Submitted by Pierre11 on August 09, 2008
Peter Garrisons column on electric power made the suggestion that it was friendlier to the environment. Where do people think electricity comes from? It's usually oil! (OK maybe 0.2% wind power). There are always losses involved in changing energy from one form to the other and there is also the issue of eventually having to dispose of highly toxic batteries.
Electric power may be technically interesting but not a "green" option.
Pierre.
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February 02, 2010
Greener than using a piston combustion engine. It is my understanding that large scale electrical generation is far more efficient than a small piston engine operating at part throttle. Of course, some of this depends on how heavy the batteries are.
Can't argue about battery disposal except I wonder if lithium batteries are nearly as toxic as nicads, lead acid, etc. which are NOT going to show up as batteries to power aircraft motors. Probably the batteries are well worth recycling in any case.
I think the gas is just hydrogen. A fire hazard but I bet not an environmental one.
June 05, 2010
Just think if everyone had an electric car or plane and plugged it into the wall to charge the infrastructure you would need to supply power to all those chargers? You would have to build a lot more power stations and they would either be nuclear or petroleum burning. Hydro-electric power is very limited. Plus, the range on electric vehicles leaves a lot to be desired. Also, the latest Lithium-Poly batteries are very dangerous to operate if they are not charged, discharged and stored with utmost care. Technology has to first be developed to allow an alternative to fossil fuels.
August 22, 2010
You don't necessarily need more generation facilities if you charge at night. Just don't charge at peak power and no further generators should be required.
Let's say your average electric car is driven 30 miles a day, and we'll say, just to be ridiculous, at 60mph. That should take an average of 20 hp or so, or less if the car is efficient. That translates to around 13 kilowatt hours. And it assumes that electric cars won't be more efficient, which is probably too pessimistic. That's probably less than most houses use in a day (about the same as mine), so if you make it off peak when the office buildings are not using their AC either, it shouldn't get over current peaks. More fuel usage, yes. Private aircraft would only be a tiny fraction of this.
Pointing out the drawbacks of current batteries is pretty silly. This won't happen without better ones, and certainly not without a lot of effort to make them safer. And how often do you hear of laptop or cell phone batteries bursting into flame lately? The battery management can be built into the vehicle. As far as I know, charging lithium batteries doesn't give off hydrogen the way charging lead acid ones does. And if it did, maybe you could put the hydrogen into a tiny fuel cell and kick the power back into the batteries.
Electric vehicles, with no modifications, will be able to use whatever alternate source of electric power comes down the pike, which is likely to mean just about any source of alternative energy. Which is better than fuel burning vehicles can say.
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