On the day the EPA declares CO2 a “dangerous pollutant” we have the from Rasmussen Reports
Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming
is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.
Forty-eight percent (48%) of all likely voters attribute climate change to long-term planetary trends, while seven percent (7%) blame some other reason. Eleven percent (11%) aren’t sure.
These numbers reflect a reversal from a year ago when 47% blamed human activity while 34% said long-term planetary trends.
Most Democrats (51%) still say humans are to blame for global warming, the position taken by former Vice President Al Gore and other climate change activists. But 66% of Republicans and 47% of adults not affiliated with either party disagree.
Sixty-two percent (62%) of all Americans believe global warming is at least a somewhat serious problem, with 33% who say it’s Very Serious. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it’s a not a serious problem. The overall numbers have remained largely the same for several months, but the number who say Very Serious has gone down.
Forty-eight percent (48%) of Democrats say global warming is a Very Serious problem, compared to 19% of Republicans and 25% of unaffiliateds.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? Sign up now. If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls.) Rasmussen Reports updates also available on Twitter.
President Obama has made global warming a priority for his administration. Half (49%) of Americans think the president believes climate change is caused primarily by human activity. This is the first time that belief has fallen below 50% since the president took office. Just 19% say Obama attributes global warming to long-term planetary trends.
Forty-eight percent (48%) rate the president good or excellent on energy issues. Thirty-two percent (32%) give him poor grades in this area.
Sixty-three percent (63%) of adults now say finding new sources of energy is more important that reducing the amount of energy Americans currently consume. However, 29% say energy conservation is the priority.
A growing number of Americans (58%) say the United States needs to build more nuclear plants. This is up five points from last month and the highest finding so far this year. Twenty-five percent (25%) oppose the building of nuclear plants.
While the economy remains the top issue for most Americans, 40% believe there is a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Thirty-one percent 31% see no such conflict, while 29% are not sure.
Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free)… let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.
See survey questions and toplines. Crosstabs are available to Premium Members only.
===========================
Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
The Rasmussen Reports Election Edge™ Premium Service offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage available anywhere.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Mike McMilan (21:29:04) :
What are you defining as your energy available? I’m thinking E=MC^2 and the difference in weight between the original and final product. Pretty sure we are only getting a small fraction of that (well, not that sure actually, just a suspicion).
But or course it doesn’t matter, and that’s my point. Imagine we had an energy source that was easy to use, high-energy density, safe, abundant, but was only 1% efficient (we could only extract 1% of the available energy). Would we say “oh we can’t use that … not efficient”? LOL, of course not.
Ian Schumacher (17:58:17) : By the way, did you forgot transmission power lines in your calculation?
Also don’t forget that the step down transformers locally have losses as does the charger (5-10%) and the charge / discharge cycle of batteries (while variable) can cost you another 10% to 20% then you have the motor losses (about 5%+) AND the motor controller losses and …
Oh, and coal is largely C while gasoline is largely H2C so you get more CO2 per unit of coal energy… it is CO2 you care about, not thermal efficiency after all…
Also, the ICE efficiency figure used is from about 1960 … times have changed.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine
Power and fuel economy
The MAN S80ME-C7 low speed diesel engines use 155 gram fuel per kWh for an overall energy conversion efficiency of 54.4%, which is the highest conversion of fuel into power by any internal or external combustion engine.[9] Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline (petrol) engines of the same power, resulting in lower fuel consumption. A common margin is 40% more miles per gallon for an efficient turbodiesel.
And now you know why I drive a Diesel as does my spouse…
So you see, you already start out behind the Diesel at the time of turning the shaft to the generator, then you take:
generator losses, transformer losses, high volt transmission losses, transformer losses – capacitance losses in phase adjusting capacitors, low voltage transmission losses, battery charger losses (charger makes heat), battery charging losses (battery itself does not have perfect electricity to chemical energy conversion), battery standby leakage losses, battery chemical to electric conversion losses (not all the charge get turned from chemical back to electrical…), motor controller losses, electric motor losses.
