, take your pick. He wants all the power centralized on him. Free and fair elections will be no more. In democracy you win some and you loose some. In authoritarian leadership, one side wins always, no compromise, dissent is suppressed and possibily killed for just disagreeing. Another words, Russia, China.
I see you get your news from cnnbbc. You are like a parrot. You can repeat but you are unable to think.
How many Safe and Effective Covid shots have you had?
Check out the countries with huge spikes in cancer… what do they all have in common?
link to dailymail.co.uk
That’s the problem with injecting a substance this is experimental and not tested for long term side effects.
Trusting bbccnn does have consequences…. lethal in this case
And btw the USA does not have democracy. Are you kidding? The politicians are actors… just like the journalists…
You are being played
Trump is a germ phobic person. He just about died from covid. Back to authoritarianism. Lefties aren’t authoritarian. Righties have a stronger pull towards dictatorship. That is how the GOP became the party of Trump.
You believe everything cnnbbc tells you about everything…
How many booster shots of the safe and effective have you had???
I’ve had all my booster shots. I also caught covid. By the time I caught it, I knew what it was, tested for it, stayed home till I got over it. Trump lied about it, luckily I am not a imbiber of conspiracy theories and knew about it with information based in the science.
Here’s the science… when I heard about Operation Warp Speed I did a bit of looking — because I was sure that I had read somewhere that it takes at least 10 years to fully test a new vaccine….
And I found this science:
link to wired.com
I tried to warn a few people sending them this … they ignored me … 2 of them ended up with myocarditis… last week another one let us know that he has Turbo Cancer… and is terminal … these are all previously fit and healthy men.
You injected a substance – multiple times — that was not long term tested. You are being experimented on.
And now we are starting to see the near term side effects (there likely is no long term for you)
See which countries are experiencing the greatest spike in Cancer in under 50s here
Why Are Death and Disability Rising Among Young Americans? | Opinion Read More
Princess Catherine is one of many more young adults with cancer. This is not normal and we must seek out why Read More
Top doctors are warning of an “epidemic” of cancers normally seen in older people that are now affecting younger, fit, healthy people and are unsure of the cause. Read More
Oh and I read an article yesterday suggesting that the reason for the spike in cancer is failure to brush one’s teeth.
Hahahahahahaha….
You are a TICKING TIME BOMB.
Then again something might actually get done.
Compared to kicking the can again, and again, and again, …
At what price? Authoritarianism is about the power in the few at the expense of the many. Trump was a disaster in handling the pandemic while Biden went to work and brought us into a healthier common sense behavior.
Lets go to science of which Trump may find completely inconvenient because it tells the truth. ICE is polluting and EVs have the long horizon of being completely clean in pollution. The choice we have made to use FFs 200 years ago has to change or society suffers the consequences of GHGs warming the earth even more. You don’t accept that is the reason I am here talking about it.
The absolute number one thing that says EV’s aren’t yet equivalent of ICE vehicles is the subsidies. The day all the subsidies go away and consumers willingly purchase EV’s over ICE vehicles (ie more EV’s sold than ICE) will be the day EV’s are better than ICE vehicles. No one knows when this might happen but it could easily be 20 or more years from now.
Exactly, if EVs were superior no government coercion would be needed. As in most cases, the goverment is the agent of the irresponsible and corrupt.
E.G. It is illegal to purchase incandescent light bulbs in the US.
Apparently because of someone’s agenda, not by consumer demand.
No it isn’t, moron-ette. It took me less than 1 minute to find them for sale, ya pathetic liar. LOL
link to homedepot.com
Darlin’ some advice for the desperately unhinged, i.e. you: If you are going to tell a lie, at least make it one that’s not so easily traced. LOL
link to amazon.com
https://www.lowes.com/pl/Incandescent–Light-bulbs-Lighting-ceiling-fans/4294801215?refinement=4294837322
link to walmart.com
Now would you care to tell us about how Bigfoot told you that the government is covering up the alien invasion from outer space? While you are at it, please let us know where you get your mushrooms, so we can see in colors too. LOL
The fact that incandescent bulbs can be purchased but are losing ground to compact fluorescent and LED bulbs makes the case for letting people choose. Just like with ICE’s and EV’s.
Exactly.
In my attic and closets I use cheap incandescent bulbs because those are rarely turned on and when they are, are only on for a minute or so. Thus energy cost is negligible and bulbs last forever.
In the main areas of my house I use LEDs because those lights are on for hours at a time and I want bulbs that last.
