1 00:00:00,012 --> 00:00:07,696 Hello, back to Energy 101, and today we're going to talk about electric car carbon 2 00:00:07,696 --> 00:00:12,980 emissions. In my introduction somewhere on my, main 3 00:00:12,980 --> 00:00:19,881 page for this course I made the statement that electric cars do not save carbon 4 00:00:19,881 --> 00:00:23,871 emissons. I put that on there to be controversial, 5 00:00:23,871 --> 00:00:27,030 and it certainly did create a lot of controversy. 6 00:00:27,030 --> 00:00:31,820 It got more comments than almost any other topic, which was good. 7 00:00:31,820 --> 00:00:40,077 That's what I meant for it to be. And it is a controversial statement. 8 00:00:40,077 --> 00:00:47,377 But the reason that I put that up there and the reason I addressed this is, I was 9 00:00:47,377 --> 00:00:54,787 always amazed that the electric car manufacturers, this happens to be a photo 10 00:00:54,787 --> 00:00:59,888 of a Leaf, got emblems on it that says zero emissions. 11 00:00:59,888 --> 00:01:03,069 And Ifelt like that might be a little misleading. 12 00:01:03,070 --> 00:01:08,382 The zero I feel is misleading, now it does have zero tail pipe emissions because it 13 00:01:08,382 --> 00:01:13,185 doesn't have a tail pipe. No question, but, let's drill a little 14 00:01:13,185 --> 00:01:19,282 deeper and see if when you buy an electric car, if you really, when you drive it are 15 00:01:19,282 --> 00:01:25,470 you really, producing zero carbon emissions then like I said, I'm taking a 16 00:01:25,470 --> 00:01:29,880 particular case, and you can debate the zero statement. 17 00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:33,897 You can always come up with a scenario in which the zero is, is true. 18 00:01:33,898 --> 00:01:40,246 But let's look at the one that I feel like is, is the appropriate one from a public 19 00:01:40,246 --> 00:01:44,467 policy viewpoint. And when you look at it from an individual 20 00:01:44,467 --> 00:01:49,014 viewpoint, it can be different. But the question, do all-electric cars 21 00:01:49,014 --> 00:01:53,008 have 0 emissions? View from the US or, are, do they reduce 22 00:01:53,008 --> 00:01:56,797 emissions is the probably a more nuance question. 23 00:01:56,798 --> 00:02:01,891 It definitely is a more nuance question. But I want to take the view from a US 24 00:02:01,891 --> 00:02:06,670 public policy viewpoint, not. From a personal or regional viewpoint. 25 00:02:06,670 --> 00:02:12,746 So, when I say public policy how much do current tax incentives that put more 26 00:02:12,746 --> 00:02:19,307 electric cars on the road throughout the US, all over the US reduce CO2 for the US? 27 00:02:19,308 --> 00:02:22,084 Because it's an, it's a international problem. 28 00:02:22,084 --> 00:02:26,358 So emmisions that are produced in California affect New York and Florida 29 00:02:26,358 --> 00:02:30,632 then vice versa. So as a, we need to look at it from an 30 00:02:30,632 --> 00:02:38,736 energy policy and global warming policy viewpoint, from a national perspective. 31 00:02:38,736 --> 00:02:41,720 So, not from an individual or regional perspective. 32 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:45,120 You can get a different ansewr if you look at a personal situation, where if you're 33 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:49,320 off the grid, for instance. And getting all your electricity from 34 00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:53,887 solar or wind, the answer is you burn damn close to zero, okay. 35 00:02:53,887 --> 00:02:59,779 No question about that. Nobody can debate that I don't think, if 36 00:02:59,779 --> 00:03:03,715 your off the grid getting it from renewable energy. 37 00:03:03,716 --> 00:03:10,058 But, that's not the typical situation I would contend if I hadn't run the number 38 00:03:10,058 --> 00:03:16,270 that is probably less than 1/10 of 1%. And 99.9% are going to get it from the 39 00:03:16,270 --> 00:03:21,875 grid. So let's try to answer that question. 