Then and only then do you have shaft power to turn the wheels…
The Diesel will always beat the e-car for efficiency. By a large margin.
I wanted to see if you people were awake; I could also ask you about the full gasoline gain/loss equation: feedstock pumping, transportation, refining and then wholesale/retail transportation, with the ‘losses’ due to cracking/distillation, reformulation operations followed by pumping through a pipeline and retail truck delivery of the final ‘gasoline’ product* to consumer/retail sales points.
(* Or diesel; also bear in mind the continued need of ‘motor oils’ for use in ICEs, hybrid engines)
For what would seem to be the full answer in the difference between EV and gas ICE energy consumption, see the Well to Wheels ‘system budget’ chart/table above your 21:29:04 post.
.
.
.
“Only 34% of USA Voters Now Blame Humans for Global Warming”
I attribute this trend to positive feedback resulting directly from WattsUpWithThat!
Nobody beats the, ah, er, um, our esteemed host.
_Jim (21:22:46) :
So where are the electric cars? Are those stupid capitalists getting everything wrong again … If only a group of experts ran the world … just think.
[wow, what a scary thought]
_Jim (21:50:53) :
“see the Well to Wheels ’system ”
This is just more ‘models’. Forget the models. When it comes to the most efficient allocation of resources … that’s what capitalism is for.
Exploration, drilling ops, crude extraction, crude transportation, crude pumping, filtering
Refining opertions: cracking, distilling, more pumping
Wholesale distribution: pumping, some trucking
Retail Distribution: Pumping but mostly trucking.
And most of that is going to require ‘feed’ from the electric grid to accomplish, or a reduction in feedstocks to self-sustain needed ‘heat’ for various operations.
Checkmate.
.
.
.
_Jim (21:22:46) : Relative to ICEs:
……………………………………………..1………2….
Vehicle:…….. HEVs PHEVs EVs HFCEV HFCEV
Total energy -29% -41% -46% -30% +33%
CO2………… -29% -40% -45% -43% + 38%
This is what I would call propaganda. First off, there is no definition of “ICE”. Would that be 1960 carb gasoline? 1990 fuel injected lean burn? 2009 common rail multi injection Diesel? Vastly different…
Then we have the HEV. OK, it is a gas or Diesel car with a regenerative electrical assist braking system. It’s still an ICE vehicle.
Then we have the EV. No statement of equivalence of kWh vs ICE (a common trick, to use different kWh sizes). No statement if this is “coal mine to wheels” (commonly these are quoted as wall socket to wheels – not very useful, as we’ve seen). And if electric via batteries more efficient than a PHEV, why not just always run your PHEV via wall charging? Numbers cooked… Etc.
The bottom line is that the present crop of lean burn fuel injected gasoline engines are barking at the heals of the Diesel, but the DIesel still beats everything else.
IFF you want to put a nuke, or hydro, or geothermal in your tank, a PHEV is a great idea. If you want to turn carbon or hydrocarbon into motion, the most efficient way to do it is a Diesel. That is why trains and trucks and ships are Diesel.
BTW, I’m all for nuclear powered electric trains or even solar powered PHEV, but not based on a false notion of ‘efficiency’ of batteries vs Diesel… My fantasy car would be a Diesel PHEV with multifuel capability – the current ‘new thing’ is a combined cycle engine with a spark and compression ignition that can run any combo of gasoline, Diesel, alchohol, etc. See:
http://www.flexdi.com/flexdi-solution-multi-fuel.asp
So forcing folks away from Diesel and toward coal powered e-cars will make much more CO2 and consume much more fuel. (And don’t kid yourself, electricity in America will come largely from coal for decades to come…) If you want to use less fuel and reduce CO2, promote Diesels.
_Jim (21:50:53) :
Mike McMilan (21:29:04) :
…_Jim did miss the power line loss, though.
I wanted to see if you people were awake;
Couldn’t be too awake, since I misspelled my own name.
