electric vehicles much more polluting than IC

[98valk]

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/15971-former-electric-car-engineer-electric-cars-pollute-more-than-gas

Electric cars certainly are de rigueur among righteous environmentalists. They receive first-son status, with nations and states offering tax incentives for buying them, special driving and parking privileges (use of HOV lanes and VIP spots), as well as other benefits. But their supposed benefit to the environment is illusory, says Zehner — and that the electricity powering them is generally made in pollution producing power plants is just the tip of the iceberg.

But that’s where Zehner starts, writing that while it’s “relatively easy to calculate the amount of energy required to charge a vehicle’s battery,” even the cleaner options for generating electricity (as opposed to oil or coal) have effects that are both real and hard to assess. He elaborates:

Natural gas requires burning, it produces CO2, and it often demands environmentally problematic methods to release it from the ground. Nuclear power yields hard-to-store wastes as well as proliferation and fallout risks. There’s no clear-cut way to compare those impacts. Focusing only on greenhouse gases, however important, misses much of the picture.

And the picture only gets more complex from there. Zehner makes the following basic points (all quotations are his unless otherwise indicated):

• Electric cars cannot currently be charged on a wide scale with renewable resources such as solar. Even if they could, however:

Solar cells contain heavy metals, and their manufacturing releases greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexafluoride, which has 23,000 times as much global warming potential as CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What’s more, fossil fuels are burned in the extraction of the raw materials needed to make solar cells and wind turbines — and for their fabrication, assembly, and maintenance. The same is true for the redundant backup power plants they require. And even more fossil fuel is burned when all this equipment is decommissioned.

• A more responsible electric-car analysis would consider not just charging the vehicle, but also “the environmental impacts over the vehicle’s entire life cycle, from its construction through its operation and on to its eventual retirement at the junkyard.”

• An electric car’s battery pack is extremely heavy, which causes the manufacturer to compensate by constructing the remainder of the vehicle with “lightweight materials that are energy intensive to produce and process — carbon composites and aluminum in particular. Electric motors and batteries add to the energy of electric-car manufacture.”

• The rare earth metals used in many magnets in electric cars are expensive and uneconomical to extract on a wide scale. And the “global mining of two rare earth metals, neodymium and dysprosium, would need to increase 700 percent and 2600 percent, respectively, over the next 25 years to keep pace with various green-tech plans.” Alternatives do exist, but exploiting them would involve efficiency-and-cost trade-offs.

• The extraction and processing of materials found in batteries — such as lithium, copper, and nickel — “demand energy and can release toxic wastes.” In addition, extracting them in poorly regulated areas imperials not only workers, but also “surrounding populations through air and groundwater contamination.”

• A National Academies’ study considered multiple dimensions of electric vehicles’ associated effects — such as “vehicle construction, fuel extraction, refining, emissions, and other factors” — and “concluded that the vehicles’ lifetime health and environmental damages (excluding long-term climatic effects) are actually greater than those of gasoline-powered cars”; in fact, “the study found that an electric car is likely worse than a car fueled exclusively by gasoline derived from Canadian tar sands.”

• When electric cars’ total effects are considered, the level of “greenhouse-gas” emissions associated with them is only marginally lower than that associated with gas or diesel vehicles.

• A Norwegian study drew similar conclusions, stating that all things considered, “electric vehicles consistently perform worse or on par with modern internal combustion engine vehicles, despite virtually zero direct emissions during operation.”

• A University of Tennessee study of electric vehicles in China also concluded that their effects were, on balance, worse than those of conventional autos.

• Combustion vehicles’ emissions are concentrated in wealthier urban areas whereas the activities necessary to obtain the substances for the creation and operation of electric vehicles — such as nuclear-fuel, heavy-metal and mineral extraction, and energy generation — occur mainly in more depressed rural regions. This means that electric technology may just shift the pollution burden from the rich to the poor.

• Even when projecting technological advancements out to 2030, there still appears to be no advantage to embracing electric-vehicle technology.

Moreover, the one supposed benefit associated with the use of electric vehicles — the almost negligible greenhouse-gas emission reduction — is no benefit at all if critics of man-caused climate-change theory are correct.

Zehner concludes with an apt analogy: Transitioning from conventional to electric vehicles may just be like “shifting from one brand of cigarettes to another.” The question is, though, with so many interests addicted to the green, can we kick the habit before the economy and environment get the electric shock of good intentions?

[Patrick]

Facts, we don't need no stinking facts. Liberals could care less about facts, its all about emotion.

