A silly article that posits that, just because renewable sources of electricity exist, they will be able to drive our car fleet if only it was electric. If you look at the scale of the current renewables and what would be needed to drive a car fleet you will see it is hopeless. The only way to possibly go electric for a while would be to expand out production of coal-based electricity and that would only increase CO2 emissions relative to liquid fuels, not decrease them. Read "Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society": http://www.energybulletin.net/node/34520
and then get real!

A very timely article, what with applications for scale-up funding for renewable energy projects from the $500 million Renewable Energy Fund to be called for in the first half of 2009, nearly half of which time has already passed.

At long last the focus is placed upon the fact that "the cost of electricity for propulsion is far cheaper than the cost of an ethanol-petrol mix, even at the relatively affordable prices of February 2009". It would be tremendously helpful for the public debate that has not yet happened to have this disparity quantified to at least some extent. The significance of the decisions shortly to be made as to which renewable energy projects are to receive scale-up funding could then be better understood by the Australian public.

A prospective changeover of significant numbers of vehicles to electricity is important with respect to extracting maximum efficiency from present generating capacity, let alone future renewable energy fueled electricity generation. Much of this under-utilized capacity is still in public hands thankfully, and it is to be hoped that by keeping it that way it may be possible to ensure that the benefits to be gained from the changeover remain entirely in Australian hands and pockets.

'Big Oil' is going to be looking upon the exploitation of this gap as its rightful turf, and the provision of renewable energy as being its own future. Privatisation of electricity generation and distribution was premature. Australia should have a turf war over renewable energy, and make sure it wins.

The author's exasperation expressed in his concluding sentence would be shared by many. Industrial mobilization as if at war should be the order of the day, with the automotive industry switching to, and achieving economies of scale in, organic rankine cycle engine production. Affordable ORC engines will be a key to exploiting Australia's natural advantage in its suitability for solar pondage, the most cost-effective solar energy collection method known.

The Australian consuming public will be paying the reneweable energy piper. Those same consumers should call the renewable energy integration tune.

I think understanding the gross inefficiency of transforming any material (e.g. coal or nuclear), wind or solar energy into sufficient electrical form to both build and also run a national supply of electric vehicles, needs to be properly understood.

Michael of A‘s link to Ted Trainer’s ‘Renewable energy cannot sustain a consumer society’, is interesting and likely to be a worthy read. As Trainer says, “…the quest to keep the unsustainable growth-based system going by renewable energy sources is a fools' errand”. Our real global predicament is over-consumption. Unless we address this fundamental issue we chase our proverbial arse. High-tech is not the answer - the low-tech options provide a solution…

“…we must move to far more materially simple lifestyles...We have to come to see as enjoyable, living frugally, recycling, growing food, ˜husbanding' resources, making rather than buying, composting, repairing, bottling fruit, giving surpluses and old things to others, making things last, and running a relatively self-sufficient household economy...” – Ted Trainer. This may all sound a little idealistic, but the current economic crash and climate shift will make such behavioral/ cultural change neccessary.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are not a solution.

The global economy is collapsing in a permanent ever-worsening depression: http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/2009/02/peak-oil-and-global-economy.html

Very few people will be able to afford a new EV, especially with very low trade-in values on the old gasoline powered car, and new cars will cost more and more, as the price of oil (required for their manufacture) goes up.

EVs are not very efficient. More than half of the fossil energy (coal/natural gas/oil) is lost in power plants in wasted heat; energy is lost in electric power transmission lines; and then 25% of the energy is lost in the battery.

It is time to prepare for a world without oil.

http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

EVs sound good in theory but their lack of range won't suit Australia's long distances and their cost won't suit tougher economic times. Those who can pay $40k for a plug in hybrid vehicle and use to it to commute clearly live in the inner suburbs and are not short of cash. That just leaves the other 80% such as the low paid night shift worker who lives 60km out of the CBD. I suggest we need better or more flexible public transport. Inexpensive electric scooters could be used for short trips. Groceries could be home delivered. When oil is gone synthetic petrol engined cars could be hired for special trips. I don't think the battery swap type of EV will catch on; imagine swapping a battery 20 times on a trip from Sydney to Melbourne.

