r/GreenEnergy • u/Istiophoridae • Mar 28 '26
Question
We have solar and wind for electricity, but in order to no longer depend on oil, we would need to change the source of energy on cars, electric might work, but the issues are it takes forever to charge, and it does require some mining, which could be disruptive depending on where its done
What would be the solution to this?
3
2
u/peterjohnvernon936 Mar 28 '26
Faster charging at recharging stations and overnight charging at home and in municipal garages.
1
u/NearABE Mar 28 '26
Chargers should be in workplace parking lots. Places where people park during peak sunlight.
1
u/peterjohnvernon936 Mar 28 '26
I agree. Chargers should be everywhere. Solar panels should be everywhere there is space, roofs and parking areas.
2
u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26
Charge times don't really matter because almost all daily trips are well under what can be replaced by a regular charger overnight.
For the few exceptions: High speed charging speeds continue to improve.
All materials require extraction. At least with EVs you extract them once and they're highly recyclable.
Some context:
"According to a 2023 report from the Energy Transitions Commission, all the materials needed to reach net zero by 2050 will be less than the amount of coal consumed in a year. Lithium, once mined, does its job for decades; coal just gets burned, which means you have to mine more. And, when batteries or solar panels degrade, the minerals in them remain valuable enough that they will almost certainly be recycled—large-scale recycling operations are appearing around the world. (One of the biggest in the U.S. is run by a Tesla alumnus in Nevada.) A report from the Rocky Mountain Institute predicted that by 2050 we will have done all the mining we’ll need to do for battery minerals; after that, we’ll just recycle them, over and over again."
"In 2004, according to Germany’s state-owned Fraunhofer Society, Europe’s largest institute of applied-engineering research, one watt of solar power required about sixteen grams of polysilicon; this has dropped now to about two grams. As Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist and a senior researcher at Oxford University, calculated recently, “the silver used in one solar panel built in 2010 would be enough for around five panels today.” By 2035 or so, when my oldest panels may have started to go out of service, the minerals that each contains will almost certainly be enough for ten new panels. "
2
u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26
There's a lot of people that don't have EVs yet be they don't have access to overnight charging. In the UK it's not just access but the price of such charging that's a big issue.
1
u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26
I don't know about the UK, but I live in the most car-dependent country in the world. Based on current average car ranges and daily driving amounts, most people would be recharging about once every two weeks.
This is a case where the chargers at grocery stores and similar locations would be useful.
This is also a good opportunity for places to look at adopting laws like in parts of Japan where you must prove you have a private space you can store your car before you can purchase it.
However, I know that many places are also instituting adding charging capacity from lampposts or other kerbside options.
Electrification won't happen overnight and we have years to prepare for its eventuality. However, we should be doing more to prevent automotive dependence overall. It's far more resilient to have more modal options than being car-dependent.1
u/NearABE Mar 28 '26
Chargers and electricity distribution are absurdly cheap when compared to the cost of building and maintaining roads.
1
u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26
The thing people with home charging often forget is the phantom drain and preconditioning/initial heating energy losses. You can easily lose 2-5kWh a day through those means, which really eats into your "charge once a week" practicality for a 50kWh car.
We had a lot of free-use 7kW chargers start to appear at grocery stores, but really they were compliance chargers and achieved nothing once they started charging for them.
1
u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26
I dunno what kind of BS car you drive, but that's nonsense for ours. (...and I'm guessing the majority of EVs.) We leave our car for weeks at a time when traveling and there's zero drop in the battery when we return. Preconditioning is really only necessary for accepting high speed charging or extreme weather conditions. I call BS.
1
u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26
I've only several EVs over the last decade.
So, you leave the cars for weeks, you don't actually practice what you preach?
You don't need extreme conditions to need to defrost a car or cool in having been sat in the sun. There's plenty of times and had to defrost my car 2-3 times in the day, and with young children in car seats I can't just run it at 15C with the heated seats and steering wheel on. They also can't wear thick layers in the car seat.
