According to Transport Watch, only about 30% of the energy generated by the power plant in fact reaches the vehicle because of losses in the transmission route. Of the energy delivered to the vehicle, 20% is then lost to the batteries and electric motor. This means that most Electric Vehicles are only about 24% efficient. So, if your electric vehicle is charged with electricity from a coal-fired power plant, then the Carbon dioxide emissions to fuel your Electric Vehicle are about double the amount emitted by a diesel engine, due to the inefficiencies in electrical power generation and transmission.

electric vehicle schematic

As a result they assume that the notion that electric cars will decrease emissions is a fiction unless we hypothecate that the UK electricity generating industry will be de-carbonised.

But if we want to consider this issue carefully, we will find a huge advantage of electric vehicles.

And now, let us consider some definitions:

Hybrid-electric vehicle: This uses an internal-combustion engine for most of its power, but also has an electric motor run from batteries recharged by the engine. Typically the engine shuts off when the car is stopped. Hybrid Electric Vehicles include the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight.
Plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle: An Hybrid Electric Vehicle that can charge its batteries by plugging into a charger, permitting all-electric short trips. The forthcoming Chevrolet Volt is such a car.
Battery-electric vehicle: an electric car powered solely by batteries.

All three can charge their batteries using regenerative braking, which recaptures energy otherwise lost as heat when bringing the car to a stop. That’s a huge advantage of electric vehicles.

How much energy is lost getting electricity from the power plant to your Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle? Plenty. In the U.S. right now, about 70 percent of the energy used to make electricity – more than four million gigawatt-hours – comes from fossil fuels. About 70 percent of that amount is wasted generating the power and transmitting it to your door. Other energy is lost when charging batteries and operation electric motors. Overall, electric cars use fossil fuel at 20 to 25 percent efficiency, but dismal as that sounds, it beats an internal-combustion car, which typically operates at about 15 percent efficiency. An HEV uses around 0.48-0.74 kilowatt-hours per mile, while PHEVs in electric mode and BEVs use 0.18-0.46 kWh per mile. By contrast, a conventional car getting 25 MPG uses 1.35 kWh/mile. To put the issue in more familiar terms, a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle offers fuel economy equivalent to as much as 188 miles per gallon.

Now let’s talk pollution. A huge advantage of electric vehicles is that their energy can come from renewable sources, such as hydroelectric, wind, or solar. Even if the energy source is fossil fuel, installing state-of-the-art emission controls on a few big power plants is way easier than installing ’em on hundreds of millions of motor vehicles. What’s more, since many electric plants use natural gas, Carbon dioxide emissions from power generation are a modest 1.27 pounds of Carbon dioxide per kWh – 1.9 pounds per productive kWh once we account for losses during battery charging and so on. Evaluate that to gasoline, which produces the equal of 3.9 pounds of CO2 per productive kWh.

Not until there are, the battery electric car is far more environmentally friendly than conventional car batteries. For example, Tesla’s Electric Roadster Battery can make the most of the amount of materials that can be reused, recycled, and minimize energy consumption utilized during the transportation and recycling process

They can divide the elements and re-use what can be re-used (cobalt, aluminum, nickel, and copper, etc). So the battery pack saves thousands of gallons of gasoline/diesel over the life of the vehicle, it is less toxic than the lead-acid batteries that are in regular cars, and at the end of its life it is recycled. That’s a huge advantage of electric vehicles.

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Seaweed Farms Hold Promise For Biofuel Production

By: Johan Young

A group of researchers from Tokyo University (Marine Science and Technology), Mitsubishi Research Institute, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and several other private-sector firms envision a 10,000 square kilometer algae farm at Yamatotai, a shallow fishing area in the mid of the Sea of Japan. The researchers guess that the farm will produce about twenty million kiloliters of bioethanol per year. This is equal to one third of Japanese fuel consumption per year.

algae alternative biofuel

Algae/seaweed has long been discussed as an alternative option to create bio fuel. Generally biofuel today is produced from corn and sugar cane. According to the proposal the algae to be grown in the farm is from sargasso seaweed (hondawara). This type of algae grows rapidly.

