What about Electric Vehicles ?

We’ve been approached by several clients asking for engineering studies determining feasibility of Electrical Vehicles (EVs). Some of them unfortunately have bought into the “Save the planet/climate change” nonsense and we have to spend some time bringing them (literally) back down to earth. Whether an EV works for THEIR situation depends wholly ON their situation, power availability, and the purpose for which the EV will be used. Electric golf carts have been in use for decades and seem to suit the purpose well; if a person uses an EV like a somewhat longer range golf cart it may work. If it’s a hauling or road trip vehicle it won’t (more later).

The Roscoe wind field in TX is one of the world’s largest. It uses over 100,000 acres spanning 4 Texas counties and is a mix of 2.3 MWe (max rated) Siemens wind turbines, 1.5 MWe GE, and 1 MW Mitsubishi wind turbines. It cost well over a billion dollars (mid 2015-ish) to construct and has extensive environmental impact of all kinds. How much energy does this behemoth REALLY generate ?

On the most optimistic year, an average of 244 MWe of variable and unreliable power. Ironically enough the output of ONE of GE’s more compact and much more efficient steam turbines. In fact ONE (ironic again) compact Siemens gas turbine (equivalent in size to a large jet engine which could be housed with all the support apparatus in a house similar to Al Gore’s larger one)–rated at 450 MWe–puts out close to DOUBLE what this wind farm ecological eyesore disaster can. And–to boot–wind turbines are only around 25% efficient in converting what they CAN capture into electricity; the Siemens gas turbine having a claimed thermodynamic efficiency in the 50%-ish range when used with good old fossil fuels.

So it’s NOT going to be windmills or solar powering electric cars.

First off, there is NOTHING ‘planet friendly’ about EVs. Any meaningful client has to get over this. Not only are the mined materials used in construction exotic (and require relatively toxic processing industries to produce), but also EVs operate at lower thermal efficiency than a conventional modern day gasoline–or diesel–engine. Some of the better gasoline engines operate in the 33-35-ish % efficiency range; hybrids on the Atkinson cycle can achieve approximately 40%. Diesels can do somewhat better than this; if operated correctly into the mid-40s. Very high temperature gas turbines can get into the 60s if the difference between cold and hot sections–and compression ratio–is high enough (we’ve often thought about some 4-th generation combustion turbine driven hybrids as an option but aren’t sure materials technology at present would allow the extreme heat and pressure differentials necessary for efficient operation while preserving cost-effectiveness).

When electricity is generated, the vast majority is thermal and generated by the Rankine cycle (steam), Brayton cycle (NATGAS turbines), or combined cycle (combining the two). And will be for most of our lifetimes. The BEST NATGAS combined cycle plants we have approach 50% overall thermodynamic efficiency (meaning that roughly half the gas or oil burned can actually produce electricity when the power actually gets to the output transformer). Superheated coal plants operate in the mid to upper 40s. Nukes presently are in the mid to high 30s; primarily limited by having to keep the fuel cladding cooler (the greater the temperature differential the greater the potential efficiency). Newer nuclear designs COULD approach that of superheated steam plants however would require a moderator other than water to do so.

So we lose at least 50% of the fossil fuel being burned right off the top. Solar and wind obviously have been complete busts when attempting to power a large grid; being capital and material intensive for questionable reliability in powering a grid (and more suitable for off the grid sunny or windy applications). When distribution losses are considered, this brings the cycle efficiency down into the 40s at the plug at the home where the EV is charged. As the EV battery is charged, it loses energy going in and coming back out; the most optimistic estimates being in the very low 30s for cycle efficiency when the cycle from the power plant to useful power at the wheels is considered. About on par with late 20th century gasoline engine designs. There are some economies of scale when electrical power generation is considered making it perhaps a bit cheaper to use electricity instead of oil; however, in an unencumbered market where government regulation doesn’t deliberately attempt to restrict fuel availably to drive the price up (and force EVs) this will NEVER be recouped over the expensive lithium battery’s lifetime. AND the use of lithium for batteries in EVs dramatically drives up the price and restricts availability of lithium cells for other more appropriate uses (like electronic devices or portable oxygen generators). So one sees the environmental burden OF an EV far exceeds any meaningful reduction in emissions (whether those are the CO2 scam OR legitimate pollutants). Quite the opposite; with the exotic construction and materials processing requirements EVs do much more to trash out the planet than any dinosaur burner.

