Test? Is it safe?

[Mikael Hansson]

Tony Scharf skrev:
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Tony Hardie-Bick <tony at entity.net> wrote:
>   
>> The Dong wrote:
>>
>> Just leave it plugged in ;)
>>     
>
> There is also the problem with electric vehicles that all you are
> really doing is displacing where the CO2 is generated.  Depending on
> where you live, the electricity your charging it up with is more than
> likely generated by burning coal (not exactly a green process). In
> fact, if you consider the efficiencies of batteries and the amount of
> power loss charging them up..your net impact could actually be higher.
>
> So what you end up with is a poorly performing vehicle, that is not
> environmentally cleaner but has the effect of making the driver *feel*
> good about themselves while not personally having to incur as much
> cost for fuel.
>
> Alternative fuels that burn more cleanly and are more easily renewable
> are going to be the eventual answer.  That or cars that burn gasoline
> more cleanly and efficiently.

I've read some reports about this, but unfortunately they're in swedish 
so no use posting links but they state that if all electricity comes 
from coalplants, the CO2 emitted is slightly higher than a normal car 
but if you use natural gas it's much lower. No problem in Sweden though, 
I think the only oil/coalplants still in use are reserveplants for high 
energypeaks during wintertime which make up only 3 % of the total 
production. But the CO2 problem is better handled at a powerplant and 
more so in the near future when we start doing "Carbon capture and 
storage" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage>)

Another report compared energy efficiency from natural resources to car 
use and a electric car powered by a gasplant had an efficiency of about 
30 % whereas a gasoline car had a total efficiency of about 13 %.

/Micke