40 00:03:21,876 --> 00:03:27,553 Well, number one we have to look at, where does the electric car energy come from. 41 00:03:27,553 --> 00:03:32,533 And, when you, you plug it in to recharge it, and it gets no, no energy from 42 00:03:32,533 --> 00:03:38,063 gasoline, you don't have a gasoline tank, and we're talking about all electric cars 43 00:03:38,063 --> 00:03:41,880 here, ones that run totally on electricity like the Leaf. 44 00:03:41,880 --> 00:03:47,332 The Leaf is a I keep using that example because that's the first really 45 00:03:47,332 --> 00:03:53,630 mass-produced electric car by a major international car manufacturer, such as 46 00:03:53,630 --> 00:03:59,125 Nissan, as the Leaf is. But all the energy comes from the electric 47 00:03:59,125 --> 00:04:03,096 grid. None of it comes from electricity. 48 00:04:03,097 --> 00:04:07,880 The Chevy plug in hybrid as we've talked about is, is different. 49 00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:10,768 It gets some from gasoline, some from electric grid. 50 00:04:10,768 --> 00:04:15,462 The Prius that's strictly a hybrid that's been out for 10 years it gets all of it's 51 00:04:15,462 --> 00:04:19,728 electricity from gasoline. We'll talk about that. 52 00:04:19,729 --> 00:04:25,694 But the electricity generated for charging the batteries does create CO2 at the 53 00:04:25,694 --> 00:04:30,500 electrical power plant. In general when you're looking at the grid 54 00:04:30,500 --> 00:04:35,748 as a whole some of that electricity going into that grid has been generated by 55 00:04:35,748 --> 00:04:40,518 fossil fuels that emit CO2. So let's dive a little deeper in this, and 56 00:04:40,518 --> 00:04:43,450 see, and see. How we can calculate this number. 57 00:04:43,450 --> 00:04:47,090 We've gotta make assumptions along the way, and you can change the number of, of 58 00:04:47,090 --> 00:04:50,412 different assumptions. So, it's a great, great question for 59 00:04:50,412 --> 00:04:55,020 discussion and calculation for a discussion that depends on the assumption. 60 00:04:55,020 --> 00:04:57,547 So I'm going to give you my assumptions here, hopefully. 61 00:04:57,547 --> 00:05:02,282 But how much if, we want to look at how many kilowatt-hours are required to drive 62 00:05:02,282 --> 00:05:05,757 the electric car one mile, that's the first thing we need. 63 00:05:05,758 --> 00:05:10,125 We need to know how much electricity has to be generated, and put into the grid, 64 00:05:10,125 --> 00:05:14,949 due to the fact that we now just bought an electric car, or bought 1,000,000 of them, 65 00:05:14,949 --> 00:05:19,942 and put them on the grid. Well, the, the Leaf, according to US, EPA 66 00:05:19,943 --> 00:05:24,071 it's, it's like fuel mileage that they quote. 67 00:05:24,071 --> 00:05:30,326 Usually is about 1/3 of a kilowatt hour per mile, 1/3 of a kilowatt hour per mile 68 00:05:30,326 --> 00:05:37,207 and that inverted means it, it gets about three miles for every kilowatt hour used. 69 00:05:37,208 --> 00:05:42,404 Three miles for ever kilowatt hour used. So somewhere, when you generate a kilowatt 70 00:05:42,404 --> 00:05:47,618 hour it will drive you approximately three miles, and by the way, these kinds of 71 00:05:47,618 --> 00:05:52,320 calculations, you can debate plus or minus 10% on any of these numbers. 72 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:57,762 You can debate plus or minus 20%, so... I don't try, I try to stay out of the 73 00:05:57,762 --> 00:06:02,976 fractions and decimal points and those kind of things, because we're trying to 74 00:06:02,976 --> 00:06:07,580 look at the big picture and reach a big policy decision question here. 75 00:06:07,580 --> 00:06:13,160 So, but the next thing, so the next thing we need to know. 76 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:18,340 Is, how much CO2 is emitted for each of those kilowatt-hours that is generated and 77 00:06:18,340 --> 00:06:23,008 put into the grid, for that, battery to be charged, in our, electric car. 78 00:06:23,008 --> 00:06:30,008 Well, if you take the total CO2 emissions, and the, carbon emissions from power 79 00:06:30,008 --> 00:06:33,960 plants All power plants, and that. You get that number. 