Electric Vehicles - Facts and Myths

I was out of blogging and social media for a long time (for good, so I thought). So many things have happened in last few years. Few years ago, I have written about Toyota Prius which got some discussion going on about the hybrid vehicles. Well, as they say a lot of water has flown under the bridge!

Just thought of coming back and write this since I have heard so many untruths recently about electric cars that it was almost hard not to have a say in some sort. So many have commented on these already, but I will just for the record add my 2 cents here as well.

1) Sri Lankan electricity grid can not take so many electric vehicles.
People who say this belongs to two categories, those who don't know enough and those who knows but knowingly and willingly trying to mislead others due to vested interests.

Some of electric car owners have already opted for net metering with solar panels, and many others are also planning to do so. Market analysis show that utilisation of solar power (via net metering) is so high among EV owners. So it is not correct to say that EV owners are a burden on the grid. Besides, Sri Lanka has a surplus of electricity at off peak hours (nights after 10PM) that anybody charging on those times are not a problem to the national grid at all. Not to mention the fact that new coal power plants are producing enough electricity for the country.

2) Electricity is produced using hydrocarbons so charging cars from electricity has no benefit in terms of environment or carbon emissions.

We can excuse people who say this out of lack of subject knowledge, however I suspect there are quite a few who propagate this knowing very well that it is not true at all. Compared to the combustion engines of motor vehicles, power plants are efficient by an order of magnitude! Even if we use electricity produced by a power plant using diesel or coal, it is still much more clean and will be using much less hydrocarbons than we pumping from the shed and burning in vehicle engines which are no way near the efficiency levels of industrial power plants. This can be so easily verified by a quick google search or from wikipedia that a further discussion on this is utterly unnecessary.

One last thing.. should we really need to mention that there is a seizable component of electricity produced without hydrocarbons ?

3) Importing more vehicles is not good for the national economy as we loose foreign currency.
True, but why then target EVs specifically! 2.5 million tax is not really a tax, impact of that is so huge that it cant be described any other way than as a measure to kill an emerging sector at its birth!

Surely, petrol/diesel vehicles could have been taxed more and some concessions could have given to environment friendly EVs and Hybrids. As a nation, we would have save money from petroleum imports. This is such a no brainer and something almost all other countries in the world are following.

4) EV owners who use solar power at home for charging will not be contributing towards the economy.
It is sad and disappointing to hear that some of learned businessmen and politicians have even entertained this thought! the argument goes like, EV owners if moved into using net metering with solar panels, will not be using petrol sheds and will not be paying electricity bills. So they can no be taxed and hence they are not contributing to the economy.

Do we really have to provide an answer to this argument ? When learned people comes up with this type of arguments we can just get an idea about how high the amount of vested interests could be.

Any sane person will not fail to see the huge positive impact a single person can make by becoming petroleum independent. Such a person will be an asset for an country and will be saving a huge amount of money annually which would otherwise be burned in a car or in a power plant to provide his energy needs.

Now, basic economics tell us that such a person will then spend that money (he has saved) in investments, savings or consume goods/services (which the others in the society has produced). That is certainly not a bad thing for the economy. Taxing should be a tool to improve a society, not to destroy one. If we still need to tax such a practice (instead of encouraging more people to follow that path, like other countries are doing), at least we should be finding some other ways to tax without killing off both Solar power and EV usage in one stroke. Almost any measure would have been much better than the one which has actually taken in this case!

Two good trends we have seen in Sri Lanka recently are the use of EVs and use of solar power (PV). Many people have opted for net metering which is a great save for petroleum importing developing country like ours. EVs seemed to encourage that trend further, at last it started to seem like some good things may happen to our economy and environment. It is very rarely one see something which is good for the economy and environment both at the same time. Sadly, this is the hope which is now made to go down in smoke, in favour of the petroleum importers, petrol/diesel car importers and few mega businessmen.

We may be engaging in many industries and businesses in many fields, some policy decisions may hit us on our profit margins here and there. As intellectually honest people we need acknowledge bad decisions and harmful decisions to the country/society even if they benefit us personally in the short term, vice versa.

If certain acts which are harmful for a country seem to benefit us, then that may be an indication that we may be in a wrong business, or engaging in some unethical, unpatriotic or anti-society business practices. This is what we need to say to those who trying to justify/promote the EV tax hike.

End the burning, Cool down and Clean up!

 (treehugger.com)

In our last post which was triggered by some discussions at few other blogs, we discussed the problems of consumerism. There, we found the need for some vital statistics on the effects of consumerism. Anyway, some of most interesting and widely discussed subjects these days are on global warming, oil prices, when the oil going to run out what next etc...

Come to think of it, exactly :

How much Fossil Fuel do we actually have in world reserves currently ?
What are the rate we are burning them and how long will they last ?

On the other hand, can we really afford to burn the remaining carbon fuels in the light of increasing CO2 levels and the threat of global warming?

What are the  alternatives we have?

Well, answers to those are easy to find these days! At least the part of finding the statistics, analyzing them with common sense and existing knowledge and coming up with a set of logical conclusions is not too difficult. Difficulty will be in getting people (or societies, economies) to change their current beliefs and behaviors! not to mention the policy makers.

Anyway let's have a look at the statistics first (from wikipedia) :

Currently we have around 1200 billion barrels of oil in proven reserves. Of which we use about 84 million barrels daily at current production rate. Therefore oil is believed to last 43 more years.

Similarly, about 905 billion metric tonnes of Coal is available with the production rate of about 18 million metric tonnes daily. Therefore Coal will last for 148 years.

Availability of natural Gas is about 180 trillion cubic meters, at current production rates will last till about 60 more years.

