Replies

“Except for, where do you get the electricity? It takes more power generation than legacy fuel to run a car, van or truck.

It doesn’t pencil out unless you build nuclear power”

A model.3 tesla takes 180 watt hours to.cover a single mile with the a.c.roaring in Houston traffic. I have seen as low as 130 wh mile in grid lock. At 80mph also in Texas July heat its 280 wh mile. I rent on the regular teslas when I travel they are the cheapest sedan as t Corp LLC weekly rates. I own a virtually identical sized S60 Volvo these two cars are one inch in footprint size and my Volvo is 200lbs heavier than the model 3 RWD. That Volvo averges 22mpg in bumper to bumper traffic have seen as low as 15 and 28 at 80 mph on the interstate.

So now we know how much energy it takes to move nearly identical sized vehicles 200# is not enough to make a difference that like a fat driver vs a skinny one. Ok now the maths...

The LHV of gasoline is 112,114–116,090 Btu/gal per the DOE. There is 3412 btu per kWh so one gal of gasoline is at most 34kWh or 34000 watt hours.

22mpg converted to btu per mile is as follows

116900/22= 5276.8 btu per mile then we go to kwh 5276.8/3412= 1.55kWh mile then to watt hours so 1.55*1000= 1550 wh per mile.

Having seen as low as 15mpg
116090/15/3412*1000= 2,268 wh mile

So in grid lock the ICE is using between 2268 and 1550 watt hours per mile. Compare that to the model 3 that’s slightly lighter of 130 watt hours per mile and 180 wh/mi the math is clear at the end point of use.

You also need to look at where the electricity came from. If it came from solar panels on my garage and home roof then the btu per mile of chemical fuels is zero. Panels made of regular polysilicon not thin film have an EROI of 4 years every watt hour after that is positive energy vs what it took to make the panel including the mining of the silicon ,refining it and turning it into cells then panels. My panels have a 25 year warranty at 5% capacity loss at the end of 25 years. Teslas measure gross power from the plug into the pack and make the calculation if watt hours per mile based on that value which includes charging losses. So for solar power on location only the losses in the inverter would increase the total whr per mile. Since its fuel (aka the great thermonuclear fireball in the sky) is free that is irrelevant.

How about for grid power Texas gets 60% of it’s power from natural gas, 18% from wind and solar, 11% from coal and 11% from nuclear. We have virtually no hydro. So most assuredly not coal powered.

Most of this gas power is combined cycle plants with some simple cycle peaked plants at peak times.

“According to the EIA, natural gas combined-cycle power generators installed since 2015 have an average heat rate of 6,654 Btu/kWh.”

That’s to the plant gate, now transmission losses...

“Losses are lower in HVDC than in HVAC over long distances: for a ±800 kV line voltage, losses are about 3% per 1,000 km for an HVDC while they are about 7% per 1,000 km for an HVAC line- IEA”

Nowhere in Texas is a power plant farther than 200km from a major city so 7% per 1000km is 0.014 or 1.4% over 200km. Then transformer losses.

“It’s also worth noting that transformers themselves are designed to be highly efficient, with energy losses typically less than 1%. These losses occur mainly due to resistance in the windings and hysteresis and eddy currents in the core.”

So 1.4%+1 ish percent let’s go with 3% total.

6654btu/kwh*1.03= 6,853.62 btu per kWh to the wall. One kWh is 3412 btu. So the dimensional analysis 1000wh/180wh= 5.55 miles to kwh or 6853btu/5.55= 1,233.65 btu per mile compare this with 5276.8 btu per mile for 22mpg ICE.

180wh/mi= 1233.65 btu in natural gas burnt at the power plant including all the transmission losses and charging losses.

Vs 22mpg of E10 burnt at the engine of the ICE gives 5276 btu per mile most of that as heat out the tailpipe and radiator.

This just demonstrated the difference in second law vs first law of thermodynamics. Contrary to boomer fud it is much more efficient to burn natural gas in 60+% efficient combined cycle plants and transmit the electricity for the EV than to burn anything directly in a 25% or less efficient ICE motor in the vehicle.

