Comments on: Isla Vistans get first Solar Parking Lot

By: Brandon

Brandon — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:15:33 +0000

Marcus –

Do not fear, I’m in the process of providing my sources as well. But I had to take the time to check out your sources, which so far are quite depressing. The small blip from MIT displays the swayed information you are reading. Coppied from the MIT document, “As a result, an electric vehicle that is charged using coal produced electricity will have a much larger footprint than an EV using electricity derived from nuclear power. The data above reflects the well to wheel footprint of an EV using a “U.S. mix”. This accounts for different modes of electricity generation by modeling the EV as using each form of electricity in the same proportion as it is used in the U.S.” What is provided is a pretty plot with no evidence of their sources provided or their calculations. Going to have to do a whole lot better than that mr. scientist.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:38:54 +0000

Oh, & for the record Brandon, I already calculated the amount of land required to fit a bio-reactor capable of absorbing more than 50%-80% of the CO2 emissions of a 1GW coal-fired power station. It’s about 6,000 acres, assuming it was built entirely *horizontally* (i.e. an algal pond) Vertical Bio-reactors are built mostly *vertically*-so would probably take up around 1/2th to 1/3rd of the horizontal space. 3,000 acres might sound extensive, until you consider the entire acreage of a coal-fired power plant & its associated coal mine. Such a bio-reactor would fit very easily into such a space &-once built-can be generating algal biomass for use in plastics, fertilizer, animal feed, bio-diesel & biomass gas-all at 1/10th of the energy required to gasify & geo-sequester an equivalent amount of CO2.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:35:12 +0000

All of the links below are in relation to comparison of Full-electric vehicles & their Petrol Powered counterparts-as it pertains to CO2 emissions/km of travel.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/avta/pdfs/fsev/eva_results/ev1_eva.pdf

http://avt.inel.gov/fsev.html

& http://web.mit.edu/evt/summary_wtw.pdf

Its interesting to note that these links are all seemingly based on highway travel, when peak-hour inner-city travel is where the majority of vehicle emissions are generated. From my own analysis of available info, it is here where the benefits of electric vehicles over their non-electric counterparts really shines through-especially when one considers the array of other noxious chemical by-products generated by diesel & petrol fueled vehicles.

Also note that I do *not* believe that electric vehicles are any substitute for increased car-pooling & public transport use. That said, in conjunction with greater car-pooling & public transport use, I believe EV’s have a vital role to play in reducing both CO2 emissions & “at-source” emissions of benzene, particulate emissions & oxides of nitrogen-all of which are directly harmful to human health!

By: Marcus

Marcus — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:15:53 +0000

Oh &, before I forget, here is the link with the information on watts/lumen for various types of street lights.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2004/MarinaAvetisyan.shtml
The use of a so-called cobra-head fitting to reduce street-light scatter came from a print issue of ReNew magazine, but they showed a study which revealed that said fittings reduced light scatter by between 60-80%, allowing for a significant reduction in the total lumens required to achieve mandated levels of luminosity.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:02:05 +0000

You mean the source that says, “The effects of the operating variables are analyzed using a mathematical model [Wu, X.; Merchuk, J. C. Simulation of Algae Growth in a Bench Scale Internal Loop Airlift Reactor. Chem. Eng. Sci. 2004, 59 (14), 2899] that accounts for the effects of ALR geometry, fluid flow, and illumination on the biomass growth.” Can you even comprehend the size of a biomass reactor that could actually do that?

