Are coal-powered electric cars really better for the environment?

If you're going to have an electric car, you should also buy enough solar and wind power to charge it. Otherwise, you're just changing where the pollution is coming from, and fooling yourself into thinking that you're not causing pollution.

 

Well, that's the nature of predictions...and they help us to be prepared and make the right decisions.
But it seems only postdictions, i.e. inquiry committees reports, are worth reading by you...

 

Another study, worth reading by those who are really interested in the subject, is Electric Vehicles: Charged with Potential by the Royal Academy of Engineering from May 2010.

Giora.​

 

The problem I have with some of these studies like the one posted above, is they focus on carbon dioxide as if it is the devil and the only pollutant worthy of attention. They often fail to account for fuel production as well.

 

Ding, ding, ding!

Logic is not dead thankfully. Just uncommon.

 

You are missing the point. Again. And again.

EVs are appliances that consume electricity, they do not generate more clean energy. What is so bloody difficult to understand here ?!?

 

Yeahh, if you look at the gamut of pollutants emitted during grid powerplant electricity production you really start to question EVs run off the grid.

(I know I twisted your intent, Justin)

 

Can you point on appliances that do generate more clean energy?

 

^^ Again .... .... ....
An EV is not required for utilization of the current clean energy supply. It is just another consumer. Since clean energy is currently inadequate to supply demands even before EV demand is included, another consumption device of electricity does not decrease GHG emissions.

If you would take a moment to understand rather than try and debate ?

 

How about this statement from PCer DaveinOlyWA from his sig -

http://priuschat.com/forums/nissan-hybrids-evs/90736-nissan-leaf-blog.html

"If my Prius was a Leaf; last fillup would have been $14.41 instead of $39.63"

----
Prius is very efficient with gas, but the Leaf makes Prius look like an energy guzzler, at least cost-wise.

 

Dave lives in the Pacific NW and pays electricity rates much lower than the rest of the country, and he rarely heats the car. You might guess that coal is much cheaper than oil on a national scale, but check out this arithmetic:

Retail electricity averages 12 cents/kwh in the US. Using EPA, a LEAF mile takes 360 wh of electricity, or 12*.36 = 4.32 cents a mile.

Retail petrol is around 380 cents a gallon. Using EPA 50 mph for the Prius, this is 380/50 = 7.6 cents a mile.

So right now, in balmy weather and during a peak in petrol prices, petrol is 76% more expensive than electricity for the average US customer. It does not take much change in conditions to see that advantage evaporate. Yes, I am aware that retail fuel costs are corrupted by subsidy, as is the LEAF purchase cost.

 

Where did I, or the study I cited say it is required?

If you would take some moments to read the article rather then just try and debate...

 

+2

I think you can slice the numbers any which way you want and some ways EVs will look better on CO2 others will look worse. If the only important thing is carbon dioxide, there really is not much of a case for PHEVs and BEVs.

When you look at other polution factors it is definitely true that cleaning the grid for its own sake, and cleaning the grid for electric cars makes no difference. So unless electric cars make the grid cleaner faster, this pollution savings should not be attributed to them. The one very small exception is PV where the utility will not pay for extra hours put into the system, and the car would make you put up a bigger PV system. But compared to the grid this will effect is negligible. But you should attribute at least this current grid to unhealthy pollution versus the current state of gasoline pollution. Gasoline and diesel cars contribute more to unhealthy pollutants especially in big cities.

Now we should be forward looking, not backward looking when it comes to other pollutants on the grid. For this each regional grid has estimations of new power sources and what they will do to pollution. We are not building any pre 1980 coal, nuclear, or hydro power so unless the new demand causes these plants to increase production or reopen or prevent shut down they should not be included. Pick your own year, but the biggest baddest polluting coal plants and the cleanest hydro generators really are not in this game unless we can help close those bad plants or increase capacity of the new ones. We can then take each individual grid and see what the plans are. I'll pick the one with the most coal being added, lets call it E. A company called T has some of the worst polluting coal generation and was going to add 11 new coal plants. There were law suits from environmental groups and a takeover. The net result was dropping it from 11 to 3 new plants, with a deal that the environmental groups would stop protesting its existing and new plants. You think sure 3 is better than 8 but that still is a great deal more pollution. It would be if other factors were not at play. The utility added/is adding pollution control to its existing dirty plants to remove more SO2, NOx, mercury and each of the other pollutants than the new plants will produce. net CO2 on the power these plants produce is increasing as this power generation is moth balling old natural gas plants, but unhealthy pollutants are neutral though just closing those bad plants would have helped. Renewables added on the E grid mean CO2 is going down in both total and per kwh measures but they would go down faster without the new coal. You can do this with each grid, and I doubt you will find one where electrified vehicles add pollution outside of Asia and African.

