Save the world by electric car?

[old.Tohtori]

Heard some interesting calculations;

One nuclear plant produces the needed energy for 20.000 electric cars/year.
US has 250 million cars.
To change all those cars to electric cars and keep them running, you'd need...

Ready?

12.500 nuclear plants

That's just the basic cars, not calculating trucks, boats, airplanes etc.

One electric car uses about the same amount of energy a day(100km worth) as a fridge uses in a month.

I smell a bit of a problem with the electric car idea

 

[old.Tohtori]

Oh and before someone says it;

The space that it takes to replace nuclear plants with solar plants, would take 32.500.000 hectares of space

Sahara desert is about 85 million hectares if i calculated ti right, so, just about a third of sahara filled with mirrors to get the energy for the US cars

 

[Bugz]

Fusion power will be our answer.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Fusion power will be our answer.

Pretty much, current tech just ain't enough.

Those calculations are just for the US cars and JUST to make them run.

 

[Huntingtons]

from the perspective that they drive 100 kms a day?

however alot wont drive 100 kms a day

 

[Bugz]

And some will drive 500 km's a day Cuntingtons.

It's just standardizing for easier calculations albeit an estimate.

 

[TdC]

I wonder what happens when you let that logic loose on petrol/diesel? How long can you run a fridge on a liter of diesel?

I own a 1.4L diesel VW polo. It averages about 1 liter per 19 km, and I certainly don't drive like an old woman. It has 75bhp, and a tank that holds about 45L of fuel. Imo it's a pretty efficient car for my uses.

I think it would prolly beat an electric car right now, because of the extra energy needed to create the electrical part of the engine not returning itself in decent time, but I don't know this for sure.

 

[old.Tohtori]

TdC i think you could calculate that by calculating how big of a generator you need to run a fridge and then calculate how much petrol it uses.

...now that i think of it, have to calculate if it would be more efficient to run an electric car with a generator

 

[old.Tohtori]

To keep it on one thread of "save the world";

G20 convention peeps said that "we still need funds to stop global warming, even if there is a recession".

Ironic i think as soon people can't afford heating

 

[Bugz]

Funds won't help tbh in the sense of 'oh give a few quid to beating global warming.'

We need a situation where the whole world goes 'shit, we're in trouble, we're down to our little n millions of oil and coal,' and ploughs as much money and time as humanely possible into alternatives.

Then we'll see progress.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Funds won't help tbh in the sense of 'oh give a few quid to beating global warming.'

We need a situation where the whole world goes 'shit, we're in trouble, we're down to our little n millions of oil and coal,' and ploughs as much money and time as humanely possible into alternatives.

Then we'll see progress.

I know, if we could unite the world under one flag, we'd see some real progress, but while i agree with that scenario and know it would cause major advancements to humanity, universe and the dolphins, i also know it's simply impossible

 

[Gorbachioo]

Could you by any chance provide a link for that? I would really like to see it.

Fusion power: still a distant dream. If thats our only saviour then we're fucked ladies and gentlemen. I mean truly, royally fucked.

 

[TdC]

TdC i think you could calculate that by calculating how big of a generator you need to run a fridge and then calculate how much petrol it uses.

...now that i think of it, have to calculate if it would be more efficient to run an electric car with a generator

my fridge seems to need 0.65kw per day. my energy supplier sells me kw's at cost of about 13 eurocents all in, so it costs me about 31 euros a year to run my fridge. 31e = about 31L of diesel these days.

I found a generator which can run my fridge (and most of my house tbh) but I'm not really skilled in those things. Anyway, the gen runs for about 20hrs consuming 6.6 gallons of diesel. 1 US gallon ~= 3.8L, so 20h = (6.6*3.8) = 25L or 1.25L per hour or 30.1L per day or 10985L per year or 354 times as expensive to run my fridge off this generator than it is out of the mains.

now if I apply that to my car, I drive about 250km per week. my car runs 1:19 on the motorway which is where I mostly drive on average, so per week I consume about 13L of diesel or 684L per year. Now 75bhp is about 56KW (I know this isn't going to work out but I'm playing fast and loose heh) and I'm in the car for about 4 hours a week, meaning I use 56kw for 4 hours a week (ahaha well) or 11648kw per year which would cost 1514e from my energy supplier whereas the diesel costs me about 684e (here we see the flaw in my equation) but we still learn that if my car was a electric one it might cost me about 2.2 times as much money to run.

 

[Fafnir]

You can get twice the milage out of a normal engine if you get the right parts etc. Saw some guys fix a hummer and cut the fuel usage with 2/3. But it cost them quite alot to do it.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Could you by any chance provide a link for that? I would really like to see it.

Can't really provide one as it's just "neighborhood calculations". You know, pint-tific instead of sciientific

TdC that's rather funny. A fridge is better to run off a main, but a car is better to run off fuel.

Especially the part about how much petrol it would take

 

[TdC]

TdC that's rather funny. A fridge is better to run off a main, but a car is better to run off fuel.

ofc I pretend to run my car flat out in the sums, and you can do all kinds of clever technical things, like charge your batteries while braking on the engine and stuff, but if none of that happend, and I could magic powerful batteries out of thin air rather than having them made in a factory my car would be wildly inefficient. ahem.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Aye, true.

