Featured Electric Car Pollution Study

A long time poster that no longer comes here would point out that charging a car increases the marginal electric generation, which is natural gas in most markets, because most charging is done at night.

Where does California get their power from when in state can't meet demands?

You need to be careful when you see such kWh figures. They are likely getting sited out of context, which can lead to false conclusions. Such is part of the reason a Hummer could have been labeled greener than a Prius.

The 4.5kWh to 6kWh figures I've seen sited for electric consumption to make a gallon of gasoline likely came from reports on the energy used for such. These values in the reports are likely of the energy needed, but may not be electricity. Much of the refining process involves heating the crude petroleum and various fractions. Burning some of the gases or oil fractions is a more efficient way of heating the product in a refinery than using electricity.

Not saying electricity isn't used, there are pumps and valves to run at the very least, but it is likely just a portion of such 4.5kWh figures.

Then while a hybrid will result in less electric production emissions than a BEV, there are the emissions involved in refining the petroleum in addition to the electric consumption, and the ones from the car itself.

 

California is a big electricity importer. They get peak power mainly from out of state coal, natural gas, and renewables that have had their RECs sold to someone else. At night the grid normally provides more percentage power in state. It is an unique state. In the next 9 years though those contracts buying coal all expire and won't be renewed, so very little will be coal.

 

The study is correct. Even greenercars org which is an environmental group says coal-powered EVs in the Midwest are no cleaner than a typical 35 mpg car. (Vice-versa EVs powered by hydropower in California are equal to 90 mpg gasoline cars.)

On the overall US average they say EVs are about the same cleanliness as a Prius hybrid. I don't consider it fake news, when it is true.

Different power generation sources == different levels of pollution.

 

I'll see your report - and raise you several tons of C02.

Why An Electric Car Is Greener Cradle to Grave

Bob saw the flaw right away - that report ignores cradle to grave' (as well as mid East 'maintenance costs') matters - & other non coal 'costs'.
Remember hearing Hummers are cleaner than a Prius cradle to grave? .... yea, if you presume that your Prius falls apart at 90,000 miles & a Hummer lasts hundreds & hundreds of thousands of miles. Thank you Art Spinella . . . . sorry i missed YOUR funeral.
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There is also this map from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

 

There's a union for concerned scientists? That is a fundraising group, not a group of scientists. LOL.

 

Fundraising?

You are sitting in front of the world's largest network, and yet still ignorant. In literally 15 seconds I found this: "The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a NONPROFIT science advocacy organization based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists. Anne Kapuscinski, distinguished professor of sustainability science in the Environmental Studies Program at Dartmouth College, currently chairs the UCS Board of Directors. She replaced James McCarthy, Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University.

"One of the co-founders was physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Henry Kendall. In 1977, the UCS sponsored a "Scientists' Declaration on the Nuclear Arms Race" calling for an end to nuclear weapons tests and deployments in the United States. In 1992, Kendall called for "fundamental change" to address a range of security and environmental issues. The document was signed by 1700 scientists, including a majority of the Nobel prize winners in the sciences. The UCS was the fourth-largest recipient of foundation grants for climate studies in the period 2000–2002."

 

It's a bit hard to transport wind to the an area near the point of consumption. Coal, oil and natural gas, on the other hand, is easy to transport using existing infrastructure (rail, truck, pipeline) to the point of generation. Wind power requires significant grid and generation infrastructure, is not necessarily congruent with power demand cycles, and is not very economical when subsidies are removed.

Personally, I'd like to see more investment in clean coal and nuclear. Both are low polluting.

 

"Non-profit science advocacy organization." Case closed.

It is not a union of scientists. It is an advocacy organization. Let me translate that for you: "fundraising organization."

I invite you to read this article. In the comments of the article, which in part explains a bit of a common horticultural technique, you can meet one of its prestigious members.

 

What did you think it was a Union like the Teamsters? You take the word too literally.

 

I guess that's what folks do when you can't refute the credibility of scientific authors. You have to just smear them & cross your fingers.
"bunch of left wing pinko lackies"
"plugins are gona crash the grid"
"i can buy a scientific credential"
"dumb clueless jerks"
"there's 200 years of oil left"
"tree hugging green freaks "
" loosers"
"plugins are for sissies"
"normal cars are plenty clean already"
"clean coal is the wave of the future"
how we doing ...

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We is such bad people. The irony is that there are some people who believe such stories.

 

Right now in 2 of those states South Dakota (26% of electricity from wind) and Nebraska(7% electricity from wind), wind is much less expensive to build than clean coal or nuclear, and has the advantage of much lower maintenance needed once it is built.

Nebraska's Wind Energy Generation
South Dakota Wind Energy Association - Online

You do need to build transmission lines from where the wind is to where the electricity consumers are. This is no different than nuclear, where you don't want the plant by your customers.

Naturals gas is a great compliment to wind, and is being built faster than wind turbines.

 

The real problem here is the word "cleaner."
There is no single metric to measure being "cleaner."

While CO2 emissions are easy to measure (actually predict) it isn't, by itself a good metric.
NOx and other pollutants are not all created equally. Tail pipe emissions in a dense city are worse (IMO) than at a remote, centralized power plant.

Mike

 

That's generally true, but according to a well-respected damage assessment model (AP2 - the same damage assessment model used in the subject paper), NOx emissions are actually less damaging in a few urban locations (e.g., Cook County (Chicago), IL) than many remote locations:




Source: Nick Muller's Homepage (right-hand side image)


Also it should be noted that the subject paper acknowledges that EVs produce fewer GHG emissions than the conventional gas vehicles.

(page 3702)

 

That map doesn't make any sense

It needs some context

 

My apologies.

The map represents damages to public health and the environment in U.S. dollars per ton. These AP2 maps break down the damages on a county-by-county basis.

 

I like the map. One thing really missing is the epa regs. In many of those states, - Illonois, Wisconsin, Michigan - harmful pollutants are capped by epa, so if there is increased marginal power it needs to come from cleaner sources.