Study Finds Greater Greenhouse Gas Reductions For EV Pickup Trucks Than Light-Duty Vehicles

[PungoteagueDave]

Of course, if you have sufficient solar on your house then your operating emissions are zero. Not much of a comparison at that point.

Nope, when you plug in your EV to charge, a (typically carbon-based) grid-leveling generator somewhere fires up that much harder to compensate for the amount of charge that your car is taking, unless you are completely off-grid. It still amazes me that folks with EVs and solar conflate the two. It just isn't so. I have way more solar than I use, sell back to the grid. But my Tesla still has a small "Coal Powered" sticker on the back window.

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[Nick Gerteis]

Nope, when you plug in your EV to charge, a (typically carbon-based) grid-leveling generator somewhere fires up that much harder to compensate for the amount of charge that your car is taking, unless you are completely off-grid. It still amazes me that folks with EVs and solar conflate the two. It just isn't so. I have way more solar than I use, sell back to the grid. But my Tesla still has a small "Coal Powered" sticker on the back window.

Luckily, in the near future we will go all in on renewables as a society, with a much improved nationwide grid that will no longer rely on dangerous, expensive, and outdated fossil fuels for peaker or base load plants. You are still stuck on where we are today, instead of appreciating the progress the next ten years will bring.

 

[TaxmanHog]

50 years for that vision....... JMHO

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Luckily, in the near future we will go all in on renewables as a society, with a much improved nationwide grid that will no longer rely on dangerous, expensive, and outdated fossil fuels for peaker or base load plants. You are still stuck on where we are today, instead of appreciating the progress the next ten years will bring.

I get that we will eventually have grid-leveling industrial batteries and huge capacitors to store power for that purpose, and am a real optimist about teh full conversion to renewables. But it will take a LOT longer than most in the green-tech world think.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

I get that we will eventually have grid-leveling industrial batteries and huge capacitors to store power for that purpose, and am a real optimist about teh full conversion to renewables. But it will take a LOT longer than most in the green-tech world think.

You are absolutely correct that none of us know today how fast and thorough this transition will happen, I’m certainly a huge optimist on this. I’d love to see the huge batteries we’re all about to have in our vehicles to be used to support the grid while not driving. We shall see!

 

[LightningShow]

Nope, when you plug in your EV to charge, a (typically carbon-based) grid-leveling generator somewhere fires up that much harder to compensate for the amount of charge that your car is taking, unless you are completely off-grid. It still amazes me that folks with EVs and solar conflate the two. It just isn't so. I have way more solar than I use, sell back to the grid. But my Tesla still has a small "Coal Powered" sticker on the back window.

Here's a philosophical question for you...if you generate more solar electricity than you use, does the utility need to burn carbon to supply you with electricity?

 

[VTbuckeye]

Here's a philosophical question for you...if you generate more solar electricity than you use, does the utility need to burn carbon to supply you with electricity?

Maybe. If on average you generate more they would need to source energy from somewhere else. If you always at every minute of every day supply more than you consume then no, there would be no fossil fuel burned to support your needs.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Here's a philosophical question for you...if you generate more solar electricity than you use, does the utility need to burn carbon to supply you with electricity?

And, more importantly, what happens to the electricity his panels generate? We now know that it’s “not charging his EV”, so where is it all going? By his flawed logic it can’t possibly be charging his neighbor’s EV either, or do anything else useful without that dreaded fossil peaker plant coming online. Maybe it’s dripping out on the ground through a leak in the power line?/s

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Here's a philosophical question for you...if you generate more solar electricity than you use, does the utility need to burn carbon to supply you with electricity?

Yes. There is no perfect daily production/usage timing and there are seasonal fluctuations. That is why it is called net metering. We have huge positive power production months when we sell a lot of power back to the utility - June & July. In December and January we buy a lot of power from the grid. That's seasonal. This is why net metering calculations always work on an annual basis - our contract with the local electrical cooperative runs June 1 through May 31 - and we track kwh usage and generation by month in great detail, as does the utility.

On a daily basis, the same thing applies. We run six heavy saltwater pumps on our oyster farm for upwellers and downwellers. They run 24/7 and are mission critical - so critical that if they go down for more than a couple hours, millions of baby oysters will die - so we have monitoring alarms connected to a device that sends texts to our phones if they drop off. At night they draw from the grid because there is no sun. During the day we not only power everything onsite, but send excess power out to the grid - essentially using it as storage for the coming night - but it is all "levelled" using fossil fuels - and there is no other way given how grid levelling works. So yes, every day, even on the days when we sell a LOT of energy to the grid , we rely on and burn a bunch of fossil fuel too. That's separate from the argument that even when running "positive" when the sun is bright, using ANY energy requires a grid leveling generator to work that much harder, which is also a fact. I think that's the point you are making, that to be carbon neutral, you just need enough renewables generation to offset your use, so can claim to not be "burning" carbon. But the fact is that you can't do it without burning carbon, unless you disconnect from the grid.

