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Why the Energy Industry Loves the Internal Combustion Engine

Today, nearly every vehicle on the road is powered by an internal combustion engine, where fuel is burned in a series of cylinders, causing the air inside to expand and move pistons, creating the mechanical work which drives the wheels of our cars.

Besides a single limitation (the amount of energy which can be stored in batteries, though this is becoming less of an issue every day), electric vehicles trump the internal combustion engine in every single way. (If anyone can come up with something that IC engines do better than electric motors, I would like to know!)

For decades we have had the battery technology to create vehicles which will operate for up to 100 miles on a single charge. Despite the fact that such range is perfectly fine for something like 90% of driving, the electric vehicle never really took hold. Many blame various industries for this, and this blame is certainly not unfounded. I see a fundamental thermodynamic issue which may explain as to part of why the energy industry seems to love the internal combustion engine, and hate the electric vehicle. You'll see that it has a lot to do with responsibility. Who will be responsible for the upkeep and efficiency of the engines?

It's all about the Power Plant

Mostly this has to do with the placement of the "power plant." In this case, the "power plant" is the device which converts a difference in temperature (from the combustion of fuel) into mechanical work, via the expansion and phase change of fluids. Internal combustion engines are power plants, as well as the steam turbines used to generate electricity.

All of these "power plants" are governed by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that not all of the heat energy can be converted into work - some (which actually ends up being most of the original energy) must be "thrown away" in the process. Those big curved cooling towers that we see at many power plants serve one purpose - to throw away all of this "waste" energy. In our internal combustion cars, the radiator serves this purpose. A lot of heat is also blown out of the exhaust pipe.

In an internal combustion car, we carry the power plant on board with us. Fuel (gasoline and diesel) is burned, about 25% of its heat energy is converted into mechanical power which drives the wheels, and the rest is blown out the exhaust pipe.

In an electric car, the electric company is in charge of the power plant. They create heat using coal, uranium, and gas, which produces steam for driving the turbines. In most plants, about 33% of the energy is converted to mechanical and then electrical power, and the rest is blown up the cooling towers. The resulting electricity flows through the meters at our homes, and charges the batteries in the electric vehicle. The battery charging and electric motors are well over 80% efficient - very little electrical energy is lost there. Any electrical energy lost in the transmission and distribution network would be included with the "waste heat" from the power plant, since it is not being metered by the meters at our homes.

ENERGY FLOW OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE VERSUS AN IC ENGINE VEHICLE

Meter Maid

The key difference here lies in the placement of the meter. In the case of the internal combustion vehicle, the energy is metered BEFORE the power plant. This means that any inefficiency in our cars means we must burn MORE gas and send more of our hard-earned cash to the oil company to pay for gasoline to fuel the engine. If cars go out of tune and become inefficient, who cares? That's more gas they burn and the more product the oil company sells!

In an electric, the energy is metered AFTER the power plant. Any inefficiency in the power plant will mean that the electric utility must burn more fuel in order to produce a given amount of salable product, thus increasing their costs and reducing their profit margin. If the steam cycle at a power plant becomes inefficient - the electric company LOSES. They have a financial incentive to keep it working right, especially with today's higher fuel prices.

There is a much greater responsibility necessary on part of the energy industry in the electric vehicle model, as they must keep their plants efficient in order to be most profitable. In the internal combustion model, out-of-tune and inefficient engines are actually BOOSTERS to the energy company's profits (and downers to the health of the people, their wallets, and the environment in which we all live).

Electric Transport is True Freedom

I also see this misconception that "The Greenies and their electric cars, are trying to take away our freedom and send us back to the Stone Age!" Haha, yeah...a clean running, quiet, speedy, low-maintenance, and efficient electric vehicle is somehow a step back in time. I don't quite understand the rationale behind such thinking.

It is easy to produce electricity - anyone can do that, with an old motor and a bicycle one could produce over 100 watts of electrical power just by pedaling. Trying making gasoline that easily. We can buy wind turbines and solar panels and produce electricity that way in our own backyards, we can even get generators which allow us to produce electricity from gasoline if we ever had some twisted desire to do so.

It's easy to make electricity ourselves, at our homes, and in our communities. It can be made using any combination of the following resources: Solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, uranium, tidal, biomass, municipal solid waste, coal, natural gas, and oil, and maybe even some other stuff. It's not easy to make gasoline, unless you've got a $4 billion refinery and a few hundred thousand barrels of crude oil to run through it per day.

You tell me what gives us more freedom!

Last Modified: 06/20/2008
Created On: 06/20/2008