Electric Cars Leave Behind A Cloud Of Carbon Dioxide

investors.com ^ | 3/25/2015 | KERRY JACKSON

[rktman]

Another name for electric cars is "coal-powered cars." That doesn't sit well with those who want to demonstrate their green bona fides by driving a plug-in vehicle. But it is in many cases accurate.

Anyone who begs to differ can take up the argument with Chris Kennedy, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto. He told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that, depending on the province, an electric car can produce more carbon dioxide than a gasoline-powered car.

[353FMG]

That picture is not complete.

The coal that is burned in the power generating plant had to be mined first and transported to the power plant.

That process also requires power input and subsequent CO2 emission.

People like Algore and global alarmists like Bambi should learn to make an overall entropy balance.

[Pecos]

Don’t forget the dead zones in China where the lithium ion batteries are made. Heavy metal poisoning is a BFD, as the Veep would say.

[353FMG]

But the guys in the car recycle the CO2.

[ziravan]

I have an electric-hybrid Ford Fusion Energi.

Know what I like most about my coal burning car? Those electric miles translate to about $0.90/gallon.

I just wish it would burn more coal before switching to gas.

[Ben Ficklin]

There is some loss to transmission and distribution but your number is grossly exaggerated.

It depends on volts, watts, and distance or AC vs DC and the US is behind China and Europe on DC.

Using Wiki as a source, it was 6.5 percent in 2007. Nation wide.

[Rashputin]

". . . two guys on two bikes produce more CO2 than two guys in one car?"

Don't worry, enviro nazis have a plan for taking care of all those excess people like the second guy on a bicycle.

[FatherofFive]

Did you know that two guys on two bikes produce more CO2 than two guys in one car?

Is that incremental CO2, ie, the CO2 over normal breathing? The guys in the car are also producing CO2 breathing. I'd like to see the source.

Either way, without CO2 we would all be dead.

[RayChuang88]

Actually, the issue from coal-fired power plants is NOT CO2, but a long, long list of other immediately harmful pollutants like oxides of nitrogen, soot, sulfur dioxide and heavy metals. That's why there has been more than one episode of essentially lethal bouts of air pollution caused by a combination of too much coal-burning and a perfect temperature inversion situation trapping the air pollutants (London 1952, St. Louis, MO 1939, and Shanghai/Harbin in China 2013).

By applying modern emissions control technology, we've gotten rid of the pollutants I mentioned; China needs to apply these controls to their many coal-fired power plants in order to clean up the air in their cities.

[rktman]

I lived in the UK in the early 60’s and remember one especially nasty winter where the freezing fog hung on for days and all the coal soot interlaced in it certainly caused some issues for folks with respiratory problems. We used coal to heat our house. Much like my mom’s folks did in a small town in Pennsylvania. I remember the coal chute in to the basement.

[gr8eman]

Like wise, when we get to 2035 and 2050, coal fired generating capacity will be much lower(15%-20%?)than today

That may change when liberals in the northeast start becoming "commie-sicles" after they vote to abolish anything but solar power.

[gr8eman]

Like wise, when we get to 2035 and 2050, coal fired generating capacity will be much lower(15%-20%?)than today

That may change when liberals in the northeast start becoming "commie-sicles" after they vote to abolish anything but solar power.

[LogicDesigner]

Just so everyone knows, what this article leaves out is that the vast majority of electric cars are sold not in the coal-heavy areas discussed in this article, but in areas where coal makes up a much smaller portion of electricity generation.

For example, 40% of electric cars sold in the United States are sold in California alone, and coal only makes up 8% of their electricity generation.

[MeshugeMikey]

California buys a fair amount of electric energy from other state's coal fired plants.

Outsourcing hides our coal fired Electric Energy Consumption

1. Navajo Generating Station – Arizona

2. Reid Gardner Generating Plant – Nevada

3. Intermountain Power Plant - Utah

4. Four Corners Power Plant – New Mexico

[DungeonMaster]

Just so everyone knows, what this article leaves out is that the vast majority of electric cars are sold not in the coal-heavy areas discussed in this article, but in areas where coal makes up a much smaller portion of electricity generation. For example, 40% of electric cars sold in the United States are sold in California alone, and coal only makes up 8% of their electricity generation.

Thanks, that's another aspect but I dared not speak of renewable energy.

[RayChuang88]

By the way, the lack of cheaply-available coal fields in the western USA at the time was the reason why during the steam locomotive era, the railroads in California--Southern Pacific and Santa Fe primarily--could not use coal as fuel because it would have been too expensive to ship in the coal (remember, this is long, long before coal was discovered in Wyoming's Powder River Basin). Instead, the discovery of crude oil in California allowed steam locomotives to use Bunker C fuel instead right up until the end of the steam age in the 1950's.

That very lack of coal early in the 20th Century was why California aggressively pursued hydroelectric power and natural gas for electric power plants.

[LogicDesigner]

“California buys a fair amount of electric energy from other state's coal fired plants. Outsourcing hides our coal fired Electric Energy Consumption”

Sure, but it is still a small portion. The link I provided to the 8% stat is for overall California power use, including imports. Now, there is also the 12% “unspecified sources of power” at the bottom of the chart that might include some coal. I'm not sure what “unspecified” means exactly, but my best interpretation of the text at the bottom is “the portion of imports for which we were not sure what the source was.” There is no breakdown there, but we can make a few inferences.

A third of electricity imports come from the Pacific Northwest grid which gets 30% of their electricity from coal. Two-thirds come from the U.S. Southwest grid and they get 39% of their electricity from coal. (source, see page 5/6) So maybe add another 5% to the 8% coal figure, giving us 13%?

Any way you cut it, they use much less coal than the coal-heavy areas discussed in the article we are commenting on.

[Sherman Logan]

A very good point. Much of the power in the West, and particularly NW, is hydro, the cleanest of all power generation methods.

(Though enviros want to tear the dams down, too.)