.
Ian Schumacher (21:39:57) :
What are you defining as your energy available? I’m thinking E=MC^2 and the difference in weight between the original and final product. Pretty sure we are only getting a small fraction of that (well, not that sure actually, just a suspicion).
E=mc² it is.
The ‘m’ that gets ‘converted’ here is actually already energy, the binding energy that holds the heavy U235 nucleus together, kind of the deal where the whole weighs more than the parts. As to how many of the atoms actually get split, no guess, but the longer they stay in the reactor, the higher the percentage. After 18 months or so the reactions slow to a point where it’s economically better to refuel. (18 months of 100 Mw juice on one tankful, talk about good mileage) The atoms are still there and could be recovered through reprocessing, but Nobel Laureate Jimma Carter thought that other nations would follow our lead and stopped American reprocessing.
_Jim (21:50:53) : I could also ask you about the full gasoline gain/loss equation: feedstock pumping, transportation, refining and then wholesale/retail transportation, […]
Unless your generator runs on pixie dust, your fuel will have been mined, cleaned, processed, transported, etc etc. as well. Then there is all the fuel used in maintaining the electric grid et. al. We can play this game all day… but I’d rather not… tit for tat gets old rather quickly.
(Yes, someday we’ll have solar, wind, etc. in enough capacity to matter, but right now it’s in the weeds at about 3 Quads out of 97 Quads net primary energy consumption – coal is 52% of electric generation and will be large for decades to come. You don’t think your going to scare up 20 Quadrillion BTUs of replacement generating stock in less than a decade or two do you?…)
The bottom line is that the market has very efficiently sorted this out and liquid fuels won long ago due to their inherent strengths, one of them being superb energy density the other being high efficiency “well to wheels”.
(* Or diesel; also bear in mind the continued need of ‘motor oils’ for use in ICEs, hybrid engines)
And this again illustrates the silliness. As though 4 quarts of oil every 200 gallons of fuel amounted to anything (and it gets recycled anyway…). You’re just grasping at straws way too much…
Look, e-cars are great. Their wonderful. They let you use almost any fuel via somebody else’s motor. They can be charged from the grid all over. They are quiet and smell nice. They run darned near forever (modulo battery changes every few years). They let you move the smog out to near the Grand Canyon where the coal is burned. They just are not all that efficient “mine to wheels” when comparing equal performance vehicles unless you cook the books (which advocates love to do). I’d love to have one (as long as I can keep my Diesel too 😉
It’s just darned hard to beat roughly 50% efficiency from fuel that requires all of modest heating to create (i.e. boil / condense with heat recovery) though I don’t even have to do that to make bio-Diesel… and for gas fuels like natural gas they can just be fumigated in the air intake of a Diesel (yes I’ve done it, and CAT makes a stationary generator so equipped).
Oh, and 97 Quads is 103 or so exajoules for those enamored of metric…
Lance (10:01:29) :
I was listening to a BBC call in show, Have Your Say, the day before yesterday. The question being discussed was “Is the human race committing suicide by ignoring climate change?” I was disturbed that during the 45 minutes I listened not one caller or guest even questioned that catastrophic climate change was threatening the planet with imminent doom.
The featured guest was documentary film maker Franny Armstrong. She has apparently made a film appropriately named “The Age of Stupid”.
She is a loon.
Caller after caller waxed on apocalyptically about the “fact” that we, and the planet, faced certain doom if we didn’t adopt a neolithic lifestyle devoid of air travel, private automobiles and meat, among other “suicidal” carbon producing behaviors.
Are the producers of this BBC show screening callers or is their audience predisposed towards this nonsense?”
They not only screen their callers.
They use a database and invite people to call.
Sometimes the questions are prepared.
The BBC does not take any risks.
Ask David Bellamy
Just Want Truth… (17:10:53) :
DJ (14:57:24) :
Monckton did not lose in that court case in the UK
Just Want Truth,
Yes that is true, if a court case has to be represented to defend a skeptic/political view, Monckton is the man.