Average efficiency is easy to calculate since we know it takes 180wh gross to move a S60 sized vehicles down the road for a mile and we know that at 22mpg the LHV of.the fuel used is 5276.8 btu per mile converted to watt hours = 1546wh gross so 180wh/1546when= 11% actual average efficiency tank to wheels the math checks out going both ways btu to wh or wh to lhv btu.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/03/solar-power-can-pay-easily/

You are right about nuclear power being the answer no matter what the question.

For EVs nukes have crazy high miles per gram of uranium. CANDU reactors have a burn up of 7500 MWd/Mg(U) that’s 7500 megawatt DAYS per Mg or metric tonne = 1000Kg so 7.5 megawatt days per kg or 7.5*24hr= 180 megawatt hours now to kilowatts is 180,000 and to watt hours is 180,000,000 since we know we lose 3% getting the power to the wall plug net that’s 174,600,000 to use for moving EVs per Kg of natural uranium. We know it takes 180wh to move a Model 3 down the road that Kg moves a single EV of that size 970,000 miles or 970 miles per gram of natural uranium. A sugar cube sized piece of uranium is 20 grams or 19400 miles worth of travel. Since the average American drives 14500 miles per year we can now find the grams needed for that distance in a five passenger EV its 14.9 grams and smaller than a sugar cubes worth. The spot price for uranium today was $225Kg or 22.5 cents per gram only CANDU reactors can burn natural uranium. 14.9 grams is $3.35 worth of raw uranium let that sink in. The average yearly driving distance can be covered in a five passenger EV with 3.35 dollars worth of uranium nothing anywhere will beat that only roof top solar would be cheaper over a 25 year panel life. Let’s look at life time driving distance and waste volume.

Average lifespan of 78 years can drive from 16 yo till deaths at the avg annual distance. It works out to 926 grams of uranium for 62 YEARS of driving. Uranium oxide fuel pellets are 11-15g/cm3 we will use the lower number. 926 grams at 11g/cm is 84 cubic cm volume. In freedom units that’s 84ml=2.84 ounces or a large shot glass worth of volume. Read that again the lifetime driving distance waste if a candu reactor is used to power an EV of midsized sedan fits inside a shot glass and costs $208 dollars in uranium wholesale spot prices. This is the future regardless of what the luddites say it’s a matter of when from the species level.

Let’s look at nuclear to hydrogen for a large class 8 trucks since this whole article is about trucks not cars.

CANDU again why because it’s the most efficient,cheapest and quickest built reactor in the world. Korea can crank them out in 60 months for under $2800kw capex.

One Kg of H2 has a LHV of 33.33 kWh/kg why LHV because we want to burn it not fuel cell it. It takes 55.5kWh currently to make a Kg of hydrogen that’s 60% eff but that also includes compression to 3000+ psi high pressure electrolysis outputs that at psi without the pumping losses.

Candu puts out 2 cents per kWh to the plant gate so a Kg of Hydrogen has a energy cost of $1.11 a PEM electrolysis stack currently costs $500 per Kg of capex and has a 30,000 to 40,000 hour PEM membrane lifespan. This works out to 1.66 cents per Kg in capex over a 30,000 hour life time. Clearly the dominant cost is the energy cost and this is where nuclear if the greens would get out of the way would kill it.

Adding taxes, distribution , wholesale and retail profits would double the costs. This is typical as the wholesale price of diesel is half the retail price with taxes et al.

A typical class 8 averages 7 mpg of diesel which has a lhv of 128,488 Btu/gal. A Kg of H2 has a lhv of 113,718 BTU. Hydrogen burns more completely than diesel with zero particulate matter emissions and zero SOx, NOx is a issue but modern engines can lean burn and use SCR cats with hydrogen being the reductant to activate the cats. Given the 4% better efficiency of H2 combustion vs diesel its fair to say it’s a one for one swap a Kg of H2 = one gallon of number 2 gasoil.

The math then shows that for a class 8 semi its 16245 btu per mile when burning hydrogen. A fuel cell would cut number by 2/3 as fuel cells are 60 to 70% efficient using the HHV not the LHV being electrochemical not combustion changes which law of thermodynamics they must obey.

