Spill baby spill, slippery politics

@Cycloptichorn,

I'm fairly sure that the costs of extraction, transportation, and refining are all included at the pump. If the environmental costs are not included, I wouldn't be so sure that environmental costs of electric generation included in the price per kwh, either.

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

I'm fairly sure that the costs of extraction, transportation, and refining are all included at the pump. If the environmental costs are not included, I wouldn't be so sure that environmental costs of electric generation included in the price per kwh, either.

When I say 'cost' of producing gasoline, I'm referring to the energy it takes to get it out from the Earth and into your gas tank, not the dollar cost of doing so.

As I said earlier, the existence of the Hybrid engine gives the lie to the idea that ICE engines are efficient. When it's more efficient to have a separate electric engine in your car, and simply use your gas engine to CHARGE that electric one, you have implicit proof that the electric engine is more efficient. If we had better battery technology, NOBODY would use gasoline.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@maporsche,

I actually don't get out that much, so i guess I have been saving energy all along. Don't like a high utilities bill so I try to save on turning out the lights and things of that nature. However, I think attention needs to be paid for alternative energy sources.

It is still really sad to see the damage being made that gulf areas and I worry about the long time effect on the wildlife and marshes in Louisiana and the beaches along the gulf. They are now conducting experiment on sharks to see if any damage is being done to them, or to follow to see if they are getting into the spill.

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

1, the truly gigantic effort required to get oil out of the ground and to ship it then refine it. You aren't counting the energy cost that it takes to even GET oil into a form in which it can be used.

But it is used for many things Cyclo. People used to talk when I was young about gas being a waste product. The other fractions of crude yielded things we wanted as well. And some of them were small fractions. Plastics for example. Fragrances I heard as well. Sold in little fancy bottles with false bottoms and nice names and for which rewards were offered when used as gifts on auspicious occasions.

George should be able to tell us what proportion of the various crudes results in gasoline. And deisel.

If it is true then the thick gunk and the gas had to be got rid of in an environmentally friendly way. Which is to say un-noticeably. So roads were built by mixing the gunk with crusher run and cars to use up the gas. A few ads linking cars with freedom, the wind blowin' in your hair and illicit back-seat rumpy-pumpy and the job was done. After that suburbs. etc etc.

Now gas is probably no longer a waste product. Shifting the suburbs is a big job. Possibly unacceptable aesthetically as well.

Quote:

I maintain that your complete ignoring of the costs associated with producing gasoline, and the environmental costs of burning it, give the lie to your argument that Gasoline is efficient in any way. The only thing it really has going for it is portability. Surely you can see that counting the energy required to produce and transmit electricity against the electric engine's efficiency is only valid if you do the same for gasoline?

That would be a very complex question Cyclo. There are many costs. Many more than the obvious ones. And I don't know that you have made your point with those. The best I can think is that electric cars might have some limited use in certain areas and for certain drivers but in what is now a global market such use will be expensive because the US has too small a use for them and economies of scale won't be too operative.

And they don't do that roaring noise when you hit the pedal which many people find so satisfying. Can you make the tyres squeal with a Lekky?

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

out here in sunny CA, there is fresh produce in season all year round.

given the environmental cost of that production (water diversion etc etc etc), you might not want to draw attention to it

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Fine; let's build nuclear power plants and use them to generate electricity. I contend that the cost of doing so over time, in terms of both actual resources needed and environmental impact, is far lower than gasoline.

I agree with that. Nuclear power is both economically advantageous in therms of its capital cost (more than coal or gas, but less than "reneweables") and its operating cost (less than everything except hydroelectric and geothermal).

Right now we don't have the excess generating capacity required for large-scale use of electrival energy for transport. Adding wind power stations doesn't help because electrical energy can't easily be stored and the wind doesn't blow all the time. (A wind generating station does extremely well if over time it is able to generate one third of its design potential; whereas a nuclear station is most efficient at 100%, and our actual experience over the last decade puts them at about 92% of max capacity, even including down time for refuelling and maintenance). Moreover, we don't have the electrical power distribution system required to support extensive wind generation in favorable areas.

You may imagine a wonderful world powered by wind turbines, however it doesn't exist, and, owing to its cost factors, it isn't coming anytime soon.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

What more, you CAN run an electric car from ANY electricity source. This means that the same engines can take advantage of greater technology raises in power generation; you can't say that for the internal combustion engine.

Perhaps, but you will have to confine yourself to real, not imagined sources. It takes energy and fuel to build a wind tubine, just as it does to extract petroleum.

As for the rest you are simply ignoring the energy (and losses) required to produce and deliver the electrical power required for your electrical vehicle. A modern coal plant with reheat is about 35% efficient therrmodynamically - i.e. it turns about 35% of the energy released in the combustion of the coal (or gas) into useful mechanical energy. The turbine that then drives the electrical generator adds its own substantial energy losses, so that the electrical energy delivered is below about 20% of the energy released in combustion. Assuming 100% efficiency in the distribution system, an electric vehicle is already below an internal combustion engine when the battery is charged.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Quote:

given the environmental cost of that production (water diversion etc etc etc), you might not want to draw attention to it

Not to mention all of the corrupt politics that got California its water, and the fact that Farmers are getting stripped of their water rights because California no longer has enough water to go around.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Now gas is probably no longer a waste product.