80 00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:39,782 I got that number, from EIA, Energy Information Agency, the, off the web. 81 00:06:39,783 --> 00:06:44,837 Then divide it by the total US kilowatt hours delivered. 82 00:06:44,838 --> 00:06:51,186 Then that gives you pounds or grams of, of CO2 per kilowatt hour produced and put 83 00:06:51,186 --> 00:06:56,965 into the grid. And by the way, the, I, the number comes 84 00:06:56,965 --> 00:07:05,415 out to about, to 1.2, approximately 1.2, 1.12, 1.3, 1.23, 1.818, is, is in that 85 00:07:05,415 --> 00:07:12,317 ballpark, which by the way is 545 grams per kilowatt hour. 86 00:07:12,317 --> 00:07:20,219 So, so that means then that the pounds of CO2 produced per mile driven in your 87 00:07:20,219 --> 00:07:27,824 all-electric car, that gets a third of, of a, I think it's three miles per 88 00:07:27,824 --> 00:07:35,349 kilowatt-hour, such as the Leaf. Is 1.2 pounds divided by 3 miles per 89 00:07:35,349 --> 00:07:41,555 kilowatt hour, or .4. So you've got about, the electric car, the 90 00:07:41,555 --> 00:07:48,353 Leaf type, will get about .4, or produce about .4 pounds of CO2 at the power plant 91 00:07:48,353 --> 00:07:53,579 to generate the electricity to carry the car about one mile. 92 00:07:53,580 --> 00:08:00,731 Now, that's the sum total of the ceo2 produced by all the power plants that feed 93 00:08:00,731 --> 00:08:05,717 into the grid that you're charging the battery off of. 94 00:08:05,718 --> 00:08:10,870 Now, we need to look at the gasoline driven so we can compare it. 95 00:08:10,870 --> 00:08:13,635 What's the gasoline driven car co2 emissions? 96 00:08:13,636 --> 00:08:20,184 Well, you can look it up again on e-, e-, Energy Information Agency, which is where 97 00:08:20,184 --> 00:08:25,077 90 or 98% of my data comes from it's a very dependable source. 98 00:08:25,078 --> 00:08:32,720 And it comes out to about 19.6 pounds of CO2 per gallon of fuel burned. 99 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:36,235 19.6 si, a pound per gallon of fuel[INAUDIBLE]. 100 00:08:36,236 --> 00:08:42,086 It's kind of interesting, a gallon of fuel wry, weighs only about 6 pounds but it 101 00:08:42,086 --> 00:08:46,789 produces 19 1/2 pounds of C02. And of course the reason for that is, the 102 00:08:46,789 --> 00:08:49,532 gasoline is made up of C Carbon and hydrogen. 103 00:08:49,532 --> 00:08:53,260 And then you take the oxygen out of the air and that oxygen reacts with the 104 00:08:53,260 --> 00:08:56,480 hydrogen. So, now you've added oxygen to the carbon. 105 00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:00,770 And that, that mass is higher than the original carbon and hydrogen that we use 106 00:09:00,770 --> 00:09:05,948 to begin with. But, That, now, if you, know the miles per 107 00:09:05,948 --> 00:09:11,214 gallon. That, that car gets, then we can calculate 108 00:09:11,214 --> 00:09:15,606 the CO2 emitted per mile driven by the gasoline car. 109 00:09:15,606 --> 00:09:22,920 And so if you, you just take 19.6 pound of CO2 per gallon and divide it by the miles 110 00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:28,761 per gallon of that particular car. So in order to get equivalent, you can 111 00:09:28,761 --> 00:09:34,695 play around with it and calculate it exactly, but essentially, if you take a 112 00:09:34,695 --> 00:09:40,629 pri, prius hybrid that runs totally on gasoline, it generates some electricty 113 00:09:40,629 --> 00:09:45,961 for, for itself when charges a small batteries when you come to a stop due to 114 00:09:45,961 --> 00:09:51,786 breaking and uses it back. When you, start back up, but it gets none 115 00:09:51,786 --> 00:09:56,408 external, no electricity external from the car at all. 116 00:09:56,409 --> 00:10:01,244 It gets all it's energy to drive on gas, from gasoline. 