Writings and videos about science activities with an emphasis on environmental science and energy measurement

Showing Tag: "electric car" (Show all posts)

A Realistic Assessment of the Hydrogen Economy and Fuel Cell Cars

Posted by Antonio Chaves on Saturday, June 27, 2015, In : environmental news 
Even though I have a personal fascination with fuel cells and even incorporate a fuel cell activity into my lab manual, I think it is a waste of resources to invest in the "hydrogen economy". This article does a great job of summarizing the economic and technological hurdles of using hydrogen as a major transportation fuel. First, it utterly demolishes the myth that hydrogen is a "green" fuel since the only practical source of hydrogen is natural gas. Second, it shows how lithium batteries ar...
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New Video on Collecting Data from the U.S. Department of Energy

Posted by Antonio Chaves on Wednesday, May 13, 2015, In : lab procedure explanations 
I just posted a new video based on one of the activities in my lab manual. Specifically "The Fossil Fuel Costs of Electric Cars". It involves navigating the U.S. Energy Information Administration website in order to acquire data to calculate how much of each fossil fuel is needed to generate a given amount of electricity. This in turn is used to estimate the efficiency of electric cars in terms of how much fossil fuels they consume at the power plant.
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Questioning the Sustainability of Electric Vehicles

Posted by Antonio Chaves on Saturday, April 4, 2015, In : environmental news 

While I have a great deal of respect for Bjorn Lomborg, I would like to see an itemized chart showing how he came to the conclusion that electric vehicles are more polluting than those that rely on internal combustion engines. Beyond the obvious fact that electric cars are only as clean as the means whereby the electricity is generated, Lomborg does bring up the overlooked issue of battery life and the resources needed for their manufacture and disposal. The fact that recharg...


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Bad News on Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars

Posted by Antonio Chaves on Thursday, June 5, 2014, In : environmental news 
This article based on well-to-wheel analysis exposes some inconvenient truths about hydrogen fuel cell cars. Even though I am fascinated by the fuel cell principle and even include a lab activity on fuel cells, I have never been a fan of fuel cell cars. In fact, two of my activities (Lab 2-2: Transportation and Lab 3-6: Fuel Cell Dynamics) expose the inefficiency of extracting hydrogen from water for purposes of using it in fuel cells. This is why most hydrogen is extracted from natural gas (...
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Electric Car from 1905

Posted by Antonio Chaves on Thursday, May 22, 2014, In : environmental news 
Electric cars are not so new. I remember as a child in the 1960's when I saw a commercial for "Timex" electric watches where a little old lady enters a jewelry store and purchases an electric watch. Given the context that electric watches were a novelty at this time, the merchant says to her "Welcome to the electric age!" (I am paraphrasing). She then retorts, "Young man, I have been driving one for over 40 years". In the next scene, she leaves the shop and enters a battery-powered antique ca...
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Electric cars for rent …in China!

Posted by Antonio Chaves on Sunday, February 23, 2014, In : environmental news 
Even though technological limitations still make it hard to electric cars to compete in the U.S., here is an interesting development; a vending machine that doles out rental electric cars in Chinese Cities. Given that this is a private endeavor with probably little or no help from the Chinese government it is worth seeing how this develops over the next few years.

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About this blog

This blog was originally created in January 2013 to serve as a means for providing updates on science activities from the environmental science lab manual Ecology, Development, and Sustainability. I have now expanded its purpose to include other items of interest to science teachers. 

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