It was until surprisingly recently. Most crudes naturally get refined into gasoline, diesel oil, asphalt. Europe is so honked up on diesel autos that it is most economical to ship refined gasoline to the US, making gasoline a waste product, so to speak, in Europe. That was my information 5 or 10 years ago, and I suppose it is still accurate today.

By the way, spendi, I appreciate your perspectives. Not to suggest full agreement at any given time, but they are seldom boring.

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

I don't envision a world ran by wind energy; it's just one component in a system which will have multiple input sources - Nuke, wind, solar, tide, and eventually thermo.

Quote:

As for the rest you are simply ignoring the energy (and losses) required to produce and deliver the electrical power required for your electrical vehicle. A modern coal plant with reheat is about 35% efficient therrmodynamically - i.e. it turns about 35% of the energy released in the combustion of the coal (or gas) into useful mechanical energy. The turbine that then drives the electrical generator adds its own substantial energy losses, so that the electrical energy delivered is below about 20% of the energy released in combustion. Assuming 100% efficiency in the distribution system, an electric vehicle is already below an internal combustion engine when the battery is charged.

No, it isn't. You aren't counting the energy necessary to transport and refine the oil into gasoline, then transport it again to the delivery station. How do you account for this energy loss when calculating the efficiency of your ICE?

You are counting every step of the process for electric engines, but pretending that gasoline magically appears from nowhere in one's fuel tank.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@georgeob1,

Gasoline has to be physically transported from halfway across the world, refined, transported again, before finally being delivered to the end user.

One can judge the efficiency just on the cost per mile. Electric utilities sell their product for a profit, just as filling stations do.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/electric-car1.htm

Quote:

To compare the cost per mile of gasoline cars to this electric car, here's an example. Electricity in North Carolina is about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour right now (4 cents if you use time-of-use billing and recharge at night). That means that for a full recharge, it costs $1 (or 50 cents with time-of-use billing). The cost per mile is therefore 2 cents per mile, or 1 cent with time-of-use. If gasoline costs $1.20 per gallon and a car gets 30 miles to the gallon, then the cost per mile is 4 cents per mile for gasoline.

The cost of the batteries is the problem, not the "efficiency" of using electric power.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

Not to mention that gasoline is at least double that cost right now.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

When I say 'cost' of producing gasoline, I'm referring to the energy it takes to get it out from the Earth and into your gas tank, not the dollar cost of doing so.

The dollar cost is actually a pretty good indicator of the actual energy cost.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Okay, then, the costs of extraction, regulatory compliance, refining, and transport are not included in the pump cost. Exxon loses money on every sale, and makes up for it on volumn

2 Replies

@DrewDad,

DrewDad wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
When I say 'cost' of producing gasoline, I'm referring to the energy it takes to get it out from the Earth and into your gas tank, not the dollar cost of doing so.

The dollar cost is actually pretty good indicator of the actual energy cost.

That's subject to things like inflation, though. The actual cost in units of energy doesn't change even if the economic conditions do.

For example, it takes a certain number of BTUs to crack oil into it's components, and that number doesn't change no matter how much it costs to perform that operation - a factor which can vary quite a bit.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

Okay, then, the costs of extraction, regulatory compliance, refining, and transport are not included in the pump cost. Exxon loses money on every sale, and makes up for it on volumn

The energy costs are still the same. I don't care what the dollar costs are.

Also, I didn't see where you accounted for the cost of the pollution created in there, both at the processing plant and as it is given off by the engine?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

Okay, then, the costs of extraction, regulatory compliance, refining, and transport are not included in the pump cost. Exxon loses money on every sale, and makes up for it on volumn

yeah, buy eggs in egypt for 3 cents, sell them in italy for 2 cents, the profits in the volume. (Catch 22)

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

True, I didn't account for the hidden costs of pollution. Have you accounted for the hidden costs of power generation?

Oh, I know. More windmills.

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

True, I didn't account for the hidden costs of pollution. Have you accounted for the hidden costs of power generation?

Oh, I know. More windmills.

I specifically stated that we should be building Nuke plants above, did you miss that somehow?

But, since you are trying to be a little bit of a jerk about it, why not use Natural Gas? NG power generation facilities are far less polluting than coal. And certainly less than gasoline.

http://web.mit.edu/mitei/research/studies/naturalgas.html

We have massive amounts of it, it's easy to work with. And electricity produced by this method runs your car just like anything else.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

That's subject to things like inflation, though.

But we're comparing costs at a certain point in time, so inflation doesn't enter into it.

Meanwhile, efficiencies do enter into it. Get a cheaper form of electricity and the relative cost goes down. Get a cheaper battery and the relative cost goes down.

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Pointing out your omissions is being a jerk, jerk?

1 Reply

Spill baby spill, slippery politics

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know