8 A Convenient Response to an Inconvenient Truth

[MrJanaRobi]

Jack thanks for explaining what the news can't or won't about the air and water pollution.i love the cars keep up the good work.

[celljackingjr]

Maybe electricity is just a part of the solution.

Why not to produce hydrogen from clean renewable electricity where it is abundant and transport and use hydrogen as fuel. That would minimise the electricity that has to be produced by coal plants and nuclear plants.

[atgmam]

Thank you for the great videos, keep up the good work!

[Anothercoilgun]

Electric is renewable. When you burn gas, its gone forever. Now try to negate that fact all you nay sayers...

[homertalk]

Most grid power is generated with coal. So, when charging is complete all that coal burned is gone forever.

[adesa072]

When I lived in Quebec the electricity was generated by hydro, here in Oregon my power comes from wind (for which I pay an extra 7 bucks a month). If my car had been powered by the grid in either location it would have been renewable non-CO2 emitting energy. I would much rather have had supported those industries than the tar-sands or the middle east.

[axelerat3d]

Anothercoilgun -

well that fully depends on how the electricity is made... Still a lot of it is coal or nat gas. Nuclear is not renewable either - there might be plenty of fuel around but it is not renewable.

I am pro electric cars but there are a lot of misconceptions both for and against.

[marionrickard]

The scale of electricity use from an electric car is hard to picture. My car uses about the same kWh per day as my home air conditioning system uses in 4 hours. At this time of year in Missouri, my air conditioning system is running 20 hours per day.

We undoubtedly DO face rate increases in electricity. But not from supply/demand/price/supply. Obama's Cap and Trade tax will lead to fairly dramatic increases in electricity prices - NOT demand.

[Connorinthebush]

@marionrickard I watch EVTV and your insights and teaching is what we should try to reach. Thanks and keep up the great work. Cheers Gary

[marionrickard]

My central point is that "supply and demand" is a very common oversimplification. Think "supply and demand and supply." It's kind of a closed loop.

A relative handful of people in the world can explore for, test drill, and produce oil. Any 8 year old can throw two solar panels on the roof and make electricity as part of a class project.

The adoption curve for electric cars is unlikely to produce ANY strain on our electric generating or distribution plant.

[evenergy1]

Well said - excellent.

[reishme04]

As for supply and demand, you are correct in saying that prices for gasoline would go down with decreased consumption but what you don't say is that electricity prices will also respond to supply and demand by increasing with increased demand. Couple that with an ageing distribution network and generating the infrastructure for making electrical cars practical is not trivial. I agree that electricity is the future of cars but there are many immediate drawbacks that won't be quickly worked out.

[reishme04]

good discussion on efficiency, but I think that you cannot disregard the fact that electrical power generation is not 100 percent efficient. As long as we are using coal to generated electricity we are still expelling CO2 (more CO2 per unit energy than with gasoline) and pollutants as well as the inarguable damage that come from strip mining coal.

[marionrickard]

This is quite diisingenuous. That coal produces more CO2 per "unit energy" is irrelevant. In a car, we are concerned with "unit miles travelled" and the CO2 produced by burning coal to move a car a mile is a FRACTION of what is produced by using gasoline. That gasoline has more energy that is WASTED is a negative, not a positive.

Further note that your insistence on an accounting of CO2 to produce electricity is enormously one sided. How much CO2 is emitted to PRODUCE gasoline?

[edmartinelli]

Randy is an obtuse buffoon.

Thank you for your series, Mr. Rickard.