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October 15, 2006Who Killed the Electric Car?This is a cross posting from Dewayne Hendrick's list:[Note: This item comes from reader Mike Cheponis. DLH] From: Mike CheponisI highly recommend you watch this film. One note on the problem of charging plugin hybrids with power from coal fired power plants that discard 2/3s of the energy in the coal they burn as "waste" heat. We know from all of the global warming studies that releasing the sequestered carbon in the oil, gas and coal that we are currently consuming in vast quantities is a very significant threat to the viability of the biosphere. If this is the problem, then an important and common sense part of the solution will be simply to keep all sequestered carbon safely sequestered. A major step in this direction will be for all of us to make our own electricity in our basements with micro-CHP units powered by solid biomass fuels. Carbon neutral solid biomass fuel has a superior net energy content of 14:1. On the other hand, when we convert biomass into liquid fuels, the net energy drops to only 7:1, if not a mere 2:1. Further, the production of ethanol also results in the degradation of several gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol produced. In this scenario, we will power our plugin hybrid cars with electricity we make in our homes with appliances that achieve 95% efficiency. In this way, our personal transportation becomes an integral part of what Al Gore calls the “electranet". Posted by Jock Gill at October 15, 2006 10:54 AM | TrackBack Comments
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