117 00:10:01,244 --> 00:10:04,264 And you come out with about .4 pounds per mile. 118 00:10:04,264 --> 00:10:10,716 Well, I use the 50 because it's about equivalent to the leaf to the electric 119 00:10:10,716 --> 00:10:17,125 car, and so, So the, and they are similar sized cars, similar performance. 120 00:10:17,125 --> 00:10:24,340 There's not a heck of a lot of, I don't think someone a person shopping for a, for 121 00:10:24,340 --> 00:10:30,355 a Leaf, is going to be also considering a GMC Yukon, or something. 122 00:10:30,355 --> 00:10:34,180 A big SUV. So you gotta, you gotta compare apples to 123 00:10:34,180 --> 00:10:37,250 apples here, I think to have a rational number in my mind. 124 00:10:37,250 --> 00:10:43,744 So is US av. The next question though to ask, is the US 125 00:10:43,744 --> 00:10:47,740 average co2 emitted per kilowatt hour the proper value to use? 126 00:10:47,740 --> 00:10:54,433 That I came up with the 1.2, remember, I just took the total CO2 produced by all 127 00:10:54,433 --> 00:10:58,118 the power plants. And divided by the total kilowatt hours 128 00:10:58,118 --> 00:11:02,659 produced by all power plants. Well, I claim that that's probably not the 129 00:11:02,659 --> 00:11:06,894 right value, because it's too low, due to dispatching issues. 130 00:11:06,894 --> 00:11:10,189 In an electric car, it's mostly charged overnight. 131 00:11:10,190 --> 00:11:14,741 And there are lots, there's lots of excess power capacity at night, probably. 132 00:11:14,741 --> 00:11:19,714 And some people argue we've got to build more power plants, to, meet, the cap, the, 133 00:11:19,714 --> 00:11:24,596 charging need for all these electric cars. But that's not true, since most of them 134 00:11:24,596 --> 00:11:28,169 are going to be charged at night, and we have low demand at night. 135 00:11:28,170 --> 00:11:34,668 And there's plenty of power plant capacity to, to meet the increase charging demand 136 00:11:34,668 --> 00:11:38,474 from these new electric cars that we're putting on. 137 00:11:38,474 --> 00:11:42,482 But, the incremental electricity will not come from renewables, is one strong 138 00:11:42,482 --> 00:11:46,968 argument that you can make. Because they're already being utilized 139 00:11:46,968 --> 00:11:52,281 100%, so when you put an incremental load of one electric car, or a million electric 140 00:11:52,281 --> 00:11:57,132 cars, onto the grid, you're not going to get anymore electricity renewal just 141 00:11:57,132 --> 00:12:01,000 because you're using all that anyway. The economics demand it. 142 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:04,520 The real operation demands it. You just don't turn off wind turbines. 143 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:06,710 You take the electricity any time you can get it. 144 00:12:06,710 --> 00:12:11,058 Same way with Photovoltaic, and power towers, and all that. 145 00:12:11,058 --> 00:12:16,736 So, it's a dispatching issue. So, I claim that, you can argue strongly 146 00:12:16,736 --> 00:12:23,236 that you going to have to use the, and do use the fossil fuel coal and gas plants, 147 00:12:23,236 --> 00:12:30,019 which is the last ones that you turn on and off, to meet the incremental demand. 148 00:12:30,020 --> 00:12:35,870 In order to meet the increased demand due to the electric cars that need to be 149 00:12:35,870 --> 00:12:40,983 charged. That's, certainly, an, an, a, debatable 150 00:12:40,983 --> 00:12:45,954 position, and I think it's a position that you can defend. 