A hybrid vehicle "thought experiment".........

[FredStembottom]

I plan to post a couple more of my energy thoughts to this forum because I am not very well-versed in energy alternatives - and I always get great answers here.

Here's today's: Imagine that every car, truck and bus in America was suddenly, overnight, converted to hybrid engines. Specifically, the Toyota type (series Hybrid?)where the gas engine frequently shuts down completely.

Now imagine your favorite, hometown traffic jam. If your city is like Minneapolis, they happen every freakin' day at the same places and times. Now imagine ALL those vehicles sitting at a standstill - or crawling - and not a single gas engine running.

Now imagine every traffic jam in every city in America. And all the cars at stop lights every where else - all day long. ALL with no engines running.

How close to solving our "energy crisis" would that single change make? I can't help but think it would be a sea-change in our consumption of oil!

Just that one change. How far would that get us?

[Taverner]

1. We will make more progress in the "stop and go" traffic

On a ICE, you burn lots of gas going from still to 1st

On a hybrid, it's electric - no emissions

[FredStembottom]

4. Excellent point.

We burn most of our gas accelerating, for sure. Since the electric motor in a hybrid takes care of that, then my "experiment" seems even better?

I got to thinking of this watching a line of cars at a fast-food drive-thru lane. Imagine that line being almost totally silent with no engines running.... it's a beautiful thing.

[Captain Angry]

2. It would be nice.

The only good thing about being stuck in traffic is knowing that I'm driving on electricity.

I can't remember the source, but if we increased the US fleet efficiency by 5 mpg, we could stop importing like a third of the oil we bring in. Something unreal like that.

If we doubled it, we could probably produce 100% of our needs domestically.

[Buck Laser]

3. It would help some there...

but it also helps in open traffic. I've had a hybrid for four years now, and I get more that double the gas mileage my van gets--44.2 mpg, compared to 19.5 on the minivan. We drive both carefully. I've recently taken to holding my speed to 60 mph on roads where the limit is 65, and that gives me an extra 1.5 mpg. There's not a doubt in my mind that a widespread move to hybrids, along with slightly lowered speed limits would probably reduce our energy expenditures without a great impact except on the energy companies.

[FredStembottom]

5. Which is what I am "secretly" wondering about........

Would this single change do the heavy lifting while not needlessly infuriating the VAST number of Americans who live to drive their cars around.

[twiceshy]

6. Just want to point out a few downsides...

The creation and disposal of the batteries used in Hybrids also consumes energy and is very dirty environmentally. The area where they mine the nickel for Prius batteries in Canada is a wasteland. Not saying it cannot be done responsibly, but we need to be careful not to replace one problem with another.

[DCKit]

7. Hybrid batteries are 100% recyclable.

Any components that aren't shouldn't be allowed into the cars to begin with.

[twiceshy]

8. That is good to know....

I was thinking of all the household batteries and how they get disposed of. I also saw a hybrid retrofit kit for older cars - I want one bad, but will not fit my old Jaguar. Here's the URL

http://www.poulsenhybrid.com/index.html

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Nickel is thoroughly recyclable, but there is not much economic pressure to do so.

In the meantime, the cheapest source will be the main source -- in the West, huge deposits in the Sudbury, ON region, which contain substantial amounts of arsenic (making the environmental effects all the worse):

"It has been found that certain ore bodies in the mines of the Sudbury region have arsenic content up to 200 times the normal content. Blending the ore into the feed to the mill has, at times, resulted in an increase in arsenic content of the Cu—Ni bulk concentrate to a level that significantly affects smelters and, more importantly, the efficiency of Cu—Ni separation in the matte separation plant. In the Sudbury region, the arsenic mainly occurs in a sulfide mineral with nickel called gersdorffite (NiAsS), with a small amount being in the form of cobaltite (CoAsS)."

Once the above-ground pool of Ni increases sufficiently, it will be economically competitive to recycle rather than to mine anew. This has already happened to some extent. This happened to copper after WWII, and to tin in the Fifties (IIRC) (just about causing the collapse of the Bolivian economy, which depended heavily on tin mines).

[kristopher]

16. What does nickel have to do with lithium? nt

[eppur_se_muova]

19. See post No. 6 -- Prius uses Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery pack.

"As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper."

