[morph]

if your from the US then
look here

or many european countries
you can look at the spreadsheet on this page

[JRP3]

Yes, I'm in the US. Thank you, that's just what I was looking for.

[NeoPeasant]

I would like to see the results of a poll that shows where Americans think electricity comes from. Too many times I have heard someone speculating that we could solve greenhouse gas problems by running things on electricity instead. I think most people here think electricity is benign and harmless stuff that comes mostly from dams.

Anyone got an idea how many pounds of coal get burnt to produce a kilowatt/hour?

[NTBKtrader]

Anyone know what the outlook is for nuclear energy? How many plants are being built in the US right now?

[morph]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'I') would like to see the results of a poll that shows where Americans think electricity comes from. Too many times I have heard someone speculating that we could solve greenhouse gas problems by running things on electricity instead. I think most people here think electricity is benign and harmless stuff that comes mostly from dams.

Anyone got an idea how many pounds of coal get burnt to produce a kilowatt/hour?

[JustinFrankl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('morph', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'I') would like to see the results of a poll that shows where Americans think electricity comes from. Too many times I have heard someone speculating that we could solve greenhouse gas problems by running things on electricity instead. I think most people here think electricity is benign and harmless stuff that comes mostly from dams.

Anyone got an idea how many pounds of coal get burnt to produce a kilowatt/hour?

[pea-jay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NTBKtrader', 'A')nyone know what the outlook is for nuclear energy? How many plants are being built in the US right now?

[Loki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NeoPeasant', 'I') would like to see the results of a poll that shows where Americans think electricity comes from. Too many times I have heard someone speculating that we could solve greenhouse gas problems by running things on electricity instead. I think most people here think electricity is benign and harmless stuff that comes mostly from dams.

[JRP3]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', '
')That's a much better question than the original post, which erroneously assumed a "national grid." We have regional grids, all powered by different combinations of fuels.

[SchroedingersCat]

EIA Stats

The EIA is a great resource for all things related to energy.

[jbeckton]

I don't think people understand at all. How many people think that electric cars would be great becasue they don't pollute the environment? They never stop and think where the electricity comes from.

The bottom line is that the cheapest source is almost always used. That happens to be coal for most of the US.

[morph]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jbeckton', 'I') don't think people understand at all. How many people think that electric cars would be great becasue they don't pollute the environment? They never stop and think where the electricity comes from.

The bottom line is that the cheapest source is almost always used. That happens to be coal for most of the US.

[Starvid]

No nuclear reactors are currently being built in the US. But there are about 35 being planned.

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jbeckton', 'I') don't think people understand at all. How many people think that electric cars would be great becasue they don't pollute the environment? They never stop and think where the electricity comes from.

The bottom line is that the cheapest source is almost always used. That happens to be coal for most of the US.

[yesplease]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. First off, the grid is only at ~50% capacity on average, because it's built for peak demand, not consistent demand over a 24 hour period. For instance, even during a summer day that isn't very hot, demand fluctuates from about a half to three quarters of peak capacity. This implies we can supply a significant number of EVs charging at night, since a good chunk of the grid is idle at that time anyway.

Second. We wouldn't need or want to replace even 150 million vehicles with pure EVs. The ones we do want to replace with EVs are those in the city, idling away, using kW's of energy, where just W's would do. In other words, we would target the most inefficient ICE operation, dense urban commutes, for replacement with EVs. So, we replace an inefficient use of oil with an efficient (relatively) use of electricity. The energy needed for the average EV in the city isn't nearly what a ICE powered car uses. Something like ~200Wh/mile from the charger. For instance, while a ICE powered Toyota RAV4 may get 25mpg city, and use ~35kWh to go 25 miles, i.e. 35000Wh/25miles=1400Wh/mil, while the same RAV4 with an electric motor and battery pack only needs ~200Wh/mile. It's much more efficient because gasoline engines are much less efficient during low load operation.

Otoh, there's no point in getting an EV if we have a 100 mile per day highway commute at ~80mph. Just just a Honda Insight and be done with it.

[whereagles]

Actually, efficiency of electricity all the way from steam turbines to outlets is like 35-40% only. While this is still better than an ICE, it isn't so by such large a margin.

[patrick_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', 'o')ne gallon of gasoline is about 35,000 kilowatt hours I think, if I remember right.
we use 9 million barrels of gasoline a day in the USA
this is about 400 million gallons of gasoline a day.
how many more killowatt hours is that?
400 million time 35 kilowatt hours

[patrick_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LGW', 'S')o your gallon of gasoline equals 132 / 3.6 = 37kWh.
Now, put in account that electromagnetic motors have effectiveness grades of 85%+. The internal combustion engine 40%+ if done well.

[yesplease]

It's actually closer to 15%, but that's kind of a cop-out, because it examines the engine's thermal efficiency w/o looking at the system's efficiency. I.e. we could have a V8 engine in a full size SUV that works way more than a V6 in a full sized sedan, so the average engine efficiency is higher. Otoh, since it's so much larger and not nearly as aerodynamic, it gets worse mileage, but since we're just looking at thermodynamic efficiency, we don't factor this in. An extreme example of this would be comparing a Chebby Corvette at ~70mph to a Chebby Tahoe at ~70mph. Eve though the vette will get nearly twice the mileage, the SUV will have better well to wheel efficiency since it's engine is working so much more. Probably doing the same thing, transporting one to two people with minimal luggage, too...

Hell, we could all drive fully loaded semis to work, and the well to wheels efficiency of our fleet would be ~20-30% compared to the ~15% now. But we'd average ~5mpg versus the ~20mpg. Otoh, the limited energy capacity batteries have tends to encourage efficient vehicle design, at least from the perspective of range, since it's way more appealing to make a low CdA.Crr vehicle than it is to double the battery pack size/weight/cost.

[PolestaR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'R')ead the link I posted. Plenty of calculation there.

edit: So sorry, posted the wrong link. This is the right one: http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic17736-0-asc-15.html

edit2: I might as well post the core of the argument right here. Enjoy.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onsidering the amount of power needed to run electric cars I think you are a bit off. Let's look at the energy flow diagram posted by jimk.



As you can see transportation is almost entirely powered by petroleum and NGPL. Transportation is 26,5 quads out of which only 5,3 quads are converted to useful energy (ie propelling cars and trains, the rest is waste heat) mirroring the roughly 20 % efficiency of the infernal combustion engine (5,3/26,5=0,2).

Ok, transportation require 5,3 quads of useful energy. Let's say batteries become good enough for electric cars. Then we need 5,3 quads of useful energy to power these cars. Since an electric car has an efficiency of roughly 75 % we will need 5,3/0,75= 7,1 quads of electricity, and since a nclear power plant has an efficieny of roughly 33 % we will need 7,1/0,33= 21,4 quads of nuclear energy.

The current production of nuclear energy in the US is 8,1 quads, so we need roughly 21,4/8,1= 2,64 times as much nuclear energy to supply the electric cars with power.

Since nuclear power supplies 20 % of the US power needs, this would equal a total increase in power generation capacity of 20 %*2,64= 52 %.

A big increase yes, but not at all impossible.