Electric vehicles “unclean at any speed”?

Hotair ^ | 07/03/2013 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

Conservatives have long argued that the pursuit of electric vehicles through government grants and credits is a bad idea, mainly from a public-policy and economic standpoint. But what if electric vehicles are a bad idea from an environmental standpoint, too? An environmental activist who once pushed for EVs and now works as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley now calls electric vehicles “unclean at any speed” in a recent article for the engineering journal IEEE Spectrum (via Weasel Zippers and UPI):

The idea of electrifying automobiles to get around their environmental shortcomings isn’t new. Twenty years ago, I myself built a hybrid electric car that could be plugged in or run on natural gas. It wasn’t very fast, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t safe. But I was convinced that cars like mine would help reduce both pollution and fossil-fuel dependence.

I was wrong.

I’ve come to this conclusion after many years of studying environmental issues more deeply and taking note of some important questions we need to ask ourselves as concerned citizens. Mine is an unpopular stance, to be sure. The suggestive power of electric cars is a persuasive force—so persuasive that answering the seemingly simple question “Are electric cars indeed green?” quickly gets complicated.

Ozzie Zehner, who worked on the experimental EV-1 at GM before it got shelved, says some of the complications are due to the economics of science and scientific research. Most of the funding comes from interested parties, which tends to produce research that supports their positions. Zehner suggests that readers “follow the money” to “get a sense of how biases creep in.” What ends up happening, Zehner explains, is that the research on the environmental impact of EVs begins and ends at the tailpipe of internal-combustion vehicles as the sole comparison.

On that basis, EVs look environmentally friendly. When comparing the entire life cycle of EVs to their gasoline- or diesel-fueled counterparts, though, the picture changes dramatically, as Zehner discovered:

One study attempted to paint a complete picture. Published by the National Academies in 2010 and overseen by two dozen of the United States’ leading scientists, it is perhaps the most comprehensive account of electric-car effects to date. Its findings are sobering. …

It drew together the effects of vehicle construction, fuel extraction, refining, emissions, and other factors. In a gut punch to electric-car advocates, it concluded that the vehicles’ lifetime health and environmental damages (excluding long-term climatic effects) are actually greater than those of gasoline-powered cars. Indeed, the study found that an electric car is likely worse than a car fueled exclusively by gasoline derived from Canadian tar sands!

As for greenhouse-gas emissions and their influence on future climate, the researchers didn’t ignore those either. The investigators, like many others who have probed this issue, found that electric vehicles generally produce fewer of these emissions than their gasoline- or diesel-fueled counterparts—but only marginally so when full life-cycle effects are accounted for. The lifetime difference in greenhouse-gas emissions between vehicles powered by batteries and those powered by low-sulfur diesel, for example, was hardly discernible.

The National Academies’ study stood out for its comprehensiveness, but it’s not the only one to make such grim assessments. A Norwegian study published last October in the Journal of Industrial Ecology compared life-cycle impacts of electric vehicles. The researchers considered acid rain, airborne particulates, water pollution, smog, and toxicity to humans, as well as depletion of fossil fuel and mineral resources. According to coauthor Anders Stromman, “electric vehicles consistently perform worse or on par with modern internal combustion engine vehicles, despite virtually zero direct emissions during operation.”

I’ve made these points a number of times. The green argument for EVs ignores everything outside of the tailpipe, including the source of power generation, and the manufacturing and disposal of the storage elements. Zehner wonders whether the effort to shift power generation out of the vehicle itself is a sneaky way of dumping the pollution problem outside of the urban areas where cars get the most use, and where residents are typically poorer and less politically powerful:

North American power station emissions also largely occur outside of urban areas, as do the damaging consequences of nuclear- and fossil-fuel extraction. And that leads to some critical questions. Do electric cars simply move pollution from upper-middle-class communities in Beverly Hills and Virginia Beach to poor communities in the backwaters of West Virginia and the nation’s industrial exurbs? Are electric cars a sleight of hand that allows peace of mind for those who are already comfortable at the expense of intensifying asthma, heart problems, and radiation risks among the poor and politically disconnected?

Ouch. Zehner wants public policy to focus more on alternatives to personal vehicles altogether, including limitations on urban sprawl, mass transit, and non-motorized transportation (bicycles and walking). Conservatives probably won’t like those options much more than government-subsidized and government-imposed EVs, but at least they have the virtue of not paying billions of dollars to make environmental damage worse.

[EagleUSA]

I wonder where this administration thinks the power to recharge this type of vehicle is going to come from when so many coal burning plants are targeted to keep the green vote and money happy?

Such fraud, and such a farce.

[mylife]

Electric cars had been around longer that gasoline and diesel cars.

They were replaced 100 years ago because quite frankly they sucked compared to the internal combustion engine.

[gleeaikin]

Electric car ping.