Then again, would have to also count the cost(and transport etec thingies) of a regular car and an electric car and see how much one has to use an electric car to make it "profit".

 

[Lamp]

What do you do when you cross a road?

Stop
Look
Listen

What can't you do with an electric car ?

A: Listen.

They're silent.
Step out from behind parked cars. Yes everyone does it. Blamo!

 

[Bugz]

What do you do when you cross a road?

Stop
Look
Listen

What can't you do with an electric car ?

A: Listen.

They're silent.
Step out from behind parked cars. Yes everyone does it. Blamo!

Just listen for the shrieks of pain from the poor sod infront of u that got mowed down.

That's a sign you shouldn't cross!

 

[Lamp]

lol

 

[leviathane]

See this is what pisses me off with the "green" electric car option. Where do all these fcking hippies think the energy is coming from? That's right kids coal/gas and nuclear power stations. So basically your removing the shit coming from cars and moving it to a fck load more at the power stations, basically not really helping the situation. Hydrogen cars are a step in the right direction though, but still have the problem of storage, and compressing it.

 

[kiliarien]

What gets me is the estimates don't seem to include if they're carrying stuff in the boot/trunk. And that new car doesn't seem to have one.

They've got 4,000 pre-orders on the west coast of the USA for them - proof alone that California ifs full of nutters and unrealistically thinking hippies.

What do you do when you cross a road?

Stop
Look
Listen

What can't you do with an electric car ?

A: Listen.

They're silent.
Step out from behind parked cars. Yes everyone does it. Blamo!

Sod that, the car looks so flimsy the car would come off worse. I'd like to see them here in the UK, lollipop ladies would piss themselves laughing and point to get children to laugh too.

 

[GReaper]

We need a situation where the whole world goes 'shit, we're in trouble, we're down to our little n millions of oil and coal,' and ploughs as much money and time as humanely possible into alternatives.

Then we'll see progress.

I think this is the only real way change is going to be made, unless some breakthrough occurs.

People will only change their wasteful habits if it costs them too much.

 

[kiliarien]

I think this is the only real way change is going to be made, unless some breakthrough occurs.

People will only change their wasteful habits if it costs them too much.

True - but again currently and unfortunately for the environment in many respects they keep finding non-renewables and keep finding new ways to extract - the lastest National Geographic has an article on the Canadian Bitumen industry. The US for one see it as 'plenty more where that came from'.

I blame these power hoggers sat in front of their PC's on forums tbh....

 

[Lamp]

The day Obama rides round in an electric car instead of the Beast will be the day I buy one

 

[Fuggz]

Does make you think when you read such statistics but really the uproar isn't about whether these cars consume power station resources but that the petrol car pollutes and also is using fossil fuel - of which there isn't an unlimited supply of. Who knows what scientists will think up to extract electrical energy from. Probably they will find a source of energy - probably found it already - that is inexhaustible. When that happens the electric car is the perfect vehicle for the masses.

Shit, now I not drinking much there sure seems an awful lot of god-awful sense coming out of me! Pass that sodding bottle quick am bloody fed up of it. Starting to sound like my respectable teacher sis!

 

[Hawkwind]

What do you do when you cross a road?

Stop
Look
Listen

What can't you do with an electric car ?

A: Listen.

They're silent.
Step out from behind parked cars. Yes everyone does it. Blamo!

Listen to the laughter of people further down the street as he/she passed them!

Seriously, you want to see how bad Electric and hybrid cars are for the enviroment, check out the web for a report on the Toyota Hybrid. The carbon footprint of making the vehicle more than surpassed any savings made during its projected life.

Just the fuel cells alone were a knightmare. Remember reading the batteries had a Chemical assembled in China made from raw/source material in Canada. Most of the rest of the car was similar story.

My neighbour who works for Toyota is currently driving a Lexus Hybrid and Dubai Taxi's have apparently asked for 500 Toyota Hybrid Camry's ASAP.

 

[Lollie]

electric cars are a waste of time tbh, soon as hydrogen fuel becomes world wide then a big chunk of co2 will be removed

 

[soze]

I dunno if it was made worse just for Boston Legal but on there they showed a Prius does more harm to the enviroment than a conventional (gas gussler) car. With the fact that the battery has done 3 trips of the world? before making it into the car and also its highly toxic when it comes time to dispose of it.

Hydrogen cars are the future aren't they like that Clarity? Would not think car makes would like them with only 1 moving part you will not make much services parts money

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

Average car owner drives about 15000 [km/yr].
An electric car is pretty economic, so will get better economy than the equivalent of 22 [km/l].
15000/22 = 680 [l]
So a car with the above annual run and the above economy will use 680 [l/yr]

Gas has an energycontent of about 35 [MJ/l.] *1

680*35 = 23800 [MJ/yr] = 23.8 [GJ/yr]
This makes the average car use 23.8 [GJ/yr]

1 Watt = 1 Joule per second.
There are 31.5 M seconds in a year.
23,800,000,000/31,557,600 = 0.75 [kJ/s]
So the average car averagely uses about 754W

The average nuclear power plant has a powercapacity of 1.9 [GW] *2

1,900,000,000/754 = 2.5 million cars per average nuclear powerplant.