China pushes Coal-powered EVs despite Dirtier air quality

Electric cars will reduce pollution. The Union of Concerned Scientists has run an analysis showing that even if you run EVs off 100% coal fired electric plant you end up with a car that produces pollution equivalent to a car getting around 35mpg. 70% coal fired electricity would get you a car equal to or better than a Prius. Here's a summary of that study for consideration:

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-exec-summary.pdf

Among positives of EVs: the pollution produced to charge the car goes down over the lifetime of the car as the grid incorporates more solar, wind and water. China is currently adding more renewables to it's power grid than any other country.

 

Can't fault them for planning ahead to ensure their energy demands will be met in case of a conflict.

 

This applies to USA or other European countries, not in China.

 

Even if it produces more pollution overall, it is probably better to have the pollution produced at a power plant than directly in a city from ICE cars.

 

The study was performed in the US, but the findings apply to electric generation anywhere. And again, China has been adding a lot of renewables so in terms of EVs the amount of pollution generated will continue to drop.

 

<SNIFF> <SNIFF> Smells like prosperity to the Chinese.

Of course they could buy more Prius and let them run around 'cleaning up' the air by passing it through the engine and catalytic converter. <GRINS>

Bob Wilson

 

^^^...once there was a USA smog control proposal to put platinum traces on the front side of radiators to clean up the air as the cars drove. I seem to recall it was a serious idea. Perhaps the time has come.

 

You mean like the US out bidding them for mid east oil? . . . . . or all the tons & tons of bi-lateral agreements china is doing with other countries to get off the Ponzi scheme - U.S. petro dollar.

Coal: It's easier to clean one coal plant's pollution than it is 1,000's & 1,000's of gas burning autos (often with no smog equipment). What they do with all that coal ash though ... that may be another thing.
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The chinese government would probably put them in prison for re education.

I think the chinese push of plug-ins is a good one. They need to add scrubbers to the coal plants. The population is much higher than the US, if china got the car density of california, it would be awful (1.25 cars per licensed driver 20 mpg).

They need to move the coal outside the cities and put german type pollution standards on them.

Tesla was up today, why? China looks like it may raise gas taxes. Building more dependancy on oil in 2014 is bad.

 

Good point.

 

I think you should read your linked article again. It says that in the most carbon intensive region of the US, an EV emits greenhouse gases equal to a 34 mpg_US car based on the current carbon mix of that grid.

Now consider the small print that the article omitted:

1. An EV in China will run off 100% coal. No region in the US is 100%*
2. The analysis was performed based on EPA fuel economy ratings. Annual EV ratings will be relatively worse in cold regions because the EPA does not weight cold weather driving in a manner that corrects for lack of waste heat in an EV

All together, China will be lucky to get a 25 mpg equivalent Carbon emission out of EVs. So no, their push is not to avoid AGW, but three other motives:

• Promotion of local EV manufacture
• Domestic energy source
• Distancing car pollution out of the cities

* So many times I've tried to explain this point. Until clean power is in excess of TOTAL electric demand, ANY additional demand is sourced from fossil fuels. So while UCASA can calculate petrol equivalent cars based on regional mix, in actual fact an EV charging from the grid is using 100% fossils fuels everywhere except areas like parts of Canada or Norway that have hydro power in excess.

 

Thanks SageBrush but no I don't need to read it again. I'm well aware of the details of the linked study but clearly I should have considered that Chinese plants may not be up to our standards.

 

The OP article states China's electric gird mix is 70% coal. Some regions might be 100%, but are they the most populous ones where EVs will mostly be used?

 

This has nothing to do with coal plant 'standards.'

I like UCS as much as the next tree-hugger, but your referenced article is flawed.

 

I answered your question with an update to my first post, but this is the bottom line:

The sun does not shine brighter, the wind blow harder, or the rain increase just because an EV is consuming. That additional EV consumption is produced from fossil fuels.

 

But like others have stated in other posts....

China can be switching to hydro (which they built the largest dam in the world), solar, wind, etc. with an EV. They would be preparing the transporting and refueling infrastructure for EV... although it might be dirtier today.

But how is consuming more gas instead of leveraging current "dirty" electricity be a preparation for infrastructure ramp up?

 

Opportunity cost.

 

My calc (when I became active Prius Chat in 2009 I was trying to figure all this stuff out) was that an EV could be as low as 12 MPG fossil fuel equivs. on a 100% coal basis in the winter with heat on getting 2 mile/kWhr which is what Consumer Reports reported on the Volt when it first came out in winter heat-on mode. In other words 4 "gals" of coal for every gal of gaso in a Prius at 50 MPG. I am not sure my calcs were exactly correct without going back to recheck my numbers. And of course that was worse case scenario.

These days I prefer to think of it this way: at U.S. national average grid 40-45% coal, EV (@3mile/kwhr) is about the same CO2/mile as a Prius. The article cited in OP was good but a bit early. In those days before Volt came out, the Volt web page said Volt got 5 miles/kwhr so I used that value at first. But 100 mpge is closer to 3 mile/kwhr. Every winter I keep thinking I'll rent a Volt to repeat the Consumer Reports original winter driving test, but never get around to it.