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188

While it looks like the future may well belong to Li batteries, the present, for hybrids, belongs to NiMH.

"A Sealed 38 module nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery pack providing 273.6 volts, 6.5 A·h capacity and weighing 53.3 kg (118 lb) <3> is supplied by Japan's Panasonic. They are normally charged to 40-60% of maximum capacity to prolong battery life as well as provide a reserve for regenerative braking"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius

Of course, it is possible to scrub the SO2 and arsenic from the flue gases -- but that would cost money, and hey, the environment's not that important.:sarcasm:

[lectrobyte]

9. I've hit 70 or 75 MPG in severe traffic jams, like waiting for a wreck to

clear. Here's my more typical mileage, a second-gen Prius driven somewhat sportily.

[bhikkhu]

11. Jevon's Paradox: efficiency lowers cost, which encourages consumption

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Hybrid cars are a good idea and a fundamental economic force, but they will not reduce fuel consumption, any more than the decades of shrinking cars and increases in efficiency have reduced fuel consumption. Its been demonstrated over and over; so it is a good idea and a good technology, but it is not a solution to our energy problems.

[FredStembottom]

14. That's a worthy stumbling-block you've tossed in there, bhikkhu!

But would it be a trade-off? Don't people have time constraints on how much they can spend in the car? Don't folks already drive exactly the amount they want/need? No more, no less?

That would be worth study as well.

[kristopher]

15. bhikkhu is misapplying the concept - again...

In a complex system many otherfactors come into play, just as you say. For example, a refrigerator today is much more efficient than 30 years ago, but I doubt if people use them more. If my driving isn't already cost constrained, I will not drive more if the price per mile drops. If my driving is cost constrained (as it is for most of us right now having experienced a 300% price increase) then a price per mile reduction will return us to our habitual patterns.

[bhikkhu]

17. US consumption may be fixed by habitual patterns

and so merely remain at that level, rising with population, falling with efficiency.

But in the OP's example we have to consider a large part of the world that cannot afford to burn energy for transportation. By increasing efficiency we reduce cost, and then we make the habitual patterns of the US available to a larger and poorer segment of the world. This is essentially Jevon's example, where more efficient coal fired engines led to increased coal consumption by making coal engines affordable for a wider variety of uses.

[DaveJ]

12. Drive less

We as individuals have little control over the way cars are made. What we can control is how much we drive. Pick a job that is near home, or better yet, within distance of a bus or bike ride. That would bring about a 'sea-change' immediately and require no assistance from auto companies.

But keep in mind that transportation only constitutes around 28% of emissions. Here is a graph of all the culprits:



(http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2007/06/climate-change-policy.html)

Driving less would not only reduce per capita fuel consumption, but reduce traffic jams, road construction, and provide people a lot more time to be productive. Employers and employees should make a consorted effort to work with one another locally.

[FredStembottom]

13. To me, everybody changing jobs seems much more.....

...invasisve and impossible. Especially since the jobs are where they are - they don't check if they're by anybody's house.

[DaveJ]

18. Really? Nobody's forced to take a job that's far away....

[CRF450]

21. Many of us are actually

Especially if we want a good paying job rather than a low paying min wage slave job closer to home. I did have one 25 miles away from home that pays good, which was welding trailers together, but I hated it, I just dont like welding. My current job is MUCH farther away, 60 miles lol. But my aunt has a camper I can stay in on the work nights (fri. and sat. nights, not a normal schedule) so thankfully I dont drive as much as before.

[midnight armadillo]

20. Or, vastly more realistically, imagine this...

...we invest public $ into making sure every single home in the US is equipped with energy efficient, low-E windows, adequate roof and wall insulation, and Energy Star appliances.

My wild-ass guess is that this would reduce our fossil fuel use by more than taking all the cars off the road.

It's baffling, really, what some people put up with. A co-worker of mine has owned his house for over 20 years near Boston. ZERO wall insulation. A kitchen renovation made the kitchen a separate heating zone and insulated the walls...the result was a 15-20% drop in natural gas use. You'd think he'd be running to do the rest of the house, eh? Naw. Oh, and the guy has a PhD in the natural sciences, he's no dummy.