Electric Drive Vehicles Don't Reduce Emissions

[SteveH]

A study was recently released by North Carolina State University that provides evidence supporting the fact that electric drive vehicles (EDVs) have little impact on reducing emissions. As an engineering audience that knows efficiency when they see it, most ECN readers will throw their hands in the air having known this for some time.
The study concluded that even a drastic, sudden increase in EDV-use by 2050 wouldn’t reduce emissions of air pollutants, such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or nitrogen oxides. Through 108 different scenarios in a model, the researchers found that even if EDVs made up 42 percent of passenger vehicles in the U.S., there would be little or no reduction in the emission of key air pollutants

Electric drive vehicles don’t reduce emissions

[Jim Foster]

There are over 300,000,000 vehicles registered in the US. Not all are driven every day, but EDVs, because most would be commuter cars, would be. 42% would be 126,000,000 vehicles. If only 100,000,000 of those were driven daily and needed to be re-charged, can you just imagine the drain on the electric grid of this country when one hundred million cars are plugged in?

That's a lot of electricity. Most electricity is made by burning something.

What would you like me to burn, and where would you like me to burn it?

Has anyone thought this through?

Oh,,,,excuse me,,,,,,I forgot. Electricity comes from the receptacle in the wall.......

[Denis4x4]

Just returned from SoCal and the acres of land being used for solar farms and windmill installations is staggering. There is a correlation between the price increases on veggies and cotton and the vast amounts of ag land that has been taken out of production to create alternative energy.

[Jim Foster]

Originally Posted by Denis4x4

Just returned from SoCal and the acres of land being used for solar farms and windmill installations is staggering. There is a correlation between the price increases on veggies and cotton and the vast amounts of ag land that has been taken out of production to create alternative energy.

That's OK.. We can buy our food from Mexico, Central and South America and ship it here using electric powered vehicles.

Can't we?

Oh....I forgot......We're already doing that,,,,,,except for the electric powered vehicle part. That part will make it all better. Won't it?

[barts]

Originally Posted by Denis4x4

Just returned from SoCal and the acres of land being used for solar farms and windmill installations is staggering. There is a correlation between the price increases on veggies and cotton and the vast amounts of ag land that has been taken out of production to create alternative energy.

Please note that they are not taking ag land out of production; those solar thermal plants are being built in dry lakebeds.

Ag production in CA is limited by water - not by available land.

- Bart

[calais66]

Well, there's no free lunch. Although it's interesting this thread would be started on a forum dedicated to travel trailers which can't be pulled by electric vehicles to begin with.

[Jim Foster]

Originally Posted by barts

Please note that they are not taking ag land out of production; those solar thermal plants are being built in dry lakebeds.

Ag production in CA is limited by water - not by available land.

- Bart

Someone might want you to think that no ag land is being taken out of production, but that's not always the case. There is a very large solar array near our home in Walnut Grove, CA, on Twin Cities Road about a quarter mile west of Interstate 5, and about two miles east of the Sacramento River, and one mile from Snodgrass Slough. It is located on land that was ag land when we moved there in 1972, and probably for generations before that.

[calais66]

Dude, this thread is hilarious. As a native Sacramentan and a member of an agricultural family, I'm more offended by the real estate bubble-built stucco monstrosity starter-castle neighborhoods that have buried the old Elk Grove, West Sac and Natomas river bottom farmland than a solar farm. I mean, you can't take a drive down I-5, anywhere between Stockton and the Grapevine, and tell me that the agricultural acreage in our fair state is being maxed out.

As Olympia (and Bart) used to say, it's the water. Unless those 'staggeringly' large solar farms are somehow creating the drought conditions we've had these past few years (now there's a theory for you) they aren't the primary reason produce prices are on the rise. Of course, higher transportation costs play as much, if not more, of a role as lack of water. But there's nothing we can do about them high gas prices. If only there was an alternative...

[87MH]

OK - electric cars, energy creation, water issues -

AND

Government mandated use of alcohol in gasoline.

All of these arguments - one question.

Can ANYONE tell me just how many gallons equivalent of fuel (tractors, trucks, water transfer, distillation, distribution) are required to produce just ONE gallon of grain alcohol that is blended in with gasoline???

I propose one equation, less government = cheaper and simpler living.

[Tomzstream]

I have lived in both he Sacramento area and the Raleigh area in recent years. I saw the build out of the Natomas / Sac River Flood plain first hand. Its true, urban sprawl is more a threat to farmland than "Solar Farms". Besides, SMUD (the local utility) has a great program to promote rooftop solar on many of these same houses.

