Comments on: Study: Electric cars not as green as you think

Electric cars in Germany could pollute more than gasoline cars, and the grid there could collapse if everyone charges at the same time, a report concludes.

[K A Cheah]

World Governments are Pursuing & Using the "Wrong Technologies":

NUCLEAR POWER MAY NOT SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING ISSUES BECAUSE IT IS PRONE TO DISASTERS OWING TO UNFORESEEN ERRORS WHICH MIGHT REPEAT THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT, THE HARMFUL CONTAMINATION FROM WHICH MAY LAST CENTURIES.

USING FUEL CELLS AND BATTERIES TO RUN CARS ARE BAD STRATEGIES AS THE SOURCE OF POWER WHICH IS COMING FROM HYDROGEN AND ELECTRICITY WHICH IN TURN ARE PRODUCED THROUGH THE USE OF THE POWER GENERATED BY POWER STATIONS USING COAL AS FUEL THUS POLLUTING THE ATMOSPHERE ELSEWHERE WITH NO ADVANTAGE IN TERMS OF CARBON FOOTPRINTS.

In order to save our World called the Planet Earth from further Global Warming and resultant adverse climatic changes causing all the unprecedented incremental Natural Disasters globally, we must go after the Best Technologies already available long ago despite the suppression of which by selfish vested interests of Fossil Oils' Companies.

Nikola Tesla the Greatest Inventor of the last century had invented the Technologies to run cars & power stations without fuel one Century ago and these technologies might still be classified top secret, immediately after his death. It is time to resurrect Nikola Tesla's life-works to produce electrical power without fuel and sharing them as it was intended by the Greatest Inventor himself.

Stanley Meyer had invented the Technology to turn Water into unlimited amount of fuel for making Unlimited Power Supply and to run cars and all internal combustion engines with HHO "on demand basis only" and so no storage of the HHO gases is required as it is safer & cheaper to store water instead, but unfortunately he was murdered. He had about more than 40 patents in this Technology. No one Car/Technology Company has pursued this technology further by buying up his technology and put them to good use to save our this planet Earth from Global Warming causing adverse climatic changes and disasters and hardship owing to unlimited and unrestrained use of Fossil Oils and Fuels, thus releasing & emitting enormous quantities of green house gases into the atmosphere. I think some company like Google should buy this Patented Technologies from Stanley Meyer's family and make this open source technology for the world to improve on and make good use of this Technology to save our world call Planet Earth.

On a two prongs approach, also those Zero Fuel Technologies invented by Nikola Tesla should be declassified and resurrected by the next President of USA to run cars and power-stations to save our Planet Earth from destruction and doom owing to unlimited and unrestrained use of Fossil Oils and Fuels for the whole of last Century. Our World the planet earth must be saved from the exploits of greed of the vested self interests of the fossil oil & fuels producers that pumped the unlimited amount of Greenhouse gases into our common atmosphere for the last century.


http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/tesla.htm
http://keelynet.com/energy/teslafe1.htm
http://www.panaceauniversity.org/

History had proven that owing to selfish gains and big business interests and the many Government interventions the "Free Energy Inventions & Innovations" for the good of mankind were suppressed by vested interests such as the life works of Nikola Tesla and the strategic others were even kept classified by the US Government after his death until the present day. 100 years has been lost and that now our planet earth is placed under the stress of Global Warming owing to the unlimited use of Fossil Oils and Fossil Fuels which in the first place was not needed if the Inventions of the Greatest Inventor, Nikola Tesla were not suppressed 100 years ago. If the Governments of the Nations of World are not going to make and initiate the required changes to stop the continuing use of fossil oils and fuels with alternative fuel someone without vested interests in the Fossil Fuel Industries has got to take the great Initiative to bring out the best technology to save our planet from impending doom.

The best inventions of the Greatest Inventor like Nikola Tesla were suppressed 100 years ago, but under present day scenarios, the works of Great Inventors like Stan Meyers were suppressed as he had been murdered and many others like him were also murdered. Instead of getting support in the scientific community he was ostracized and so as others like him.


The next President of USA must come forward to lead in creating the best alternative energy sources for the good of mankind to follow the footsteps of Nikola Tesla to share his inventions for the good of all mankind. Be it free energy by Coils tapping free energy from the Magnetics Poles of the Earth, Cold Fusion or Magnetic Engines or splitting of Water through electrolysis process on demand basis to produce Brown Gas or HHO to run the present day Vehicles' Internal Combustion Engines without modifications then why not to cut the pollutions from the use of fossil oils and fuels.