151 00:12:45,955 --> 00:12:50,347 So the conclusion on this, and again I'm going to look, I'm looking at it from the 152 00:12:50,347 --> 00:12:54,233 U.S policy viewpoint, not for an individual situation or an off-grid 153 00:12:54,233 --> 00:12:57,860 situation. But number one, I certainly think that's 154 00:12:57,860 --> 00:13:03,540 it's a little unrealistic to talk about electric cars, have zero emissions, and i 155 00:13:03,540 --> 00:13:08,740 really don't think that statement in general is true, and I think it's at least 156 00:13:08,740 --> 00:13:12,478 some misconception. It's true if you, you, just from the tail 157 00:13:12,478 --> 00:13:16,442 pipe situation. And if you just view it from a isolated 158 00:13:16,442 --> 00:13:22,264 situation where you got solar equipment just serving a car electric car charge it 159 00:13:22,264 --> 00:13:28,086 yourself, but that's a pretty dumb application for solar because it's sitting 160 00:13:28,086 --> 00:13:31,948 there not being used unless you're charging the car. 161 00:13:31,948 --> 00:13:35,913 But anyway. I'll let you debate that. 162 00:13:35,914 --> 00:13:40,858 The CO2 mile per mile then depends on the dispatching issue. 163 00:13:40,858 --> 00:13:47,248 So, if and by the way if you just look at the CO2 emitted from incramentally 164 00:13:47,248 --> 00:13:51,725 cranking up the, the nonrenewable non-nuclear. 165 00:13:51,726 --> 00:13:59,007 Power plants you get about 1.7 pounds of CO2 per kilowatt hour per use. 166 00:13:59,008 --> 00:14:03,337 Not the 1.2 that I used in the example to get 50 miles per hour. 167 00:14:03,338 --> 00:14:08,858 Well when you use the 1.7 assuming that the, the electricities going to come from, 168 00:14:08,858 --> 00:14:15,327 because of dispatch reasons. From the coal and gas power plants. 169 00:14:15,328 --> 00:14:18,284 You come up with about 30 miles per gallon. 170 00:14:18,284 --> 00:14:22,570 So, I believe that there's no black and white answer to this. 171 00:14:22,570 --> 00:14:25,322 And you can change your assumptions and get different answers. 172 00:14:25,323 --> 00:14:31,454 But, I believe that the range of 35 to 50, in my mind, is a pretty. 173 00:14:31,455 --> 00:14:40,150 Good range to look at and consider that the CO2 emissions from electric car, like 174 00:14:40,150 --> 00:14:48,479 the Leaf, getting a third of a, of a kilowatt per mile is will produce. 175 00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:53,008 Now as I said, you can make your own assumptions in the limitations and look at 176 00:14:53,008 --> 00:14:56,320 different scenarios and come up with different answers. 177 00:14:56,321 --> 00:15:01,010 And you can look at where we might be 20 years from now, or 40 years from now, that 178 00:15:01,010 --> 00:15:04,040 I think this applies for those being put on today. 179 00:15:04,040 --> 00:15:07,869 And it helps us to make some decisions about what we need to do with our power. 180 00:15:08,940 --> 00:15:13,857 Plant fleet that is feeding into the grid. If we want to do something about CO2 we 181 00:15:13,857 --> 00:15:18,650 need to deal with this issue. But electric cars are good, by the way, 182 00:15:18,650 --> 00:15:22,570 from the oil savings, so they definitely save oil. 183 00:15:22,570 --> 00:15:31,276 And we need them if for that reason alone. And they certainly don't seem to produce 184 00:15:31,276 --> 00:15:36,587 any more significant CO2 emissions. But I'm not sure how much it'll help us on 185 00:15:36,587 --> 00:15:39,180 the CO2 emissions. You make up your own mind. 186 00:15:39,180 --> 00:15:44,272 I tried to equip you in this course for looking at the facts, and then using the 187 00:15:44,272 --> 00:15:48,358 facts to analyze your questions and come to your own decisions. 188 00:15:48,358 --> 00:15:54,977 So thank you for listening and hopefully that'll generate some more discussion. 189 00:15:54,978 --> 00:15:56,523 Thank you.