The unhinged, lying moronette claimed that it is illegal to buy incandescent bulbs. Sorry, but Lisa Hooker is a classic wingnutcase who just makes shit up. The “progressives” have these weirdos, and so do the right wingers.
Thanks for correcting me.
Now please tell me where in the US I can purchase the old fashioned Edison base 100w and 75w light bulbs I used to buy. And buy cheaply.
Do your own research, lazy unhinged liar. Who knows, maybe Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the aliens will help. LOL
From Forbes – “The Biden Administration implemented a ban on incandescent light bulbs on Tuesday in favor of energy-efficient bulbs, following a yearslong bipartisan effort to phase out the bulbs after earlier regulations and standards were blocked by former President Donald Trump.”
Very below-par rants.
Get a thesaurus and you will do much better.
Mushroom are from New Mexico.
That should put an end to this argument. (but unfortunately the cult members do not accept facts)
God, do I despise “policymakers.”
I’ve maintained for at least ten years that the EV is a solution in search of a problem. It applies to socalled renewables too. Anyone with a habit of independent thinking knows it.
Ofcourse the American love affair with the truck is ridiculous too.
The reason EVs exist is to provide hopium for the mob — it convinces them that we will be able to transition off of fossil fuels — before we run low on affordable fossil fuels.
Without EVs and the other pillar of hopium – renewable energy — the mob loses hope in the future and falls into despair.
Despair is not a good business model so they are fed these lies
The article is misleading taking it from the well head on EROI. Oil at the well head is not yet usable by an ICE vehicle. My area of Illinois gets tar sands oil out of a pipeline out of Canada. Which if you are lucky is 5 to 1 EROI. So EROI in Illinois of oil is very low. Plus my area of Illinois is about 50% nuclear power which makes my car cleaner than a lot of EVs in other regions across the United States.
From the post on this site.
Oil extraction benefits from a very high EROI of 60:1 at the wellhead.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Conventional oil[edit]Conventional sources of oil have a rather large variation depending on various geologic factors. The EROI for refined fuel from conventional oil sources varies from around 18 to 43.[17]
My car gets about 4 miles per kw-hr on the highway. At 33.6 kw-hr per gallon of gasoline that it 136.4 mpge. Winter is less and summer is more.
link to climate.mit.edu
One source of EV emissions is the creation of their large lithium-ion batteries. The use of minerals including lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which are crucial for modern EV batteries, requires using fossil fuels to mine those materials and heat them to high temperatures. As a result, building the 80 kWh lithium-ion battery found in a Tesla Model 3 creates between 2.5 and 16 metric tons of CO2 (exactly how much depends greatly on what energy source is used to do the heating).1 This intensive battery manufacturing means that building a new EV can produce around 80% more emissions than building a comparable gas-powered car.2
But just like with gasoline cars, most emissions from today’s EVs come after they roll off the production floor.3 The major source of EV emissions is the energy used to charge their batteries. These emissions, says Paltsev, vary enormously based on where the car is driven and what kind of energy is used there. The best case scenario looks like what’s happening today in Norway, Europe’s largest EV market: the nation draws most of its energy from hydropower, giving all those EVs a minuscule carbon footprint. In countries that get most of their energy from burning dirty coal, the emissions numbers for EVs don’t look nearly as good—but they’re still on par with or better than burning gasoline.
How about the black smoke that belches from the coal-fired power plants … that provide the power to charge EVs? Did you factor that in?
My area of Illinois is 600 lbs co2 per mw-hr. There is still coal in our region. Illinois has rules to shut down coal over time. Changing the coal plants to either RE or storage or both. This is transition time.
EVs do better in all coal pollution than ICE does.
The fuel efficiency of ICE vehicles has increased significantly over the past 50 years. But at the same time the power of the engines has increased considerably, which has prevented a drop in fuel consumption. The best solution to reduce fuel consumption would therefore be to limit power to what it was 50 years ago.
I so TOTALLY agree with you. People do not need 5 sec, zero to 60mph performance. 10 Seconds is FINE. Drop engine sizes to TWO CYLINDERS, use MORE aluminum (body/frame/doors) and we can live with 80hp. Limit Speeds to 65 mph on tollways/freeways…
Besides such limits being antithetical to individual freedom, and free markets, remember that not all cars have increased their power. People can choose mini cars with great mileage, OR they can choose more powerful cars. There have been ample choices for decades, of both sorts. There are many individual considerations, including safety and AWD options — should more people die in accidents to save a little CO2? And what about cargo and passenger capacity — are 2 trips in a Prius more efficient than 1 trip in a larger SUV?
How about we have more freedom to choose, more free markets, less climate cult, less fascist central planning and edicts?
