Electric cars - where does the electricity come from?

we run the gas off the electricity and the electricity off the gas, and we save two hundred pounds a year...

Lightning

It's cleaner than using petrol or diesel, is constantly improving as renewable proportions increase, you can create your own green electricity from pv panels and you can also elect for a green energy provider.

It’s all a bit of a con and a chance for virtue signallers to feel better about themselves.

E-cars will be fuelled more environmentally friendly, but they are still huge damaging to the environment in their manufacture and distribution.

The widespread ownership of cars whether they are traditionally bad for the environment or part of the new conjob will make no difference to congestion and road deaths, as well as the continued desecration of residential areas.

ICE cars use a lot of their energy moving their fuel and engine around. Power plants don't move, so there's a bit of a saving there.

I will accept that to make EVs we have to consume, but new cars are being made all the time anyway, so is it not better to be making more efficient ev cars than ice ones? And yes a large portion of the electricity used to charge them is coming from fossil fuels, but it's falling annually.

Secondly, and something I don't think has been mentioned yet, if we end up in 20 or 30 yrs time with city centres with EVs only, there won't be diesel fumes choking up our lungs and our kids lungs. No poisonous exhausts.

Moneypoint is the only coal power station in Ireland. The coal gets there by ship (it's on the Shannon estuary). There's a plan for it to cease burning coal by 2025.

I think the plan is to have 80% renewable (mainly wind) with most of the rest generated by natural gas - which in itself will be replaced by hydrogen.

As Buttonftw says, a combustion engine is in the region of 33% effecient at the very best. The theoretical maximum is maybe 50%.

But because you need to constantly run the engine at different speeds and power levels to drive around the place, it's difficult for engineers to optimise every component for efficiency. ie: Sometimes you need a strong (heavy) engine to accelerate comfortably, but this adds inefficiency at all other times. Sometimes you're running it cold, sometimes it needs an oil change, sometimes it's running at a speed that doesn't allow all of the fuel to burn.

Even if you ran an ESB power plant on Petrol or Diesel, and used that power to charge an EV, it would be much more effecient to run. This is because a power plant runs at a single speed, ideally under a constant load, where there is plenty of space to add extra devices to improve efficiency, and everything little part of it can be optimised extremely well, and get much closer to the theoretical maximum.

Even if you add charging and motor inefficiencies on top - it's still better than burning petrol in the car itself.

But, the EV takes more energy to build, so it takes a while to break even form an energy usage standpoint.

If your EV was built in China and charged in Poland from a coal fired power station, it would take years of driving to break even.

A European built EV, run in Sweden is a much greener option.

Totally agree that right sizing of cars is important. But taking everything into account, EV's still use less energy to move from A to B than an ICE vehicle.

An average EV SUV consumes about 20kWh / 100km.

An average ICE SUV consumes about 6l/100km. At 10kWh per Litre (petrol is a little less, Diesel a little more), thats 60kWh /100 km for an ICE. I.e. triple the energy consumption of the EV above.

Disclaimer: Consumption rates based on manufacturers claims which are equally "ideal".

They, mostly, turn off at night because there is nothing to consume the kWh during the night. If we had more EV's charging over night, this would happen less.

Renewables, yes. Wind, No.

We do need base load/spinning reserve. But in theory, this can be provided from other sources, doesn't necessarily need to be conventional power plants.

E.g. the flywheel that ESB are building at Moneypoint can provide spinning reserve

Finally, even if EV's were powered exclusively from large Gas/Oil combined cycle power stations, it would still be better than the equivalent ICE scenario. Power plants have efficiencies of scale, rarely cold start and are better maintained than most ICE vehicles on the road. Also, it's easier to deploy Carbon Capture and scrub the exhaust gases from a power plant than millions of ICE vehicles.

Rhetorical questions are still worth answering. A rhetorical question is done to make a point, a statement of fact disguised as a question. However, the factual answer to the rhetorical question does not always make the point that the person posing the question thinks it does.

In this case, the rhetorical question was intended to nullify the claim that the environmental efficiency of coal fired power generation relative to the environmental impact of vehicular traffic was nullified by the fact that coal has to be transported to the power station. And it's true - there is an impact from the transportation of the coal.

However, the fact that it's transported by ship - and not road - is significant in determining whether centralised coal fired generation is more efficient and less environmentally impactful than the equivalent input energy burned bu ICE vehicles. Shipping is significantly better than road transport in this regard.

Also the fact that coal burning there is being imminently phased out s significant to the debate at hand.

Furthermore, this is a public debate, and not everyone here knows where Moneypoint is or how the coal gets there.

So your the point made by your rhetorical question - while I'm sure you got some satisfaction from the pithy nature of it - was not sufficiently complete.

So in short, my lack of psychic abilities regarding your front door, your view or even your rhetorical expression don't matter. The point being made by your rhetorical question required being expanded upon.

Equally though, that assumes that your own time has zero value.

A 5km round trip to the shops, taking 6 minutes would cost 10c in an EV, or 85c in an ICE.

EV: 10c/kWh * 20kWh/100km * 5km

ICE: 170c/l * 10l/100km * 5km

But it would take the guts of an hour to walk it.

By the time I got the bike out of the shed and back in again, it would take at least 25 minutes. Some days I'd walk or cycle that journey, but some days I value saving 20 mins of my time (vs bike) at more than 10c.

But I agree - it's a complete false dilemma to market new EV's a green and old ICE as bad when all cars have a huge carbon footprint relative to cycling, walking, or public transport of any kind.

It was all the vogue of having a suv on the school run now it an ev and recycle coffee cup.

@kirving

I'm with you as far as the coal-fired power station, but surely a European-built EV is still using Chinese lithium batteries? Insofar as I understand the process, the mining and processing of this material is an environmental catastrophe.

There was an interactive tool on this site previously, but looks to be missing now.

Plenty of activity when it comes to EV Battery development in Europe too.

I think the subtlety is just because there is backup generation available, does not mean it's producing emissions all the time as well.

So when wind blows, your peakers are burning ZERO fossil fuels, and when it's not they do burn fuel to fill the gaps. At our current electricity mix, that means we are avoiding burning gas/oil for approx 40% of Ireland's Electricity needs. That's a huge amount of fuel saving/reduction.

There are efficiencies in producing power in large powerplants, rather than carrying your own individual powerplant around in your car... which is what fuel engines are. Plus of course the flexibility... fuel for the grid can come from anywhere, and you can work on making that less polluting. You can't really change the engine in your car. It is de-coupling energy production from energy use.

That being said, the most green car is the one you already own. We only considered and bought an EV when our other car was driven into the ground and effectively was not worth repairing.

And, transport is affected by other decisions. Ideally we wouldn't need any car at all, but public transport in this country isn't great. We work around it though. For example, when moving home 10+ years ago, we had the budget for a 4 bedroom rural house on an acre of land, or a 2 bed home in an urban area with a smaller garden. We chose the small one that meant we could walk to schools, shops, use public transport, rather than needing to drive around the place. We put an extension on to get an extra bedroom for the kids. We can use bikes, buses, walking and as a family, only need one car for longer trips.