K A Cheah

[bob1xxxx]

This is classic tree hugger FUD UCLEAR POWER MAY NOT SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING ISSUES BECAUSE IT IS PRONE TO DISASTERS OWING TO UNFORESEEN ERRORS WHICH MIGHT REPEAT THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT, THE HARMFUL CONTAMINATION FROM WHICH MAY LAST CENTURIES.

Chernboyl was the result of extermely poorly designed reactor with no containment dome and if the crew would have scramed the reactor at the first sign of problems THE MELT DOWN WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPEN!!!!!! Three mile Island was cause by crew error not following document procedures not design errors .Please tree huggers get over your selfs and Your FUD. The US navy has had Zero casualities over fifty years of nuke boats and most of they reactors are run by well trained kids with AA degrees. Please Stop the nuke power fud , it just highlights the true weakness of your positions and how your more anti human and anti progress than conservationist , Please get over your homosapien gulity .

[martin1212]

Stan Meyer's water fuel cell was a fraud. It is a perpetual energy system, which violated the basic laws of themodynamics.

[adfrex]

It would seem to me that centralising CO production at a few power plants offers an unparalleled opportunity to improve or replace these powerstations. Cant see the down side. and remember 1% of a big number is still a pretty big number

[K A Cheah]

Who can guarantee that human errors will not recur???

If Stanley Meyer is a fraud then why the USA Patent Office approved his 40 plus Patents are you so naive to insult the Patent Office of USA???

[martin1212]

I think you are the naive one if you think that a patent proves anything. There are all kinds of worthless patents out there, just browse through them sometime.

Another thing you appear not to be aware of - patents expire. In fact Meyer's patents from 1990 have already expired now. So there is no need to buy them out from his family, anyone can just print out the patent in full and implement it themselves without paying anything to anybody for rights. If the ideas he described really worked don't you think somebody would have done it by now?

[kiroualekou]

can not belive a regulation can not make people charge at home at different hours, for example with a timer switch for overnight charging.
eg of solution:
zone1 charge between 1900-2400
zone2 charge between 2200-0300
rest zones charge between 0100-0600.
This is just an example, other hours and ways are possible to me to avoid power outback because
of overloads at same time.

[K A Cheah]

Patents in USA most likely to expire only after 20 years and some of Stanley Meyers inventions' Patent Approval were approved after 1990 which might not have expired and there were people already tested his many patents positively as I have seen them in Google and/or Youtube like those verifications which were proven & done by Ravi and others if you might check up. Apart from Stanley Meyer there were Inventors like Yull Brown, Denny Klein who have approved patents & Filipino Daniel Dingel and these are successful Inventors of Hydroxy Fuel Generators for running Cars on Water similar to Stanley Meyers so please check your facts before being so naive in calling successful Inventors a fraud unless you have an Agenda to support Fossil Oil Producers inoder to suppressed successful and viable Inventions

[martin1212]

Cheah - please firstly try to reply to the original post and not to other peoples posts - it makes it very hard to follow the thread.

Secondly I know a lot about patents - I deal with them a great deal. Patents typically last 17 years. All the patents by Meyer that I checked out had therefore already expired. If you know of one that has not, please post it.

Secondly, you are not claiming videos on YouTube as evidence? Again, it is you who are being naive. I have no agenda here, but as a scientist I feel obliged to point out fraud when I see it, and Meyer's work is a fraud for the simple reason that it violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

[Jimww]

Electricity is not made in batery's its made in power stations, If your power station is fueled by Uranium, CO2 emisions will be small if its fueled by Coal they will be large. This, seriously, is not rocket science, its the science of the completely obvious.

[bob1xxxx]

Most "green tech" blog post amount to loads of FUD and most of the replies are FUD to the tenth power. First of all it much much easier to control the pollution emissions from a central electric power plant than it is to keep track of the emission control devices in millions of cars. Second the massive amount of tree hugger FUD on nuclear energy is in saine . The US navy has been running Nuke boat for over 50 years with conservatively design reactors and manned by well trained sailors with with ZERO casualties, same with military/ civilian nuke power programs in Great Brittan, Germany, France and elsewhere operated successfully also with zero casualties . Also fuel rods can be recycled and lot of weapon grade warhead could be recycled into fuel rods to boot with almost Zero CO and Co2 . But the tree huggers/ Al Znores armies of morons never want to cloud the issue with the facts . Also the futures power need are not going to met with one magic energy bullet, it going to take many different approaches to meet the worlds future engery need , but Fud llike this blog post is just dumb and unhelpful at best.