We've spent a lot of time in low and high latitudes - southern Chile, South Africa, northern Norway, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, and notice that there are no solar panels in these locales. Solar panels are not a thing and simply don't work in places with short or completely dark winter days - in Alaska, Norway, Sweden, where the sun does not come up for six weeks at the time when power is most needed for heating, not only are solar panels useless, battery storage is also useless due to the length of time that the sun is unavailable for recharge. Solar is even marginal in places like Seattle, where winter sun is two hours shorter in December/January than in Miami, day-for-day.

The "perfect" spot for solar is the equator, say Quito, Ecuador, where the sun comes up and sets within the same 15-minute window every day of the year, and every day is 12 hours long. The further away you get, say Svolvær, Norway, the less solar is feasible. The sun sets there on December 6 and never rises until January 4, and is only up for minutes in the months before and after the dark month. In our mid-Atlantic farm's location, sunlight is very seasonably variable, but it "works" economically because of net metering - which allows the use of fossil fuels to buffer the dark times of day and the dark seasons. Battery storage is ONE answer for many people but we could not get through the dark months with batteries - the uses are just too large and the generation potential too small - so the grid is required to "store" our excess generation in June and July to use later in the year. On a net basis, we "make" about $4 k in excess generation, but half the months are plus and half the months are negative.

 

[UNIKRN150]

Go visit a Lithium mine.

I worked at the Silver Peak Lithium Mine in Nevada. The ONLY existing Lithium mine in America (that I know of)

As you peer across the vast toxic leach ponds, keep in mind that THIS is likely the ONLY Lithium mine in the world that operates under United States EPA scrutiny and try to imagine what the 3rd world country Lithium mines look like.


…then try to hold your head high as you drive your EV.. “protecting the environment”!

GOOD LUCK!

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Go visit a Lithium mine.

I worked at the Silver Peak Lithium Mine in Nevada. The ONLY existing Lithium mine in America (that I know of)

As you peer across the vast toxic leach ponds, keep in mind that THIS is likely the ONLY Lithium mine in the world that operates under United States EPA scrutiny and try to imagine what the 3rd world country Lithium mines look like.


…then try to hold your head high as you drive your EV.. “protecting the environment”!

GOOD LUCK!

Polluting one time, when the lithium for the battery is extracted, is a lot less than polluting every time you start that ICEV up for its 20 year lifespan. A good trade off to make, environmentally speaking.

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Yes. There is no perfect daily production/usage timing and there are seasonal fluctuations. That is why it is called net metering. We have huge positive power production months when we sell a lot of power back to the utility - June & July. In December and January we buy a lot of power from the grid. That's seasonal. This is why net metering calculations always work on an annual basis - our contract with the local electrical cooperative runs June 1 through May 31 - and we track kwh usage and generation by month in great detail, as does the utility.

On a daily basis, the same thing applies. We run six heavy saltwater pumps on our oyster farm for upwellers and downwellers. They run 24/7 and are mission critical - so critical that if they go down for more than a couple hours, millions of baby oysters will die - so we have monitoring alarms connected to a device that sends texts to our phones if they drop off. At night they draw from the grid because there is no sun. During the day we not only power everything onsite, but send excess power out to the grid - essentially using it as storage for the coming night - but it is all "levelled" using fossil fuels - and there is no other way given how grid levelling works. So yes, every day, even on the days when we sell a LOT of energy to the grid , we rely on and burn a bunch of fossil fuel too. That's separate from the argument that even when running "positive" when the sun is bright, using ANY energy requires a grid leveling generator to work that much harder, which is also a fact. I think that's the point you are making, that to be carbon neutral, you just need enough renewables generation to offset your use, so can claim to not be "burning" carbon. But the fact is that you can't do it without burning carbon, unless you disconnect from the grid.

We've spent a lot of time in low and high latitudes - southern Chile, South Africa, northern Norway, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, and notice that there are no solar panels in these locales. Solar panels are not a thing and simply don't work in places with short or completely dark winter days - in Alaska, Norway, Sweden, where the sun does not come up for six weeks at the time when power is most needed for heating, not only are solar panels useless, battery storage is also useless due to the length of time that the sun is unavailable for recharge. Solar is even marginal in places like Seattle, where winter sun is two hours shorter in December/January than in Miami, day-for-day.

