This web page requires Javascript, which is not enabled on your browser. If you decide you want to use this page, go to your browser settings and enable it. Javascript dramatically reduces the number of server calls the program has to make.
This page has a safe and fun exercise in numbers of electric cars near hydroelectric plants There is no age limit, as long as reading is not an issue.
The overwhelming majority of all electric automobiles today of course do get all their electric power from burning fossil fuels, never mind where hybrids get theirs. Renewable sources of energy are still far too meager to supply the power requirements on the roads in the United States.
A good question is whether electric cars in the near vicinity of the sparse hydroelectric power stations available use fossil fuels. Hydroelectric power is still by far the most abundant renewable energy source.
To help understand the answer, a graphic is provided here showing how the limit of power of a station must be apportioned between household and electric vehicle customer needs. Observe that as the number of electric vehicles increases the fewer household customers can be served by the same station. That means for every kilowatt-hour an electric vehicle uses, some household will have to eventually replace it from another source on the grid likely powered by burning fossil fuels when the station must adjust for new types of customers.
In such a scenario adding electric vehicles does not decrease fossil fuel consumption at all over time.
Model Hydroelectric Service AreaGraph Mode is orig Select
Select average number of e-cars (0 to 12) per 10 households.
The advantage of the circle size graph is that customers are likely (but not necessarily) near the power station. The advantge of the circle slice graph is that it better shows reduction. A disadvantage of the circle size graph is that while the area of the circle decreases by more than a fourth, the diameter of the circle only decreases by less than a sixth, which can fool the eyes. |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Certainly however there must be other ways electric vehicles can reduce fossil fuel consumption.
One way is too have sufficient solar or wind powered charging stations, however those are even far less productive than hydroelectric sites, which themselves are far less productive than burning fossil fuels.
More productive solar and wind power sources would likely have household customers too. There again, fossil fuel consumption won't decline until the fossil fuels run out.
Is is a common serious mistake, and a misapplication of economic theory, to assume that each electric vehicle represents a "demand" for "renewable" energy. As explained here, each electric vehicle merely represents a demand for energy that is not type specific.
Granting then that electric vehicles will use fossil fuels as long as there are fossil fuels, the question becomes how much is that?
The most significant problem is that, as noted by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, each transformation of energy from one form to another involves losses. It cannot be one hundred percent efficient. Heat will develop, dissipate and become unrecoverable. There is an increase in entropy.
Fossil fuel powered vehicles have one transformation from fuel to mechanical energy. (There is a trivial transformation in the small "generator," a.k.a "alternator," for small electric devices and the electric starter.)
Electric vehicles whose power comes from burning fossil fuels have two profound transformations, first from fossil fuel to electric energy (done at the fossil fuel to electric power station), and second from electric energy to mechanical energy (while driving). Electric motors do get very hot, especially large electric motors with heavy loads. Those losses are in addition to the losses in the first transformation. So far then it appears an electric vehicle whose electric power comes from burning fossil fuels actually uses more fossil fuel than one that goes directly from fossil fuel to mechanical energy.
A popular fantasy these days is that one feature of electric vehicles will make it possible for them to get dramatically more mileage from their energy than otherwise imaginable.
It is true that when braking, when coming to a stop, the momentum of the electric vehicle can turn the motor (like a generator) so that power goes back from it into the battery. Current technology for that is not very promising. To understand why that will not likely get much better see the next article in this section Converting Energy from Momentum in Electric Cars.