He can make his opponents believe they are stupid if they don’t agree with him.
He is sharp.
“Justin Sane (19:16:41) : nothing is done for the next year or two and cooling continues while CO2 continues to rise; ”
Co2 levels overall will go down with cooling. But that’s not any problem. The key is “manmade co2”. Al Gore talks only about manmade global warming—co2 produced by man. China and India aren’t going to slow down one iota in manmade co2 production increases. So manmade co2 levels will continue to go up. During this cooling (which some say will last 30 to 40 years) it must always be stressed that naturally occuring co2 was never pegged as the problem. It has always been manmade co2. They are even calling it a poison. This will be a trap for them—that temperatures go down continually while the manmade co2 level continually increases. They won’t have any wiggle room to change that because their whole platform is built on blaming man. Blaming man has been indelibly marked in people minds when they think of global warming, whether they are believers or doubters.
_Jim (22:03:39) : .Exploration, drilling ops, crude extraction, crude transportation, crude pumping, filtering […]
And most of that is going to require ‘feed’ from the electric grid to accomplish, or a reduction in feedstocks to self-sustain needed ‘heat’ for various operations.
You really are not very familiar with oil processing are you? Your presentation tells me you have heard the words but have a poor grasp of sizes and scale. Keeping product hot in a refinery is the least of the concerns. BTW, product volumes typically go up in refining, not down. From:
http://www.petrostrategies.org/Learning_Center/Refining.htm
This process breaks or cracks long chain hydrocarbons into smaller molecules in the naphtha and distillate boiling range to increase gasoline and diesel production. This process will yield 50-60% gasoline, 20-30% distillate and 30% butanes and lighter. If you do the math you will see that the volume of products is greater than the volume of the feed. This is because the long chain hydrocarbons are broken into smaller ones.
The bulk of all oil comes in via tanker, the most efficient transport on the planet, it’s refined with great care for efficiency and placed largely into pipelines for transport cross country (the second most efficient transport). The energy involved in transporting the fuel is trivial in the energy balance.
Checkmate.
Hardly. Look, this isn’t a game and I’m not interested in the petty stuff. I’m interested in truth and facts. Look at the energy density being moved in this system. That’s very hard to do in electric wires and you get lots of line and transformer losses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Offshore_Oil_Port
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline
The efficiency with which truly astounding quantities of energy are moved and stored is amazing. More efficient than train loads of coal (though they are efficient) and more efficient than coal slurry pipelines.
Liquids in pipes are easier and more efficient to move than solids in trains. Electrical transmission has lots of losses and you get no storage.
Batteries are very lossy systems in the charge / discharge cycle.
That’s just the truth.
For an existence proof, see Sasol the South African Synthetic Oil company.
In South Africa, they convert coal to Diesel. Much more energy intensive than refining oil. They could just as well make that coal into electricity and run electric cars. They don’t. It works better and more efficiently to run the coal to liquids and put liquid fuels in cars. They would be using the same energy input in either case, and the same folks would make money from it.
Look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery
Notice that just about every battery type is 10% or more loss in the charge discharge cycle (and 5 to 10% / month self discharge rate). The exceptions are the alkaline (that doesn’t deep discharge well so is unsuited to cars) the li-ion (that the chart says is 98.9% but the link says is 90% efficient in the charge cycle and I think the link is the right number) and the li-poly (that is 98.9%) but is presently a relatively new and expensive technology (though it has the most promise).