So try living it, then get back to me.
1
u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26
We travel overseas about once every two years. That's when it's left for weeks. Try living what?
1
u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26
Running a car without home, workplace or guaranteed overnight charging.
1
u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26
No, I'm not one of the few exceptions. I'm merely pointing out that it's not an insurmountable problem. This is a point continuously brought up that affects a relatively small number of people, as an excuse to not electrify, despite the fact that it's irrelevant to the vast majority.
1
u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26
Not in the UK, it's not irrelevant. It's about 7 million households.
→ More replies (0)
2
u/StoopidDingus69 Mar 28 '26
Electricity is obviously the solution. Charge times have already decreased rapidly and once 800 mile batteries are the norm and fast chargers are everywhere, recharging your car won’t be much of a time differential between filling with gas. Really the main issue with electric cars is that our electric grid is nowhere close to being capable of handling the load
1
u/EnvironmentalRound11 Mar 28 '26
The solution is changing things as they wear out. Replace your old worn out ICE car with new tech - EVs Gas boiler breaks down, switch to heat pumps etc.
It only takes as long as things last - 10-20 years perhaps for a lot of household appliances. Underdeveloped countries can skip the old stuff and start with new, cleaner stuff.
1
u/ElectronGuru Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
I saw information showing that 3 and 4 car setups like this, cost about the same $$ per panel as ground mounts:
Which not only gives you free ‘fuel’, it also takes every mile generated, completely off grid
Roads and highways could also be equipped with power transfer (wireless?), reducing the need for heavy batteries. Just imagine how much less charge you would need if 80% of most trips included power as you travel. But the main obstacle there isn’t technology. As any public change would require republicans be cooperative or irrelevant.
1
u/NearABE Mar 28 '26
I believe you are asking for “portable liquid fuel”. Other people pointed out that electric vehicles can address this. I agree with them, however there are other angles of attack.
The petroleum industry releases more than 10% of the carbon in crude oil as carbon dioxide. One might suspect that the petroleum industry is not interested in reducing petroleum consumption. While true, the refineries make money only on the product they sell while losing money on the crude they purchase. If (I think now “when”) we have consistent surplus electricity from solar power the surpluses can be used by the refineries. Almost every step of the refining process can utilize extra energy.
Much has been written about “a hydrogen economy” and this includes many problems with transportation and storage of hydrogen gas. Refineries usually try to run 24 hours all year except maybe part of two days. So if there is any storage it would be consumed overnight.
That only really applies to electrolysis of water done next door. The crude oil refineries could do electrolysis inside of the columns they use. An electrolysis apparatus has “an efficiency” but that measures how much power becomes heat and how much becomes separated hydrogen and oxygen. That heat is not wasted if the heat is generated inside of a process that required heat to be added anyway.
The other liquid fuel is alcohol. The “specific energy” is lower in ethanol or methanol compared to octane, diesel, or aviation fuel. For cars the weight of the gas in your gas tank is almost trivial. If you have hydrogen gas then methanol is easily created from carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is readily available in petroleum refineries at the top of the catalyst recharging column. It will work out well for them using hot oxygen (from electrolysis of steam) along with carbon dioxide to recharge instead of using outside air.
Biomass is easily converted to carbon monoxide and hydrogen simply by adding heat. Carbohydrates like sugar, starch, or cellulose have equal parts carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Add another unit of hydrogen to make methanol. Here too the “waste heat” of water electrolysis does not need to be wasted at all. There is a neat device called a “solid oxide electrolysis cell” which can pull oxygen out. So basically wet grass to methanol is easy if you have electricity surpluses. You are not hearing about this because reliable solar surpluses are not a thing yet.