Therefore the auto industry bailouts could be money wasted as they will decline in lockstep with oil production. The future of personal mobility is trains, scooters and hire cars, not private EVs.

I found Pope's article underwhelming. He makes forecasts concerning oil prices which I will let pass on the grounds that any guess by me would be just as silly as any guess by him. It was supposed to be the end for fossil fuels when prices shot past $100 per barrel.
Leaving aside petrol price forecasting, electric cars simply won't cut it as any sort of answer - not yet anyway. Not only are they more expensive to buy then petrol cars they are more expensive to run, and arguably just as polluting - in part because the whole battery pack has to be replaced after 10 years or so. The electricity to run them also has to come from the main power grid. More research is required.
If Pope is really worried about Australia's fuel import bill then perhaps he should advocate that motorists mass convert to LPG. We have plenty of that fuel and consumers may even save money. There may also be a saving in emissions but I am unclear on that point.

Why is everyone ignoring Natural Gas ?
Are you aware about new ideas in NG tech. Like an exhaust shunt back into the inlet manifold that substantially reduces CO2 and some how gets to exhaust hydrogen ? ( still researching this issue , I have acquired a Toyota Corolla engine to experiment)
2CV Citroen type cars are reqd or maybe include VW Beetle , reduce the weight further , what I am illustrating , is a whole new view of what a car pre 20/20 should be like . Basic without all the bling and weight.
NG can be compressed , it's called CNG , a small compressor in your carport hooked into your NG house supply simply tops up your NG Car overnight ......these are every where in USA , pretty groovie eh ! They even have car parks where you simply drive in and plug in .
The yanks need Alcohol fuels we don't their propensity to fight everybody on the Globe dictates this you can't run a jet plane on NG or Hydrogen . When accessing Alcohol remember all the machinery reqd. to grow the Corn to transport it plus processing big carbon footprint

shazbaz, don't forget that the machinery used to grow and transport the corn can run on biofuels too.

Hi ShazGaz,

Switching to natural gas is like switching cigarettes, the end is the same.

Besides, NG is peaking. There have been manly posts NG depletion on Theoildrum.com. Do an Internet search of natural gas depletion and peak natural gas with the oil drum.

Despite the philosophical arguments, it still takes more energy to actually build a Toyota Prius than it would save during its lifetime, compared to a conventional vehicle - much like the energy-saving light bulb.

Add the additional mineral resources needed to provide it's more exotic power plant and it becomes even less attractive as an environmentally friendly alternative.

At this stage, it's more a feel-good exercise than a long term solution.

Perhaps a change in lifestyle and more use of public transport systems would be a better option, if not by choice then by necessity.

Pure electric vehicles are *almost* there. The current bailout of automakers in the US might get the investment required to make them ready for market.
Battery tech has come a long way and FePo4 Lithium Polymer batteries may well be the killer tech once scaled up. These batteries have great charge density and most importantly, don't blow up.
Electric motors can have efficiencies approaching 90%. This makes up for the fact that batteries energy density is much lower than liquid combustables. So although you will never carry around as many KWh in a battery for the same weight, nor will you need to. In addition things like regenerative braking can extend the available energy.
Electric cars can be built using *much* less moving parts and sophisticated materials. With modern electronics and brushless motors, the only moving parts are bearings, and possibly CV joints and steering linkages. (drive by wire may minimise even these). The result is much lighter and more efficient in energy use, and ultimately cheaper to make.
The biggest bugbear of course is the ultimate energy source. Not much point replacing petrol with coal.
This problem can be solved by small scale solar, starting with the cars roof and the home roof, extending to large scale solar thermal in our plentiful desserts. If running power across the desert seems expensive...How about shipping oil from Russia or the middle east? We have been fooled into thinking that the oil economy is the easiest option. New tech means that the next few decades will be driven by a different economy. Given that Australia must rediscover wealth creation in its economy post financial crisis (No, "financial services" jobs will not keep us prosperous. Shuffling bits in a computer was never wealth creation, and never will be), then the shift to the new tech is actually a blessing.
Now we need some real leadership.