Now look at your typical Ni-Cd or NiMH. They are abysmal. Look at the lead/acid it’s not good either…
BTW, Lithium is not very abundant and is largely mined by two companies. You will not be increasing production enough to put it in a few hundred million electric cars…
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
“Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995”
Half the fuel goes up in smoke at the generator. About the same as in a decent Diesel. Call it a draw. So now compare the transport sides (and I’ll even ignore the coal shipping costs…). Grid losses 7.2% and add in the 5% to 10% loss in the charger itself and we’re headed for 15% or more just in the charge / discharge and transmission. Take another 10% off for the motor controller and motor. So you’re out about 1/4 of the power that was delivered to grid. Do you really think 1/4 of the oil ‘goes away’ between oil well and gas station? Due to pumping? (Remember, we got more out of the refinery than went in…)
But wait, there’s more… Remember those self discharge losses? Unless you leave your car discharged all the time, you get to take those too. So that’s another 10% to 20% per month. Hope you drive a lot each day ’cause leaving that thing parked is gonna get expensive…
E.M.Smith (23:16:32) :
_Jim (21:50:53) : I could also ask you about the full gasoline gain/loss equation: feedstock pumping, transportation, refining and then wholesale/retail transportation, […]
Unless your generator runs on pixie dust, your fuel will have been mined, cleaned, processed, transported, etc etc. as well. Then there is all the fuel used in maintaining the electric grid et. al. We can play this game all day… but I’d rather not… tit for tat gets old rather quickly.
(Yes, someday we’ll have solar, wind, etc. in enough capacity to matter, but right now it’s in the weeds at about 3 Quads out of 97 Quads net primary energy consumption – coal is 52% of electric generation and will be large for decades to come. You don’t think your going to scare up 20 Quadrillion BTUs of replacement generating stock in less than a decade or two do you?…)
The bottom line is that the market has very efficiently sorted this out and liquid fuels won long ago due to their inherent strengths, one of them being superb energy density the other being high efficiency “well to wheels”.
(* Or diesel; also bear in mind the continued need of ‘motor oils’ for use in ICEs, hybrid engines)
And this again illustrates the silliness. As though 4 quarts of oil every 200 gallons of fuel amounted to anything (and it gets recycled anyway…). You’re just grasping at straws way too much…
Look, e-cars are great. Their wonderful. They let you use almost any fuel via somebody else’s motor. They can be charged from the grid all over. They are quiet and smell nice. They run darned near forever (modulo battery changes every few years). They let you move the smog out to near the Grand Canyon where the coal is burned. They just are not all that efficient “mine to wheels” when comparing equal performance vehicles unless you cook the books (which advocates love to do). I’d love to have one (as long as I can keep my Diesel too 😉
It’s just darned hard to beat roughly 50% efficiency from fuel that requires all of modest heating to create (i.e. boil / condense with heat recovery) though I don’t even have to do that to make bio-Diesel… and for gas fuels like natural gas they can just be fumigated in the air intake of a Diesel (yes I’ve done it, and CAT makes a stationary generator so equipped)”.
E.M. Smith,
I agree with your choice for diesel engines.
They still have a great future.
I would also consider the following alternative:
Conversion of a gasoline car to burn LPG (Propane).
This fuel is cheap, clean and safe.
I have driven over 3 million kilometers with big Volvo’s with an LPG tank in the floor
(no loss of boot space).
I drove 500.000 km with these cars before I returned them to the car dealer for a new one. I never encountered any problems. Because LPG burns very clean you can skip every other engine oil change. I changed oil every 40.000 km.
With a full fuel tank (gasoline and a full LPG tank) I doubled the radius.
A gasoline engine runs very smooth on LPG, less noise and very clean exhaust emissions.
In some countries it is allowed to put a huge 3000 liter tank in your garden so you can fuel up your car at home and use the gas for heating your house.
I will make an LPG conversion on a Hummer H2 (they come very cheap now).
I will put two 120 liter tanks in the floor and keep the gasoline tank so the car will be dual fuel.
The latest technology is LPi (produced by a company named Vialle.
This system injects the liquid LPG into the cylinder (old system injected vaporized LPG) With the new system there is no difference in engine performance driving on gasoline or LPG.
Most US model cars are very well suited for a conversion, especially the 8 cylinder engines. I think the price of LPG/propane fuel in the US will be under 50% of the price of gasoline. For the price difference between a diesel and a gasoline car you can perform the conversion but you can also do the conversion yourself.