Not so in NC. This study looks to be inspired by contributions from Duke Energy, who owns the state of NC. The Governor is a life long Duke executive and is currently embroiled in a Federal investigation for being too lax in the enforcement of environmental cleanup of Duke Energy Coal Ash waste ponds scattered throughout the state, including the recent environmental disaster of the spill on the Dan River.

Duke is also fighting to have net metering rates cut in half for rooftop solar installations... 5 cents instead of 11 or twelve cents as they currently are, effectively killing the incentive to install rooftop solar.

I moved to FL where I received an incentive of $2 per watt to install a 7.8 kWh (thats $15,600) from FPL on top of the Federal tax credit. The money for this program came from the funds originally slated for Nuclear plants. I alsoget true net metering and have a special smart meter to handle it.

I generate enough to power my house and then some. For the last month, I just generated 850kWh and thats in the short day length season. I am considering an electric vehicle but currently drive a 2014 E-Class Bluetec that gets 45 mpg so I am already reducing CO2 and other emissions, but having a true zero emissions vehicle is attractive. Having a B-Van with an all electric toad is attractive, and we may move in that direction. I really like the Mercedes B-Class CAR, which is being built with a Tesla drivetrain.

So in short, the NC State study is highly suspect and rooftop solar is a great way to live a sustainable lifestyle, including generating power for not only your house but your transportation.

[Tomzstream]

PS, the NC legislature also passed a law to TAX electric vehicles to the tune of $100 a year because they are losing tax revenues from fuel sales... another clue for you.

[Tomzstream]

Originally Posted by Tomzstream

PS, the NC legislature also passed a law to TAX electric vehicles to the tune of $100 a year because they are losing tax revenues from fuel sales... another clue for you.

Did I mention the fact that the NC legislature also passed a law, at the behest of the Automobile Dealers association, banning internet sales of cars (you had to have a physical dealership) effectively targeted at preventing TESLA from competing in their state. Tesla fought it but finally acquiesced by opening a service center.

The NC legislature also passed a law banning the term "Global Warming" in fear of its impact on the economic well being of the coastal area, thought by many to be highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. I'll bet you won't see that term in this study...

As Kermit says... its not easy being green... in NC anyway.

[r carl]

We are back to Global Cooling now.

[Chuck]

folks: friendly mod-reminder that we have to try to keep the politics to a minumum, please.

Originally Posted by Jim Foster

That's a lot of electricity. Most electricity is made by burning something.
What would you like me to burn, and where would you like me to burn it?
Has anyone thought this through?
Oh,,,,excuse me,,,,,,I forgot. Electricity comes from the receptacle in the wall.......

Its not so "either/or"; the idea is that converting fuel to energy to move a car by an internal combustion engine is horribly inefficient; it is the most convenient and practical, though.
A power plant can extract energy from fuel in the most efficient way possible; transporting the energy (comes out of a receptacle in the wall) is also very efficient, and applying that energy to the wheels in your car by electric motor is very efficient. The net result is a lot less of something "burned" to go the same distance. Electric cars advertise a "MPG equivalent," and its like 100-150. Not "infinity-miles for free".
So, yeah, I'd say they've thought it through.

so how does replacing a bunch of 30mpg cars with 150 mpg cars "not" reduce emissions? They don't say in this article. They just repeat "that it is so". And the links to external pages just say the same thing. "it is so".
One thing it does say is that the study didn't have anything to do with that often-cited critique that the materials used in electric vehicles are bad for the environment...so thats not it. Maybe everyone is going to go 5 times farther than they do now?

[andreasduess]

Electric cars are actually perfect for towing - for as long as we manage to get enough power to the motors, i.e we need to improve battery capacity. The torque of an electric motor is hard to beat.

There's a reason most locomotives are diesel-electric, or, in Europe, fully electricity powered.

I am working with Tesla right now for a work project, the cars are incredibly powerful and well put together. If they'd be able to store more power onboard, I'd get one tomorrow. Their upcoming SUV will come with a tow rating.

Additionally, it is far easier to produce clean energy in a central location, be that nuclear, solar or hopefully soon fusion, than it is to so in millions of individual engines - at least until we manage to build solar panels that combine high output with small size.

