CO2 production

[snoltor]

The Sacramento public electricity utility SMUD has an online calculator that evaluates a number of things including pounds of CO2 produced by gasoline ICE's versus an EV.

[/url]http://c03.apogee.net/contentplayer/?utilityid=smud&coursetype=misc&id=18862 According to this page my 53 MPG ...y sources? Or could that calculator be off?

 

[Dsinned]

The trouble with statistics, is they often can be manipulated to "prove" both sides of a debate.

I believe in CA a majority of our electricity is produced from hydroelectric and NG energy sources. Sadly, not so much from nuclear as is more the case in the Eastern States. Wind power? Maybe some insignificant amount, and geothermal the same. Oil? Coal? Probably in the minority as well compared to hydro and NG. I don't really know.

Cars and trucks that still use "any" gasoline or diesel fuel, are still a MAJOR source of pollution, but the RAV4 EV is a ZEV, which simply means our cars do not contribute to air pollution in any way while 100% in actual operation!

 

[TonyWilliams]

Our nuclear power plant in San Diego (San Onofre) is shut down, so we have zero nuke power and about 8% wind !!!!

 

[khaliss]

I don't harbor any guilt... I have a 5.2kw solarpower system

 

[TonyWilliams]

My conscience is clean... I have a 5.2kw solarpower system

8.0kW for me.

 

[snoltor]

You guys are lucky! The Leviton affiliate from the Bay area checked out my home and asked if I wanted solar panels. And of course I do but 2 large shade trees cut down usable roof area so that at most I could put 1.5 kw on the roof. In the mean time I have 10 solar LEDs lighting my sidewalk at night!

My conscience is clean... I have a 5.2kw solarpower system

8.0kW for me.

 

[shikataganai]

The Sacramento public electricity utility SMUD has an online calculator that evaluates a number of things including pounds of CO2 produced by gasoline ICE's versus an EV.

According to this page my 53 MPG Prius produces 566 pounds of CO2 per month, while a 3.3 mile per kWh EV would produce more, 627 pounds of CO2. Does this sound right?

Sounds right to me. California is a clean but not a super-clean region. The Pac NW has you beat soundly, and Seattle-ites have an additional $12/mo "Green Up" option to offset 100% of their electricity usage with renewable energy credits.

Data are a few years old, but you can see an interactive map of power generation by state here (click on "Sources of Power"):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398

 

[snoltor]

Just found a similar calculator on PG&Es site (my utility). They come up with a very similar estimate for CO2 production for my Prius (6570 for the year, or 547 per month, while SMUD calculated 566 pounds per month). But for the Rav4 EV at 50 miles per day they calculate just 304 pounds of CO2 per month while SMUD calculates 627 pounds per month. Obviously very very different methods of calculating how much electricity must be generated to charge the battery. Maybe SMUD better takes into account a variety of factors such as the efficiency of transmission from power plant to home etc etc? I'd like to know and will try to contact SMUD and PGE.... see if anyone there knows how the numbers are generated.

 

[snoltor]

For those interested the PG&E calculator is here:

http://www.pge.com/cgi-bin/pevcalculator/PEV

 

[snoltor]

OK, here's what I learned today regarding CO2 production by the Rav4 EV (The Sacramento utility SMUD website estimates 627 pounds of CO2 per month while PGE estimates 305 pounds of CO2): called both PGE and SMUD but didn't get any useful information. Could just be a matter of calling back again and eventually finding somebody who knows how those calculations were made.

Instead I contacted the director of the UC Davis Plug-in Hybrid / Electric Vehicle Research Center. He provided me with a number of interesting links and also said that their estimates indicate the the Rav4 EV would produce about 30% less CO2 emission than a Prius getting 53mpg (my Prius 3+ year average). And that was using a fairly conservative 450 watts/mile, or about 2.2 miles per kw. That figure takes into account a couple of factors including electricity transmission loss.

So according to his calc:
"450 watts/mile x 50 miles per day = 22.5 kWh’s per day. 22.5 kWh x 0.575 CO2/kWh = 12.9375 lbs of CO2 per day for the Rav4 EV.
Meanwhile for the Prius: 53 miles/gallon and each gallon of gasoline contains about 19.4 lbs of CO2 (according to EPA). So you figure you’re using 0.9433 gallons per day for a 50 mile commute which equals about 18.3 lbs C02 per day."

So take home message 12.93 lbs of CO2 per day for the Rav4 EV and 18.3 lbs of CO2 for the Prius. And again that's a conservative estimate. So looks good!!!!!

http://phev.ucdavis.edu