Steve Funk

The Economic Benefits of Climate Legislation

On Oct 24 08:49 AM Dave Marsh wrote:

> electric car will result in at least three times less CO2 per car-mile;

Dave,
You need to crack that Thermodynamics text again. An electric car charged by coal has inefficiencies of combustion (assume 33%), transmission line loss (90%), charging losses (95%), electro-mechanical conversion (you claim 95%). You multiply efficiencies in an energy chain giving roughly 27% efficiency for the coal charged electric car. I am just using rough numbers and would gladly defer to anyone who does have a textbook handy. To get the CO2 equivalents you need to count the carbon atoms in a BTU of coal vs. gasoline. Since coal is nearly 100% carbon and thermal efficiencies are in the same ball park I am thinking the coal charged electric car will put more CO2 in the air. This does not even take into account the environmental mess all the batteries are going to create. Listen to T. Boone Pickens and go LP. It is the quickest way to affect CO2 and air quality as an intermediate step. We need at least 30 years to build out a new infrastructure and that will not change no matter how many laws Congress passes.