Here is a story about how the green movement, and lack of information can make the masses think something that is simply not true.   This is a story different than what I usually write, but teaches a good lesson so read on.

What do you think about an electric car? Is it a dream that will save the world?  Well if you think that you have been deceived.  Here are the realities of electricity.  First electricity has a cost to make, deliver, transform and store.  All of these things have a huge amount of degradation, first when you make electricity, pollution is made, well more than 70% of electricity in the US is made from burning carbon fuels.  When it burns less than half of the heat energy is converted into electricity (Lets give it a 50% value).  Now that electricity needs to be sent from the power plant to the consumer, on average 40% of all electricity generated in the US is eaten up by getting it from the power plant to you.  Now you need to store this electricity into the battery, by converting it from AC to DC you lose a ton of electricity and then you store it chemically, and lose even more.  From these two processes you lose over 60% of the power.

So if you make 100 units of force at the power plan then convert it to electricity you have only 50 units left, then you move it to the consumer and you now have only 30 units left, now you store it and you are left with only 12 units of power.  Of course gas engines have there share of inefficiencies also, but an electric car actually BURNS over 5 times the amount of fossil fuels than a gas car does if we count that only 70% of our power comes from fossil fuels.

Now there are a few exceptions to this that can make the electric car much more environmentally friendly.

First, use “free” electricity.  The way that electricity works is that there is a baseline power production, and in most cases if that electricity is not used in the next fraction of a second it will be forever lost.  Nuclear plants have to operate at the same level for weeks on end.  Coal power plants are much less efficient when they are running at less than full power, or when they are turning on or turning off, so basically more than 50% of the power production of the US is the same 24 hours a day.  This nighttime power is produced no matter what and much of it is wasted, this is why your power company gives you discounts on the power you use at night and on weekends.   Then when the power company needs to ramp up production during the peak times they turn on natural gas and hydroelectric power.  Of course solar does not work at night.  So how can this make the electric car more environmentally friendly, well you could make a smart grid, that knows when more power is being produced than used and that grid would “talk” to your car and your car would only charge itself during this time.  This electricity is basically free to use, because if it was not used it would be thrown away.

Next use more electricity from non renewable resources.  I can tell you now that in the near future, wind and solar will not be more than 20% of the power generation, and all the good places to build hydroelectric generation already has a dam on it.  The best source that could actually do all the production we need is Nuclear, but many people, who don’t know the facts are against Nuclear power.

Now another MAJOR thing that is making the electric industry greener is new technology to capture the carbon after it is burned.  This does not solve the problem of the amount of fuel it needs, but it does solve almost all of the pollution problems.

So if you ever see an ad for an electric car, or hear someone who is getting one you now know that it is just a way for them to feel good, even though what they are doing is living in ignorance.

Remember that a hybrid car is NOT the same as electric.  It generates the electricity it uses from the breaking of the car, as well as the extra power the car makes when it idles, you don’t plug them into the grid.  These cars are VERY complex, but they do give some great driving benefits, and if you own the car for at least 100k miles it will probably pay for itself.  If you like these benefits then go ahead and buy one.  If you want to throw money at the problem to reduce your carbon footprint this is one way to do it, there are other ways that are much more efficient, but this is a nice prepackaged way to make yourself feel much more green.