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Electric Vehicles Might Not Benefit the Environment After All
New submitter countach44 writes "From an article in IEEE's Spectrum magazine: 'Upon closer consideration, moving from petroleum-fueled vehicles to electric cars begins to look more and more like shifting from one brand of cigarettes to another. We wouldn't expect doctors to endorse such a thing. Should environmentally minded people really revere electric cars?' The author discusses the controversy and social issues behind electric car research and demonstrates what many of us have been thinking: are electric cars really more environmentally friendly than those based on internal combustion engines?"
Reader Jah-Wren Ryel takes issue with one of the sources, and offers a criticism from Fast Company.
Of course it depends on the energy source. I purchase wind powered offsets to power my focus electric. This changes the equation greatly.
Because you can get the electricity from clean renewable sources.
Unless we switch to solar, wind and/or nuclear for the bulk of our electricity generation, all electric cars do is concentrate where we burn the hydrocarbons to power them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Perhaps it isn't any cleaner, but I'd rather have my car using power from natural gas or nuclear than other sources that are more likely to come from outside my country. The geopolitics of sending our dollars to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or elsewhere unfriendly isn't a good idea, so even if the pollution level is the same, electric is superior to gasoline/petrol.
Even if ALL of the electricity to power EVs was generated from the dirtiest coal plants, it would STILL be cleaner than every single car carrying around its own heavy, petrol burning, ICE. Also you have the benefits of localizing pollution somewhere less populated. This smells like a big oil hit piece.
Now, there is a separate conversation about other forms of transportation being even better than personal automobiles. Trains and even airplanes might be better in some scenarios than everyone racing around pell-mell with their own car, but that's a different issue. If we, as a society, have decided that everyone will be driving their own vehicle, the question is how to make that scenario least damaging; and the answer is electric vehicles.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
According to my "the cheapest thing is the best for the environment" theory, this was easily predictable.
Energy means fossil fuels. To a first approximation, other energy sources can be ignored. And in the modern economy, money ~ energy. When fuel (i.e. energy) prices go up, the effect ripples through the whole supply chain, touching absolutely everything that is manufactured and shipped. The costs associated with most products are dominated not by human labor costs but by energy costs. And since our modern agriculture essentially exchanges energy for food, even human labor comes down to energy costs.
Therefore, TO A FIRST APPROXIMATION, the cheaper of two alternatives is better for the environment.
Electric cars are more expensive than gasoline cars, and often would never exist except for subsidies. If they were really more economical, they would already be popular. Ergo, per The Theory, they are worse for the environment.
"Should environmentally minded people really revere electric cars?"
I'm environmentally minded. Guess what I revere. Yep, you got it, since it's a no-brainer: bicycles. Best machine humans have ever created. Good for the body and good for the earth. I've never owned a car, and I don't want to. I use car sharing programs when I need to drive and bicycle or use public transportation (or both) otherwise.
And before anyone says "Well, but bicycles don't work for everyone: kids, job, blah blah," let me just squash that fallacious argument. Bicycle advocates *never* are saying we *all* have to ride bicycles. Just more of us. Everyone who wants to should feel they can. I bet you want to. Wind in the face, endorphin high, the feeling of doing things with your body, the joy of not destroying the earth to do the daily drudge: who doesn't want that?
The central power station is not making its emissions a few feet from the sidewalk. Its pollution controls aren't restricted by weight or the need for portability.
It's also way more efficient.
Electrifying the vehicle fleet is like modularizing your code. Instead of being tied to petroleum, with an electric fleet you can snap in nuclear, tidal, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, or whatever else turns out to be a good idea.
more than oil refining? more than shipping oil, with the inevitable spills? I'm all for taking the total cost of a system into account, but half estimates on one side of the discussion results in decisions made on incomplete or downright wrong information.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
While charging your electric car with coal power sounds like a bad deal in the short term. The electric doesn't care where that power comes from, so in the long term that gives us the flexibility to operate an energy economy that is based on a wide range of sources. Also, diversity in the market also means stability and theoretically fair prices. (but we'll probably cock that up)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The linked article takes you to a 1-page analysis. They must have put a lot of time into that! Corporate mission-statements frequently use more ink.
By comparison, the union of concerned scientists made a more robust, and likely more earnest attempt at understanding total fuel consumption using the "well-to-wheels" benchmark. You can read about it here: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf
Page 11 (of 48) gives at least an approximation of CO2 consumption as measured in equivalent MPG for EVs, depending on what what's being used to push the electrons to the car in the first place. Coming in first place is geothermal, with an eMPG or 7600, and coal comes in last at 30 eMPG.
Whether somebody involved in this study or that study has erred or has been disingenuous is hard to say, but my guess is that the union of concerned scientists probably followed an actual scientific process where their work is available for full scrutiny by the rest of the scientific community.