[Black Pearl's Captain]

No mention of wind or water energy in your post? Why not? 6% of the US is now wind powered. Lots and lots of wind turbines out west Jersey.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU7MUNbPfhc	powered by Aeva

[gordonv]

Yes, with the Wind.

Also here in BC we have a lot of Hydro Dams.

But the net cost is still there. The increase "toxics" when building this clean fueled vehicle, and then the "toxics" at its life span end.

Yes, again, recycling will help some of those toxics to be reclaimed and build into something else.

[Patrick]

Wind power ?  Aaah, wind power. Those whirly-gigs have been going up across this area for over a decade. Do I need to mention how pretty they look and how they add to the original beauty of this part of the country.
And, I thought all this time that the tree huggers were in love with these machines. I wonder if they know or care that these wonders of modern science kill millions of birds each year. Apparently these people care about certain frogs and owls, but could care less about other birds and migratory waterfowl. I wonder if these folks know where their priorities stand, or, if they really have any.

I wonder how hard it would be to convince these folks that natural gas is cheaper and overall less polluting than what they are proposing, err, cramming down our throats.

[bigguy]

CA, great post. Thanks for the link. And I come at this as a guy who has been concerned about the environment for decades. But as somebody concerned more about the environment that a political agenda, I eventually realized that the folks making the most noise about environmental protection are, at the end of the day, doing to most damage. Zehner's article points out a good example of that. I'm encouraged as I see more capable people with a more conservative and pragmatic  mindset begin to acknowledge and address the problem. Natural gas and clean coal certainly seem to be viable answers, yet sadly those most loudly expressing concern for the environment, often oppose these answers on purely political grounds.

[Willow]

... I wonder if they know or care that these wonders of modern science kill millions of birds each year. ...

Extreme exaggeration.  Millions?  By what report?

Truthfully the blades of wind turbines turn very slowly.  Any fowl stupid enough to run into a slow moving blade we need desperately to have removed from the gene pool.

The cost of the machinery for a wind turbine is not cheap and it has a limited lifetime.  In my personal opinion it is certainly not the answer to our energy issues.

[Patrick]

... I wonder if they know or care that these wonders of modern science kill millions of birds each year. ...

Extreme exaggeration.  Millions?  By what report?

Truthfully the blades of wind turbines turn very slowly.  Any fowl stupid enough to run into a slow moving blade we need desperately to have removed from the gene pool.

The cost of the machinery for a wind turbine is not cheap and it has a limited lifetime.  In my personal opinion it is certainly not the answer to our energy issues.

http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/18/wind-turbines-kill-up-to-39-million-birds-a-year/




Slow moving blades ? 
An aircraft engine runs 2600-2700 RPMs max. Ever listen to a prop running at that speed. The tips are supersonic.
The newer windmills turn at about 20 RPMs. Seems real slow, but, Those prop tips are running at about 200 MPH. Lets see just who can get out of the way.
Bird kills are just something most people don't know or think about. Apparently don't care about it either. Time will tell just how well darwin works here.

[98valk]

wind power has high environmental impact, the cost, concrete, heavy equipment to build them, the very high maintenance cost to maintain them, gear boxes go bad often meaning heavy equipment to replace, etc when there is no tax incentives meaning our tax dollars they don't build any, see research on # of bird deaths and bat deaths, bat deaths very concerning due to the high environmental benefit of bats.
bottom line if no tax dollars they would not be built, not economic.

http://www.sellingnorthernnv.com/2012/10/renewable-energy-high-maintenance-cost-of-wind-turbines/

tax write-offs high cost
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/310631/more-realistic-cost-wind-energy

http://www.care2.com/causes/wind-turbines-not-so-environmentally-friendly-for-bats.html

http://mothersagainstwindturbines.com/2014/07/22/wind-and-solar-are-not-environmentally-friendly-or-financially-feasible/
Another environmental trade-off concerns the materials necessary to construct wind turbines. Modern wind turbines depend on rare earth minerals mined primarily from China. Unfortunately, given federal regulations in the U.S. that restrict rare earth mineral development and China’s poor record of environmental stewardship, the process of extracting these minerals imposes wretched environmental and public health impacts on local communities. It’s a story Big Wind doesn’t want you to hear.

Rare Earth Horrors

Manufacturing wind turbines is a resource-intensive process. A typical wind turbine contains more than 8,000 different components, many of which are made from steel, cast iron, and concrete. One such component are magnets made from neodymium and dysprosium, rare earth minerals mined almost exclusively in China, which controls 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals.

Simon Parry from the Daily Mail traveled to Baotou, China, to see the mines, factories, and dumping grounds associated with China’s rare-earths industry. What he found was truly haunting:

    As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming.

    ‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’

    People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed.

    Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.

As the wind industry grows, these horrors will likely only get worse. Growth in the wind industry could raise demand for neodymium by as much as 700 percent over the next 25 years, while demand for dysprosium could increase by 2,600 percent, according to a recent MIT study. The more wind turbines pop up in America, the more people in China are likely to suffer due to China’s policies. Or as the Daily Mail put it, every turbine we erect contributes to “a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China.”

[Patrick]

Yep, wind turbines are devastating for bats. I didn't know that until a few years ago while looking into this wind power fiasco.
I didn't realize bats migrated at such low altitudes.
Most folks could care less about bats, but, I like them and keep a couple houses for them around the property. They are mosquito eating machines that do eat millions of skeeters. I was wondering why their numbers were dropping, wind power is one reason, along with mites and herbicides/pesticides.

[98valk]

Yep, wind turbines are devastating for bats. I didn't know that until a few years ago while looking into this wind power fiasco.
I didn't realize bats migrated at such low altitudes.
Most folks could care less about bats, but, I like them and keep a couple houses for them around the property. They are mosquito eating machines that do eat millions of skeeters. I was wondering why their numbers were dropping, wind power is one reason, along with mites and herbicides/pesticides.

bats are just as important to our food supply system as bees are. the monsanto's of the world through the UN are killing off both to control the food supply. monsanto's seeds only need their special chemical to grow no pollination by bees needed. kill all of the bats insects that destroy crops multiply but no worries monsanto has sprays that kill all of the insects, but don't worry the residue will kill people with cancer or some of disease off early.

[Willow]

http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/18/wind-turbines-kill-up-to-39-million-birds-a-year/

Slow moving blades ? 
An aircraft engine runs 2600-2700 RPMs max. Ever listen to a prop running at that speed. The tips are supersonic.
The newer windmills turn at about 20 RPMs. Seems real slow, but, Those prop tips are running at about 200 MPH. Lets see just who can get out of the way.

I guess we'll just have to agree to see this differently.  I've stood and watched the wind tubines turn.  I don't see any way I could describe them as fast.  There is, btw, a great difference between an aircraft propeller turned by a combustion engine and a large, very large, blade turned by the force of the wind.

I view the article you posted as mostly fairy tale. Thirty-nine million birds?  I don't think so.

That said it doesn't as of yet tend to be an economic means of generating electricity.

[98valk]

wing tip speed, just like when a baseball bat or golf club is swung, the end/tip is moving much faster than ones hands/arms. rotor tips of helicopters are moving 400+ mph yet the chopper cannot move that fast.
plus there are many other studies of the deaths caused by the disruption of the air currents that the birds fly into allowing them to lose control and then hit by the blade.

[Patrick]

wing tip speed, just like when a baseball bat or golf club is swung, the end/tip is moving much faster than ones hands/arms. rotor tips of helicopters are moving 400+ mph yet the chopper cannot move that fast.
plus there are many other studies of the deaths caused by the disruption of the air currents that the birds fly into allowing them to lose control and then hit by the blade.

Exactly. It isn't all reliant on the speed. Many folks don't know how a wing works, so, they don't understand the disruption of air flow due to the pressure difference.

The bee population is in trouble in this area too. Again due to sprays, mites and colony disorder. I like those little guys too and keep a hive.

[Black Pearl's Captain]

wind power has high environmental impact, the cost, concrete, heavy equipment to build them, the very high maintenance cost to maintain them, gear boxes go bad often meaning heavy equipment to replace, etc when there is no tax incentives meaning our tax dollars they don't build any, see research on # of bird deaths and bat deaths, bat deaths very concerning due to the high environmental benefit of bats.
bottom line if no tax dollars they would not be built, not economic.

http://www.sellingnorthernnv.com/2012/10/renewable-energy-high-maintenance-cost-of-wind-turbines/

tax write-offs high cost
http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/310631/more-realistic-cost-wind-energy

http://www.care2.com/causes/wind-turbines-not-so-environmentally-friendly-for-bats.html

http://mothersagainstwindturbines.com/2014/07/22/wind-and-solar-are-not-environmentally-friendly-or-financially-feasible/
Another environmental trade-off concerns the materials necessary to construct wind turbines. Modern wind turbines depend on rare earth minerals mined primarily from China. Unfortunately, given federal regulations in the U.S. that restrict rare earth mineral development and China’s poor record of environmental stewardship, the process of extracting these minerals imposes wretched environmental and public health impacts on local communities. It’s a story Big Wind doesn’t want you to hear.