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/transportation/afvs/lpg_propane.html
_Jim (22:03:39) : .Exploration, drilling ops, crude extraction, crude transportation, crude pumping, filtering […]
And most of that is going to require ‘feed’ from the electric grid to accomplish, or a reduction in feedstocks to self-sustain needed ‘heat’ for various operations.
You really are not very familiar with oil processing are you? Your presentation tells me you have heard the words but have a poor grasp of sizes and scale. Keeping product hot in a refinery is the least of the concerns. BTW, product volumes typically go up in refining, not down. From:
http://www.petrostrategies.org/Learning_Center/Refining.htm
This process breaks or cracks long chain hydrocarbons into smaller molecules in the naphtha and distillate boiling range to increase gasoline and diesel production. This process will yield 50-60% gasoline, 20-30% distillate and 30% butanes and lighter. If you do the math you will see that the volume of products is greater than the volume of the feed. This is because the long chain hydrocarbons are broken into smaller ones.
The bulk of all oil comes in via tanker, the most efficient transport on the planet, it’s refined with great care for efficiency and placed largely into pipelines for transport cross country (the second most efficient transport). The energy involved in transporting the fuel is trivial in the energy balance.
Checkmate.
Hardly. Look, this isn’t a game and I’m not interested in the petty stuff. I’m interested in truth and facts. Look at the energy density being moved in this system. That’s very hard to do in electric wires and you get lots of line and transformer losses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Offshore_Oil_Port
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline
The efficiency with which truly astounding quantities of energy are moved and stored is amazing. More efficient than train loads of coal (though they are efficient) and more efficient than coal slurry pipelines.
Liquids in pipes are easier and more efficient to move than solids in trains. Electrical transmission has lots of losses and you get no storage.
Batteries are very lossy systems in the charge / discharge cycle.
That’s just the truth.
For an existence proof, see Sasol the South African Synthetic Oil company.
In South Africa, they convert coal to Diesel. Much more energy intensive than refining oil. They could just as well make that coal into electricity and run electric cars. They don’t. It works better and more efficiently to run the coal to liquids and put liquid fuels in cars. They would be using the same energy input in either case, and the same folks would make money from it.
Look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery
Notice that just about every battery type is 10% or more loss in the charge discharge cycle (and 5 to 10% / month self discharge rate). The exceptions are the alkaline (that doesn’t deep discharge well so is unsuited to cars) the li-ion (that the chart says is 98.9% but the link says is 90% efficient in the charge cycle and I think the link is the right number) and the li-poly (that is 98.9%) but is presently a relatively new and expensive technology (though it has the most promise).
Now look at your typical Ni-Cd or NiMH. They are abysmal. Look at the lead/acid it’s not good either…
BTW, Lithium is not very abundant and is largely mined by two companies. You will not be increasing production enough to put it in a few hundred million electric cars…
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
“Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995”
Half the fuel goes up in smoke at the generator. About the same as in a decent Diesel. Call it a draw. So now compare the transport sides (and I’ll even ignore the coal shipping costs…). Grid losses 7.2% and add in the 5% to 10% loss in the charger itself and we’re headed for 15% or more just in the charge / discharge and transmission. Take another 10% off for the motor controller and motor. So you’re out about 1/4 of the power that was delivered to grid. Do you really think 1/4 of the oil ‘goes away’ between oil well and gas station? Due to pumping? (Remember, we got more out of the refinery than went in…)
But wait, there’s more… Remember those self discharge losses? Unless you leave your car discharged all the time, you get to take those too. So that’s another 10% to 20% per month. Hope you drive a lot each day ’cause leaving that thing parked is gonna get expensive…
Adolfo Giurfa (18:24:07) :
“Can´t believe that the america of so many great scientists, artists and inventors who gave so much to the welfare of humanity, is now trying to sell to the world the silly “software” of global warming and/or climate change and fool´s hardware as windmill generators. It is pitifully preposterous”.