These figures haven't taken into account the fact that the demand for these resources increase steadily each year by about 2.3%. However, world production for oil have already peaked, meaning we can not produce any more daily than we are producing right now! Coal and gas too is nearing peak production.

Now to the fun job of analysis :

The reason not to take the increased demand into account (in above calculations) is that it doesn't matter! What ever the demand is, world production is now peaked. Imagine a well with water to last 43 days. Your pump or the tap has a fixed limited rate of which you are taking water out. Now you get visitors and need more water and your well have got it as well. Still, you can not get more out since your output (tap size) is limited, so the well will still last for 43 days, you will just have to manage with whatever amount of water it gives daily until 43 days, after which you will not get even that limited amount. zero! nothing!

hmm that doesn't sound good does it ?  wait.. it's about to get worse! :

Demand increases but the supply stays stable, what does that tell us ? It means more and more fuel shortages and increased price in future. It will get worse in each year until about 30 years after which oil might get too expensive for many practical usages. This will have an impact on coal and gas too as non availability of oil will increase the demand for gas and coal, their prices too will go dramatically up. So we can have following conclusions form our analysis so far :
1) In short term, higher fuel prices and shortages will slow down world economies and growth.
2) In about 30 years, oil, gas and coal all will be too expensive to make their usage impractical for most of tasks.

Only two things can stop this scenario. Let's list them down..
A) Technical advances which enable us to get the same work done by consuming less fuel. (like hybrid cars)
B) Economical slow downs and low growth rates, driving the consumption down. This second outcome is the same as conclusion 1 we stated above, one thing leads to another. Same sad story!

So our only hope seems to lie in technological advances to get more out of same amount of fuel. Remember, this is not about burning less, this is about getting more out of the amount we are already burning per year to meet the growing demand for energy. How practical is that to expect in three decades? Well, history have taught us never to underestimate the advance of science and technology. Hybrid cars and Bloom Boxes are two examples.

Problem is not much about the technical innovations, it's more about peoples capacity and readiness to change and adapt to new technologies. This means relaying of new infra structure (this is one reason why Hydrogen fuel cells vehicles didn't take off), changing attitudes and mindset of people (even after more than a decade of history, hybrid vehicles are still a small fraction of all vehicles running on roads for example), mass production of new technology and survive early periods of trial and error. It generally take time to master a new technology and evangelize it, mass produce with new manufacturing plants etc So even if a technological revolution of increasing the fuel efficiency is possible, we may be running up on time for that. Remember we have only 3 decades left, we may need to start right now!

Now what about other available main energy sources, namely hydroelectricity and nuclear energy? Obviously, Hydro electricity has a limitation imposed by available good enough natural locations. Most available such locations are already being used. Other problems are the impact man made reservoirs have on wild life, environment, soil and eventual filling up of reservoirs by mud deposits resulting from erosion of soil over time. Still, production can be increased but no where near to a level of filling the huge gap fossil fuels going to leave  us with. Currently, hydroelectricity gives us only about 6% of total energy production. That leaves us with the possibility of Nuclear energy.

(wikipedia)

Even if we discard the potential dangers of nuclear plants like the recent tragedy in Japan after the tsunami, nuclear energy too has one big shortcoming. It is non-renewable! Like fossil fuels the fuel needed for nuclear reactors, Uranium is in short supply. According to statistics current known Uranium reserves (type which good enough in quality to be used in Nuclear reactors) which are economically and technically viable to use are enough to generate power for about 100 more years AT THE CURRENT PRODUCTION LEVEL.  Currently we use nuclear energy to cover about 8.5% of global energy need. Clearly, with fossil fuels diminishing and unable to supply the increased demand, Nuclear energy has to contribute lot more if we are to meet the energy demand and to keep economical growth.

This brings us to the next dimension of the problem. Even if we have fossil fuels, we can not afford to burn them anywhere near current rates due to environmental impacts! Now, Here are the statistics for that.

Currently, fossil fuels(oil, coal, gas) amount to 85% of total energy production.
Burning of fossil fuel is producing 21.3 billion tonnes of CO2 annually.
The world eco system can absorb only half of that amount for a year. 
(from wikipedia)

We are producing 10.5 billion tonnes of more CO2 yearly and it is increasing as well! effects of these emissions (global warming, climate change, rising sea levels, floods, cyclones) are well known and we are already experiencing them.

If we are to give priority to save the world and environment (which is nearing a tipping point in terms of global warming) and avert a disaster, reducing the use of fossil fuels by around 50% is a must. With only 50% of consumption from current we can double their life to about 85-90 years! that is enough time for new technologies to come in and make use of fossil fuels much more efficiently, enabling us to keep them for even longer periods! this sounds like win-win!  However, That means only 43% of current energy requirement can be allowed to fulfill by burning of fossil fuels. Remaining 57% has to come by other sources.

Currently, other renewable energy sources (hydro, solar, wind, geo thermal) are all producing only about 7% of energy need in total. Technological advances have to be made in these sectors to grow this amount significantly over the coming decades. Specially Solar energy (more on that later) obviously, this will take time.....

Until those technical advances are made, how are we to immediately fill the gap of remaing 50% of our annual energy need (further 2.3% get added to it annually!) ? The only short term hope is to go nuclear! It's current usage of 8.5% will have to be increased  by about 6 folds! If we remember the Uranium resources statistics, at current rates it was enough for 100 years but once we increase the production by 6 folds, Uranium too will be gone in 16 years!

Hmm looks like all we have a got here is a short term solution after all. What could be a long term strategy for this problem ?

Stay tuned.. in the the next post we will pick up a possible long term solution. We have 16 years for that! (kidding, I'm just splitting my post in two at this point as this is already getting too long)

PS : Just published. To the long term solution ->