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[dhminer]

Governments of the world have decided that it will go EV. It has nothing to do with the environment but rather, control. In the near future, your EV will be connected to your social credit score. You will require permission to drive your EV and it's range limited to where you are allowed to go.

Certainly where we’re headed if we don’t make some changes in government.

 

[jeffreylyon]

What is more efficient and produces less carbon emissions? A Gas Furnace or a Heat Pump? Bet you'll get that wrong as most are being told the wrong answer. Take that Heat Pump and subtract another 5% from the listed efficiency. Because the average powerline loss is 5%. Now compare that new efficiency to a high efficiency Gas Furnace. Note I happen to know this number because I had to replace my old 94% efficient furnace with a new one because the control card had failed and it was 30 years old with no new card available. The new furnace cost 9000 dollars and is listed at 96% efficiency. Ah, but you'll say your Heat Pump doesn't produce any Carbon emissions. Did you forget the powerplant that produced your electricity is powered by Natural Gas? BTW, current efficiency for a natural gas powered turbine engine is 35%, so a gas turbine directly powering a generator has pretty poor efficiency. Next up for gas powered generators is a gas boiler (80%) feeding a Steam Turbine (90%) with a Net Efficiency of 72%, still a bit heavy in losses compared to gas furnace. Net result is that Gas is actually more efficient and Greener than Gas Powered Electric. Want to compare your electric water heater to my gas water heater, you'll lose there to. You've got the pesky powerline losses in addition to that poor efficiency for the turbine powering the generator. Actually if you factor that poor turbine efficiency into the net efficiency for an electric car it's quite possible that a gasoline powered auto has a lower Net Carbon Footprint than an electric car. As for why, it's probably the weight of the battery that is the killer. If you want your EV to be truly green that is simple, limit your range and use Solar for re-charging.

Let's look at your heat pump example, which, I truly commend you on as you took the time to trace the whole system. We'll use natural averages and a high-efficiency, mini-split heat pump, like my Mitsubishi H2i's:

1 Unit of Dinosaurs (UoD) * 30% conversion factor (brown -> electricity, lowest rate) * 95% distribution (line loss, average) = .33 Units of Electricity (UoE)

So 1 UoD results in .33 UoE. Pretty bad, huh?. This is why energy providers are standing up so much solar and wind - it's cheaper. But, anyways, I have that .33 UoE and I feed it to my heat pumps:

.33 UoE * 300% (heat pumps pump heat, not create it - for every UoE my heat pumps use they create more than 3 UoH (Units of Heat) = 1 UoH.

Huh.., parity..., but it gets better: my system is a mini-split so it's at least 20% more efficient than forced air:

1 UoE * 120% = 1.2 UoH

Heat pumps are ahead.... then we have to remember that, nationally, we create 61% of our energy burning dinosaurs. The rest comes from renewables and nuclear:

1.2 UoH / 61% (UoD in the energy mix) = 1.97 UoH.

So for every UoD consumed at the source my heat pumps deliver 1.97 UoH. That's pretty significant, esp. considering that it's only going to get better as we introduce more renewable energy to the grid.

But, then, you made a good point, which I'll add my spin to: although local consumption of electricity can be more efficient than local consumption of fossil fuels, it can never be greener that the source of the electricity. Brown grid == brown heat in my house.

Here's a snap shot of my annual consumption and production of electricity:



Year to date, I'm making 61% of the electricity I use. (August was a killer - lots of heat and lots of driving!) I'll use more and generate less in the winter, so let's adjust that to 45% over the whole year, even though, historically, it's going to be greater. And that includes the consumption of my 2 EVs as well. So, now:

1.97 UoH / 55% (energy from the grid) = 3.58 UoH

So, in my particular case, because I can generate the energy for my heat pumps from my roof, I end up with 3.58 UoH for every UoD that is burned at the source for my needs - my heat setup is over 358% more effective at turning dinosaurs into a comfortable house that is your furnace. And that's not even considering that mini-spits have an additional advantage by being able to dial in the temperature for each room; I don't heat and cool my guest bedroom, basement or garage as well as the rest of the rooms nor do I condition the air as much in my bedroom during the day or my office at night, and that makes a huge difference in my energy consumption, but I can't put a number to it so I'll just include that as a unmeasurable bonus.

As a result I foresee that there will be an energy crash in 8 to 10 years that will take out the power from coast to coast and it will take time and a monumental amount of effort to get the Grid back up and running within a month at best, worst case it could take 6 months.

Come on, that is 100% speculation and not even sensible as there are 2 grid in the US. 3 if you include Texas.

 

[jeffreylyon]

Dave ..time to shut it down before it turns into the wild wild west!

Nope, this is a good exchange. Let's just keep it civil.

 

[esp_martin]

Nope, this is a good exchange. Let's just keep it civil.

I agree that this has been the most civil discussion I've read/seen with this large a range of opinions.

Maybe because most of us here are somewhat center-right to center-left? Like I agree with many here that we need to transition to 100% renewable at some point in the near future but I *also* agree that natural gas heating and ICE vehicles still serve a very important part of our current lives/infrastructure. Like if I had a family and needed reliable heat through cold winters (i.e. anywhere near the Great Lakes or the Northeast) I would never rely on a heat pump. At least not now.

All that said, keep your filthy electric power away from my FiST! it go-boom-make-power-move-vehicle-me-turn-happy.

 

[rallytaff]

Given that we have 50-80 years of oil left, what is your vision of the future?

Where did you get those miniscule figures from? Numerous sources have it pegged at around 300 years and we have more oil underfoot than all the Middle East oil producers combined!

 

[esp_martin]

Where did you get those miniscule figures from? Numerous sources have it pegged at around 300 years and we have more oil underfoot than all the Middle East oil producers combined!

I didn't realize there were two different categories: 50-80 years is proven reserves. 80-250 years is unproven theoretical reserves. At least those are the generally accepted numbers.