http://www.epri-reports.org

Should cleaner sources of electricity be pursued? Absolutely. More renewables is good. More nuclear power, IMHO, is essential for the near term–say the next 40-60 years. Retire the oldest, dirtiest plants and bring online newer cleaner plants.

As for vehicles, EVs are a no-brainer. They are technologically far simpler than ICEs, HEVs, PHEVs, hydrogen powered unicorns, diesels, or diesel hybrid unicorns. EVs have fewer moving parts so fewer things to wear out.

Since EVs will last longer, I suspect car makers will have to evolve. Eventually, fewer cars will be produced in any given year, and car makers will be able to improve things by offering existing owners upgrades. Better chargers, better batteries, etc.

The issues of powerplants and vehicles are intertwined, to be sure, but pursuit of something better doesn’t mean we have to wait for a panacea.

One more thing that needs to happen : federally mandate to allow for electricity sellback. Could there be flaws in that? Sure, but they wouldn’t outweigh the positive gains.

Recap : this was not an attack, so no need to try and argue against information that can serve to help our case. Good? Good!

NPNS.. =D-

10 quadrillion BTU loss per year. Uhm. Big deal. The US grid capacity is somewhere around 3 Terawatt. That means your grid efficiency is still above 90% (i think, if i did my math right, and my general assumptions on usage are correct)

Also: In ontario, there is actually excess power supply being dumped out from our nuclear plants at night these days. At one point the ontario spot price for electricity was negative for 19 hours of the day. Free power for New York i guess? Charging at night would produce absolutely 0g/km of CO2. Eat that. … I want my volt now. Please?

Also: We don’t need to focus on making a more efficient ICE, but on making a more fuel efficient car. THey aren’t the same thing. A diesel smart car and an F-250 have similarly efficiency ICE’s. We need to make light aerodynamic vehicles.

I never see those studies arround.. for fuck sake!!

We have a gasplant generator that has efficiency of 55%.
And here in holland we only make 30% of our total electricity out of coal.

And i have never seen a diesel car with efficiency of 45%. I DO know that there is higher energy per litres in a liter diesel.

I know diesels with high efficiency, but they are not inside a car. They have a fixed RPM all set to 1 RPM for max efficiency. And also timing and air/fuel mixture optimized and turbo optimized.
Mostly used for generating electricity.

oh, except that the ICE is already a mature technology. We’ve already squeezed about as much as we can out of them in theory and all that’s left to do is for the less advanced automakers to start using last century’s post 1940’s technology, such as direct fuel injection, pretty standard on most 17 year olds cheap crotch rockets.

So, I guess that leaves electric drive related systems to work on for the engineers. My silly guess is the MOST important system left for development is the sound system with external speaker for interesting noises that the electric car owner can broadcast. Perhaps the Terminator shouting “Get out of my way! Here I come!” at 140 decibals to the the traffic in front, the modern day equivalent to the servant walking in front with a lantern?

How about energy independence is enough ?!

The USA is on the verge of collapse and these ninny environmentalists still can not get over their fetishes.

With regards to the other assumptions, I find it very hard to believe the study’s finding that the eletric grid is only 24% efficient (i.e. 76% inefficient) or that a deisel engine car is as high as 45% efficient. This sounds to me like a theoretically perfect disel engine car.

In the end I challenge every finding and assumption in this study.

Good point. I stand corrected.