Just buy your hybrids until batteries are ready for prime time. That may happen in 10 years… or it may never happen. I don’t even care about charge capacity. Charge CYCLES is the real hurdle. Rechargeable batts have about 1000 charge cycles before they massively lose efficiency. Then you dump the whole thing in the land fill.

Just buy your hybrids until batteries are ready for prime time. That may happen in 10 years… or it may never happen. I don’t even care about charge capacity. Charge CYCLES is the real hurdle. Rechargeable batts have about 1000 charge cycles before they massively lose efficiency. Then you dump the whole thing in the land fill.

Few people have a grasp of the magnitude of GHG emissions and what it will take to curb them:

http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/10/wwf-study-puts-global-warming-into.html

If everyone in America drove a Prius we would reduce global emissions needed about 1 percent.

Few people have a grasp of the magnitude of GHG emissions and what it will take to curb them:

http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/10/wwf-study-puts-global-warming-into.html

If everyone in America drove a Prius we would reduce global emissions needed about 1 percent.

Since the average person drives 25 miles or less a day, and PHEVs have a range of 25 or more miles, they will be operating most of the time in electric mode. In contrast, plain Hybrids operate most of the time on fossil fuels.

A PHEV running on electric most of the time is more than twice as efficient as a plain Hybrid burning fossil fuel most of the time. The ICE in the hybrid is 20-25% efficient running on gasoline, with energy loss going out the tailpipe in the form of heat. The PHEV operating mostly in electric mode is twice as efficient, even if you use coal to charge the batteries. Coal accounts for about 45-50% of the energy mix and that is decreasing, as coal plants are being displaced by cleaner energy sources.

The Report is definitely not true when you charge the PHEV with your own solar roof panels, or when you charge your PHEV off the grid supplied by wind, wave, solar, or nuclear. You will have a zero emission vehicle, that is, until you take an occasional trip and have to fire up the range extender engine. Even that range extender engine could be running on renewable fuel, and you would still have a zero emission PHEV, because it would be recycling CO2 not emitting new CO2.

The fuel cost per mile for a PHEV, operating most of the time in electric mode, is about 1/6 that of a conventional gasoline vehicle, and less than 1/3 the cost of a plain Hybrid.

Since the average person drives 25 miles or less a day, and PHEVs have a range of 25 or more miles, they will be operating most of the time in electric mode. In contrast, plain Hybrids operate most of the time on fossil fuels.

A PHEV running on electric most of the time is more than twice as efficient as a plain Hybrid burning fossil fuel most of the time. The ICE in the hybrid is 20-25% efficient running on gasoline, with energy loss going out the tailpipe in the form of heat. The PHEV operating mostly in electric mode is twice as efficient, even if you use coal to charge the batteries. Coal accounts for about 45-50% of the energy mix and that is decreasing, as coal plants are being displaced by cleaner energy sources.

The Report is definitely not true when you charge the PHEV with your own solar roof panels, or when you charge your PHEV off the grid supplied by wind, wave, solar, or nuclear. You will have a zero emission vehicle, that is, until you take an occasional trip and have to fire up the range extender engine. Even that range extender engine could be running on renewable fuel, and you would still have a zero emission PHEV, because it would be recycling CO2 not emitting new CO2.

The fuel cost per mile for a PHEV, operating most of the time in electric mode, is about 1/6 that of a conventional gasoline vehicle, and less than 1/3 the cost of a plain Hybrid.

Now, find the proportion of CO2 emissions coming from automotive use, and you will find that you can put 10 millions plug-in hybrid cars on the road, and that the country emissions would hardly change…

Now, find the proportion of CO2 emissions coming from automotive use, and you will find that you can put 10 millions plug-in hybrid cars on the road, and that the country emissions would hardly change…

“Tax credits constitute the largest source of federal assistance to the energy sector. According to a 2006 study prepared by Washington D.C. consulting group Management Information Services Inc. (MISI), tax credits accounted for an estimated 45 percent of all federal energy support between 1950 and 2003. An analysis by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts put this number at 65 percent for 2006. Tax treatment also comprises one of the earliest ways by which the federal government subsidized energy development and production, dating to 1917, when income tax credits were established to encourage oil drilling.”

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/11/the-federal-energy-subsidy-scorecard-how-renewables-stack-up

“Tax credits constitute the largest source of federal assistance to the energy sector. According to a 2006 study prepared by Washington D.C. consulting group Management Information Services Inc. (MISI), tax credits accounted for an estimated 45 percent of all federal energy support between 1950 and 2003. An analysis by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts put this number at 65 percent for 2006. Tax treatment also comprises one of the earliest ways by which the federal government subsidized energy development and production, dating to 1917, when income tax credits were established to encourage oil drilling.”

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/11/the-federal-energy-subsidy-scorecard-how-renewables-stack-up