Rare Earth Horrors

Manufacturing wind turbines is a resource-intensive process. A typical wind turbine contains more than 8,000 different components, many of which are made from steel, cast iron, and concrete. One such component are magnets made from neodymium and dysprosium, rare earth minerals mined almost exclusively in China, which controls 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals.

Simon Parry from the Daily Mail traveled to Baotou, China, to see the mines, factories, and dumping grounds associated with China’s rare-earths industry. What he found was truly haunting:

    As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming.

    ‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’

    People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed.

    Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.

As the wind industry grows, these horrors will likely only get worse. Growth in the wind industry could raise demand for neodymium by as much as 700 percent over the next 25 years, while demand for dysprosium could increase by 2,600 percent, according to a recent MIT study. The more wind turbines pop up in America, the more people in China are likely to suffer due to China’s policies. Or as the Daily Mail put it, every turbine we erect contributes to “a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China.”

Oh man cancer and pollution, so how long is the decay life of a nuclear rod used to power those "clean" electric plants? I still like wind and think it will power most of the US someday.

[Patrick]

http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/18/wind-turbines-kill-up-to-39-million-birds-a-year/

Slow moving blades ? 
An aircraft engine runs 2600-2700 RPMs max. Ever listen to a prop running at that speed. The tips are supersonic.
The newer windmills turn at about 20 RPMs. Seems real slow, but, Those prop tips are running at about 200 MPH. Lets see just who can get out of the way.

I guess we'll just have to agree to see this differently.  I've stood and watched the wind tubines turn.  I don't see any way I could describe them as fast.  There is, btw, a great difference between an aircraft propeller turned by a combustion engine and a large, very large, blade turned by the force of the wind.

I view the article you posted as mostly fairy tale. Thirty-nine million birds?  I don't think so.

That said it doesn't as of yet tend to be an economic means of generating electricity.

And just what is the great difference between the blades ?  Whether turned by an engine or the wind, they are wings and work on the same principle. The difference is the length which affects the tip speed. Last I looked the wind generators had blades a bit longer than that of any aircraft. Therefore the blades look slow which they are, but, the tips are really moving. Fly over those blades and see just how fast they're going. Between the speed and turbulence anything in the way gets whacked.

[0leman]

Wind turbines do kill lots of birds.   The 39M birds may be since they begin operations in the states, didn't read the article.   Pacific Corp. just got find  Millions of $$$ for killing Eagles, other raptors, and other smaller birds.   Willow, you need to read more about these blades and birds.  They just don't see them when they are flying. 

Also problems with Wind turbines they don't turn all the time.  We need a continuous supply of power, and sometimes more than others.   Wind just doesn't cut it.  Also, if there was tax brakes they would stop the blades from turning.  Just not cost effective.   

[Black Pearl's Captain]

Also, if there was tax brakes they would stop the blades from turning.  Just not cost effective.   

Are you aware that the oil companies are very good at lobbying and have obtained tax breaks for most anything oil since oil was invented?

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/tax-reform/news/2011/05/05/9663/big-oils-misbegotten-tax-gusher/

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/oil-subsidies-energy-timeline

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/oil-tax-break.asp

"Intangible Drilling Costs: These include everything but the actual drilling equipment. Labor, chemicals, mud, grease and other miscellaneous items necessary for drilling are considered intangible. These expenses generally constitute 65-80% of the total cost of drilling a well and are 100% deductible in the year incurred. For example, if it costs $300,000 to drill a well, and if it was determined that 75% of that cost would be considered intangible, the investor would receive a current deduction of $225,000."

[RP#62]

From a quick search.  The GE turbines use 104 meter blades, so their tips are probably a little faster.

The B75 turbine blade itself is 75 meters long, while the entire rotor assembly measures 154 meters in diameter. As it spins, the blades cover an area of 18,600 square meters—that's roughly two and a half soccer fields—at a brisk 80 meters per second, or 180 MPH at the tips.

-RP

[G-Man]

http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/18/wind-turbines-kill-up-to-39-million-birds-a-year/

Slow moving blades ? 
An aircraft engine runs 2600-2700 RPMs max. Ever listen to a prop running at that speed. The tips are supersonic.
The newer windmills turn at about 20 RPMs. Seems real slow, but, Those prop tips are running at about 200 MPH. Lets see just who can get out of the way.

I guess we'll just have to agree to see this differently. 

It's an optical illusion, Carl.  The larger the radius (blade) the faster the very end of the prop turns.  Like a car tire, a larger wheel wheel will cover more road moving at the same rpm as a smaller wheel.

[G-Man]

Also problems with Wind turbines they don't turn all the time.  We need a continuous supply of power, and sometimes more than others.   Wind just doesn't cut it. 