Some interesting comments. I share ozandy’s view that electric cars are much nearer to replacing fossil fuelled vehicles than many people realise and note his comment that nothing is gained by replacing oil with coal.

The government target is for 20% of electricity to come from renewables by 2020, a target which does not take into account the potential of geothermal energy to meet all our energy needs according to Geodynamics 2007 Annual Report (page 14) available at http://www.geodynamics.com.au. This suggests that clean electricity will be increasingly available to fuel vehicles.

Forest Gumpp wonders if use of electricity would be much cheaper than fossil fuels. I read CSIRO material which indicated electricity costs would be equivalent to 25¢ per litre but can not find that particular reference. However an article in Wiki suggesting 22¢ per litre is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.Electric_cars#Running_costs

Taswegian and others question the practicality of electric vehicles given their limited range. This points to the need to develop capacity to generate electricity on board using fuel cells or significant improvement in development of light weight, rapid charging, high density batteries. Advances are being made with both. Indications are that battery technology will get there before fuel-cells and do so within the next 3-5 years.

For those who believe such batteries are decades away, I invite their attention to development of batteries using nano-technology able to hold 10 times the charge of present day vehicle batteries. These are expected to be in commercial production by 2012.

More recent battery development made by CSIRO using ultracapacitor technology show even better promise in terms of capacity, cost and durability, though a commercial production date has not been indicated.

As electric cars become the vehicle of choice, you can bet that conversion kits to suit all makes of fossil fuelled vehicles will come on to the market, as will garages offering to install them.

OzAndy and Forrest Gumpp,

You assume that it is possible to expand renewable forms of electricity etc. to power our society (and then with the additional load of electric vehicles on the grid). But you have not crunched the numbers to see if this is actually true. Ted Trainer has and the prospects are not at all good - here is another link to a .pdf derived from his book, "Renewable energy cannot sustain an energy intensive society":

http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/trainer_renewable_sustainable_society.pdf

And remember, when it comes to money, money is only a method for distributing energy. Nothing happens without the energy - no matter how many "dollars" you throw at it. Don't forget also the huge embodied energy cost of building the renewables - at a time when the energy available to do everything else is decreasing. It is easy to say, for example, "all we need is a 20x20km PV grid to power Australia" but to build that would be the largest engineering project in the history of humanity - and then you would have to wash it regularly!

Ozandy says:

"Pure electric vehicles are *almost* there."

and, near the end of his post,

"Given that Australia must rediscover wealth creation in its economy post financial crisis ......., then the shift to the new tech is actually a blessing. Now we need some real leadership."

Yea, a Daniel come to judgement!

Ozandy has said what I had sensed, from some not-so-recent reading with respect to battery technology, was likely to be the case. Although he did not specifically mention it, and I am uncertain as to the automotive applicability of the technology, the development of the flow-battery possibly brings an interesting new aspect to the electric vehicle scene. This is the feature of indefinite rechargeability: lead-acid and other battery technologies have been plagued by the problem of declining rechargeability requiring periodical total replacement of the battery pack. Battery replacement has heretofore effectively become part of the fuel cost, howsoever it may have been dealt with from an accountancy perspective.

It makes it easy to see why 'Big Oil' wants to become 'Big Electricity' and see 'Big Coal' sidelined and branded 'Bad'.

Curmudgeon says:

"[Pope] makes forecasts concerning oil prices which I will let pass on the grounds that any guess by me would be just as silly as any guess by him."

Er, no, he didn't make forecasts or guesses. And the inference that Pope is therefore silly is a put-down, and ..... unkind.