[DaxtonBrown]

I wonder if these studies factor in the pollution generated by the greater cost of an EV? That is, if I pay $20,000 more for an EV, that means I have to go to work that many hours more. All of that work product can be considered environmental waste.

[envisio]

Its not about environment. Its not about CO2.
Its all about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and how many squiggly light bulbs can a company sell.

Lots of companies, researchers, individuals, and corporation’s well-being exists only if *global warming* is kept alive and well. They must continue the myth in order to keep their companies in the green.... keep the research grant money coming in.... keep people buying every marketed ‘green’ product out there.

I compare them to Jesse Jackson.

Jesse Jackson must keep racism alive. Without it he has no job. If he can’t find it, he will create it.

Much the same way ‘green product’ companies and researchers must keep *global warming* alive for the good of their livelihood.

[american_ranger]

I used to teach a class at a community college on power plants. Just for grins, I calculated how much coal had to be burned to charge a Volt.

148 pounds. That’s a ton every two weeks.

Zero sure is helping the environment by forcing Volts down our throat.

[thackney]

Original IEEE article discussed in this article.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3038294/posts

[thackney]

if I pay $20,000 more for an EV, that means I have to go to work that many hours more.

For most people, spending an extra $20k doesn't mean more work. It means they buy less other things. Which means less demand for other people's work.

[NormsRevenge]

But but.

But..

Little baby polar bears are gonna croak if we don’t drive electric cars..

[Rashputin]

They're planning on getting the power to recharge from Unicorns walking on treadmills made from rainbows.

[rottndog]

NOTHING IS AS GREEN...AS A GALLON OF GASOLINE!!!

[Othniel]

I remember a few years back someone did a comparison of a Prius and a Hummer. Based on the heavy metals, ground pollution, etc, the Prius had a much larger negative impact on the environment than did the Hummer. It was pretty funny how it....vanished from the media, but you can probably find it out in the interwebs.

[alloysteel]

So long as vehicles powered by electric motors use some kind of storage battery as their power source, they will have limitations and be impractical for widespread use, to the degree they may replace vehicles driven by the combustion of carbon-based fuels.

Now, if somebody comes up with a way to generate hydrogen directly and simply, on demand, from hydrocarbon fuels, so it may be used directly in a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell, thus supplying on-board on-demand electrical power WITHOUT relying on storage batteries, there are almost endless possibilities in the application of mobile power. Electric motors happen to apply a far greater proportion of energy input to actual work that most internal or external combustion engines. The problem is getting the right form of energy funneled into the motive power.

All energy eventually degrades into heat. The job of engineers is to have as much of this energy converted into useful work as practical before it degrades. Electrical energy is extremely flexible, and with the advent of superconductors, the most efficiently delivered of any form of energy yet developed. The simple conversion of gaseous hydrogen and gaseous oxygen into water, which is essentially an energy generation at the atomic level, releasing what is an electrical current, as electrons are sloughed off during the combination of the elements. Unfortunately, this happens at such a high rate of speed, if not slowed down by catalytic action, that all the energy flashes immediately to heat.

A hydrogen flame in the presence of oxygen is one of the hottest chemical reactions around (there are a couple that are even hotter, but not as a practical solution to our problem). A hot flame may be used to act upon an intermediary substance, through devices of varying degrees of complexity, to generate an electrical current, but the upshot of this is a great deal of lost heat just to make the energy conversion work.

[WayneS]

Electric Vehicles?

I think the correct term is “Coal-Powered Vehicle”

[DoughtyOne]

I have a Mariner Hybrid right now. I spent extra for it, but it has been the most enjoyable car I have owned to date.

I have gotten as high as 34.34 mpg on the highway, over a distance of about 600 miles, even through the Grapevine on the way home in Southern California. That's an area that isn't level, but has freeway that rises and falls through the foothills.

I love nursing the vehicle along, seeing what kind of mileage I can get. It's a game, and for gadget freaks, it's a lot of fun, enjoyment.

Next spring the Caddilac ELR is posed to be introduced to the public. Well folks, I may go for it if I'm in a position to do so by then.

I'm not interested in a rebate. I love the high profile gadget factor these represent. I'm not a green person by nature, but that doesn't put me off. I'd rather use it around town than my hybrid. I can use my hybrid on long trips.

Tell me this doesn't look decent.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

That does look nice. Go for it if that’s what you want. IF I won the lottery I could see myself driving a Tesla.

[DoughtyOne]

Okay, then win the lottery. Heh, heh, heh...

Thanks for the response.

[bicyclerepair]

I get 32 mpg on the highway with my 2002 PT Cruiser that I paid $17k for new.

It’s paid off too.

[DoughtyOne]

Great. Mine is paid off too. It’s a 2006 model, and it has no scratches and looks brand new.

I’m the guy that parks on the back 40 at every parking lot.