Shifted to eco mode in my ICE and improved mileage by 10%.
With solar cell efficiencies around 20%, there is a lot of incoming light heating the air around the panel. A solar farm grows more weeds than crops.
I posted this yesterday, but, it’s more appropriate in response to this article. It’s an excellent indictment of “The Sky is Falling” crowd.
In this, leading scientists explain how the CO2 scam has corrupted science with big money. Suspect anyone who says, the science is settled. Especially with a complex system such as climate.
link to youtu.be
You have it backwards. Similar to the small number of “scientists” who claimed that smoking was good for you, what you have here are another small group of scientists claiming that the other 99.9% of scientists are wrong about global warming and CO2.
Not that these “scientists” matter very much. While they may be able to convince some of the people who don’t know any better, they are not going to convince the decision makers in governments, corporations, and the investment and banking industries. And those are the people that I pay attention to because their decisions impact my investments.
The reality is pretty simple. Our annual emissions continue to increase greenhouse gas levels. As a result, worldwide surface and ocean temperatures keep going up. And the amount of ice in the world keeps decreasing as it melts. And all this is impacting our climate.
And it’s important to understand that we are not going to be able to do much about this over the rest of this century.
.
First, I am on record that I don’t like ICE nor EV vehicles. My solution is for people to stop buying both and learn to live within their “village.” With that out of the way….
This article is full of flaws I don’t even know where to being so I’ll pick two items otherwise this will be a 10 page long response.
“When pundits claim an EV is three times more efficient than an ICE, they fail to make this distinction. In a combustion engine, the driver converts gasoline (high entropy) into forward motion with approximately 40% efficiency. Electricity (low entropy) drives a motor with approximately 90% efficiency in an electric vehicle. However, electricity does not exist in nature but instead must be generated.”
Electricity does not exist in nature? Well neither does gasoline. There is raw oil (and there is the sun) both sources of energy need to be converted. There is mention of hydro dams but no mention of all the mining and drilling equipment then refining equipment needed to process oil then you have transportation of fuels on top of that.
What is easier? take beams from the sun onto a solar panel and transmit the electricity somewhere or build a drilling rig, move it out to the middle of the ocean, drill a hole, pump raw oil out, move that oil view pipeline to a refinery somewhere, refine the product then load it onto trucks or pipelines and ship it out to gas stations or other places? Here’s a simple question, which one requires more human beings? That’s the first hint at which one is more efficient.
The same for wind. The wind blows a turbine (yes it needs to be built and deployed) then let the electricity flow. Now compare wind to the coal process: digging, drilling, trucking, processing (burning), final output.
Just looking at the steps between clean energy and dirty energy it is obvious which was is more efficient and cleaner.
Then on subsidies about EVs, does this person really think oil and gas receives no subsidies? You think refineries are built with no subsidies or tax breaks? Oil & gas has received trillions in subsidies since it began over 100 years ago. It’s no different this time.
link to e360.yale.edu
There are some good bits and pieces but it reeks of political propaganda.
Since I worked in a plant that produced silicon for the solar panels I’m going to describe what goes into the first step of “taking beams from the sun.”
First one starts with mining reasonably pure quartz, silicon dioxide. This uses the same fossil fueled equipment as other mining operations. Then the quartz is crushed to a consistent size, and the it is reduced to metallurgical grade silicon in a furnace with either coal or charcoal. (Yes, some places use charcoal for this.)
The metallurgical silicon (aka silicon metal) is split into two steams, one where it is dissolved in hydrochloric acid (the result of its own industrial process) producing silicon tetrachloride and the other where it is delivered to the refining plant.
There the silicon metal is combined with the silicon tetrachloride and hydrogen to produce tri-chlorosilane (TCS). The hydrogen came from a methane reformer. The process runs at about 1050 F. The reactor vessel that can withstand these conditions is not cheap.
Where I worked the TCS goes through more stages where chlorine atoms are stripped off and replaced with hydrogen to get to silane (SiH4). Other places just use the TCS for the final stage. Either way multiple distillation columns are used, and they are heated with natural gas.
The previous steps finally removed enough impurities that we are now ready to decompose the silane back to pure silicon. This is usually done in a Siemens reactor when the silicon bearing gas runs over very hot (as in glowing red) silicon starter rods. The gas breaks down on the surface of the rods and the rods get bigger.
When they are at desired size the reactor is shut down and rods are harvested. They are broken up into to manageable pieces and shipped to another plant.
