Study: Electric cars not as green as you think

1 mil elec cars in 2020 just for germany and 1 mil elec 2015 in USA....

i think obama needs to set a higher goal

 

Well green parties in EU object to wind energy, too. Supposedly as it kills too many tweety birds. Then you tell them, no problem, we should build more nuclear power plants, as one will suffice for tens of thousands of wind ones, and they again turn green in their faces.

 

Well, if the majority of your country domestic electric production is in the form of nuclear power, such as France, then electric cars will provide negligible CO2 reduction

However, if nuclear power is widely used - again using France as an example - there would be *significant* reductions in other emissions, such as NOx, NMOG, PM10/PM2.5, CO, TCDD, etc.

Especially for urban use, the emissions reduction from using electric cars would provide very substantial health benefits

 

You have that a bit backward Jayman. If a country's domestic electric production is in the form a nuclear power then switching cars from gasoline to electricity would provide huge CO2 reductions. However, if your electricity comes from coal then the reduction would be negligible.

As you said, regardless of the source of electricity production, electric cars would provided huge reductions in currently regulated emissions such as NOx, NMOG, PM, CO etc. In the article these emissions were not even measured. I suspect Germany's Green Party is part of the "new" environmental movement that disregards the old struggles for clean water, air, and soil and instead is completely focused on CO2.

 

I agree. There are MANY other pollution factors to consider besides CO2.

A few other points to consider is the fact that more people will invest in solar energy for their homes if they knew they could charge their car AND the home with it. So even less power would be used directly from the grid and further reduce emissions with exception to the initial production and installation of the solar assembly.

The reduction in the required number of barrels of oil procured for U.S. consumption would be another huge bonus but it takes more work to quantify those benefits so I could see what it would be left out of the study.

 

My bad, I was juggling email and forum at the same time. The two don't mix very well

 

This is typical of so many studies that are more deceptive than informative. Sort of like a study showing that smokers suffer from intense cravings immediately after quiting....and completely ignoring the lifesaving benefits of quiting.

Electric cars are as green as I think. I also think beyond the car....and so does almost every reader of this thread.

 

sounds to me like the debate that a hummer is greener than a prius. With everything there is a tradeoff so its about finding the best solution, not nit picking ideas to death.

 

Well, you have to start with the arithmetic. They came up with a savings of about 1 percent of total C02 emissions. That was from eliminating the C02 from half the German car fleet.

Let me run similar numbers for the US, based on the data in the executive summary of the US DOE 2009 greenhouse gas inventory report.

http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads09/ExecutiveSummary.pdf

Cars account for 60% of transport-related greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Multiplying that out by their figures for transportation and total, cars account for 16% of US greenhouse gas emissions. (That's just in terms of fuel used, but that's what we want for this analysis.)

So, from the get-go, for the US, we're leaving the other 84% of emissions unchanged. If you took half the US car fleet, converted to electric, and charged it from renewables (ie., magically made half the C02 vanish), you'd cut US C02 emissions by about 8 percent. The authors of that study may have thrown in an additional fudge factor for trips beyond the range of EV batteries, in which case the figures would get somewhat (but not hugely) smaller. But I'd say the simple, directly comparable figure for the US would be about 8%. I suspect their figures are smaller because the Germans don't drive as much and because average fuel efficiency is higher there.

More realistically, I calculate that running my Hymotion-converted Prius on electricity cuts C02 per mile by about 30%, based on 4 miles per KWH and about 1.2 lbs C02/KWH for grid electricity in Virginia (using DOE figures on that):

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oiaf/1605/cdrom/pdf/e-supdoc.pdf

If that were the deal -- cut 30% of C02 for half the US car fleet by electrifying it -- you'd cut total US GHG emissions by 2.4%.

So you can look at it either way. I look at it as a 30% reduction in one GHG source that I can control. But in the grand scheme of things, yeah, it's kind of a drop in the bucket. It just means that, if we are going to constrain our GHG emissions, we'll have to do more than just electrifying transportation.

