Comment on Renewables cover more than half of Germany’s electricity demand for first time this year
iraq_lobster@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
electricity is cool, but its not the only source of energy used in the country: fuel is also a source of energy and needs to be replaced. The amount of electricity consumed in France is about 470 Twh, and the amount of Joules used overall is equivalent to 1500 Twh, per year.
silence7@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
To be clear: you only need to replace the final energy from the fuel, not the primary energy. That’s a big deal, because it reduces the amount you need to replace sharply.
MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
You need to replace the useful energy of the fuel and not the final nor the primary energy. For a combustion engine car the primary energy would be the energy in the oil, final energy would be the petrol you buy at the pump and useful energy the kinetic energy of the car. Since a combustion engine of a car is extremely inefficient, that makes a massive difference.
silence7@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
Yeah, that’s a better definition than final energy
iraq_lobster@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
A lithium-ion battery pack has about 0.3 MJ/kg and about 0.4 MJ/liter (Chevy VOLT). Gasoline thus has about 100 times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery.
gasoline is 100 time more energy dense than electricity, thus even inefficiencies at 70% for IC engines, gasoline would still be more efficient somehow. But there is alot of geopolotics and environement involved with fuel. The problem of energy density needs to be resolved somehow so it would be more convenient to use.
MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 11 months ago
The article is from August/September 2012
The issue is that ICs just suck badly. So badly that carrying around half a ton of batteries still makes EVs much more efficent. that is not even looking at how petrol is made, which btw also requires electricity.
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