“The electric car is not the problem—power plants are.”

Now, the rest of your post, eh….

If you want to argue that EVs are causing us to build more dirty coal plants then I’d like to see some data.

If you want to argue that EVs might cause us to close dirty coal plants a bit slower, you might be right.

But I’ll offer the counter argument that as people move to EVs they are also likely to support clean electricity generation, even do stuff like putting solar panels on their house.

You aware that Ford is offering their Focus EV owners solar panel packages?

You aware that EVs on the grid at night increase the profitability of wind farms and should lead to more rapid turbine installation?

You aware how aggressively China is installing wind and solar generation?

There are two qualifications of this study that tend to limit its application. First, it studied 34 Chinese cities.

For some reason not listed studying Chinese cities is not appropriate when making a study on EVs in China?

“UT Researchers Find China’s Pollution Related to E-Cars May Be More Harmful than Gasoline Cars”

As the first ‘Qualification” this is moronic. Unfortunately it does not get much if better

“Secondly, it was a study of particulate matter.

Different Kinds of Pollution
There are many kinds of pollution. Automobile Pollution is known for NOx (which eventually changes into smog), carbon dioxide, carbon Monoxide, and various other emissions. The particulate level of gasoline engines is relatively low and one of the reasons we don’t use as many diesel engines is that the particulate level is higher for that fuel. Coal pollution, however, is high in particulates. If the study had, instead of particulates, measured CO2, NOx, or carbon monoxide, the reverse results would likely have been found.”

Apparently the only proper studies are ones that ICE are worse than EVs.
Any pollution that EVs are worse in are some how wrong.

“Nothing to see here just move along.”

If the study had, instead of particulates, measured CO2, NOx, or carbon monoxide, the reverse results would likely have been found.”

Well other studies have been done in China an CO2, Sulfur, and NOX
EVs produce more of Sulphur and NOX in all parts of China and CO2 in some parts of China. As well as PM. (Particulate Matter)
This isn’t mentioning the airborne Mercury, Lead, Arsenic and a host of others coal plants produce; but those wouldn’t be proper studies either.

“In this case, the study has a narrow subject matter: particulates. Its conclusion is further limited to those places where coal is a very large percentage of the electrical energy mix. The US national electrical energy mix for coal is now around 43%. The other nations of the world that have an energy mix that relies so heavily on coal is Australia and South Africa.”

I will add India southeast Asia and the islands (Indonesia) to that list.
Where have the manufacturing jobs gone too? Areas with cheap labor and cheap energy.
Gee where is the greatest amount of new coal usage coming from?

“It is also a snapshot in time.”

Thats true as you mentioned China is building a coal plant a week
Is that going to help make EVs cleaner?

The electric car is not the problem—power plants are.It would be hazardous to rely upon the study for any future course of action without considering the trend of the electrical energy mix. In the US, the electrical energy mix for coal has gone from 55% to the present 43% in the last 8 years. In the EU, 70% of new power capacity in 2011 was from renewables.

This whole piece is just a silly mess.

The electric car is not the problem—power plants are.

Nope if you don’t use the energy the power plant does not produce it. No pollution, as I said just silly

It would be hazardous to rely upon the study for any future course of action without considering the trend of the electrical energy mix.

True. Trends in global energy mix?
Globally CO2 per kWh has increased 50% since 1990.
Cherry picking areas as you do below doesn’t cut it.

“In the US, the electrical energy mix for coal has gone from 55% to the present 43% in the last 8 years. In the EU, 70% of new power capacity in 2011 was from renewables.”

Cherry picked data as you did there is not the subject of the study, China remember? Not the US or renewables in Europe.

“As the grid becomes cleaner over time, the EV is best positioned to take advantage of that change. ”

Also will be the worst hit as most of the world is increasing their coal to grid use.

One other gem.

The study also concludes that “electric cars are more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled in China than conventional vehicles.” The important qualification is “per kilometer traveled” and “in China.” With fewer electric cars, the impact is less.

True but by this logic there will be less ICE in the future there for they will make less pollution and we should switch back from EVs to ICE as there will be less on the road and therefore cause less pollution.

“In other locations, the study results will not be valid.”

Possibly that is why the study names China not Global.
Also why your using information from the US and Europe was inappropriate as well.

An electric car, at least, has the possibility of using a clean source for its energy charge, but an internal combustion engine is always going to be burning something and producing pollution no matter what the fuel.

Yes and when you have a cleaner grid EVs may be cleaner.
At present however no.
EVs are an environmental disaster on China’s US’s and Europe’s grids.

I’m voting GOP next time so we can have such fun again! I never had the opportunity to play hide & seek in the thick smog bcs of that ‘radical’ environmental movement. I’d like to live in the midst of some completely black air before I die!

People just accepted it as the way things were. Then the environmental movement started…

I tried calculating the energy used for refining with DOE numbers and got 3.14 kWh/gallon. That included the oil from the barrel burned to do the refining. But that’s 3.14 kWh of energy, not electricity.

This is something that the DOE should do and make public. I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t done it and are just not making the numbers public. I contacted them a year or so ago with the question and they replied it was something that they didn’t study. I just didn’t find that answer believable.

I’d love to see someone with the proper background tackle this question. My guess is that there’s no more than 10 miles of “usable” EV energy used to produce a gallon of gas, but that’s significant. It’s 10 miles of electricity that we wouldn’t have to produce.

