Re: i will make you a forecast....electric vehicles will change the world...and soon.....
- From: "Roger Dewhurst" <dewhurst@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 08:30:10 +1200
"abelard" <abelard3@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3f25f3dbumu5hqqb7h8dkiihhsshbk9mv5@xxxxxxxxxx
every week new electric vehicles are announced....
every month there are new advances in range and
performance....
regular enhancements to battery and fuel cell
technology are announced.....
Environmental costs and benefits
This week, a new report by John Llewellyn of Lehman Brothers has been
published. Entitled 'The Business of Climate Change II', it is a follow up
to one published in February. In it, Llewellyn estimates the effective cost
of carbon implicit in some of the policy choices made by government, and
some may be surprised by his findings. His argument is that a proper
macroeconomic analysis would show that some initiatives simply are not
cost-effective.
The headline figure is for photovoltaics, or solar power. Because the
equipment is so expensive and the output so low, the effective cost of
carbon (borne to a very large extent by the taxpayer via government
subsidies) is $6,300 per tonne. This compares to a current market price of
around $70 per tonne in the European carbon trading system. Germany is
sometimes held up as an example to follow because of the relatively high
penetration of solar cells, but this is simply because the government is
prepared to put in far more subsidies than other countries. Whether German
taxpayers would agree if they knew the full picture is a moot point.
But ultimately, the wisdom of going down this route has to be questioned
when there are much more cost effective alternatives available. They may not
be as sexy, but low energy light bulbs can reduce carbon emissions at a cost
of only $10 per tonne. In the meantime, European governments continue to
push ahead with other more expensive options. Offshore wind comes in at a
relatively reasonable (but still uneconomic) $150 per tonne, but the
estimate of the implicit cost of carbon to meet the EU's new car emission
targets is $700-$2,300 per tonne.
The message from governments seems to be to reduce carbon at any price. This
is both wasteful and foolish. New technologies need to be nurtured until
they become economic, but actively commercialising them at taxpayers'
expense is surely not sensible when more cost-effective alternatives are
available.
Electric cars
Much is heard from time to time about electric cars. On the face of it, they
sound ideal: clean, silent and not a whiff of CO2 emitted. But the reality
is somewhat different. Despite continued improvements in battery technology,
any practical car developed so far can travel only a very limited distance
before needing recharging. This may be OK for cities if there are sufficient
charging points available, but would be no good for longer journeys.
Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what the motor industry comes up
with and whether all-electric cars will become competitive with internal
combustion or hybrid vehicles.
A more important point, though, if electric cars really do take off, is the
source of the power and the overall efficiency of the whole system. Petrol
engines are not particularly thermally efficient (less than 30%), while
diesels may typically achieve over 50% efficiency. But coal-fired power
stations operate typically at about 37% efficiency, and gas ones at up to
45%. In both cases, transmission losses to the consumer are estimated at
7.7%. The electric motors which drive the cars themselves are over 90%
efficient, so the power losses at this stage are relatively small. On the
face of it, generating electricity and distributing it to cars gives a
similar overall efficiency to the petrol engine, but is beaten by diesels.
So, a move to electric cars would make little difference to overall energy
use and, if fossil fuels are used to generate power, pretty much the same
carbon emissions would result. Adding extra renewable generating capacity to
power the cars would be both more expensive and give only an intermittent
supply: perfect for those whose cars only need recharging when it's sunny or
windy. The only reliable answer would be additional nuclear capacity. For
any country which seriously wants to reduce carbon emissions, this is surely
the only way forward.
Electric cars, as any supposed panacea, need to be looked at more carefully
before we rush to judgement. And, of course, if they are successful, they do
nothing to ease congestion, but would be exempt from congestion charges. An
interesting conundrum...
The Scientific Alliance
St John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4 0WS
Tel: +44 1223 421242
.
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