[K A Cheah]

Who can guarantee that human errors will not recur???

[Jim1900]

The German Greens omit the only practical low-carbon solution (nuclear power plants) and then act surprised that producing more energy from coal does not reduce CO2. Was Einstein really German?

[Jim1900]

The German Greens omit the only practical low-carbon solution (nuclear power plants) and then act surprised that producing more energy from coal does not reduce CO2. Was Einstein really German?

[bob1xxxx]

LOL I agree !!!!!!

[dwimmer38]

Green schmeen. I could give a rat's about carbon, since it's not a pollutant. I think 99% of the country agrees, the only good reason to buy an electric car is to screw over the arabs and let them eat their oil. We have plenty of coal to generate the electric we need.

[Jim1900]

No, only 1% of the U.S. population still thinks that global warming is not a problem. And they are the ones who will be moving to caves anyway.

[phillyphil68]

I have to agree with telemajik - what were they expecting to find when then take such a small fraction of the vehicles off the road, and not only that but only the cars that are driving short distances, and say we only got a small reduction. DUH! This is another example of very poor reporting on environmental issues that unfortunately include MATH and are very difficult to comprehend for journalism majors. The overall focus of the article should have been on the life cycle analysis of electric cars vs. gas-powered cars. Extraction of petroleum and carbon emissions and their impacts vs. something like increased extraction of lithium (for batteries) and increased electricity consumption and its associated impacts (new infrastructure, etc.). Unfortunately, this was not the case.

[thundermustard]

First of all, why does the cover have a picture of a Prius? That is not an electric car.
Even if emissions were exactly the same, the article misses the point.
Why import oil from a dangerous region when you can produce your electricity with domestic supplies.
We can then start to work on making that cleaner. Nuclear, solar, wind and hydro.

[ZeroGasoline]

This article certainly has some merit. If you run your electric car on electricity that is 100% generated from burning coal, electric cars are only marginally less co2 emitting than a gasoline engine (slightly better due to the efficiency of the electric motor).

However, what electric cars do is open up the doors to start powering our cars on other sources of electricity. The least desirable would probably be Nuclear - it has it's drawbacks of course, but it has it's benefits also. Aside from that, you can begin to power your cars by using solar, wind and/or hydro power. This is where the power of electric cars is: they are powered by electricity, and there are many different ways you can generate that electricity without emitting co2 in the process. With a gasoline engine, you have absolutely no options of moving the vehicle without burning some sort of fuel.

So yes, electric cars are not going to make a huge dent in global co2 emissions until we start to get some cleaner power sources. There is a finite amount of fossil fuels in the earth - the more we extract from the earth, the less there will be, the more expensive it will become. As we progress through our supply of carbon fuels there will become a breaking point where clean energy sources are no longer cost prohibitive - and when it comes down to it, that's what it'll take to get more co2 free power. When this happens, electrically powered vehicles will become the standard.

One more benefit to electric cars is the ability of anyone to create their own fuel for their vehicle. I've converted a car to electric myself (http://www.zerogasoline.com) and intend on installing a small solar array with a small wind turbine to supplement the PV cells. When this happens, my monthly fuel costs will become 0 and my monthly co2 emissions from transportation will become 0 as well.

In comparison, most people don't have the ability to create their own gasoline.

[maeckg]

This study may not be complete or even flawed, but it is a reminder that we need to keep checking what is happening and look at the whole system. But to dismiss electric vehicles completely because they do not quickly solve the CO2 issue, especially when only implemented in very limited way, is just a tired cope out. Why bother? Keep our addiction to fossil fuels.