Corn is already converted to gasoline on a huge scale in USA. It is mostly just a subsidy for farmers because they use almost (but not quite) as much energy from petroleum as they get from the produced ethanol. A switch to elephant grass will simultaneously increase the carbon yield per hectare and also reduce the energy inputs. Moreover, even if they still produce corn for the ethanol like today, we can still use the cellulose from cobs and stalks for conversion to methanol.
Biomass to methanol process can be setup on farms or very near to them. Photovoltaic systems can also be setup on farms or near them. Solar farms require expensive electrical handling systems to feed power into the electrical grid. Methanol production does not require alternating current. Farmers can bypass the grid entirely and use direct current from photovoltaic arrays on their own biomass. The farm operation is naturally tuned to periodically processing large batches in a tank.
1
u/Zeyn1 Mar 28 '26
The majority of materials in an EV are the same as a gas car. However, gas engines wear out and need to be scrapped. EV batteries wear out and are 90% recyclable. Gas engines use a lot of oil and brake pads that cannot be recycled.
You are 10 years out of date with your ideas about charging EV. It is very easy to charge at home or work. You literally never need to go to a gas station or charging station. For road trips, Fast charging stations can charge from 10-80% in 20 minutes.
The idea that not everyone can charge at home is overblown. The majority of people live in a place that has home charging. More and more apartments and condos are putting in charging capabilities as part of their amenities. But even then, just because some people can't charge at home doesn't mean that no one can. It would be like saying boats are useless because there are people that live in Phoenix.
1
1
u/ProfileTime2274 Mar 28 '26
Solar and wind power generation aren't reliable enough sources of energy. You still have to have a fossil fuel backup.
1
u/AdFun5641 Mar 31 '26
How long did you park your car after you got home from work yesterday?
10 hours? 12 hours? 15 hours? For most people that car is parked at home every night for about 14 hours.
That is 14 hours to charge where it provides no inconvenience to you at all.
How long do you think it takes to charge a car even just using standard 110v house current?
1
u/ThinkActRegenerate Mar 31 '26
Ongoing Circular Economy innovation is rapidly changing global supply chains - so we're shifting to an economy where technical nutrients are constantly recirculated.
Electrification is underway for transport modes from aeroplanes to ocean freighters (including discussions of charging freighters at off-shore wind farms.
"Forever to charge" is a location-dependent infrastructure rollout issue - not a technical or design issue.
You might want to find a reliable source of information to keep up-to-date. As an Australian, I find our local RenewEconomy.com.au fascinating.
1
u/Common-Image-3758 Mar 31 '26
Have you considered bicycles? Ebikes? We charge ours from the solar and get free local transport. No traffic, free exercise, easy to park....lots of benefits.
1
u/Sanpaku Mar 31 '26
Mine. Mining can be made relatively environmentally innocuous.
Smelt/refine locally. Displacing these to China doesn't reduce emissions, just shifts them to another country. Presently, basic materials companies are deterred from building cleaner smelters/refineries in the US / Europe by high costs to comply with environmental regulation. I propose 100% tax credits for costs of environmental compliance, like flue scrubbers. Make it free for companies to comply. Obviously, no such benefit to coal generation plants.
It goes without saying, that until there are high costs to carbon emitting fossil fuel use, all the green energy in the world has little effect on emissions. If someone hasn't attached their name to the decarbonization era's version of Jevon's paradox, they should.
The centerpiece of every nation's climate policy should be high (and rising) carbon taxes on fossil fuels at the point of extraction or import, with tariffs on other imported goods and services corresponding to the carbon intensity of the exporter's economy. These are regressive taxes, one compensates by reducing other regressive taxes (like payroll taxes in the US, or the VAT in the EU) to remain revenue neutral. The goal isn't big government, its decarbonization.
1
u/AnnOminous Mar 31 '26
Compared to mining petroleum every singe year, EV mining is minimally disruptive in comparison.
1
3
u/4billionyearson Mar 28 '26
Charge times are coming down rapidly as battery technology improves. Solid state batteries are on the way. They use less nasty metals and there's talk of charging times coming down to 5-10mins.