Yeah, yeah, get your mu-metal hats on. But think about it. How many choices for gasoline are within driving distance? Half a dozen or more? How many choices for electric power? Most likely one. What happens when that one source decides to restrict your usage? And then what happens when usage restriction become geographic?
Basically we keep looking for "green" alternatives that don't require us to be even slightly inconvenienced or to change our lifestyles at all - and it's probably not possible.
#DeleteChrome
Within a century (easily) we will be able to live mostly off of renewables for the purpose of transportation and energy. Any given time you google "Solar breakthrough", there will be a couple advancements within the last month that enables greater efficiency--
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/11/new-class-of-solar-cell-reaches-new-efficiency-breakthrough/
Hell, it could even be a paint-- http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/15/caution-wet-solar-power-new-affordable-solar-paint-research/
Plastics without fossil fuels is also quite forseeable in the near future: http://www.themoldingblog.com/2013/06/12/ibm-is-close-to-breakthrough-use-of-bioplastics-in-computer-servers/
Also, "they would already be popular"? Really? Do you have any idea what goes into something being "popular"? Advertizing, buddy. Watch the docu Who Killed the Electric car for an example of how automakers can manipulate peoples' desires with advertizing, pressuring them towards vehicles that're more costly to maintain (internal combustion engines), and away from more economic choices that the government may force them to offer.
You also forgot to mention petroleum subsidies, which artificially lowers the market price of oil. All in all, your "theory" is very short-sighted.
The aggregate effect may not be advantageous, but if you change where the emissions or pollution occurs, you have one hell of a difference when it comes to smog.
There's a powerful smell of bullshit coming off that link.
For example - "Additionally, electric car batteries must be replaced after about four years". REALLY??!!?
Most of the RAV4 EVs and original Priuses are still on their original batteries, some after more than 200,000 miles. And every carmaker selling EVs is guaranteeing battery life of approx 8 yrs. They can't all be so stupid to guarantee free replacements for twice the expected life of the product.
And, the batteries are not exhausted after those 4 or 8 yrs but reduced to ~70% - that still a heckuva lot of life and can be recycled or refurbished into other products such as UPSes or some other stationary storage with weight and performance characteristics that'll stomp lead-acid.
By the way, have a look at the bios of the good people at the IER - not a single scientist or engineer among them
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/staff/
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Pollution from drilling for oil, manufacturing the gas, getting the gas to the station, using electricity to power the pumps etc. and lets throw in some accidents once in a while where we waste more gas powering the machines that clean up the spill. Right....
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Heavier doesn't hurt economy much. A small linear contribution from rolling resistance. Losses in getting it moving are recovered on braking. heavy hurts non-hybrids because they are non-regenerative. And given two identical cars, the lighter will always be better because of the rolling resistance, but compared to the IC losses, weight is inconsequential.
Learn to love Alaska
Perhaps you should RTFA, which points out that, in the UK, power stations are only about 36% efficient at delivering energy to end users. Add in the 80% efficiency of an electric car and now you have something similar to that of a gas (petrol)-powered car.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Not only smaller, but if it is run only at a single speed/load point (the most efficient for the engine) and the engine is optimized for that speed/load point, the engine can be much more efficient than a traditional car engine.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The added bonus of everyone switching to motorcycles is that all those people waiting on organ donations will have a steady supply.
Vastly more, since you can build them big to squeeze that last little bit of energy out of the steam with multiple turbines and you don't have to worry about how heavy they are. You also don't have to worry about losses from having to move a heavy cooling system around.
I'll admit I didn't read every word of TFA, but my antennae went up when the author spent lots of time comparing the environmental impact of gasoline engines to electric autos supplied by coal-generated electricity. Then, comparing different types of generation, he matches up nuclear and natural gas rather than either of those two relatively-clean alternatives and coal. Completely absent is any mention of thorium-fueled reactors, though several countries are at the testing stage with such generators, and unless some major problems emerge, they seem likely to take over from uranium-fueled reactors in the next generation.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed to me that the author was most interested in raising his profile by generating controversy. It's an old academic trick when ideas are scarce and the bosses are hinting that it's time to get a few papers out there...or else.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
When looking at comparative efficiencies and pollutants, you have to look at the whole chain. From hole in the ground to rotating wheel. Even burning "Dirty" coal, Electric Vehicles have a distinct advantage. The losses and energy use involved in drilling/mining, transporting, burning and generating, transporting (considerably less loss) and finally turning wheels pales in comparison to the ICE requirements of drilling/pumping oil, transporting crude, upgrading/refining to petroleum (Which takes HUGE amounts of energy and is almost never mentioned), transporting petroleum, burning it and finally using it to turn wheels. For an ICE, you can generally only find information about the latter stages, and that is less than 40% efficient. Electric cars are 90%+ efficient with power from the wall, and the whole chain comes in at around 60-75% (So far, this is getting better all the time). Electric cars don't have, or need, cooling systems (in fact, the opposite is often the case, where heaters have to be installed as there is no "Waste" heat generated to warm the passenger cabin).
