First Name | Steve |
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Last Name | Heckeroth |
Email Address | steve@renewables.com |
Affiliation | |
Subject | BEVs ignored |
Comment | Battery electric vehicles offer by far the best way to limit emissions yet they are almost ignored in the state alternative transportarion fuels plan. The overall efficiency of PVs charging EVs is 60 to 2,000 times more efficient than internal combustion vehicles burning biofuels - when efficiency is measured from Sun to Wheel. Hydrogen (H2) is much lighter than air and it must be contained in order to keep it from escaping the Earth’s atmosphere, unless it is bound up in water or hydrocarbon molecules. The strong bonds that hold these molecules together take a significant amount of energy to break apart to extract H2. Once the hydrogen is extracted more energy is need to compress it into a container that is small enough to store on a vehicle. In order for a fuel cell vehicle to go 200 or 300 miles on a tank, the H2 must be stored in metal hydrates or at 10,000 psi in very heavy containers. Even after more than 20 years of development, fuel cell vehicles still cost close to a million dollars each and don’t last very long or go very far. Finally, it takes about 4 times more renewable energy to drive a fuel cell vehicle than it does to charge the batteries in an electric vehicle to go the same distance. This is like the difference in fuel economy between a Hummer and a Prius. How can the state is still suport fuel cell vehicles when 96% of all H2 is extracted from fossil fuel and they cost an order of magnitude more then EVs? The numbers for battery cost in the plan are to high and the numbers for the price of fuel are way to low. Go back to the drawing board and make EVs the center piece of the plan. |
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Date and Time Comment Was Submitted | 2007-11-13 21:51:51 |
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