D-European Parliament's Hydrogen Highway - 9/3/2008

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Electric motors are 4 TIMES THE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER as gasoline engines of equal power, because all new electrical-generation plants for many decades have been (and for the foreseeable future will be) fueled by coal (or in a few cases by natural gas, which is also a hydrocarbon producing the same amount of greenhouse gases) -- AND 75% OF THE ENERGY CONTENT OF THE COAL OR NATURAL GAS IS EXPENDED IN GENERATING THE ELECTRICITY!!!

The Chevrolet Volt, which General Motors estimates will get 230 miles per gallon of gasoline in city driving, IS A FRAUD FROM AN ENVIRONMENTAL VIEWPOINT!!!

The Volt is a “plug in” electric vehicle with a range of 40 miles. So for the first 40 miles of each trip, the Volt’s mileage on the basis of gasoline consumption is infinite.

However, when the Volt has traveled 40 miles and its batteries are exhausted, it has a gasoline engine that, INSTEAD OF POWERING THE CAR DIRECTLY, kicks in to power a generator which re-charges the batteries to keep the car running!!!

So, for the portion of any trip over 40 miles, the Volt’s mileage as measured by gasoline consumption is going to be 25% of the mileage of a conventional gasoline-powered automobile (assuming that the Volt loses the same 75% in electrical generation as the country’s electric utility industry).

So if you assume virtually all of your driving comprises trips exceeding 40 miles each, your mileage in terms of gasoline is 25% of a conventional gasoline-powered car. And if you assume all of your driving comprises trips of less than 40 miles between re-charging, your mileage in terms of gasoline is infinite.

Obviously, General Motors could have picked any number it wanted!!!

And it arbitrarily chose 230 miles per gallon of gasoline!!!

HOWEVER, THIS IS MISLEADING AND, INDEED, FRAUDULENT BECAUSE IT IS DESIGNED TO FOOL THE PUBLIC INTO BELIEVING THAT THE VOLT IS ENVIRONMENTALLY DESIRABLE -- RATHER THAN THE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER THAT IT IS!!!

The two oldest items (in terms of time/date posted) are stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, both dated 11 August 2009, that were included by Pat in the original proposal of this topic on 17 August 2009 to demonstrate how the country’s media uncritically bought the fraud perpetrated by General Motors’ announcement of 230 miles per gallon for the Volt.

The next 2 articles (in terms of time/date posted) result from Googling “Chevrolet Volt” on 3 November 2009. More than half of the top 50 “hits” were General Motors web sites and virtually all of the rest were regurgitations of General Motors propaganda. Virtually the only 2 exceptions =

The U.S. News & World Report article of 11 August 2009 which, unlike the gullible NY Times and the gullible Wall Street Journal, actually explained the fraud that General Motors was perpetrating.

The year-old Car and Driver article of October 2008 which, after discussing at length such issues as styling and the tremendous extra costs of the batteries, etc., finally reported uncritically the claims of General Motors regarding the cost of the plug-in electricity on a per-mile basis vs. gasoline costs.

First, General Motors claims regarding the cost of the electricity are suspect, since they almost certainly contain quite a bit of hydroelectric power which costs virtually nothing -- but no new dams have been built in the U.S. for many decades.

Second, even the cost of electricity from a coal-fired electrical plant is not a true measure of the environmental disaster that a coal-fired electrical plant is, because the price of coal is always a mere fraction of the cost of crude oil if they are compared in terms of energy content.

Third, General Motors ignores the 75% environmental disaster from its gasoline engine kicking in after 40 miles between re-charging.

SO FOR BOTH THE FIRST 40 MILES BETWEEN RE-CHARGING AND THE ADDITIONAL MILES WHEN THE GASOLINE ENGINE KICKS IN TO GENERATE MORE ELECTRICITY, THE VOLT IS AN ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER!!!
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johnkarls
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D-European Parliament's Hydrogen Highway - 9/3/2008

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Business Week – 9/3/2008

Europe Signs Up for Hydrogen Cars
The European Parliament has called for a rollout of a EU filling-station network for hydrogen-powered cars
By Leigh Phillips

The European Parliament has called on the EU's executive to introduce measures to support the roll-out of a Europe-wide filling-station network for hydrogen-powered cars and develop common standards for the vehicles across all member states.

MEPs almost unanimously adopted a report on Wednesday (3 September) drafted by members of the centre-right European Peoples' Party grouping in the parliament on hydrogen-powered vehicles.

The legislative report was adopted with 644 votes in favour, two against and 11 abstentions.

MEPs believe a key support measure would be the development of common EU standards for the experimental transport concept.

Without such common standards, member states may grant approvals for such vehicles on a one-off basis without having to develop new laws. Thus there is a risk that every member state could draw up its own approval conditions, resulting in distortion of the single market, argue the euro-deputies. This would lead to high costs for manufacturers, create safety risks and also considerably impede the spread of hydrogen technology in the EU.

British Socialist MEP Arlene McCarthy said: "At a time when petrol prices in Europe have doubled and with ever growing concern about the effects of climate change it is clear we need new hopes for future fuels."

"With the adoption of EU-wide criteria, the European Union can establish itself now ahead of global research and ensure investment security for market access of this future technology," said the report's authors, centre-right MEPs Malcolm Harbour of the UK and Anja Weisgerber of Germany.

Furthermore, a common EU framework could point the way forward for standards worldwide.

"By setting minimum standards, the European Union could now also provide guidance for global licensing in this sector," added the two MEPs in a statement.

The report was welcomed by the commission, suggesting the body will indeed move ahead with the development of such supports.

Enterprise and industry commissioner Gunter Verheugen said: "Setting common standards will ensure high safety for citizens and will boost the competitiveness of European manufacturers."

The commissioner called on member states to support the idea.

'Hydrogen cars aren't zero-emission vehicles'

However, environmental campaigners are sceptical that hydrogen is the panacea that MEPs believe it to be.

Dudley Curtis, of clean transport campaigners Transport & Environment said: "For at least thirty years, the car and oil industries have been promising the world hydrogen cars as a solution to all the world's problems," pointing out that the cars each cost a million euros to produce at the moment.

"The parliament should be concentrating on the job at hand: making the current generation of petrol and diesel cars much more fuel efficient."

Jeroen Verheuven, of green group Friends of the Earth, described how hydrogen cars are not as clean as MEPs think: "This is presented as if hydrogen cars are zero-emission vehicles, when the reality is very different."

"Hydrogen is in fact the by-product of fossil-fuel production, and if you use coal-fired power plants to separate the hydrogen, then this is not very clean at all."

"Commissioner Verheugen drives a BMW that is powered by hydrogen, but it's a huge car, very inefficient. That's the key—energy efficiency."

"These plans dovetail very nicely with all the loopholes in the legislation covering CO2 emissions for cars, in which so-called zero-emission vehicles count as three cars in working out the average emissions of a car manufacturer's fleet of vehicles.

Doubling of energy generating capacity

MEPs however, said that ultimately, hydrogen-powered vehicles should use only hydrogen produced as far as possible from renewable energies.

But the production of hydrogen is incredibly energy-intensive.

The UK's Tyndall Centre, a climate change research institute, has found that in order to replace current transport fuels with hydrogen via electrolysis from renewable electricity would require a doubling of the electricity generating capacity of the country.

If only renewable electricity were used for making hydrogen, it would mean that additional fossil fuels would have to be used elsewhere to replace the lost renewables.

This means that to produce genuine carbon-free hydrogen for cars it would be necessary to eliminate the use of all fossil-fuelled electricity while at the same time doubling the amount of electricity produced.

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