The author stated "...... CSIRO estimates that by 2020, unleaded petrol is likely to cost $8 a litre."

I grant it would have been nice to have had a link to the study that arrived at this estimate, but better late than never. Here it I think is: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:-A5__HLnz1UJ:www.csiro.au/files/files/plm4.pdf+CSIRO+petrol+price+projections&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au It is the HTML version of a PDF CSIRO paper called "Fuel for thought - The future of transport fuels: challenges and opportunities. June 2008"

How much money is at stake here?

It still comes down to the cost of the additional exotic raw materials - such as nickel and lithium.

There is an additional energy (and financial) cost to mine, refine and transport such materials, let alone dispose of them.

The total energy cost to manufacture batteries for motor vehicles is still greater than the cost savings in manufacturing with older, paid-for technology.

Battery efficiency may improve but they will still result in a nett overall energy loss. You don't get something for nothing.

The range of EV’s, and their proximity to becoming an alternative to fossil fuelled vehicles is of course dependent on availability of batteries/fuel cells able to store/provide sufficient electricity. While http://www.technologyreview.com/biztech/18086 sound a bit too good to be true, a number of articles can be found by googling battery technology. They may be of interest to commentators.

You live in a utopian world, free from laws of physics and full of ideology...

Lets look at the physics

Cars need energy.

Sources of electric energy (loads of it on a commercial basis) are.
=> Hydro
=> wind
=> wave
=> solar
=> coal
=> Nuclear

Lets look at the options:

=> Hydro.. Most sites in Australia have already been developed. The ALP to appease the greens will stifle any future sites.. (Imagine getting the Snowy Scheme through today!!)

=> Solar. Good in an ideal world, but imagine the size of collectors on a car sufficient to replace 100% of the power from a convention engine? Remember the Solar Challenge vehicles, their shape, weight and discomfort level.

=> Nuclear. Apart from the lead time on a nuclear power station being 15 years, it is against ALP policy.

=> Wind. This is an option when the wind blows, but it would be many years before sufficient capacity is installed.

=> Wave. Still in its infancy and tends to be confined to the coast

=> Coal The recent hot spells showed that spare capacity is marginal.. and no where enough to provide generation for electric cars.

So, where to from here??
Battery technology shows little room for quantum changes in energy storage in the foreseeable future. Imagine driving to Sydney... about every 200Km, you would need change-over battery sets at a battery 'servo'. Then, the servo would need to recharge the batteries, coping with the OH & S issues of working with batteries.

The State Government has let us all down with Public Transport alternatives. There is insufficient generation to replace with electric cars. The pollution with electric is mover from one place to another… it is not eliminated. The lack of adequate generation is also a State Government issue.

Recommended Reading
=> Second Law of Thermodynamics.
=> Laws of conservation of energy.
=> Power laws.
=> ALP policy in supporting the greens.

We are between a rock and a hard place. There is no alternative in the foreseeable future…

Good Luck, but the future looks very ordinary.

An interesting thread.
Electric cars are practical but -
Many of the objections made here are real.

First Australia does not have 70% of its own oil.
We used to have about 42% until a new field came on line and we
currently have about 51%. It is depleting at about 4% per year.

Natural gas is a possibility, but some dopey business man contracted
enormous quantities to China for a song for 25 years.
It is needed to supply industry and domestic usage for years into the
future.

Some complained of the range of electric cars; tough, put up with it
and catch the train.
Oh yes, there was a proposal for grid connected cars, quite clever
actually. Batteries only needed to reach a main road.

Country roads will deteriorate for lack of maintenance so you would
not want to drive on them anyway. Bitumen is an oil product.

Biofuels are a dead end. We can not afford the fertiliser, or the
arable land to devote to fuel.
Charging from the grid would be possible there will have to be more capacity.
Solarthermal and geothermal are the great white hopes for electric cars.
Without them or nuclear electric cars will have only a few years
before they will become impracticle.
By the way the world oil production peaked in 2005.