We can compare move to EVs with the move lighting by oil lamps, candles and gas to electricity. Distribution and usage became much brighter, cleaner and more efficient. A new infrastructure needed to be built, but the advantages were overwhelming except in remote areas. Most of the grime and pollution was not widespread as before, thus at point of use, but at the more efficient point of generation. We already have the extensive electric grid; we now need to add a new class of devices, which is the EV. This can be done incrementally by the people who can use them.
EVs save nearly 100% of oil use compared to gasoine / diesel cars so do make a difference where it counts. Generating clean electricity is a whole issue in itself, but not a reason to dismiss the EV. The technology is there, but we will see if the political will is also there.
To respond to some comments: Germans have been at the forefront of wind and even solar energy research and production in the last couple of decades especially. The country does not have resources such as oil, uranium or natural gas like we in US. Coal has been staple of power generation because it is what they have. But Germans have realized the downsides of coal, amoung which are the huge machines digging up whole villiages so they can get to the soft coal.
There is a long history of doubt about nuclear power. Germany is a little larger than Arizona in area, but has population of 85 million. Not much remote area left for a nuclear power plant. I lived in Germany when Chernobyl happened; we were directly affected. No more picking vegetables or fruits for a while. Germans understand the engineering involved and the question of what to do with the waste. Nuclear power plants are not as easy of a sale in Germany. Clean if you ignore the radiation. Wind, solar and other renewable energy sources offer long term solutions without the downsides. But Germany might just have to solve the clean coal conundrum because of their geography and climate. I could then sell the solution to US and China.

By the way, EVs are, as some comments have shown, more efficient as well as cleaner and cheaper to run. Sone things the leasers of the EV, that GM discontinued, noticed is cost savings of tuneups, oil changes, air filters etc. Together with the savings on fuel, ability to generate own clean power and efficiency, EVs pay back a lot of their extra cost. It may be years before they are comparable to gasoline cars, but oil production costs are only going up.
EVs and their cousin, the hybrids are part of the solution. It will not stop the spike of CO2, but are a beginning just like the redesign of the grid, electrical devices and insulation.
At least it is more productive than calling something communist or socialist because you do not understand it.

[RKRKAR]

We are feeding the horse from the wrong end. Typical situation when Congress gets involved. Get government out of the way or the American car companies are going to be dead. DEAD. The Environmentalists ruin everything they touch, and so do the unions. God love those Unions, & Democrats..

[nomadicgoogler]

I don't think this report factors into account how oil is actually obtained and what happens when oil transport accidents happen. think of the environmental impact of oil spills and deep sea drilling. With less oil being transported around the world you would get less accidents. looking at only carbon emission in isolation to the rest of the benefits is not looking at the whole picture.

[craig.knapp1]

03 1055MAY2009

To all the Green Weenies out there who believe that owning an electric car is helping the environment and making us energy independent.

Check the statistics from the Department of Energy's web-site, as of 2007 only 27 percent of the electricity in the U.S. comes from renewable energy. California's power grid is already near maximum capacity, how do you think you are going to re-charge all these electric cars on a national power grid that has not added a nuclear plant in the last 20 years?

Personally, I would be willing to pay $10 per gallon at the pump for gas produced entirely in the U.S. as it would create jobs here and enhance our national security, but the Green Weenies do not want us drilling anywhere for the abundant resources we have in the U.S.

Unfortunately, the oil companies will never abandon oil as they have too much invested in the infrastructure of distributing it, think super-tankers and a the nation wide underground pipe distribution system.

This is why we need to enact the Knapp Initiative. Just like the Moon Shot of the 1960s, government must set a goal of making it illegal to sell vehicles in the U.S. that do not run on renewable energy at the end of 10 years. Government would then provide seed money to universities, think tanks, and industry to come up with a new energy solution including storage and distribution of the new fuel. We would then rovide funds to assist manufacturers convert to the new technology and move forward. I do not know what the new energy source would be, nuclear, plasma, hydrogen, but smart people out there have the answer. We must skip the electric car to avoid having to support two legacy fuel systems (petroleum and electric) and move directly to a final energy solution. If the best alternative is the electric car then it would become mandatory that each State build at least one nuclear power plant to increase electrical output and avoid the "not in my back yard" scenario. If the electric car is chosen and States refuse to build nuclear power plants, those states would loose all federal funding of all manner in until they comply.

I do not like big government, but sometimes we have to see the bigger picture. We are still reaping the benefits of the money invested in the Moon Shot program some 40 years later. I believe as we leave the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution behind us and embrace the Technology and Energy Management Revolution we will move to the future economy. Some businesses will not survive, try to find a horse carriage manufacturer these days.

Craig Knapp
[e-mail]

[Cobralord]

Yeah, like has been mentioned, nuclear power is the best way to provide cheap energy. And yes you can recycle nuclear fuel. The Europeans and Japanese have been doing it for years. We have to get beyond the fear mongering from the luddite envirowackos who think everything will be just peachy once we "get back to nature" and kill off most of the human population. Yes these guys are really sick.

