<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Very informative + lots of good questions towards the end.<div><br></div><div>Many thanks for the time, effort and thought you have put into this. It's worth bottling - but I'll save it to my hard drive instead.<br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>-----------------------------</div><div>Keith Thomas</div><div><a href="http://www.evfit.com">www.evfit.com</a></div><div>-----------------------------</div></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></span>
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<br><div><div>On 07/04/2011, at 5:42 PM, Haudy Kazemi wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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On 4/6/2011 7:05 PM, Keith Thomas wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:D19D3C08-543D-4837-AFE3-5B3FD901A658@evfit.com" type="cite">Well, coal-fired power
stations are also around 30% efficient:
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.euractiv.com/en/energy/analysis-efficiency-coal-fired-power-stations-evolution-prospects/article-154672">http://www.euractiv.com/en/energy/analysis-efficiency-coal-fired-power-stations-evolution-prospects/article-154672</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Take from this 30% the energy lost in transmission over the
grid, and electric cars are already less efficient and more
polluting than petrol cars are today.</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
When comparing transportation fueling systems, remember to account
for energy losses at every stage. Do a "wells to wheels" type
comparison that includes all energy used in the
extraction/mining/pumping/collection and refining of various energy
sources.<br>
<br>
Coal, for example, needs less processing before it is used in a coal
power plant (which in some cases is located adjacent to the coal
mine), while oil must be transported and refined into gasoline,
diesel, and other fuels.<br>
<br>
Nuclear power plants depend upon the mining and refining uranium
both of which need significant amounts of energy. The amount of
energy used to mine nuclear fuels and amount of nuclear waste
produced could both be significantly reduced if we reprocessed spent
fuel (only about 1% of the uranium in a fuel rod is used before the
fuel rod is considered to be used up), and used newer more advanced
reactor designs (e.g. IFR).<br>
<br>
When I last did a wells to wheels comparison on using oil/liquid
fuels vs electric for transportation, I found that in the <i>worst
</i>case the overall efficiency and overall pollution of coal
generated electricity used for electric transportation was equal to
that of oil. In the average case (a mixed power grid), electric had
an advantage. In a hypothetical fully renewable power grid,
electric wins.<br>
<br>
A primary advantage of electricity is that it is a universal form of
energy, meaning that you can readily generate electricity many
different ways (e.g. hydro, nuclear, coal, liquid fuels, tidal,
wind, solar, natural gas, etc.) whereas converting between those
other forms (e.g. nuclear to liquid fuels) is difficult or highly
inefficient or near impossible. A grid originally powered only by
coal can have other clean energy production systems added to it,
gradually cleaning it up, with no need for the electrically powered
equipment to be changed or converted. Cleaning up dozens or
hundreds of power plants can be easier than cleaning up millions of
road vehicles.<br>
<br>
<br>
With a bit of creativity, these different means of electricity
production can be made to complement each other:<br>
1.) hydroelectric/pumped storage can fill in during periods of low
wind or clouds<br>
2.) solar production peaks during the work day when power
consumption is near the highest<br>
3.) rooftop solar (with microinverters) produced power on-site where
it can be used locally<br>
(Note: this neatly bypasses issues of long distance transmission
losses and capacity problems. Most of the transmission energy
losses take place during the peak power demands...this is due to
Joule's Law and Ohm's Law...P=V*I and V=I*R ==> P=I*I*R . On
average, about 2% of the electricity produced at UK and 6.5% at US
power plants is lost in transmission by the power grids.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=105&t=3">http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=105&t=3</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/4D65944B-DE42-4FF4-88DF-BC6A81EFA09B/26920/ElectricityTransmissionLossesReport1.pdf">http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/4D65944B-DE42-4FF4-88DF-BC6A81EFA09B/26920/ElectricityTransmissionLossesReport1.pdf</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/sys_08/default.asp?action=mnch7_15.htm&Node=SYS&Snode=7_15&Exp=Y#system_Power_Losses">http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/sys_08/default.asp?action=mnch7_15.htm&Node=SYS&Snode=7_15&Exp=Y#system_Power_Losses</a><br>
<br>
4.) natural gas turbines can provide additional peak power
production capacity<br>
5.) distributed electrical energy storage (made possible by
widespread battery-electric vehicles) allows off-peak energy to be
used on-peak (and done correctly would have minimal impact on the
users, similar to how modern utility-controlled air conditioner
power switches are only used for 15 minute intervals)<br>
6.) coal and nuclear can also be used for baseload; some of these
plants also support power scaling/load following<br>
7.) existing power plants could be converted into combined
heat-and-power facilities that produce electricity and hot water for
district heating. Heat at rural power plants could be used to heat
greenhouses.<br>
8.) national/continental grids with appropriate interconnects allow
local/regional energy surpluses and deficits to be balanced out<br>
<br>
<br>
The full impacts of any energy source should be considered, whether
that is strip mining coal, pit mining uranium, or citing wind
turbines away from bird flyways. The magnitude of the impacts also
should be considered...if our pet cats are killing 500-1000x as many
birds as turbines, should we be so concerned about the impacts wind
turbines are having? Is the particulate matter released from coal
power plants worse than the risk of a nuclear accident and
contamination? Should we be just as concerned about the radiation
released continuously while burning coal in coal power plants as
radiation released in a rare nuclear accident? Even when the levels
released are near to the natural background radiation levels?
Should we be concerned about the mercury released while burning coal
to run an incandescent bulb vs using a CFL bulb? Keeping things in
perspective matters.<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:D19D3C08-543D-4837-AFE3-5B3FD901A658@evfit.com" type="cite">
<div>The trick is to need to do less travel, not to hope for ways
to continue travelling "business as usual".<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Less travel can be part of the solution for some, even most people.
Less travel can mean eliminating completely random, wasteful, or
non-combined trips. Direct costs borne by the travelers are one way
to encourage appropriate conservation. Temporary price shocks do
hold value in this regard as they bring attention to the issues at
hand, get people thinking, and can serve as a early warning for
later longer lasting price shocks.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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