Only if these percentages are in series. Since we're talking about the same power plants, it seems that 1/3 is all we get.
Checking the study in question (first hit for 'study "Electric Power Research Institute" "Natural Resources Defense Council"'), it seems they did _not_ take into account the production and maintenance costs of each type of vehicle.
I'm skeptical of technologies that promise incremental conservation through massive consumption of other resources (battery material).
"Only if these percentages are in series. Since we're talking about the same power plants, it seems that 1/3 is all we get."
To quote E:TS again:
"Without any major breakthroughs, vehicles that are little different from today's could use one-third the energy per mile, says John DeCicco, Environmental Defense Fund's specialist in automotive strategies. That alone would radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If those cars ran on a biofuel made from renewable feedstocks with one-fourth the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of today's gasoline (Amyris's biogasoline, for instance, or Verenium's cellulosic ethanol), then the emissions per mile would be one-twelfth what they are today, a reduction of 92 percent. It was the feasibility of such options that, in September 2007, caused Vermont U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions to reject manufacturers' challenges and rule that they could meet California's new standards, requiring carbon dioxide emissions in new cars to be cut about 22 percent in the first phase (2009 through 2012) and 30 percent in the mid-term phase (2013 to 2016). Given the expected doubling by midcentury of vehicle miles traveled in the United States, however, California and the rest of the country will have to go much further--reducing automobile emissions about 80 percent." (p. 229)
The book lists a whole boatload of other ways to save massive amounts of energy with today's technology, many of which are listed in my notes of chapter 9: http://alexkrupp.com/earth.html
The sections on weather prediction, clean cement, carpeting, and fans are insanely cool.
Yeah, exactly. I was picking on electric cars because they only address a subproblem; other technologies are certainly more promising.
...
"Another innovation came in the carpet pattern itself. The company's top-selling pattern, called Entropy, mimics the disorder of a forest floor with its strewn leaves, pebbles, and twigs. That randomness means that the pattern needn't match up from tile to tile, but can be laid out in any direction, eliminating the huge amounts of scrap normally generated at installation. It means few tiles are rejected at the factor: imperfections get lost in the wandering variations of color. It also means the carpet lasts a long time, because worn or stained tiles can be swapped out without replacing the rest." (p. 215)
It's pretty good. (Disclaimer: my dad is the co-author.) It's a little technical in places, especially in the solar photovoltaic chapter, but overall it's far superior to getting your education on renewable energy from articles in Wired or the thinly rewritten press releases that get posted to Reddit and news.yc. It's a current events type book and I don't think it's so insightful that people will be reading it fifty years from now, but it's still definitely worth a read since we're about to see the biggest economic boom in history (as soon as cap-and-trade gets enacted next year) based on the technologies and ideas in the book. I read it twice and I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the issues now, especially after taking notes the second time. I'd still like to read more books in the same topic area, but right now I'm working through a pile of educational theory stuff.
1/3 is quite a lot in that respect.