By: Marcus

Marcus — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:38:07 +0000

Sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you-but I wasn’t at my regular computer when I wrote most of the above-so didn’t have my usual array of bookmarks at my disposal. I cannot find the original source of my last point-as the link appears to have changed, however this site here-
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ie049099z
(though only the abstract is available free)
lists the same results that I was relying on from my original source. To summarize, MIT connected an HDVB to its 20MW power plant, & has measured a 50%-82% reduction in CO2 emissions (depending on available sunlight), & an 85% reduction in Nitrogen Oxides. Other facilities have predicted roughly a 43% average reduction in CO2 from flue gases-based on known values of CO2 sequestration in algal species. Given that between 50%-65% of the resulting biomass can be dried, gasified & then burned for heat or electricity, then its easy to see how algal biomass can significantly reduce the CO2 emissions associated with producing electricity from coal & gas-as well as partly displacing the use of diesel fuel, coal & gas by using the by-products of CO2 sequestration instead.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:04:51 +0000

Marcus, I would love to see your source on your last point. In fact, I would love to see all of your sources.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:14:10 +0000

Oh, another thought occurs to me. If the coal or natural gas power stations were fitted with some kind of high density biomass-generator (algal or biochar) then you could cut the CO2 emissions from electric cars to less 20% of that of petrol burning vehicles. Just FYI.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:10:58 +0000

Oh, & another point I’d like to make is that the amount of power needed for the street lights would depend on the efficiency of the lamp. A “conventional” street light (fluorescent) gets only about 65 Lumens per watt, whereas a sodium lamp gets around 100 Lumens per watt (high pressure) or even 150 lumens per watt (low pressure), thus significantly reducing the power required. This power use could be reduced even more if you attach a cobra-head fitting to focus the light & prevent scattering of the illumination (which also cuts down on glare & general light pollution). All these factors could certainly be brought into play to reduce the power demand of the street lights from 15kw-h per day to less than 10kw-h per day.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:43:29 +0000

To those reading the above comment from Brandon, you need to realize that many of the best inventions were strongly opposed by the powerful vested interests of the day (the electric light globe being a perfect example)-& Brandon almost certainly fits the profile. After all, engineers like him build big, inefficient & massively expensive coal & nuclear power stations (all heavily subsidized by *you*, the taxpayer), & he’s probably afraid that a shift to smaller, self-contained renewable energy solutions will put Luddites like him out of business. Its worth noting that though I was able to shoot down the bulk of his arguments, he was unable to do the same to mine-this is because the CO2 output from burning a litre of petrol is *scientific fact*, as is the CO2 output from burning 1kw-h worth of coal or natural gas. Luddites like Brandon don’t like scientific fact, because it makes it harder to argue for their own self-interests. I will make 1 single correction-which is that petrol generates 2.36kg CO2 per litre, not 3.2 as I claimed. That still amounts to 21kg of CO2 per 100km of highway travel vs 14.5kg of CO2 for an electric car of a similar style-assuming it is fuelled entirely by coal.

Now though I would prefer a world in which *everyone* got around in public transport, this would be *unrealistic* (& would almost certainly have to be funded by the tax-payer). So short of this, a world with electric-not petrol burning-vehicles is the next best thing, not only in terms of reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but as a result of reduced toxic emissions.
Oh & btw, the house I’m currently in has AUD$15,000 worth of solar panels & has successfully generated over 7kw-h of electricity-with another 3 hours of sunlight still left. So there is another of Brandon’s weak arguments shot to pieces. Solar *may* be expensive, but its getting cheaper & more efficient with every passing day-& its achieved that on a mere fraction of the R&D subsidies, from the government, that have been enjoyed by the nuclear & fossil fuel industries. Yet people like Brandon seem to want to deny renewable energy the same chance to thrive!

By: Brandon

Brandon — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:09:33 +0000

To those reading these comments, I encourage you to search for the answer’s yourself. There are many “great” ideas in this world that are actually not all that great. Above are two contradictory views on an issue that will affect you the tax payer. Don’t read our comments and come to a conclusion, do the research yourself.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:39:16 +0000

