On a per KW basis, the cheapest plants to build are natural gas at around $1,100 per KW. The cost of building the required number of natural gas power plants would be $24 billion. Modern coal-fired plants cost around $2,800 per KW.
“To actually accomplish replacing all light vehicles in the UK with battery-powered vehicles, while also meeting the requirements of the UK’s Climate Change Act, would require building 39,000 new 2 MW wind turbines, which is nearly 6 times the number of wind turbines built over the last 15 years. The cost would be approximately $165 billion or £131 billion. (More, if offshore wind or solar is built.) This is 90% of the UK budget for its entire health care program, or nearly three times larger than the UK’s defense budget.”
The media went gaga over France’s and the UK’s proposal to eliminate the use of internal combustion engines in automobiles by replacing them with battery-powered vehicles (BEVs).
As it now stands, the global BEV count of two million represents a 0.2 percent market share. China, US, and Norway have the most; for the UK and France, it’s just about a standing start.
Some UK Math
When the UK Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, called for the elimination of internal combustion engines, the media treated it as the death knell for oil. Not so fast. Energy transformation, as Vaclav Smil has noted, is a gradual process. And much of it is occurring within the (consumer-driven) fossil-fuel industry, not outside of it.
To actually accomplish replacing all light vehicles in the UK with battery-powered vehicles, while also meeting the requirements of the UK’s Climate Change Act, would require building 39,000 new 2 MW wind turbines, which is nearly 6 times the number of wind turbines built over the last 15 years.
The cost would be approximately $165 billion or £131 billion. (More, if offshore wind or solar is built.)
And this does not include:
It also ignores the problem of adding large amounts of unreliable wind to the grid that could require adding battery or other storage at an additional cost.
Supporting Data/Figures
Here are some more facts to understand the UK’s transportation-to-generation conversion (links at end of article).
Note: Data is approximate. Miles used by BEV is for 60 kWh battery, at 450 Wh/mile.
From this it can be seen that the UK would have to increase its generating capacity by 31%, or by nearly one-third, in order to replace existing light vehicles with BEVs. This would require adding over 24,000 MW of new capacity, using either coal-fired, natural gas or nuclear power.
Roughly speaking, it means building approximately 24 new 1,000 MW plants.
Cost Estimations
On a per KW basis, the cheapest plants to build are natural gas at around $1,100 per KW. The cost of building the required number of natural gas power plants would be $24 billion. Modern coal-fired plants cost around $2,800 per KW.
However, the UK is short on natural gas, but does have ample supplies of coal. It’s far more likely that a combination of natural gas and coal-fired power plants would need to be built at a cost of around $65 billion, depending on the final mix.
Alternatively it would require 18,500 new 2 MW wind turbines, having a capacity factor of 34% (the same as the CF for existing units). The number of existing wind turbines is estimated to be 7,613, as of June 2017. (The capital costs are from US data, and costs in the UK are probably higher.)
In other words, it would require building approximately two and one half times the number of existing wind turbines at a cost of roughly $78 billion. The cost would be substantially greater if the wind turbines were installed offshore.
Restrictions
Consider these hard facts for the UK (and EU) authorities:
Interestingly, the UK’s Climate Change Act mandates emissions cuts of 80% by 2050 from power plants. This means coal and natural gas power plants must be replaced with renewables by 2050.
Therefore: Nearly 31,000 MW of existing coal-fired and natural gas power plants must be replaced by renewables so as to meet the required 80% reduction in CO2 emissions from existing power plants.
Using the same capacity factor of 34% as used above, it would require adding an additional 20,500, 2 MW wind turbines in the UK, or equivalent solar capacity, to achieve the required 80% reduction in CO2 emissions.
Conclusion
The mere fact that the media would report such a claim as being credible, shows how slavishly and blindly the media is adhering to the CO2 party line. Energy reality will prevail, however, to put politicians in their place.
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References
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/632597/Chapter_5.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom
Life-cycle Greenhouse Gases of Vehicles: A life-cycle assessment should cover four distinct phases of a vehicle’s life, and be based on driving, say 150,000 km (93,750 miles) during the 15 years of a vehicle’s life, using 10% ethanol/90% gasoline blend (E10), and a grid CO2 intensity of say 500 g CO2/kWh, or 1.10 lb CO2/kWh.
1) Vehicle production – to assess embedded CO2
2) In-use phase – to assess CO2 incurred during the driving
3) Disposal at end-of-life
4) Fuel production and delivery processes of electricity generation and gasoline production, depending on vehicle type.
The embedded greenhouse gases of average vehicles, as a percent of the lifecycle total emissions, in metric ton, are shown in below table. See URL and click on press release.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/06/full-life-cycle-assesment-electric-cars-compares-co2-impact-conventional-cars/
Vehicle Embedded Driving, etc Replace Battery Lifecycle
CO2, Mt CO2, Mt CO2, Mt CO2, Mt
Average E10 vehicle 5.6 (23%) 18.4 0 24.0
Average hybrid 6.5 (31%) 14.5 0 21.0
Hybrid, Prius 6.5 (31%) 12.0 0 18.5
Average plug-in hybrid 6.7 (35%) 12.3 0 19.0
Plug-in hybrid, Prius 6.7 (35%) 10.0 0 16.7
Average EV 8.8 (46%) 10.2 3.8 22.8
EV, Tesla 11.5 (60%) 10.2 5.0 26.7
The table is easier to read in this URL.
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/comparison-of-energy-efficiency-and-co2-of-gasoline-and-electric
It would much easier for the US car industry and the US economy to have 45-mpg light duty hybrid vehicles, as Toyota has proven with its 52-mpg Prius models for more than 15 years, than to make the very expensive, capital-intensive transition towards electric vehicles to reduce CO2 from light duty vehicles, especially when such a transition likely would have minimal impact on overall CO2 emissions. See table.
The energy efficiency of EVs using Li-ion batteries is about as good as it is going to be, per Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. Mass production of batteries and EVs would drive down the PRICE, but likely not the lifetime CO2.
CO2 estimates of the Toyota Prius, Toyota plug-in Prius and Tesla Model S were inserted in the table for comparison purposes.
– An average EV has emitted about 46% of its lifecycle emissions before it has been driven a single mile.
– If an EV has a large capacity battery, such as a Tesla model S (75 – 100 kWh), then the 46% becomes about 60% or greater, and the lifetime CO2 of those EVs becomes greater than of an average E10 vehicle.
– The Toyota hybrid and plug-in hybrid have about the same capacity batteries at other vehicles of that class, but higher EPA combined mileages. It appears the Toyota vehicles have the lowest driving CO2 emissions in their class.