Now add in the scarcity of gasoline, its effect on the environment, its economic cost, and it seems like EVs and PHEVs are great choices. When we get a significant fleet of EVs and PHEVs and clean up the grid we will drastically remove pollutants including carbon dioxide from transportation.

 

Indeed this is the classic - and tired - long tailpipe argument. So if I don't buy enough solar or wind power to charge my EV... the assumption here is that I'm just as bad as driving a gas car right? So, even if that poor assumption (that I'm just moving the same pollution somewhere else) were correct... what's wrong with the EV? Why *should* I also buy solar and wind if the gas car folks don't have to drill a "green" oil well first? What's the problem with me driving it instead of fooling myself into thinking that gas cars aren't causing more pollution than an EV?

Just for the sake of argument.

I hear this all the time - no reason for an EV unless it is purely powered by green energy. The option is to use gasoline? And that's... better?

 

Sage - I love your contributions to these threads. Really I do. However - I get confused as to your points sometimes. Maybe I'm too dense, or maybe you're too subtle. You really contend that replacing gasoline miles with EV miles can't have a "major effect" (however we define major) unless the EV adoption is also accompanied by an almost "total decarbonisation of the electricity supply?" So just cutting the carbon by 1/4 isn't good enough? Half? Has to be "almost total?" That's the logic that you're happy to hear: It must be damn-near perfect, or it isn't good enough, and we should keep driving gasoline cars as the best bet?

We're comparing gas cars to electric cars. Either one by themselves (if the EV is grid-charged) pollutes. We can all stipulate that. But we need to compare/contrast them to figure out what "major effect" we can gain by switching to EVs. Just the amount of electricity (or all energy inputs that COULD be used to make electricity) that go into making/distributing gasoline pretty much tells the story. If we use that electricity to charge an EV instead of to make gasoline... we come out ahead. Majorly ahead.

So... the logic you're impressed with above... why? I sure don't see it. Far too simplistic, and ignores the comparison.

 

Hi Darrell,

I am not arguing a perfect or nothing POV. That is silly.
My argument (and I presumed the RAE) is that adding another electric appliance to the grid is a shell game until that appliance can be powered by excess available clean energy.

Perhaps an example will clarify ?
Lets say prior to EV adoption the grid sources 1000 kwh dirty energy and 1000 kwh clean energy. All of the energy is used. A car sources 100 kwh a month of petrol and emits 60 pounds of CO2.

Now we replace the car with an EV ..
The grid will now source 1100 kwh of dirty energy to accommodate the EV. Assuming the dirty energy has the same carbon intensity as petrol, the grid emits 60 pounds more of CO2 than the situation before EV. The EV emits 60 pounds less.

Net difference ? None.

--------
How about EV+PV ? Well, as AG wrote above (I would like to think I had something to do with his new found understanding) IF the PV was put up *in order to supply EV* then a net decrease in CO2 occurs. If the PV goes up anyway, we are back to the above stated case until clean energy is available in excess.

I am sorry I do not know how to explain this any better. I keep trying.

 

Responding to your other argument Darell, where you wrote

I've been going by DOE data (regurgitated by EPA) that the energy cost to refine oil to petrol is 18%. Calculations that start from that figure and calculate life-cycle show that the carbon intensity per mile is 1.5 higher in a LEAF or a Volt than a Prius if coal is the source fuel, and about .9x Prius if NG is the source fuel.

 

So I understand all of this and agree with all of it - if your numbers were correct, and if those were the only issues involved. But I don't agree that either is the case - the situation is far more complicated. If we stipulate all that you say above, then it is like saying, "EVs will use dirty energy until they start using clean energy."

And I'm not sure that's a point we need to belabor? Nobody is arguing that point - I believe they're mostly just confused as to why you would be making such an obvious point, and are looking for the discussion to be a bit deeper. The grid is getting cleaner. Gasoline is getting dirtier to create. So the shift is happening. We don't wait until the grid is perfect before we start perfecting the EVs. We transition both together and incrementally improve things.

If instead we wait around and hold off on EVs until we can call the grid "green" then we're so far behind the curve that we're (again) screwed.

 

Better in terms of GHG ? No. But not worse.
Better in terms of other pollutants ? ymmv, but if coal is part of the grid equation, then yes.

Better or worse by other measures ? Complicated question, for sure. I have my opinions but they are debatable.

 

Why do we assume that "coal is the source of fuel?" for this calc? We either take the grid average (today, or protract that into the future) or we look at each microcosm of electricity generation. I realize there are some places where coal is used almost exclusively. And there are some places where it isn't used at all. The fight here is to clean up the grid - we all agree. We also all agree that coal is bad - doesn't matter if we use it to charge our EVs or run our TVs. We can't blame coal power on EVs. Green power to the grid is growing faster than the EVs could ever hope to consume it. Going forward EVERY kWh gets cleaner on average while every gallon of gasoline gets dirtier to make.