We also need to build up our electrical infrastructure. Its already at bursting capacity (remember all those blackouts?), and unless we had more transmission lines and more power plants, none of this is going to happen. Here solar and wind can play a real supplemental role. We will never get enough energy for all our needs from solar and wind. Not now, not in ten years. However we can get enough energy from solar and wind to help during peak summer months. So instead of cranking up an expensive gas-turbine during hot summer days, we can get extra energy from solar and wind batteries.
And can we please please stop with this Carbon is a poison crap? Water is a bigger greenhouse gas than carbon. You want to ban that too? The amount of ignorance masquerading as science today is staggering.

[martin1212]

Water is a feedback contributor, not a forcing contributor. It stays in the atmosphere for a very short time (a few days) and its amount is driven by other factors. Search around a bit for links on "water vapor feedback".

So I guess I agree with your last sentence completely, and would say it describes your post rather well.

[TogetherinParis]

Big batteries will not be necessary for electric vehicles. Autos can be charged en route on the road. Electricity is already distributed along roads for the most part anyway. Laying mains in the roads will not be difficult. Without big batteries, they won't all be charged simultaneously, the study's assumption of absolutely the worst case scenarios is why it hasn't been translated. Nobody wants to read junk science/accounting anyway.

[Hernys]

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but this study cannot be serious.
They basically say "carbon savings couls be minimal, in the order of 1%, but if electricity came from non renewable sources they could even be worse". This simply cannot be true. If the cars are charged from electricity generated by renewable sources the carbon reductions would be of 100%. Period. No massively used renewable source has any carbon emissions at generation, transmission or consumption. So the whole thing is a lie, as 1% is significantly different from 100%.
It is true that if electricity came from non renewables the savings would be reduced but even in the worst case emissions at generation would be identical for the same unit of energy than in a petrol powered car, and well to wheel efficiency of a pure electric is at above 75% whereas for a petrol based car is 25% at best, and closer to 15% in the average car under normal conditions. That, again, is a very significant difference.
So I cannot think that this study is serious. It looks more like something pushed by the petrol industry. And even if it comes supposedly from a "green" group I would be very suspicious at their motives. Maybe they think that with some additional "funding" they can save some forests? I don't know, but they are definitely off the mark by a large margin.

[bob1xxxx]

Please stop with this pie in the sky renewable energy non sense. Neither wind , solar, bio fuels (which tax the world resource worse than fossil fuel and cause the prices of food stuffs to sky rocket killing the poor oh wait they have to cut down millions of acres of co2 eating trees plant bio fuel corn ,soy etc.....love those tree huggers LOL ). Please stop with this bs. Right now we have the tech to make almost every class of gas powered car get more 10 mpg (not talk bs SMART care solutions, two spark plug per cylinder, turbo charging, better piston design, etc..) . Nuke energy (hell with all the weapons grade material US has stored in texas we got 10 years of co2 free , mining free potential fuel rods there.) No, all the tree hugger, homosapian guilt ridden fools want to do is to continue to blather on perfect pie in the sky solutions, when real PRATICAL solutions are already with in are grasp but are reject because they dont meet moronic standard of "renewalable perfection" is very very maddening .

[normrhett]

I found what looked like an authoritative site that showed coal fired power as being 25-30% efficient, which sounds reasonable. I know from many sources that EVs are about 70% efficient at converting electricity to power at the wheels. Overall that's about 18-20% efficiency. Another web site had gasoline cars being ~15% efficient well-to-wheels, so, with the least desirable energy source, EVs are more efficient and produce no pollutants at the point of use. As more renewable sources come online, EVs just get cleaner. Gas powered cars wear out and get dirtier. Having a grid-tied PV system that offsets all of our usage, it's fair to say I drive 55 mi./day with zero emissions.
The concern about EVs all recharging during peak demand is easily addressed by tiered rates. My time-of-use electricity costs 31 cents/kWh during the day or 5 cents midnight-7AM.
There will continue to be a need for the high energy density of gasoline, but most drivers' daily commute will be easily covered by even plug-in hybrids. The least range I've seen for the pure EVs to appear in 2010 is 100 miles. The argument that people don't want EVs could only be promoted by those who haven't driven one.