The silicon still has to be cast into ingots, the ingots have to be sliced into wafers, the wafers doped and annealed into PV cells, and the cells linked into modules. Each of those steps is just as complicated and has just as long of a supply chain as what I just went over.
It’s amazing that the process works at all.
I would love to see an analysis on how many people it takes to produce every form of energy from start to finish (raw material to finished delivered product). I think that is the best indicator of efficiency. The least amount of humans needed to do anything the more efficient.
Case in point: trillions of living (non-human intervened) things survive from the beams of the sun every day without having to create artificial forms of energy. That is the most efficient.
Without that analysis, everyone is guessing at what is better.
Very good info. I thought, silicon out of the oven was purified by centrifugal force applied to molten ingot.
How does this process account for different purity levels? Obviously, chip grade silicon requires higher purity than solar panel silicon.
Clean Green energy — hahahahahahahaha…..
It’s right there in the article:
Oil extraction benefits from a very high EROI of 60:1 at the wellhead. In other words, 60 units of thermal energy, in the form of crude, comes up the wellbore for every unit of energy invested. Transportation and refining consume approximately 15% of the energy contained in the crude, lowering the EROI to 50. To be conservative, we are assuming an ultimate EROI of 45. Therefore, investing one kWh of thermal energy will create 45 kWh of thermal energy, propelling the ICE 41 miles.
Only thing I saw that wasn’t right was the claim that windmills are 300 m high. They are 300 ft high, not meters. Or at least the ones in West Texas are only 300 ft high (just finished driving through there last week looking at the massive wind farms).
That’s another paragraph I didn’t respond on to keep my response short. Those numbers are way off 60:1? Yeah right.
link to cleantechnica.com
How do you know this guys claims are valid any more that the author at the top of this post?
The guy is writing for a clean energy website. It’s like asking someone who works for Coke whether Pepsi or Coke is the better cola.
I’d only trust independent research.
Fracked or oil sand produced oil doesn’t nearly has an EROI of 60:1. Probably the cheapest produced oil has EROI that high.
Agree 100%. That’s why everyone covets Iraq oil which is light sweet crude very close to the surface with the highest energy return.
But I’m not in a position to know whether the 60:1 and 20% loss make sense or not. Some government entity somewhere must have done that work. The point really was that they were trying to account for it when MPO45v2 said they weren’t.
I would bet oil majors have a better idea of global oil EROI as they do the full cycle from extraction to pump sale, even if gas stations are franchised.
Not sure they do. Because only a part of each barrel of oil can be turned into gasoline. The rest is turned into other products.
So for the oil companies, EROI from gas doesn’t matter. It just matters whether the cost of extraction of a barrel of oil + transportation + refining is less than the money they make from selling all the products made from that barrel.
I agree with you. When we live in Portugal, we do not NEED a car. The problem with the USA is that we do not HAVE villages. Even in Mexico, we can WALK to the square, eat a meal and shop at a locally owned Grocery Store for dinner.
“…The wind blows a turbine (yes it needs to be built and deployed) then let the electricity flow…”
It’s not that simple. The electrical generation frequency (60 Hz in the US with allowable variations of roughly 0.5% in either direction) must be maintained, or breakers within the grid trip and the grid goes down. To prevent this from occuring in times of high demand, you either dump more oil/gas/hydro/etc into electrical generation or you end up with blackouts.
With renewables you can’t walk outside and command the wind to blow harder or the sun to shine brighter during times of high electrical demand. For renewables to work, huge battery farms would need to be added to store energy and let it flow when needed during peak demand. This should be added to your analysis before arriving at any conclusions.
“The wind blows a turbine” except when it doesn’t.
link to nypost.com
“After carefully studying the history of energy, we have yet to find an example where a new technology with inferior energy efficiency has replaced an existing, more efficient one. ”
It would be nice if someone could clue in legislators in corn-producing states mandating ethanol blending into gasoline.
Al, You forget the forn growers are bribing the legislators. It’s a win-win for these two scoundrels but a net loss for society.
Especially when you consider corn requires a LOT of water which the mid west is pumping from aquifers that aren’t recharging fast enough to meet demand. In a few decades all those corn crops are going to come to an end and if we get another 1930s decade of drought it will be even faster.
What is a “forn grower?” Asking for a friend. LOL
They run Fornhub up in Canada.
Sell hydrocarbon fuel, use hydroelectric sources to generate energy, then subsidize EV purchase and operation…why didn’t other countries think of that??