Adolfo,
The world leaders, under the wise leadership of the UN-IPCC are dancing the dance to determine who kills it’s economy first.
Now the world’s AGW followers have been waiting for Obama and his climate mafia for a long time now we all hope the US efforts will fail under a strong opposition.
Every day that passes is in our advantage since the current cooling and the poles work for us. If the process in the US is derailed the world wide AGW house of cards will collapse.
If that is the case Copenhagen 2009 will be dead and AGW will be over.
I trust the citizens of the USA to overcome this debacle.
Don Shaw (19:40:44) :
Jim commment re
R Stevenson (10:18:07) :
Political leaders and their scientific advisors ( if they have any) have a poor grasp of technology. A change to electric cars would increase CO2 emissions because of the lower fuel to power efficiency of power plants compared with modern internal combustion engines
“THAT’S off the reservation.
Base load thermal (coal) plant – about 43 to 47% efficient, then about 6% for auxilary equipment on-site, resulting in more like 37 to 41%
Compared to the overall efficiency of an automotive gas engine – about 20 percent (only about 20 percent of the thermal-energy content of the gasoline is converted into mechanical work.)”
Jim, as an engineer, I am disturbed that the so called energy “experts” throw around so many diffferent numbers for virtually any energy alternative they are advocating. The electric car is no exception.
This advocacy tells me that there are too many out there that are willing to stretch the facts for any energy alternative they are pushing, and they have the “ability” to cherry pick data or distort the facts to make a point. Professionalism seems to be lacking in some of the scientific and engineering community especially in the universities. I have come to trust only the market rather than the “proponents” of a specific technology.
Some thoughts:
Your sources claim that the efficiency of a gasoline auto is 20 where as most sources seem to quote at least 25% or higher especially for the diesel engine. This is not my field of expertise so I can’t have a strong opinion on the various claims given the wide range of claims, except the 20% seems low.
The comment by R Stevenson also mentions CO2 emissions. I don’t think anyone would argue that for a given BTU of energy produced coal emitts much more CO2 than gasoline, and diesel produces less CO2 than coal but more than gasoline. If you are honestly chasing CO2, the above difference needs to be taken into account.
I checked your links and they did not mention transmission losses for electric power, was that included?
Also we all know that battery technology is not too effective dispite the years and years of research and dollars expended by the government and private industry. Electric vehicle range is horrible and to talk about H2 fuel cells is ignoring the fact that virtually all the worldwide hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels.
Finally most of us don’t waste all that heat energy from a gasoline engine for a good portion of the year, we use it to heat our cars, etc. so it is not wasted. Was heating an electric vehicle in winter included in your efficiencies? Was the enormous cost and carbon foot print of enlarging our electric power grid included?
Remember California mandated a percentage electric vehicles a while back and dropped the idea when electricity supply became short and more expensive. The electric vehicle was a failure then, what is different now.
As I mentioned above, this is not my area of engineering expertise so I do’t know whose “numbers” to believe, but I am skeptical of all the “hype” since the thermodynamic fundamentals don’t always add up . I can only believe the free market, not government mandates which distort the market. Did you debit the electric vehicle costs to cover the road tax courrently paid by the liquid fuels? Just look at the folly of the ethanol mandates if you want to see how the government does the wrong thing again and again”.
Yes Don, Less Government and power to the market. That would be something.
If a technology and the related products is good and the price compatible it will be introduced. You know what they say about wine. A good wine does not need any…..
Now we are having State Health Insurance, State mandated Electric Eco Boxes. They will come in the color Pelosi Blue and Obama Green and Clinton Red. We have Green Jobs, Green banks and a Green industry that works together with our Government to meet the challenges of our times. The president offers his hand of piece to all the countries of the world…..
Hmmmm, Government Health Insurance, State Cars, where did I hear this before?