Oh & Brandon, repeating an irrelevant point won’t suddenly make it relevant-so why do you still rely on the *full charge* of an electric vehicle, to make your point, when said charge usually delivers over 200km of range-far more than the average vehicle requires in a given day? The average electric car only requires only 15kw/h of electricity to give it sufficient charge to do around 2-3 days worth of commuting to & from work (assuming an average of 40km round trip) & 30kw-h for a full weeks worth of commuting. Now according to my reading, a 2kw system will generate an average of 1500kw-h of electricity in areas known for high numbers of cloudy days, enough for 50 weeks per year of average commuting-at a cost of US$20,000 (without rebates). Only sports-model electric vehicles cost $80,000-most cost closer to $30,000 to $40,000, & this price will fall as the market expands. The first ICE vehicles had a far higher cost-relative to income-when they first hit the market, but this didn’t stop people from buying them. My point is that as much as you try & denigrate electric vehicles & solar power, they *are* a large part of the future of transportation & power-& your resistance merely reveals you as somewhat of a LUDDITE-not exactly the kind of trait I want to see in an engineer. Maybe engineers, so caught up in “practicality”, fail to see that-had this same practicality won the day about 150 years ago, we’d all still be burning candles & riding horse & buggies. After all, the cost of generating electricity from coal & powering cars with petrol were all prohibitively expensive at the turn of the 19th century-but advances in technology & increased use brought the costs down-& the same will be true again!

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:39:29 +0000

Lets not forget, though, as I said above-the *biggest* cost came not from the solar panels, but the cost of the land. That says something about how much you lot are being overcharged for land in the US of A-don’t try & lay the blame for the excessive cost on renewable energy, when the price of a regular parking lot would probably have cost $1.8 million.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:35:45 +0000

OK, lets look at your last claim: The average car (4 door vehicle capable of seating 5-6 people) uses about 9 litres of petrol to travel 100km-in highway travel. In peak traffic, it uses closer to 11 litres, but lets stick with highway travel. A litre of petrol generates 3.2kg of CO2, so a petrol-powered vehicle generates between 29kg of CO2 for every 100km of travel (not to mention particulate emissions, NO2 & benzene-all of which are directly hazardous to health). Now, according to the Idaho National Laboratory & the US DoE, a fully electric vehicle-of a similar size as my petrol powered example above-requires 16kw-h of electricity to travel 100km. 1kw-h of electricity from coal generates 0.9kg of CO2, so a 100km journey generates 14.5kg of CO2-if derived from coal, or 7.3kg if derived from Natural Gas-over *half* the emissions of a petrol powered vehicle. Oh & before you try & throw distribution losses into the equation, might I remind you that petrol also needs to be refined & transported to petrol stations-thus adding to the CO2 footprint of petrol-powered vehicles.

Also, when you consider that fuel efficiency in petrol powered vehicles drops about 10%-20% in peak traffic, whilst electric vehicles increase by 5%-10% (due to regenerative braking), then you see that electric vehicles far outperform petrol powered vehicles on CO2 emissions-not to mention running costs (to run an average petrol powered vehicles 100km here in Australia would cost around AUD$12, compared to around AUD$4 for an electric vehicle.

So you see that, for people who don’t have the option of Public Transport, electric cars do represent a major step forward in reducing transportation-related CO2 emissions.
As to the cost to taxpayers, do you honestly think the vast array of roads & oil infrastructure in Western Countries didn’t come at massive cost to tax-payers over the last 100 years?

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:03:46 +0000

Oh, one last note. If you will look into DOE, you will find all of the necessary data to conclude that the carbon dioxide emissions from producing electricity (that electric cars use) is almost equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from the average gasoline burning engine YTD (when you factor in all of the transmission losses ~ 30%). If one would argue that, instead of producing the electricity from coal and natural gas, you retrieve the energy from the sun via solar panels then one would conclude that you would need over 1,000 square feet of solar panels per electric vehicle (if you want a full charge in under 4 hours while obtaining 100% of the suns energy). That is 57 solar panels per car (which is more than half of isle Vista’s project). Therefore, you the scientist, would like to encourage people to buy a $30-80K electric vehicle plus $100K for the solar panels. I guess your next suggestion would be for the government to pay for it right? Oh wait, thats what the article is about… Santa Barbara’s tax payers paying for an impractical project that will NEVER charge more than maybe a few electric vehicles per day (in a perfect world), will probably provide enough energy to run the lights, and became the most expensive 45 space parking lot in Santa Barbara.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:44:52 +0000

