On 21 Dec 2014 at 14:27, Ben Goren via EV wrote: > As such, the choice then becomes to mine the carbon that's required to power > those vehicles, or to recycle the carbon that's already going to be mined to > burn in electric power plants.
No choice here, really. You're not "recycling" the CO2. You have to use energy to release the carbon from it - appreciably more energy than was released when the fuel was burned. It's more efficient and cheaper to take the energy you were going to use to reduce the CO2 and use it to drive the vehicles directly, rather than making synthetic fuel with that energy. I think that's the point Peri is trying to make. Your point seems to be that we can't pry ICEVs out of the public's hands, so we should make fuel for those vehicles. However, that fuel is going to be awfully pricey because of the amount of excess (wasted) energy that goes into it. I know, you're saying get the energy from PV or wind. But that's not free energy. Every kWh comes with costs for equipment amortization and labor. There is an environmental and energy cost of producing the equipment, even if the net energy output exceeds it. Bottom line is, you can't think of CO2 as anything like a fuel. Though it may have uses in some kinds of manufacturing and processing, never forget that it's fundamentally a waste product. To get back to this report, it's the same game we've seen for years. The real picture of transportation energy use is highly complex. Because a there are so many numbers involved, it's a cinch to select only data which lead to your pre-selected conclusion. Energy gets used in all kinds of places delivering fuel to an ICEV. These include locating, drilling, and preparing the well; pumping the crude; refining it; transporting the refined product to filling stations; operating the filling stations, and so on. You could even reasonably count the energy use in the petroleum company's offices, the vehicles the wellhead workers drive ... the list goes on. Regrettably, the media gleefully pick up on these bogus analyses. They just LOVE to show that the status quo is the very best of all worlds, and that new ideas are all bunk. That's not just because media owners are stolid 1- percenters (though they are, by and large). Reporters are balloon-poppers by nature. They'll pounce on something like this. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