The max time a driver can drive is 8 hours at a max speed of 75mph and those 75s are not in every state so the max distance before a mandatory 16 hour break is 600 miles. That would require 86kg of hydrogen to cover that distance at the DGE of 7mpg.Hydrogen has a density of 33kg/m3 @ 500 bar a typical commercial tank rating under the DOT max tank at 10000psi. 86kg fits into 2.59 cubic meters there’s 264 freedom units in a cubic meter, so 685 gallons of volume holds 86kg. Side tanks on a semi are up too 150 gal each so half fits in the existing spots. The other half can be stored behind the cab vertically. A 1 foot diameter tank 8 feet tall holds 187 gallons of volume not including the hemispheric end caps. You could fit 6 across the back of the sleeper cab and only use one foot of airspace towards the trailer there’s at least 10 feet space there. So 300 gallons plus 6*187= 1422 gal that’s 5.38 cubic commie units which holds 177.5 Kg of H2 enough for 1242 miles range that’s more miles than a triple person drive team in 24 hour legally could drive at reasonable average speeds. As for refuel this speaks for itself.

“On April 26, 2022, the IHS team exceeded this mass flow rate goal, demonstrating an average mass flow rate of 14 kg/min (21 kg/min peak) with a 40.3 kg fill into a bank of eight hydrogen storage tanks—similar to those used by HD vehicles—in 2.87 minutes.”

Hydrogen is the future its the only energy storage medium that’s plentiful enough for 10 billion people to have heavy truck transport, nonelectrified rail lines, aircraft in liquid H2 form, and ships which could also use ammonia in liquid form same for trucks and rail lines. It’s how do you store the hydrogen as a compressed gas, cryogenic liquid or chemically bonded with nitrogen from the Air.

Ammonia makes great sense for large engines as it can be kept liquid under propane like pressures at anything under 120F = 225psi saturation pressures at that temp ammonia is ~560kg per cubic commie unit er... meter. One lb of ammonia holds 7,987 BTU/lb that’s also 17,603.348/Kg this is where it gets interesting one cubic meter of 500bar H2 holds 33kg and 3,752,694 btu. One cubic meter of ammonia holds 560Kg at 15bar that 560kg of NH3 holds 9,857,680 btu like I said a few posts back three times as much as H2 gas at realistic pressures.

This means for a given tank volume you can go 3X as far. Ammonia is not for Joe sixpack but truckers, rail conductors and ship workers can and are trained to handle it safely and do so with millions of pounds per day all over the world. Ammonia is one of the most used chemicals.

Ammonia can be made from water and thin air anywhere you have those two raw materials and electricity. From scidirect “10.3 kWh of renewable electricity per kg NH3” that’s 50% electricity to NH3 on a LHV basis not too bad if you are going lose that energy due to curtailment anyways. With nuclear power it would make sense during the ducks back to soak up all the extra power the grid cannot take at that point in a nuclear heavy grid. Nukes are fueled on a schedule regardless of how many actual EFPD(effective full power days) they run at so it makes the most fiscal sense to run them flat out 100% 24/7 and dump the power to somewhere at even a minimal profit or break even for the fuel cost its use it or lose it.

Ethanol can also be made with nothing but water and co2 into an electrolytic cell using copper nano catalysts at 93% elections to carbon product it’s very high eff you need a source of co2 such as power plant captured gas or better yet the Air itself.

” Commercial co2 capture is $58.30 per metric ton of CO2, according to a DOE”
.

Ethanol synthesis needs 5.76Kg co2 per gallon. At $59 per 1000 Kg it works out to 34cents per gallon of co2 raw materials cost. Ethanol has HHV 84,530 Btu/gal for E100 that’s 24.7kWh and at 93% faraday efficiency of electricity to final product it’s 26.50 kWh to the gallon. Here again no need for on peak power. Run the Ecells with off peak, curtailment or sit them next to a nuclear park like Bruce in Canada and run them flat out using the duck’s back trough of the demand curve to load those nukes up to 100% power all day all night. 2 cent power at the plant gate is 53 cents per gallon of ethanol in energy costs. This again showing how nuclear power is the key to synthetic ffuels on a mass scale. Nuclear plus desert solar and probably offshore winds in the northern latitudes are the only energy sources with the magnitudes to put 8 billion people at somewhat middle class levels of consumption. Liquid hydrocarbons cannot nor can natural gas. Coal could for a generation at most but 8 billion presently living would rip through the coal in a generation.