Demonstrating once again, we swim in a sea of propaganda.
link to unz.com
Interesting that he accounts for the manufacturing/extraction costs of EV materials but tells us that hydro is carbon-free. Concrete requires massive amounts of energy to create and dams have a limited life span. There’s no free lunch
The EROI or most hydrodams are pretty high. Over 100 years it’s 110 which suggest it pay for itself in the first year.
Not all dams are made of concrete and the limited life span of many dams is several centuries. ICE cars do give a free lunch in the waste heat from the engine can heat the cabin.EVs in winter keep their occupants warm how?
There are suitable niches for EVs but not for most users of cars like me that need to tow a trailer interstate on a 2000mile round trip in under 3 days
Heat pumps and preheat the car before you unhook charging for the day.
lol. Try that in Fargo or Fairbanks or Duluth or Montpelier.
Our heat pump in Michigan goes down to -20 fahrenheit. Illinois would work great, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennesee, etc. I’m reading of heat pump improvements frequently.
My PHEV keeps this occupant warm with a heat pump.
So for a year you drive around a vehicle that can do that but doesn’t? How much would it cost to rent a truck for that time?
Don’ forget to add the material for expanding the electric grid.
I still believe that this has nothing to do with climate change or even electric efficiencies. Oil is a FINITE resource in this planet, and we’ve used a lot of it in the last 50 years, where everyone is above average. Electric vehicles should not be seen as better or worse than gasoline vehicles. The choice really becomes (some day) do you want to drive an electric vehicle, or not be able to afford to drive at all? Thats the real question.
One can use synthetic fuels or fuel cells that use hydrogen. But you are correct, it is not really climate per se that is the issue, it’s about what energy source is available to replace fossil fuels. And do our leaders have the wisdom to develop a transition strategy. Here is a series about this you might find interesting.
link to youtu.be
You seem smart enough to know the substantial costs involved with synthetic fuels (if you mean gas from coal even Hitler couldnt make it work unless he had slave labor, and synthetic motor oil is at least twice the cost of normal oil) and hydrogen has a huge problem — being the smallest element, itll leak thru almost everything.
Technology has a way of making advancements. Like batteries, syn fuels are just a chemical way to store energy for later use.
Cost is everything….
Every resource is FINITE. ICE are more efficient and oil will be around a long time, at least 200 years or more. Nobody knows for sure but the experts were 100% wrong in the 70’s on just how much was left. We still have plenty of time to gradually blend in EV’s and likely even a better technology into this timeframe.
The push for EV’s at this pace however was built on a large stack of lies which there is no denying. The main one; environmentally better. Try to point out the flaws of EV’s to advocates and it swiftly turns into a Stockholm Syndrome event much like everything else these days.
What would be far better than pushing EV’s this hard right now is figuring out first why people continually keep getting psyop’d by governments and universities on every major topic. It seemed to have started right about the time free speech got hit in the cranium with a ball peen hammer.
Oil will probably be around forever in some quantity.
The real question is what quantity will be it be available. 200 years worth at present demand is an awful lot of oil, WAY (orders of magnitude) more than we’ve discovered at the moment (world oil reserves are 1.56 trillion barrels, demand is 100 million a day or 36.5 billion a year meaning there is 46 years worth of reserves at present demand if 100% was recoverable, which it’s not).
Solar and wind are not finite. Neither, theoretically, is electricity.
The real future is making synfuel out of coal. You can produce it with a thorium nuclear fuel cycle. Current coal contains the necessary thorium.
And they arent doing it now, why? Because like a million ideas, they oughta work, but for some reason, they arent at the moment….
Ya and any day now we’ll be powering the world with this right?
link to bbc.com
The issue of whether our grandkids can live on the planet we leave them is not relevant?
Most of the world’s electricity is a produce of burning fossil fuels. EVs are charged using mostly coal.
How is that saving the planet? Duh.
And renewable energy is NOT renewable. Solar panels etc are made using heaps of diesel powered machinery.
Wake the f789 up.
Did you hear the latest news?
There was Nordstream Explosion in Moscow 2 days ago. American said it was done by ISIS.
The ham handed statements by the US almost guarantees it was Ukraine and they knew.
The Russians captured those involved and I’m sure they will find out who was behind the attack. Then will the response be like Mossad and the Black September members? Might be interesting times ahead as certain US officials find out that a mobile phone can blow off your head.
Inshallah. Victoria Nuland can now be found at Columbia.
According to Alistair Crooke, ISIS-K is a creation of the Western intellegence services.
link to youtube.com
In the second half of this interview, Mark Sleboda also brought the receipts of the connections between the leader of “ISIS-K” and the CIA in Afghanistan.
link to m.youtube.com
Interesting take by Scott Ritter
link to youtube.com
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