The "perfect" spot for solar is the equator, say Quito, Ecuador, where the sun comes up and sets within the same 15-minute window every day of the year, and every day is 12 hours long. The further away you get, say Svolvær, Norway, the less solar is feasible. The sun sets there on December 6 and never rises until January 4, and is only up for minutes in the months before and after the dark month. In our mid-Atlantic farm's location, sunlight is very seasonably variable, but it "works" economically because of net metering - which allows the use of fossil fuels to buffer the dark times of day and the dark seasons. Battery storage is ONE answer for many people but we could not get through the dark months with batteries - the uses are just too large and the generation potential too small - so the grid is required to "store" our excess generation in June and July to use later in the year. On a net basis, we "make" about $4 k in excess generation, but half the months are plus and half the months are negative.

Once again, the considerable length and breadth of your posts can’t hide the shallowness of your understanding how electricity works: electrical energy will always take the path of least resistance, for a home with solar panels and a plugged in low SOC EV on a sunny day that will always be the path from panels to inverter to breaker box to EVSE to EV battery. Look it up, it’s a fact!
So with regard to the issue at hand we can conclude that, yes, my rooftop solar really does charge my EV. The rest of your musings, while certainly interesting, are pointless to said issue. But thank you, as always, for contributing to the debate.

 

[LightningShow]

Yes. There is no perfect daily production/usage timing and there are seasonal fluctuations. That is why it is called net metering. We have huge positive power production months when we sell a lot of power back to the utility - June & July. In December and January we buy a lot of power from the grid. That's seasonal. This is why net metering calculations always work on an annual basis - our contract with the local electrical cooperative runs June 1 through May 31 - and we track kwh usage and generation by month in great detail, as does the utility.

On a daily basis, the same thing applies. We run six heavy saltwater pumps on our oyster farm for upwellers and downwellers. They run 24/7 and are mission critical - so critical that if they go down for more than a couple hours, millions of baby oysters will die - so we have monitoring alarms connected to a device that sends texts to our phones if they drop off. At night they draw from the grid because there is no sun. During the day we not only power everything onsite, but send excess power out to the grid - essentially using it as storage for the coming night - but it is all "levelled" using fossil fuels - and there is no other way given how grid levelling works. So yes, every day, even on the days when we sell a LOT of energy to the grid , we rely on and burn a bunch of fossil fuel too. That's separate from the argument that even when running "positive" when the sun is bright, using ANY energy requires a grid leveling generator to work that much harder, which is also a fact. I think that's the point you are making, that to be carbon neutral, you just need enough renewables generation to offset your use, so can claim to not be "burning" carbon. But the fact is that you can't do it without burning carbon, unless you disconnect from the grid.

We've spent a lot of time in low and high latitudes - southern Chile, South Africa, northern Norway, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, and notice that there are no solar panels in these locales. Solar panels are not a thing and simply don't work in places with short or completely dark winter days - in Alaska, Norway, Sweden, where the sun does not come up for six weeks at the time when power is most needed for heating, not only are solar panels useless, battery storage is also useless due to the length of time that the sun is unavailable for recharge. Solar is even marginal in places like Seattle, where winter sun is two hours shorter in December/January than in Miami, day-for-day.

The "perfect" spot for solar is the equator, say Quito, Ecuador, where the sun comes up and sets within the same 15-minute window every day of the year, and every day is 12 hours long. The further away you get, say Svolvær, Norway, the less solar is feasible. The sun sets there on December 6 and never rises until January 4, and is only up for minutes in the months before and after the dark month. In our mid-Atlantic farm's location, sunlight is very seasonably variable, but it "works" economically because of net metering - which allows the use of fossil fuels to buffer the dark times of day and the dark seasons. Battery storage is ONE answer for many people but we could not get through the dark months with batteries - the uses are just too large and the generation potential too small - so the grid is required to "store" our excess generation in June and July to use later in the year. On a net basis, we "make" about $4 k in excess generation, but half the months are plus and half the months are negative.

Wouldn't you agree, though, that the net effect of generating more power than you use is that you completely offset the fossil fuels associated with your electrical usage (plus part of someone else's carbon usage)?

 

[UNIKRN150]

Polluting one time, when the lithium for the battery is extracted, is a lot less than polluting every time you start that ICEV up for its 20 year lifespan. A good trade off to make, environmentally speaking.

Good point.

Plus... the vast majority of the pollution we're trading off only affects poor 3rd world peasants and who cares about THEM. RIGHT?

 

[Nick Gerteis]

Good point.

Plus... the vast majority of the pollution we're trading off only affects poor 3rd world peasants and who cares about THEM. RIGHT?

Please. Most lithium is mined in Australia and Chile. Hardly third world countries. You mentioned Nevada, also not *quite* third world. But what we DO bless a lot of third world countries with is unregulated dirty fossil fuel extraction. The people suffering from the resulting pollution get nothing for it, all the profits go to their corrupt leaders, and of course to the large oil companies. Maybe that’s a better target for your righteous indignation. Buying an EV would help by reducing oil demand and thus reducing the incentive to drill and spoil poor countries.

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