Marcus -

You being a scientist clears up a lot! I understand your argument completely, and while logical, it is very impractical. Think about the cost per Watt that one would be charged from this parking structure compared to the cost of charging your vehicle from your own home. The most expensive way to convert energy to electricity is through solar panels. Secondly, the other issue lies in regulating the amount of energy consumed. The main goal is to retrieve enough energy to power the lights and the meters. Therefore, the structure would need to first gain enough energy to satisfy that need. If one relied solely on this parking structure to recharge their vehicle enough to get them back home yet for some reason there just wasn’t enough energy there to use….then what? If it is cloudy for 10 days in a row…then what? A $2 million 45 space parking structure is absolutely ridiculous and impractical. Economically it doesn’t make any sense. But then again, I’m an engineer, not a scientist.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:50:35 +0000

First, I would suggest that you not deign to lecture a SCIENTIST about science – you’ll simply end up looking like a prize goose. Second, the electricity required for a full charge is *IRRELEVELENT*, given that a single charge can give a range of between 250km-500km, depending on the vehicle. Most electric vehicles would only require sufficient charge for a 25km-50km round trip (home to work to home; home to shops to home), which would require a charge of between 5kwh-8kwh per vehicle, hence my assertion that you could get around 10-12 cars per day charged sufficiently. So please stop muddying the waters by using a full charge. The reality is far more than the 1-2 cars you’re claiming. Third, *yes* I’d prefer to see the money invested in public transport, but last time I checked we were able to walk & chew gum at the same time-& public transport isn’t perfectly suited to everyones needs. If this project encourages more people to replace their petrol burning cars with electric cars, then this would represent a step forward, especially given the cost of only $200,000 for the solar component.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:01:36 +0000

Marcus –

After reading your comments I can’t help but show you the truth. Below I have left the URL’s of my sources.

First of all, the cost of the solar panel is irrelevant. What is important, is to look at the number of solar panels they used. For theoretical purposes, we will use the most efficient solar panel on the market today. At 13.5 Watt/ft^2 and about 17.4 ft^2. The article mentions that they will have 98 Solar panels. This means that the total MAX output is 23kWh on a perfectly clear day in direct sunlight. In reality in an 8 hour period, solar panels may collect 50% of that max power. Therefore in 8 hours the parking lot may collect 92 kWh. Now, with this information we have to account for the lights, meters, and possible cars being charged. County’s have certain codes that require a certain number of lumins per ft^2. In order to satisfy this requirement, the lights may use nearly 15kWh. That leaves us with 77kWh. Remember, this is operating at full capacity with the most efficient solar panel available today. The meters will not use that much energy, so we will neglect them. Concerning the electric cars, on average electric vehicles require nearly 35kWh per charge however I was able to find one as low as 23kWh. Therefore, with 77kWh we would be able to charge 3.34 Cars per day. In actuality, this will vary with the weather and the position of the sun. The parking lot would be lucky to get 1-2 cars charged per day….which is what I said in the first place. I’m not sure where you are getting your facts or how you came to your conclusion, no offense, but science is not common sense. I would encourage you to look at the facts before you try to use common sense. Common sense will get you supporting a $2 million dollar parking lot that does nothing to help anybody and that will never recover the money spent. I agree with Yakov….public transportation.

-Brandon

Battery Capicity
http://www.thefordstory.com/green/electric-ford-focus-is-the-car-for-stars-on-%E2%80%9Cthe-jay-leno-show%E2%80%9D/?searchid=426441|28125566|205373347

Solar Panel
http://www.sharpusa.com/SolarElectricity/SolarProducts/LiteratureDownloads_Archive.aspx

By: Marcus

Marcus — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:55:43 +0000

Yakov, though I would prefer to see money invested in public transportation, its false logic to suggest this new car park will increase car use. My hope is that it might lead to more people buying electric vehicles, because they generate significantly less CO2 emissions per km travelled, even if the electricity comes from a coal-fired power station!

By: Yakov

Yakov — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:03:58 +0000

The increased car use as a result of this parking lot cancels out any “greenness” added by the solar panels. It would have been preferable to invest the money in sustainable transit.