Plugging In (Again)

Okay, so, with regard to the EPRI study business. The organization has a good reputation for doing real research, and the people who did the report in question are real scientists, nor is this the first study to reach the same basic conclusion (see, this, for example). What's more, the basic point is perfectly in line with common sense. Thinking in the longer term, the available options for making electricity generation greener seem much, much better than do the possible ways of creating greener liquid fuels and as Kevin Drums says plug-in hybrids are a good transitional technology that will create incentives to build the sort of infrastructure we would need to make electric-only cars a reasonable option at some point.

Long story short -- plug-in hybrids are a good thing. In particular, insofar as one feels the need to throw some kind of bone in the direction of the coal industry (exactly the sort of thing someone engaged in practical politics might want to do) using coal to create electricity and using electricity to power plug-in hybrids (or, indeed, electric cars) is much, much more environment friendly than is coal liquification.

Comments

Burning Tires for fun is probably more environment friendly than Liquid Coal.

Posted by AJ | July 23, 2007 3:19 PM

Strangling ponies with your bare hands is more environment friendly than liquid coal. See:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_roberts/2007/06/truth_about_coal.html

Posted by David Roberts | July 23, 2007 3:33 PM

It took three posts to get there, but, yes, this is all correct. One further aspect of plug-in hybrids that bears mentioning is the interesting possibilities opened up by vehicle-to-grid technology. In a nutshell, this is the notion of charging their batteries at night, and then feeding the stored reserves of electricity back into the grid during the day when the cars are sitting idle in corporate parking lots.

There are two potentially large benefits to doing this. The first is demand smoothing. By helping to equalize electricity demand between day and night by providing local, short-term electricity storage, vehicle-to-grid can increase efficiency. Provisioning for peak demand (e.g., hot summer days) causes a disproportionate share of carbon emissions.

The second potential benefit is providing short-term storage for intermittent sources of renewable energy such as wind. The big problem with wind energy, as everyone knows, is that the wind don't always blow. Using the batteries in plug-ins for demand smoothing is potentially a neat solution to this problem.

Although vehicle-to-grid has a gee-whiz aspect to it, it's not total science fiction. Google is running a large-scale experiment with the technology, and the city of Austin is threatening to do likewise.

Posted by Adam | July 23, 2007 3:37 PM

Glad to see this follow up. I think it's also worth pointing out that large point source pollution sources (such as power plants) are much easier to monitor and control than non-point pollution sources (such as automobile emissions). This will help to concentrate the force of the carbon emissions trading systems which are beginning to come into effect.

Posted by ponte | July 23, 2007 3:52 PM

For a lot environmental ideas, the biggest hurdle is getting people to adopt it. So, plug-in hybrids will appeal to people who hate paying money for gas. Anti-global-warming appeals will only do it for some people, anti-paying-money-at-gas-stations will get the rest.

Unfortunately, Adam's vehicle-grid concept goes against that, and would be a harder sell, unless people were paid back for the electricity they're putting back into the grid.

Posted by American Citizen | July 23, 2007 3:53 PM

The EPRI is an arm of the utilities; of course they're going to support plug-in hybrids.

This is not to say it wouldn't be a good idea for people to replace their Ford Explorers with plug-in hybrids - it would. (It would be even better if plug-in electrics were available.)

But the most attractive option for power generation is not coal or nuclear but nanosolar panels for homes, businesses, and facilities and locally based turbines coupled with small, stationary hydrogen fuel cells (also for homes, businesses, and facilities; these are slated to be available in less than a decade).

And less c02 would be emitted converting then running the existing fleet of more efficient cars on biofuels than replacing most of them; massive amounts of c02 are emitted during the manufacturing process.

Posted by Linus | July 23, 2007 4:10 PM

There's competition between distributed micro-generation, and centrally generated electricity, to be sure, and the latter now dominates the scene, but does doing the latter really preclude doing the former?

The immense investment in capital and labor required to build canals was followed within a generation by an even vaster investment in capital and labor to build railroads.

Posted by Davis X. Machina | July 23, 2007 4:54 PM

I'd really like to see one of these "plug-in" stories address the issue of people who don't have their own garages or doorways! The same people who advocate for things like plug-in cars, also usually advocate for dense, urbanist living.

Take me, for example. I live five miles from the office, I walk to the store and the library, I take the bus to work. However, I also own a car. (My father lives 35 miles away; my mother, 375. I drive to visit both of them.) It is useful for certain types of shopping and entertainment, carpooling with friends, and occasional use when I am too lazy to get up in time for the bus and have to drive to the office.

At the same time, I live in a rented apartment with a surface parking lot. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I don't imagine the management company ripping up the parking lot to install A/C outlets will be coming anytime soon. What are people like me to do? Where's the incentive for us and the people who own OUR homes?

Anyone? Bueller?

Posted by ajw_93 | July 23, 2007 5:03 PM

Obviously, I spend too much time at MY's blog.

That was meant to say "don't have their own garages or DRIVEways".

Sorry.

Posted by ajw_93 | July 23, 2007 5:06 PM

ajw93, would not a plug-in hybrid run on gas alone indefinitely, charging the battery from regenerative braking and/or the gas engine?

Let us not have the best become the enemy of the good...

Posted by Davis X. Machina | July 23, 2007 5:33 PM

Re: I'd really like to see one of these "plug-in" stories address the issue of people who don't have their own garages or doorways!

There would have to be some modificatiosn made to accommodate this. I expect there would have to be special outlets anyway as there are for clothwes dryers (maybe 220 volt current too), you wouldn't just plug the car into a wall outlet. And yes, I do see aprtament parking lots and even office and shopping mall lots being retrofitted with such devices (presumably with some sort of credit/debit card reader attached). That's no different from parking lots being built in the first place to accommodate cars though I suspect the expense would fall on the electric company.

Posted by JonF | July 23, 2007 7:38 PM

ajw_93 is a good example of a person who is not in the market for a plug-in. He's already reduced his carbon footprint so much that no carbon tax can make it a good deal for him to buy a pricey new electric. In short, his car use is an outlier that can just be ignored. We wouldn't have any problems if everyone fit his profile.

The plug-in hybrid is really just an effort to save suburbia. It won't save the automobile industry, because the rest of the world simply won't pay the big price for the overweight product. In fact, there's no real assurance that the darn things will ever be a paying proposition, so it may just eventually boil down to the question of how many hundreds of billions you want the government to spend on this before you pull the plug.

Posted by serial catowner | July 23, 2007 7:43 PM