[xrvr]

As far as the buy back of electricity from the installation of solar panels in Fl. The initial cost of the panels precludes anyone except the rich from getting the benefit. The poor who do not have the money for the panels get no benefit except a higher rate. As usage from solar rises, rates increase. Just as when rates from biomass rises rates increase with no appreciable reduction of air quality. And those are facts. Jim

[Skater]

I just said to my wife the other day - maybe our next commuter car will be electric (probably 7 or 8 years away). Even the electric vehicles available now have plenty of range for that drive; we have a gas-powered car (and by then, probably a second one), plus the diesel truck, for longer drives. In the meantime, our commute, which is the bulk of our miles accumulated, will be cheaper.

As for the emissions issue: It's much easier to trim emissions at a single source, the power plant, than at millions of vehicles. Electric cars that are powered by clean sources are clean.

[Tomzstream]

Originally Posted by zigzagguzzi

As far as the buy back of electricity from the installation of solar panels in Fl. The initial cost of the panels precludes anyone except the rich from getting the benefit. The poor who do not have the money for the panels get no benefit except a higher rate. As usage from solar rises, rates increase. Just as when rates from biomass rises rates increase with no appreciable reduction of air quality. And those are facts. Jim

Wow Jim, thems the facts huh? If we offset the need for building new plants, how does that make rates rise? Thats the same tired argument that Duke Energy and a consortium of Utilities is selling through their propaganda machine. Fact is household consumption of electricity is declining and thats what worries the big utilities. The switchover to natural gas is also contributing to a decline in rates as it is more efficient. Utilities like Duke, that have a terribly large liability with their environmental legacy based on coal generation, have the most to worry about.

Its true that the cost of entry for Solar PV makes it difficult for those without means to install, but if you do have the means it makes sense, and its getting cheaper every day. You don't have to be rich to put up a modest array and the Federal Tax credit is reason enough to do it from an economics viewpoint. I look at it as part economic and part civic duty. But the facts are, the FPL program is a multi-million dollar program, that the reservations for are so competitive they book up in a matter of a few minutes when they open up on an annual basis. If it prevents another nuclear plant from being built, there is no telling what future savings may be had because no one can tell you the long term cost of disposing of spent nuclear fuel will be.

If you'd like to discuss biomass, I am somewhat of an expert on it having worked as a graduate researcher on DOE projects on the topic in the 70's (remember that ENERGY crisis?) on forest biomass production. I majored in natural resource biometrics/statistics, and am published in several well known journals on the topic.

I also understand the political pressures of University studies such as this and the publish or perish mentality. I understand well how statistics can say many things depending on your desired outcome. That is why I am skeptical of studies such as this. I will say, that I gave up a career in "propagating myths" as some might call it, for one that was more lucrative, but I never sacrificed my integrity in any of my published work and stand by all of my published work despite the political pressures.

There are many economic implications of energy policies that have many competing interests that are all vying for a piece of the pie (Coal, Gas, Oil, and Battery companies to name a few etc). Political discussions are valid, but ultimately it is the consumer who should decide, but they have to have an even playing field and thats what incentives are all about. I really dislike dis-incentives though.

The problem with the original post is it ignores the fact that just as any small reduction in CO2 is still a reduction.. its the right thing to do. The way I look at global warming, a stitch in time save nine.

[Denis4x4]

Originally Posted by barts

Please note that they are not taking ag land out of production; those solar thermal plants are being built in dry lakebeds.

Ag production in CA is limited by water - not by available land.

- Bart

I would suggest that you check out the ag land west of Gila Bend AZ that was once planted in cotton and now is a mega-solar farm. I think that you're referring to the five square mile solar farm in the desert that instantly kills birds as the fly though the 1000 degree heat that provides steam for a turbine generator.

Interestingly enough, they are developing small solar gardens here in Durango with any number of small investors that will benefit by reducing their power bills. Too, as land is taken off of the market to provide for a solar farm, remaining properties will increase in value and the resultant values will kick up property tax values!

There is no free lunch!

[SteveH]

Will Electric Vehicles Really Reduce Pollution?

Conclusion

At present, for the vast majority of the country, neither electric vehicles or comparable gasoline-powered vehicles holds a solid advantage over the other in cleanliness. This balance will probably not change any time in the near future as the problem with electric vehicles is not inherent to them, but rather to the means by which we generate our electricity. Although electric vehicles offer some compelling advantages over internal combustion engine vehicles in terms of pollution management, the real advantage of electric vehicles lies in the future when more electricity is produced from cleaner sources. For those living in California, or in other regions with a high percentage of energy production coming from clean sources, the future is already here.