I watched a show last night on Discovery about oil running out...

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Don't electric cars run on electric energy made by huge power stations running on .... fossil fuels?

This just means that instead of producing the energy needed to run your car in the car itslef, you're outsourcing it to the powerplant.

A power plant is a power plant.
It could be a nasty, coal burning plant.
Or it could be a clean hydroelectic plant in a dam.
Or it would be a wind or solar power generator.

And someday, it will be a nuclear fusion plant -- clean, safe and cheap.

[Lancer]

Or it could be a vapor powered fart ignitor.

The point it that we don't buy it from the arabs, it isn't running out and it's not made in China.

[DanS]

Tesla should be making a mass market electric car in around 5 years. Currently, they're selling the roadster and next year they'll be selling a sedan ($50-60k-ish).

[Lancer]

I wonder how taking out the engine and connecting the starter motor directly to the tranny doubles the price of the car. Sure, it's not that simple but really it's not a whole lot more complicated and one gets rid of that spendy engine thingy.

[DanS]

So far, I'm sure it has everything to do with volume produced. It's a lot cheaper per unit to build a million small combustion cars than 10,000 small electric cars.

[chequita guevara]

Peak oil isn't the end of oil. It's the end of cheap, easily accessible oil. There's still plenty of oil to exploit. So maybe Americans will finally start using mass transit and bicycles to go to work.

The kicker, though, is that there's so much that we depend upon oil for: plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, etc. The cost of anything that needs to be transported will go up. Still, it won't be the end of civilization as we know it. We're just going to have to act more rationally.

[Lancer]

This trip to the Phils $1360

Last trip, a couple years back $1000

First trip in, erm, '97 $700

That's getting personal.

I think I better build a sailboat.

[chequita guevara]

a doubling of prices in ten years is not crazy, Lancer.

[Lancer]

Re: Re: I watched a show last night on Discovery about oil running out...

Originally posted by lord of the mark


why would the lights go off?

That's a really good question. In fact they would not, which is why I'm looking for an electric car.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
a doubling of prices in ten years is not crazy, Lancer.

Not if one also experiences a doubling in income. However, I have not.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The kicker, though, is that there's so much that we depend upon oil for: plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, etc. The cost of anything that needs to be transported will go up. Still, it won't be the end of civilization as we know it. We're just going to have to act more rationally.

Dear God, we're doomed!

[Odin]

Originally posted by Lancer
This trip to the Phils $1360

Last trip, a couple years back $1000

First trip in, erm, '97 $700

That's getting personal.

I think I better build a sailboat.

That sounds like inflation more then anything.

[Odin]

Peak Oil is going to be a huge issue over the next 20 years or so, but. contrary to the screeds of "doomer" types, it ain't the end of civilization, just some economic belt-tightening (that is, recessions, a depression at the very worst) while we switch over to a post-fossil fuel society.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Don't electric cars run on electric energy made by huge power stations running on .... fossil fuels?

This just means that instead of producing the energy needed to run your car in the car itslef, you're outsourcing it to the powerplant.

The numbers are that an electric car powered by a modern coal power plant only generates about 10% the CO2 emissions of a normal car, and of course far fewer other pollutants (sorry I can't remember the source, but it's a pretty reasonable number)

Of course when people want to calculate how inefficient electric cars are, they'd always assume they're being powered by the oldest most inefficient coal plants (probably with bizarre hogwash logic like "Well if we stop all this investment into renewable technology nonsense the lower power usage would let us shut the old plants down"). The only fair way (unless the car is ACTUALLY being recharged by ie solar panels on the house roof), is to use the average CO2 emissions for a unit of power generated on the grid. This is going to vary greatly by country, Norway is 99%+ hydroelectric, France is 75% Nuclear (and 15% hydro), USA is around 29% renewables/nuclear.
Of course it's still not that simple, Norway exports electrical power so adding a lot of electric cars would mean less electricity being exported and possibly more thermal powerplants needed elsewhere so you'd have to at least partially look at the entire energy grid.
But in any case, power plants added to provide electricity for added electric cars would be modern efficient thermal plants or renewables, so it's pretty much all good.

edit:
Another interesting thing about Electric Cars is that they can recharge at off-peak times, which is a form of All Good when it comes to total energy efficiency.

[SpencerH]

I look forward to high(er) gas prices. It will drive us toward alternative fuels and the beginning of the end of our subservience to the oil producing asshats.