The first country in the world to introduce Government Health Insurance was Germany in the year 1937 and the man in power was…. Adolf Hitler.(Volksversicherungen)
He also came up with a car for the people. It was called a Volkswagen Käfer (Beetle).
And wait, he also introduced the “Volksarmee” (Civil Army). All sounds familiar.
He even developed a kind of a hybrid, a Zeppelin, lifted by hydrogen and propelled by diesel, this hybrid even crossed the Atlantic and burned at lake Hurst New York.
(That is how the Hydrogen hybrid technology was introduced in the USA)
He too had a close cooperation between the Government and big corporation
and he also offered peace with all the neighboring countries like Russia and even the USA.
But that all happened before the…….war! oeps!!!
And do you know what? In the economy we address a close cooperation between the industry and Government as fascism or corporatism
Read the details here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo85.html
You don’t think this all is a coincidence do you?
Mmmm!!! Can someone of you do me a favor?
Next time you see Obama, please check if he is growing a mustache!
EM Smith: and what would you think of using H2?
read this and weep at the state of US education
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
and this too is scary (UK)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/4410927/Poll-reveals-public-doubts-over-Charles-Darwins-theory-of-evolution.html
If the world was created 10,000 years ago where does that leave the info from all those Ice cores
That opinion poll reverse is dramatic, but it does fit in well with other opinion polls. There seems little doubt that people are becoming more sceptical. The question is, why? I doubt if many ordinary people have been looking at the science and asking awkward questions, as many people here, including myself, have. Almost without exception the media is completely biased and one-sided. In fact a year ago I had assumed that the vast majority of ordinary people believed in this nonsense. When I saw one of these opinion polls for the first time I almost fell off my chair!
.
About the only thing I can think of is this: that many people feel that the climate is actually getting colder, despite what the ‘scientists’ say. I live near the south coast of England and these are my impression of the last few years.
1. The last two summers were quite cold, so that I often put on a sweater and even had the central heating on.
2. We have had snow for the last five or six winters. I think snow was virtually unknown ten years ago.
3. This past winter has been unusually cold. In fact I’m dreading the next winter if it’s similar. There was even snow in October, the first time for 70 years. There was snow on the ground in London on the day Parliament debated the Climate Change Bill. Despite this I believed only one MP voted against it.
4. The last really hot weather was five or six years ago.
Of course these observations are not scientific and they have not been ‘adjusted’ by fiendishly complex statistical methods. But, at the end of the day, if it starts to get colder, people will notice. And maybe start thinking….
.
In today’s UK Observer there’s a neat example of how the term ‘climate change’ has taken over from ‘global warming’. The heading is: “Climate-change threat to rare black grouse’. The amusing thing is that the report blames a cooling climate, and not warming. I quote: “Consecutive cold, wet summers, the worst conditions in almost two decades, have set back recovery, with the numbers dropping from 1,200 to 850”.
It’s hardly surprising they’ve tended to drop the term ‘global warming’. After all, if we have much more of this global warming we’re going to freeze to death!
Chris
Anthony has (wisely) forbidden the discussion of evolution vs. creationism on this site, but note that these polls always skew their results by virtue of the questions they ask, and how they are framed.
Imagine if instead of using the word ‘believe’ they used the word ‘know’. I bet you’d find most Americans willing to say that they really don’t know the answers (to a wide variety of questions, including those asking about AGW, the ostensible topic of this thread), but they have ‘heard’ X, Y. or Z. That in itself may still reflect poorly on the quality of their education, but would give us a more honest picture.
The problem with American education (well, one of them) is that no critical thinking skills are taught.
/Mr Lynn
Mike Bryant (19:00:45) :
And as YOU well know each and every one of those climate scientists who
believe is a snip.
That’s a preemptive snip, I like it.
It would be one of the greatest coup’s of human political history if the plain old facts ever out polled a politicaly manufactured scenario to the extent of defeating It’s agenda.
The scientists on the non alarmist side are frustratingly ignorant of the art of selling snake oil and so It comes down to nature. Nature seems to be winning.