And, possibly, that electrifying transportation may or may not be the best bang-for-the-buck in terms of reducing emissions, as long as you charge the car off the grid. My current calculation is that the PHEV conversion costs me about 85 cents per pound of C02 avoided. Whereas rooftop solar would cost me maybe 8 cents per pound of C02 avoided. Basically, I wasn't very smart to have electrified the car before I electrified my roof. But I think I'll get there eventually.

 

I think Chogan is right at about 8% but that's not the whole story.

If you build a smart grid that can store power in millions of EVs then power producers can utilize intermittent power from renewables far more thereby reducing and hopefully eliminating coal and natural gas from power generation.

 

There are so many easy things to pick apart with this "study" that there's little benefit in even discussing it. It is all in what you account for and what you ignore. You can make just about any study turn out the way you'd like with not much effort.

 

Pure ZEV still emit particulate matter - tire breakdown and particulate matter generated from tires rolling along the ground. Electric ZEV is not the answer. The US is 100 years behind Europe. We need robust investment in walking & bicycle routes, electric & high speed rail based on renewable & sustainable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro, conservation, efficiency).

 

Particulate matter from rolling tires??
Well, sure, I suppose so. However if you are going to get down to that level, particulate matter is released from the bottom of your tennis shoes or bike tires as well.
Don't condemn 'better' because it isn't 'perfect'.

 

I don't know of a Prius Driver that thinks "50 mpg is good enough, I don't need anymore efficiency". Likewise, I cannot envision the first 100,000 EV buyers going, "I've got an electric vehicle, now we need more coal plants to provide the power". I'm willing to bet it's more like "I've got an EV, now it's time for the solar panels".

So what good is a study that completely ignores this?

 

A common misconception is that nuclear is somehow 'green' . Nuclear power actually greats ALOT of green house gases. The difference is, the green house gases are produced in creating the nuclear fuel rather than burning it.

Hybrid vehicles are not the answer. Heck, they're barely part of the solution. Those that advocate better planning for walking and biking and taxing the hell out of people who have more than 2 kids (I believe 2 kids are someone's biological 'right') is the way to go.

Hybrid vehicles are the same as ipods - fancy toys.

 

Well, whether or not walking or biking use more or less fossil fuel than driving a Prius depends on how the calories fueling that activity are created. I used to bike commute about 30 miles to work round trip, couple of days a week during the spring/summer/fall. At the standard US diet, I was getting about 65 MPG-equivalent doing that. Because it takes about 10 fossil fuel calories to produce one edible calorie. Walking, by contrast, is less efficient than bicycling, so walking long distances, fueled by the average American diet, actually uses more fossil fuels than driving a Prius, solo. There's a good introduction to the topic here:

Bicycling wastes gas? Yes, if your fuel is meat

So there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Don't get me wrong. I bike for my errands, I have big ol' folding wire baskets so I can shop off my bike. And I need the exercise. And once I realized what the deal was, I radically altered what food I buy. But if you are talking about substituting bicycling for a significant fraction of US travel miles, for the average American -- like my 30 miles a day -- you need to factor in the fossil fuels used to manufacture the food calories consumed to power that bicycle commuting. And at that point, the picture only modestly favors human-powered transport.

OTOH, if you're talking about designing neighborhoods to minimize travel distances, yeah, that's great. There's actually a website that'll rate your neighborhood for walkability -- see here:

Get Your Walk Score - A Walkability Score For Any Address

 

I guess... that article is taken to ridiculous extremes where what I pointed out is not.

Congratulation in paraphrasing the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

 

While I'm aware of the the massively energy intensive nature of the American diet you are missing something. People need to eat they don't need to drive. Regardless of activity people will eat every day. While increased activity may lead to increased calorie intake that isn't always the case. Many Americans could easily walk or bike moderate distances without any increased calorie intake. They would just slow the expansion of their waistlines.

My neighborhood gets a walkability score of 51/100. I would personally rate it about a 10/100. My city has no sidewalks or even a shoulder on the roads. Of course that isn't taken into account by the walkability program.