There will be floating bioreactors, these are special facilities that use enzyme to break the algae down into sugars. The seaweed would then be prepared for conversion into ethanol. The conversion will be done at sea and tankers then transport the ethanol to land.

There are two main components of algae/seaweed that raise interest in producing bioethanol. They are Fucoidan and Alginic Acid. While an enzyme for breaking down fucoidan has already been discovered, the scientists are looking for an enzyme that breaks down alginic acid. They are also looking at the possibility of genetically modifying the seaweed.

The group is also conducting investigate on how to develop the production plants and attract investment. Other participants in the project include NEC Toshiba Space Systems, Mitsubishi Electric, IHI, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Shimizu Corporation, Toa Corporation, Kanto Natural Gas Development Co., Ltd., and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC).

The researchers claim that in addition to serving as a source of fuel, the seaweed will also serve a noble duty by cleaning the Sea of Japan. According to Professor Masahiro Notoya from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, the seaweed would work to remove some of the excess nutrient salts that flow into the sea from the surrounding land masses.

Here some advantages fo algae/seaweed compared to other biofuels such as corn, sugar cane, and palm oil:

Algae/seaweed doesn’t need soil and fresh water as other agricultural biofuel producer crops desperately do. Some critics say that the cultivation of massive agricultural crops to create bio fuel demand very large acres of land, that makes it inefficient and potentially harm the environment.
Algae/seaweed grow 10 times faster than sugar cane. It is the fastest growing crop.
Because some algae/seaweed species are oil rich, the amount of oil we can collect from them is hundreds of times greater than the amount of oil that can be collected from an equal amount of a traditional, plant-based, biodiesel feedstock like soybeans.
Algae/seaweed remove great amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. Algae farms are glutton eaters of CO2 gas providing a means for recycling waste CO2 from fossil gas combustion.
Food price will rise as the effect of more land is taken away to produce biofuel.

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Energy Harvesting Shock Absorbers

A team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have successfully created a new shock absorber thatMIT new shock absorbers harnesses energy from small bumps in the road while also making the vehicle drive smoother on the road. MIT Senior Shakeel Avadhany and his teammates say their regenerative shock absorbers are able to offer up to a 10 percent improvement in fuel efficiency than standard shock absorbers used in most cars today.

MIT new shock absorbers

Zack Anderson explains the idea behind the project started when they were interested in trying to figure out where energy is being wasted in a vehicle. They discovered some hybrid cars already do a good job of recovering the energy from braking, so the team looked elsewhere, and quickly homed in on the suspension.

They started their testing by renting a variety of different car models, outfitting the suspension with sensors to determine the energy potential, and driving around with a laptop computer recording the sensor data. Their tests showed that there was a significant amount of energy lost by the suspension, especially on heavier vehicles Once they realized the possibilities, the students set about building a prototype system to harness the wasted power. Their prototype shock absorbers use a hydraulic system that forces fluid through a turbine attached to a generator.

news9a_4 The system is controlled by an active electronic system that optimizes the damping, providing a smoother ride than conventional shocks while generating electricity to recharge the batteries or operate electrical equipment. During testing of a 6-shock truck, the MIT students found each shock absorber is able to generate up to an average of 1 kW on standard road, which is “enough power to completely displace the large alternator load in heavy trucks and military vehicles.” If for some reason the electronics on the shocks fail, the fail-safe feature will have the shocks act simply like a normal shock absorber.

They have formed a company, called Levant Power Corp., to develop and commercialize the product they call GenShock. The team is currently doing a series of tests with their converted Humvee to optimize the system’s efficiency. They hope their technology will help give an edge to the military vehicle company in securing the expected $40 billion contract for the new army vehicle called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV.