Moreover, EVs threaten an already overburdened grid. Our grid wasn’t designed for a massive EV influx; particularly one which might attempt to fuel the EVs in a reasonable amount of time (akin to a very long fuel stop of around 15 minutes). While the overall energy demand might be the same, the peak demand of attempting to fast charge a nation of EVs would collapse our present day grids everywhere. Now, this is more of an engineering hurdle but given the long lag time in building power plants and transmission capability the infrastructure needs to be there first. Our grids are strained as-is during a simple heatwave. As such our advice to clients is they will need an alternate source of generation capability if they decide to ‘fuel’ a fleet of EVs (for when the power goes out). Our recommendations usually utilize an existing coal, oil, or natgas powerhouse (for larger corporate clients) or recommend a diesel standby generator of appropriate capacity (which if necessary to use will unfortunately be less efficient than having a diesel vehicle to begin with). If a client lives in a sunny place, we might suggest solar augmentation; however, this has significant capital cost for installation and when faced with the huge power burden of a fleet of vehicles is very unlikely to provide a return on investment–especially when the opportunity cost of the land necessary to do so is considered. This doesn’t mean the solar is unsuitable for OTHER tasks; it’s just that powering a relatively inefficient EV fleet that’s actually going to be driven over longer ranges (solar cells are around 22% efficient at converting sunlight to electricity) has HUGE power requirements. Far beyond the cooling, heating, and lighting requirements of their offices.

The more efficient Teslas require approximately 255 watt-hours per mile. This excludes ‘hotel’ functions of the (electrical resistance) heater in extreme cold or the air conditioning in extreme heat (as well as interior and exterior lighting). And a Tesla would be much more efficient than an electric truck or bus. This means if you drive 100 miles you’ll use approximately 25.5 KW-hours of electricity. When electricity was ‘cheap’ –in the Trump era before the Biden ‘plan’–this was around 2.60 (at 0.10/KWh). A seeming good deal if ONLY the energy cost is considered.

BUT

It’s not just the cost of electricity; it’s the cost of the vehicle, the cost of the battery (if applicable) and the cost of the energy. The cheapest 350-mile (claimed) range model 3LR Tesla costs around 60K–a little over twice what a Honda HRV or equivalent vehicle (which gets 30MPG). At current (Biden Plan) electrical rates of 20c/KWh and Gasoline prices of $5.00/gallon (again thanks to the Joe Biden plan) this means that you could buy 7,000 gallons of high priced gasoline simply by the purchase price differential (not including the intensive maintenance of the lithium battery in the Tesla, etc).

Enough fuel to drive the Honda 210,000 miles. And this is completely before we get into the differential cost of operation between electricity and gasoline (electricity costs money). So one will NEVER see a payback for the EV ‘technology’ over the expected lifetime of the vehicle. Even IF you could start with an EV of the same cost as an HRV, you are looking at a present day cost differential of only approximately $100 for a 1000 mile trip (assuming 20c/KWh and $5.00 per gallon fuel at 30 MPG). With the EVs having all the hassles of charging, etc.

Moreover, since 90% of the EV ‘fueling’ energy will come from thermal generation, these costs are rising commensurate with oil, gasoline, and every other form of energy. Over the past year electrical prices (for those not locked into a fixed rate multi year plan) have doubled–again thanks to the Biden EPA. So AS more EVs are added to the strained grid, we can expect electricity prices to rise commensurate with this additional burden. Since wind and solar will never be meaningful ‘on the grid’ augmenters for real grid power, we are seeing electrical rates skyrocketing commensurate with the price of their input fuel (largely due to not burning coal and skyrocketing NATGAS and oil prices)–negating the usefulness of EVs. This isn’t surprising in that the baseline energy FOR EVs is NATGAS and Oil and it runs a somewhat less efficient thermodynamic cycle getting this energy to the battery and back out.