But, even if that wasn't the case, and pollution from both methods was exactly equal, it's much MUCH easier to introduce measures to clean up the products from 1 smokestack (recirculation/sequestration etc) than it is to do the same thing with hundreds of thousands of tiny, mobile, tailpipes.
Of course, as renewable resources come online in the power grid, the Electric car gets greener automatically (as it's power is being produced in a more green manner) without the owner having to do a thing about it, and that's also not considering engine oil changes, transmission fluid etc. Try doing that with your gas-guzzler.
Batteries for electric cars aren't perfect, they do require some digging in the ground and a little bit of chemical work to make them (Though ICEs also need batteries, along with the odd and rare elements they require for durability and longevity) but once made they are 99% recyclable. And even with that, they're still cleaner than the parts and ancillary equipment needed for ICEs
In addition to the local air pollution, electric cars greatly decrease the noise level in cities, which currently for many people is an even bigger problem.
Two of the biggest benefits to an electric car are:
(1) When you're stopped, your motor doesn't keep running. Think of all the fuel you've wasted either letting your car warm up, or sitting at a light, or stuck in traffic.
(2) Regenerative braking technology converts your momentum back into usable power instead of just wasting it as heat.
These, combined with the fact that your car doesn't care where it gets electricity from, and that a coal plant is still more efficient overall than thousands of independent engines, is precisely why this article is probably OPEC propaganda. :D
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Start with the math
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/wells-to-wheels-electric-car-efficiency/
Now let's look at some of the statements
"Solar cells contain heavy metals"
SOME solar cells contain heavy metals. Those are the CdTe thin-film models which were in vogue for a while but largely out of the market today. In these, the metals are locked in compounds which make them no less safe that the poisonous chlorine gas or flammable sodium metal in your salt. The panels people are actually buying today, pSi and mSi, do not contain heavy metals. They consist almost entirely of silicon, with a small amount of silver, aluminum and copper wiring.
"and their manufacturing releases greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexafluoride"
Their manufacture USED TO release GHG's, but the industry has reduced leakage to just about zero since about 2007.
"For instance, Richard Pike of the Royal Society of Chemistry provocatively determined that electric cars, if widely adopted, stood to lower Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions by just 2 percent, given the U.K.’s electricity sources."
Now think about this for this statement to make any sense whatsoever, Pike is saying that if we all switched our cars, an astonishing technological change, that the generation would *not* change.
In fact, the opposite is much more likely. As I type this wind turbines are going up all across the UK, and they are lobbying to be the European end of the Iceland-Europe undersea HVDC link. The first of these, especially, is a perfect counterpart for electric cars or PIH's.
By the time significant numbers of electric cars are on the road, the generation mix will have already been radically altered.
"Last year, a U.S. Congressional Budget Office study found that electric car subsidies “will result in little or no reduction in the total gasoline use and greenhouse-gas emissions of the nation’s vehicle fleet over the next several years.”"
Well *duh*. With very few electric cars on the road, it's pretty obvious to everyone they'll have little impact.
"The lifetime difference in greenhouse-gas emissions between vehicles powered by batteries and those powered by low-sulfur diesel, for example, was hardly discernible"
Considering that adding batteries to a diesel engine decreases it's GHG emissions by about 1/3rd, this seems unlikely unless you select places in the world where the majority of the power comes from crappy coal plants. Like the US, or China. You know, like this
"University of Tennessee studied five vehicle types in 34 Chinese cities"
Argue all you want, the math, as noted in the link above, is clear.
By large, you mean container-ship sized?
Yep.
Those are some of the most polluting engines on the planet.
Not inherently: mostly because they run on filthy cheap fuel full of sulphur. Either way they would be impractical for large scale power generation.
Actually my figures put coal at slightly better. They hit 49% electrical efficiency, whereas the big diesels are 51% efficient at the shaft. If used for generation, there would be additional generating losses, putting them below coal.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I have only anecdotal evidence about Prius battery life but the link below has lots of names and locations of owners claiming anywhere from 100000 - half a million mile s (this last I find implausible).
Feel free to let them know what lying sacks of shit you think they are. Let us know what they have to say and thanks in advance.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_23057096/prius-goes-530-000-miles-same-battery
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Elon Musk addressed this at the Model X event. Tesla says that if you live in CA and take power from the grid you end up producing 1/4 the CO2 as a gas car and in the worst case scenario where you live in West Virginia and get most electricity from coal you still only produce 1/3 the CO2.
Here is the relevant part of the clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YoNd2eMsPHU#t=334s