The group will have a final product ready this summer, when they’ll start contacting companies to persuade them to upgrade their shock systems. For example, if Wal-Mart were to convert its fleet of trucks with these new shocks, the company could save $13 million per year in total fuel costs. (Source:http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/02/mit-students-de.html)

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Electric Propulsion Systems

By: Johan Young

Hybrid cars are planning to use electric propulsion systems which prove to be very efficient and also environmentally friendly. There may be various methods and approaches to complete the movement that uses electrical energy, but the main idea is unchanged.

These systems are already working and will further help develop alternatives to the internal combustion engine.

hybrid electric car

What is Electric Propulsion?

Electric propulsion is the acceleration of gases in order to produce propulsive thrust through electric and magnetic body forces, electric body forces or electric heating. Electric propulsion system theory is normally considered to be part of rocket science where the propulsion system manages to generate enough energy to produce a strong thrust. An electric propulsion system is an alternative to a nuclear propulsion system. The total thrust is less powerful compared to a nuclear rocket but still enough to generate effects.

According to several studies, any engine used as a primary source of such dominant propulsion must generate exhaust velocities of around 10 to 20 km/s. There are also storable chemical orders used in rockets with an exhaust rate of around 5 km/s but in general is fewer not wasteful.

Propulsion systems that do not necessitate power through chemical responses are still required. There are electricity propulsion thrusters able to generate exhaust velocities around 10 to 20 km / s which step up payload and decrease the propellant mass. The consequences, however, are less powerful thrusters consuming bigger quantities of power.

The 3 Categories of Electric Propulsion

Electro thermal propulsion

Electric Propulsion Systems

Electro thermal propulsion strikes when the propellant is electrically heated after that isentropically expanded, producing a gas that is sent through a Convergent/Divergent (C/D) nozzle to generate thrust. Catalyzed hydrazine or an alternative neutral gas is used in thrusters similar to arc jets and resisto-jets. An arc jet can be used to heat the propellants through an electric arc discharge. The arc in the arc-jet electron beam is generated from the cathode and the anode in the tip. A constrictor is also present providing a narrow pathway between the two charges.

Electrostatic thrusters

Electrostatic thrusters also called ion thrusters. These use an ionized propellant accelerated through electric areas applied in a straight line like gridded ion thrusters and Hall thrusters. The method of propulsion is also recognized as ion propulsion method since ions are mainly used in the process. Electrostatic energy is used to produce propulsion. With electrons from the atoms stripped off and converted to ions. The ions are accelerated by electric forces to a high temperature without needing thermal energy producing thrust. The atoms after losing electrons become positively charged.

Electromagnetic thrusters

Electromagnetic thrusters produce thrust using electric and magnetic forces that interact with charged plasmas like ions and electrons. An example of this is the magnetoplasmadynamic thruster or MPD. The system heats the propellant to a plasma state before being accelerated. A large current is passed by electromagnetic forces through gas in order to ionize the propellant. Plasma is the ionized propellant which is then accelerated by Lorentz force, an electromagnetic force producing thrust.

Effect on Gas

Decoupling engine speed and power output from the propeller will supply the opportunity to get better effectiveness. Since electric forces and electromagnetic forces kick in for support, gas and diesel propulsion systems in vehicles will reduce the chances of wasting a huge part of power and energy. The chance of engine overload is eliminated resulting in better fuel economy and better gas mileage.

A study conducted to check how much electric propulsion systems can help gasoline and diesel engines indicates that at least 10% fuel savings achieved only with the engine allows to move together with the burden inefficiency because of low load with high speed. Larger propellers can also save as much as 7% of fuel compared to traditional models.

With the total load split between multiple generators, as much as 20% of fuel can be saved plus another 13% by matching the power produced by the engine to the power required by the propeller. A variable-speed generator will help accomplish this. Overall, 30% to 50% can be saved compared to a highly efficient diesel-electric or gasoline-electric system.

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