On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 20:07:24 -0600, rbowman
wrote:

On 03/30/2021 04:35 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/30/2021 2:03 PM, wrote:


There are still coal fired plants around DC. Just how clean is that
electricity?


Cleaner than ICEs. Certainly not perfect but the internal combustion
engine is very inefficient at about 20
5 thermal efficiency. Modern coal plants are in the 40% range.
Gas turbine plants are about 60%

Of course there are transmission losses too.
.

And then there are the batteries...

That is an interesting thing you don't hear much about. My wife is
talking about buying cars for the kids but it might end up being one
they share. She wanted a hybrid, used and after lots of research she
found out after about 8 years the resale price drops off a cliff.
Eight years is the expected life of the battery and the replacement is
$5,000 or so.
She was looking at some kind of Ford hybrid SUV and that is reflected
in the prices. I told her buy an 8 year old one for $5k less and just
plan on a new battery right out of the chute. They will be starting
fresh.
Hybrids still run with a bad battery but performance and mileage sucks
because you are running on a lawn tractor engine and no battery
backup..