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Scientists: Electric Vehicles Produce As Many Toxins As Dirty Diesels (dailymail.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Thanks to ongoing efforts to reduce engine emissions, nowadays only 10% to 15% of particulate emissions from traffic are coming from vehicles' tailpipes. The remainder originates in tire, road surface and brake wear. A study by Victor Timmers and Peter Achten published in Atmospheric Environment has now found that the extra weight of electric vehicles causes non-tailpipe emissions to increase by about as much as the omission of the internal combustion engine saves. Atmospheric particulates have been shown to cause cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory diseases and are widely considered as the most harmful form of air pollution. Achten said, "We found that non-exhaust emissions, from brakes, tires and the road, are far larger than exhaust emissions in all modern cars. These are more toxic than emissions from modern engines so they are likely to be key factors in the extra heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks seen when air pollution levels surge." The study shows that non-exhaust emissions a vehicle produces is directly related to its weight. Scientists found that electric and eco-friendly vehicles weighed around 24 percent more than conventional vehicles, which in turn contributes to more wear on the tires.
Can a legitimate news outlet tell us if this is a REAL concern?
the Petroleum Institute and Oil Producing Export Countries.
Why is The Daily Mail, a lowest-rung tabloid, being linked on the /. main page?
The paper itself is so full of faults that I would have to write more than the paper's authors in order to describe them all. Others in this thread are doing that. I will take the time to make two counter-points, though:
(1) Heavier cars, eh? You mean, like SUVs? The logical conclusion here is to promote sub-compact cars, public transport, and cargo transport by rail, rather than big-rig transport, of goods around the country. I don't think Rupert Murdoch would be in favor any of this, considering his investments in the fossil fuel industry.
(2) Electric cars rely primarily on regenerative braking. Essentially, the motors work in reverse to produce electricity when reducing speed (momentum, but ultimately kinetic energy) of the car – transforming that back into potential energy that is stored in the car's batteries. These motors are brush-less, meaning that there is no frictional contact, and thus no particulates produced. Compare this to regular car brakes, which are entirely frictional and heat-dissipating. Do we still use asbestos in car brake drums? Regardless, 'regular' brakes are two surfaces grinding against each other, creating micro-particulates. Drum brakes are going away, so it's all 4-wheel disk brakes. Usually made of metal.
But on my high-end sports car, which requires ceramic brake pads, braking creates micro-particulates of ceramic materials that are not soluble in the human lung, which is the kind of thing that causes mesothelioma (blacklung, asbestosis, silicosis, and the many others yet to be named... until enough people exhibit direct signs of a specific material causing the mesothelioma). It's not hard to know which materials will be in this class, but my managers tended to 'shush' me when I brought up the topic years ago – but it has since-then become a major area of research. It is not hard to create a definitive list, but NSF only likes to fund incremental research, rather than fundamentals-based studies. Thus, I will simply keep my mouth (and my windows) shut.
Articles like this are almost as popular with news sites as "chocolate/beer/wine/cheese/bacon cures cancer!". From what I can tell, the publication was written by a summer intern who is about a junior in college, by reviewing other publications and making some guesses from the data contained therein. It's a good thought piece, i.e. "Hey guys, there's a lot of stuff that we haven't really done much to improve yet, maybe we should look into that." The publication doesn't make an argument that "electric cars are evil." It doesn't even have any real data of its own. And well over half of the particulate matter that they attribute is just stuff that was lying on the ground and the cars kicked up into the air; and because they claim that an EV is 24% heavier, it will kick up 24% more PM in its wake, which is probably not true. I'd be willing to bet that even if EVs average 24% heavier, they are probably not also 24% larger and 24% less aerodynamic; and the size and shape of the vehicle matter at least as much as the weight in creating a wake, if not more.
On top of that, I don't know that reduction of particulate matter has ever been a huge concern for the EV market. Generally, the concerns are more along the lines of reducing CO2 (/CO/NOx/HCHO/NMOG/NMHC) emissions, oil consumption, monetary support to unfriendly OPEC nations, required maintenance, or fuel costs; or increasing support of new technology, renewable energy, etc. But, PM is certainly a health concern, so maybe the article's best use is just to point out that, as long as we're making a lot of other changes in our transportation system, maybe we should consider how we can change it to reduce PM emissions as well.
TL;DR: Science reporting fails again.