A fellow named Peter Norby has looked at this, too and he has similar numbers: http://electricmini.blogspot.com/2011/10/it-takes-lot-of-coal-to-make-gasoline.html

It is hard to get an exact number for oil exploration and for drilling and extraction, or even for refining. With some crudes — and especially with tar sand, there is a lot of water that has to be drilled and pumped, and a lot of natural gas that has to be fracked and then used to heat the water, which then has to be pumped underground to loosen the oil so it can even be pumped out of the ground! Or, in the case of tar sand, that heated water is used to wash the tar out of the sand.

The materials like the drilling mud are complicated to make and they take a lot of energy to do this. Pumping oil through a pipeline is non-trivial, and pumping the tar through a pipeline takes *lubrication* and a LOT of energy!

There is natural gas used at several stages to turn oil into fuel — and now that we have to frack to get the gas, this takes even more electricity and other forms of energy.

The gasoline has to be stored and shipped and pumped at several points, and even the pump at the filling station has to be counted, if one is making an “apples-to-apples” comparison with electricity.

So, when a study only counts the carbon contained specifically in the gasoline (or diesel) but counts the whole process for mining and generation and grid loss etc. for electricity, then you know that the study is fataly flawed.

Neil

I’ve tried to answer that question and I don’t find that to be the case. There is a significant amount of electricity used to get a gallon of gas from the well to the tank but something more like 15 (IIRC) miles worth.

There is also a large amount of natural gas and some of the oil itself used in the extracting/refining process. The overall energy used to produce a gallon of gas might power an EV for 30 miles, but I haven’t been able to put those numbers together.

Even if the electricity is 100% coal generated, it has the same carbon footprint as a gasoline car that gets 80-90MPG.

Renewable energy will be here as long as the earth is — about 1 Billion years. How long will oil and coal and gas and uranium supplies last?

Neil

Oil, I suspect, sees the end in sight but believes that it still has plenty of time to transition. Let’s image that five years from now we have EVs that have a ~175 mile range, can take a 95% recharge in less than 20 minutes, and cost no more than $4k more than an equally equipped/appointed ICEV. At that point the market switches rapidly.

The average life of a ICEV is roughly 12 years. It would take a decade or two to move personal transportation from oil to electricity. During that time oil companies can plow their enormous profits into other activities. They can buy up battery plants, for example. Chevron is already the world’s largest producer of geothermal energy. Exxon is getting into geothermal.

Wind is cheap. Solar is about the same price as nuclear and falling rapidly. Geothermal is cheaper than nuclear.

We’ve lowered the percentage of coal on the grid over the last few years and have scheduled almost one hundred coal plants for early shut down.

As we install more wind and solar coal will get pushed off the grid. Wind and solar, having no fuel costs, will undersell coal (and nuclear) during times of lower demand and cause those generation methods to loose money.

Operating part of the day at a loss means that one has to charge more during higher demand hours. Raising the cost of power then opens one up to competition from natural gas and stored wind/solar.

Right now we’re seeing coal plants being completely shut during the spring/fall when wind is strong and demand is lower than during the AC/heating months.

Nuclear and coal are likely dead men walking. The electricity prices that people like to throw about for nuclear and coal are based on their ability to sell power 24/365 (at least 90% of that time). As other generation methods drop in price they eat into that 90%, driving up the cost of power from nuclear and coal.

Then add in wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and run of the river hydro. Oh, and some biomass. We’ve got lots of ways to generate electricity and all of them are cheaper than using coal, if we add in the health and environmental costs of burning coal.

We’ve got massive geothermal potential. Recently discovered – lots and lots of potential in West Virginia. Enough to replace the coal we mine from there.

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EV batteries. The Toshiba SCiB lithium–titanate batteries used in the Honda FiT EV are rated at 4,000 deep cycle recharges. With a 120 mile range EV that makes them 480,000 mile batteries.

The lithium–titanate batteries in the Lightening GT are rated at 25,000 deep cycles, 3,750,000 mile batteries.

Utility companies are already setting up programs to purchase used EV batteries to use for grid smoothing/storage.

When the utility companies are done with them then they will be recycled. We already recycle rechargeable lithium batteries from laptops and other electronic gadgets. A couple of companies have EV battery recycling systems ready to go.

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BTW, the batteries in Honda Prius(es) are working fine at 300,000 miles. They do a lot more than just start the car.

Even the lithium-ion batteries used in the Nissan Leaf are guaranteed for 100,000 miles. Worst case, at 100,000 they have only 80% of their capacity left, the owner has to buy one new set of batteries if that extra 20% of range is important, and they sell the used battery to a utility company for most of the cost of a new battery.

There’s very little grid build out needed for us to switch to EVs. The grid is already in place and greatly underused late at night when most EV charging will occur.

The grid, as it now exists, could charge 85% of all US cars if they somehow morphed to EVs over night. What we will need is more curbside and parking space outlets (low cost stuff). And some Level 3 rapid chargers along our main transportation routes.

Charging for EVs will likely come mainly from wind. The wind tends to blow stronger at night when demand is low. Start charging a lot of EVs late at night and wind farms will make more profit which will increase investment in wind farms which will make more inexpensive wind power available during peak hours. That pulls down the cost of electricity to users.

EVs will not only be significantly less expensive to drive (~$1/gallon equivalent) they will also help lower the price of electricity.

Additional EV charging will come from solar. As the price of installed solar continues to fall homeowners will opt for installing panels on their roofs, sell the power to utility companies, and take back zero cost electricity when their EVs are plugged in. As it stands right now one can buy all the “fuel” they will need for the rest of their lives for a few thousand dollars and that will only improve.