As such, we tend to steer our clients away from EVs unless they have a short range lower demand ‘specialty’ use for such vehicles. A little used car, a motorbike that doesn’t want to be noisy, a company car that’s going to be a city-commuter type of vehicle, etc. Much like a golf cart–if one is looking for a golf-cart like mission (albeit perhaps a bit speedier) then EVs can make great sense. Or perhaps in amateur middle aged ad-hoc drag racing (electrical motors have phenomenal low end torque so if one wants to kick ass on the road for a short time they can be great). But for road trips or heavy hauling we can’t think of a WORSE choice.

Now, we at D-J are neither pie-in-the skiers nor gloomy naysayers. We offer solutions. We look at practical feasibility to specific situations (and as such fully realize that windmills have worked for low power individual chores for centuries and that solar often makes sense when one desires independence from grid in a sunny place or when utility service costs are too high). It’s just that the amount of raw energy used by a vehicle takes a HUGE amount of energy. So what would we NEED as a nation to fuel EVs ?

One of our engineers did a macro study OF the power required to fuel ‘road trip’ EVs for this very purpose. It came surprisingly close to scientific studies looking at the same thing. It’s not that hard to do; simple math will suffice. The criteria was an average 320-mile stop and ‘refueling’ in 15 minutes (which is longer than a gasoline or diesel fuel stop but still within the acceptable regime for most motorists). It’s certainly possible to build refueling stations that can do this but the energy requirement is very large. Let’s delve into it a bit and look at a simple 6-‘pump’ recharging station.

A car like a Tesla will use around 77KWh for this trip (using numbers most attractive towards the EVs). To ‘refuel’ its battery–assuming 90% charging efficiency (which might be a bit optimistic) would take 85KWh and we want to do this in 15 minutes–meaning it would take 340KW of demand or roughly 2MW for a 6-pump charging station (equivalent to 400 mid-high average demand homes or 133 large peak demand homes). There are roughly 168,000 fuel stations in the US–although most don’t operate continuously–counterbalancing that is many have more than 6 pumps. Looking at a practical ‘fueling’ usage of these for light duty trucks and ‘road trip’ EVs (even though even light duty trucks would consume more than 255 WH/mile) and assuming these are all of 6-pump equivalent capacity demand this brings us to 336,000 additional megawatts of demand. Which would require the construction of 280 1200MWe nuclear or coal plants (and the associated transmission and distribution infrastructure).

We currently have 60 nuclear power plant sites in use in the entire US, with 90-ish reactors in total operating. And 232 coal power plants operating (although some of these are greater than 1200MWe — this isn’t a bad ‘average’ number).

Bottom line is to ‘fuel’ a nation where electric cars become prevalent it’ll take essentially doubling our power plant capacity. Given the paltry 250MWe that a HUGE multi-Texas county wind farm might produce wind isn’t even going to be a drop in the bucket–nor is there enough land area on the planet to even make this remotely feasible. 280 new large Nuclear reactors is ambitious, but not impossible. But given insane regulatory hurdles very unlikely. While some might advocate gas turbines, our NATGAS reserves are already hugely strained already producing power, so there’s no extra slack there. The ONLY way to ‘fuel’ these EVs will be coal or nuclear and our engineer admitted his analysis is a bit light on the capacity side; he’d recommend more like 350 new reactors (or coal fired plants) if this is the direction we’d be heading. And that most long haul trucks would have to stay diesel due to their greater efficiency and range (his analysis was done only using car and light duty truck EVs).

So that’s the bottom line. Even IF the construction materials are available for these EVs. If you have a ‘golf cart’ commuter or ‘stealth-bike’ kinda mission for your vehicle (or love short trips with eye popping acceleration) go for it. Otherwise, we’d suggest you stick with your dinosaur burner.