GM Spokesperson admits energy to charge cars comes from coal

Another false argument posed was the cost associated with shipping the EV batteries. What is the difference in costs associated with shipping a EV drivetrain (battery and motors) vs an ICE drivetrain (motor and transmission)?

Don’t forget about the water consumed to produce the ethanol in a gal of gasoline; corn based ethanol production is a water intensive process.

The arguments against something new is almost always about what’s wrong with the new and not about what the net change will be with the new replacing the current.

I am curious about this. My understanding was that a certain fraction of fracking water is lost into the formation during fracking and that the frac flow back is often disposed of in a deep injection well (thus the earth quakes). What percentage of frac water is reused?

Otherwise this seems like one of the very few processes on earth that actually removes water from the water cycle. Once it is injected below the water table (hopefully) it is essentially lost for good is it not?

thomas201 wrote:
Most of the water used in producing fossil fuels goes into the air as water vapor, out of cooing towers. Same for power plants.

Real nasty water is treated. We want those hydrocarbons back, we sell those.

Salt saturated water, is about the only fraction wasted. Often that can be used in an oilfield water flood to produce more oil. Keeps the pressure up and displaces oil. You can take produced water, frac flowback and then use it in a water flood. That idea can get a nice bonus at work. Ask me how I know. Saves the company a lot of money, and the water does not count as waste, because it is not.

We now use flowback from frac #1, to frac well #2 and so on. A little more chemistry progress and we might be able to use salt saturated water for fracs, then we can recycle to destruction.

Ever seen a crop circle (center pivot irrigation) out West. I can frac about 20 plus wells with that amount of water. I'll buy the farmer alfalfa.

Oh yea, do ya know you eat natural gas? About 5% of all the natural gas produced in the world goes into making fertilizer. In fact 50% of the nitrogen in the proteins in your body come from my natural gas. I just love telling this to people. See Haber Process

The earth is doomed :( Best of luck to those 20 generations+ into the future.

Most of the water used in producing fossil fuels goes into the air as water vapor, out of cooing towers. Same for power plants.

Real nasty water is treated. We want those hydrocarbons back, we sell those.

Salt saturated water, is about the only fraction wasted. Often that can be used in an oilfield water flood to produce more oil. Keeps the pressure up and displaces oil. You can take produced water, frac flowback and then use it in a water flood. That idea can get a nice bonus at work. Ask me how I know. Saves the company a lot of money, and the water does not count as waste, because it is not.

We now use flowback from frac #1, to frac well #2 and so on. A little more chemistry progress and we might be able to use salt saturated water for fracs, then we can recycle to destruction.

Ever seen a crop circle (center pivot irrigation) out West. I can frac about 20 plus wells with that amount of water. I'll buy the farmer alfalfa.

Oh yea, do ya know you eat natural gas? About 5% of all the natural gas produced in the world goes into making fertilizer. In fact 50% of the nitrogen in the proteins in your body come from my natural gas. I just love telling this to people. See Haber Process

The numbers may not be exact but they put into context that water use for lithium mining will be offset by the reduced water use for gasoline production.

BCSnob,

The evaporation of water is into the atmosphere for Li mining. In a sense, it is recycled.

The water used in the production of fossil fuels is contaminated beyond further use.

My ice car was subject to recall. The fuel line to the engine may leak and cause the car to catch on fire. There are only 1.3 million vehicles involved. There was no hue and cry. But the Bolt--well certainly "the sky is falling".

BEV technology is not perfect, nor non polluting. But it is better than ICE already even when Bev tech is in its infancy.

My next vehicle will be a BEV and it may be the last car I purchase.

Assuming:
22lbs of lithium per Tesla battery
500,000gals of water to mine 1 metric ton of lithium
5.2gals of water to produce 1 gal of gasoline

A car with 30mpg driving about 28,000 miles will have consumed enough water (for the gasoline used) to be equivalent to the water consumed to mine the lithium in one Tesla battery.

Timmo! wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
Oh, you're just being a hater and naysayer. Those problems will all be worked out, just ask the EV proponents, just don't expect specific answers. Rather, you'll hear "We've faced problems before and got through them", "Technology is progressing faster every year, those issues will be solved too", "If you constantly nitpick, you'll never get anywhere". :)

Not a naysayer or hater, just asking difficult questions. And if my questions have no answers, then that is important to know: EV smart people have no answers.

FWC wrote:

I am not sure I understand the logic here. We can also 'follow the money" on fossil fuels, and there isn't the situation 'we know it is bad, we just don't want to change'.

EVs are not perfect by any stretch, but it is at least a step in the right direction and allows flexibility in energy sourcing. If you don't think they are the best solution, what would you suggest?

I think we are all aware of the evils of fossil fuels. What I am challenging are the obvious potential evils of EV (period). BTW, framing the debate by suggesting: "yes EV's are evil, but IC's are worse" is a strawman argument.

As a avid conservationist (as in leave no trace), I am appalled of the official recommendations to combat EV fires: Pour 3,000-32,000 gallons of water or let it burn out.

There are farmlands in central California that sitting idle do to water rationing. Methinks there are better solutions than creating a product that requires massive water usage. But like I said, follow the money--that is the path to the real game.

I am not sure how this is a straw man? Transportation uses energy and resources, EVs allow us to use less energy and from a larger variety of sources. Again they are not perfect, but propose a better solution if you have?

As for the EV battery fires, that is a straw man argument. How many EV battery fires do you expect to have in a year? Unless you think there will be a need to extinguish tens of millions of EV fires every year, a move to EVs and renewable energy will decrease water requirements as opposed to drilling for and refining gasoline.

We found that water is consumed at a rate of 2.8-6.6 liters for each liter of gasoline produced for more than 90% of crude oil obtained from conventional onshore sources in the U.S. and more than half of crude oil imported from Saudi Arabia. For more than 55% of crude oil from Canadian oil sands, about 5.2 liters of water are consumed for each liter of gasoline produced.

Source: May Wu et al. Environ Manage. 2009 Nov.

In 2020, about 123.49 billion gallons (or about 2.94 billion barrels1) of finished motor gasoline were consumed in the United States, an average of about 337 million gallons per day (or about 8.03 million barrels per day).

Source: EIA

Simple math (assuming 5.2L water/L gasoline) yielded 642 billion gallons of water consumed for the gallons of gasoline consumed in the USA in 2020.

Is Li mining or gasoline production the water hog?