This was mentioned in the original post, which why I don't get the debate on the windmills.  They use increased resources to build and require an alternative power source as well, and maintenance for both. 

Redundancy = Government = ^ Taxes = ^ Spending = Waste = Crisis = A Law = Redundancy = Gov't = ^ Taxes = Etc, Etc, Etc.

Notice that the billionaire, Buffet, is no longer pushing the wind game.  Only took him a few months to shut up about it.  If the billionaire can eat crow on the windmill idea, why won't the gov't admit the failure? 

[Patrick]

I get a kick out of our posts. They end up taking on a life of their own.

[Stanley Steamer]

Solar isn't the answer either.......I don't think we've had more than a couple of sunny days here in GA in the last 2-3 weeks.....or seems that way.....

[0leman]

For renewable energy systems to work, There needs to be created a VERY LARGE and VERY EFFECIENT energy storage system.   The energy storage systems we have created are not good enough yet.   

[Patrick]

There are more solar farms going up in this area, and, those that have them claim they are working. This is dreary NY, so, I'm surprised to hear that.

[Atl-Jerry]

I leased my first car back in September, and it was a Nissan Leaf…..never thought I would say that!  I did it purely for the economics of it, I wasn’t even in the market for an automobile.  With the federal and state incentives on electric cars, most people call this a “free” car.  For me, at Sept gas prices, I would net $1200 over the 2 year lease period.  As gas prices fall, I won’t see that, maybe I’ll just break even.  I was prepared to tolerate it for the financial gains, but I am very impressed with every aspect of this car.  I installed a level-II charger (240 volts) and a sub meter to determine my recharging costs and it’s costing me a little under a penny a mile to drive it.  In Georgia, about half of the electricity comes from nuclear and half from coal, but more important to me, I’m putting fewer dollars in the hands of people who hate us.

[musclehead]

... I wonder if they know or care that these wonders of modern science kill millions of birds each year. ...

Extreme exaggeration.  Millions?  By what report?

Truthfully the blades of wind turbines turn very slowly.  Any fowl stupid enough to run into a slow moving blade we need desperately to have removed from the gene pool.

The cost of the machinery for a wind turbine is not cheap and it has a limited lifetime.  In my personal opinion it is certainly not the answer to our energy issues.

Obama gave them a pass on any eagles they kill for what? 10 years? if you killed one, accidently they'd have your butt in federal prison.

actually they've discovered the bird's point of focus is on the ground which is why they get hit. they are looking for prey animals.

[czuch]

All feel good fixesfor energy that just don't work, crack me up.
East of Yuma on the I-8 there is a huge, HUGE, solar "farm".
Birds that fly over do the Icarus dance, smoking to the ground.
Deal is, they are worried about turtles and other denizens of the desert floor so we cant build a fence to keep out illegal types.
I'll tell you some time about getting escorted out of Organ Pipe NATIONAL PARK because it just isn't a good idea for a citizen/veteran/tax payer to be there after dark.
UUhhhhhh,,, the desert floor is scraped. Completely devoid of plant and animal life.

[98valk]

I leased my first car back in September, and it was a Nissan Leaf…..never thought I would say that!  I did it purely for the economics of it, I wasn’t even in the market for an automobile.  With the federal and state incentives on electric cars, most people call this a “free” car.  For me, at Sept gas prices, I would net $1200 over the 2 year lease period.  As gas prices fall, I won’t see that, maybe I’ll just break even.  I was prepared to tolerate it for the financial gains, but I am very impressed with every aspect of this car.  I installed a level-II charger (240 volts) and a sub meter to determine my recharging costs and it’s costing me a little under a penny a mile to drive it.  In Georgia, about half of the electricity comes from nuclear and half from coal, but more important to me, I’m putting fewer dollars in the hands of people who hate us.

so your driving a welfare car due to all of our tax dollars supporting your purchase,  cause without the tax write-offs u would have never bought it or could had afford it.
(said tongue in cheek  )
The electric cars would never had been built in the first place if it wasn't for the huge amounts of our tax dollars, billions!, that went to the companies to build and design it and other electric cars. This was done by Bill and Al when gas was $0.89 per gallon. don't remember if it was the first or second term.

[Atl-Jerry]

Yes, the tax incentives enticed me to make this purchase.  No, not a welfare car at all since I’m just getting back a small percentage of my tax dollars.  Barry is keeping a ton of my money to subsidize the ghetto thugs in Chicago.

No doubt this administration as well as previous administrations have diverted billions into developing alternative energy products.  I didn’t make the rules, just trying to play by their rules when it’s to my advantage