Exploring the Impact of Electric Transportation on the Environment
Each year around Earth Day, Kelley Blue Book publishes its list of the Top 10 Green Cars. Whenever I see something like this, I’m reminded of how few people understand the environmental impact of electric vehicles, which includes at a minimum, the following:
• In the U.S. right now, incremental loads on the grid at night are met by burning coal. Regardless of where you are in the country, even in states like California that burn no coal themselves, plugging in your EV at night almost always sets off a chain reaction that causes a grid operator somewhere to tamp back coal a little less than he would have otherwise. And because coal is so much worse for the environment than oil, you’re actually causing more eco-damage than you would be with the equivalent car burning the equivalent amount of gasoline or diesel.
However:
• As soon as the above ceases to be the case, EVs instantly become the eco-deal of the century, and there are a variety of trends that are pushing hard in this direction, e.g., increasing volumes of wind energy, which is commonly curtailed at night because it’s not needed locally, and there is no currently cost-effective way to transmit or store that energy. There are several scenarios, however, that will soon change this condition: expanding transmission, building wind farms close to population centers, and implementing storage in the form of batteries, synthetic fuels, etc.
• Having wind energy provided via the grid is only one option. Some EV owners put additional PV on their roofs specifically to charge their cars, greatly reducing the eco-impact of their transportation.
• There are terrible externalities to oil that do not exist for coal.
a) The most obvious is war: maps of the world’s oil fields and maps of the U.S. military presence are very, very similar. Claims that we don’t fight over oil are preposterous.
b) Then we have the empowering of terrorists and other bad actors in the Middle East. With ISIS, we live with a present-day reminder as to how abominable this can be.
c) Lastly we have the oil companies themselves and their virtual ownership of the U.S. Congress. The decline of the U.S. democracy is a nauseating thing to watch, but it’s made worse by the fact that the job of the law-makers who are elected with oil money is to create a legal playing field that favor the oil companies at the expense of clean air and water, healthy oceans, biodiversity, a stable climate, etc. Until we can figure out how to rid ourselves of this massive corruption, we’ll have continuing subsidies for the largest and most powerful industry in the history of humankind, land leases at preferential rates, maintaining barricades against capital formation for large solar and wind projects (keeping master limited partnerships illegal for clean energy projects), and dozens of other ways to ensure that the oil companies can continue, unimpeded, to suck the last molecule of crude out of the ground.
Given the sum of the issues here, I continue to support the concept of electric transportation, though I know there are some extremely bright people who disagree.
Hi Craig,
A little math or physics…Which scenario does consume more fossil fuel, and thus pollutes more: N fossil fuel-running cars or N EVs running from big fossil fuel-running electrical power stations?
because ev’s are so incredibly efficient, even powered by coal they still have a lower carbon footprint than gasoline powered vehicles. As well, here in Alberta, Canada, coal extraction and combustion does not have nearly the GHG’s and carcinogens associated with extraction, upgrading, refining and combustion of bitumen.
All around then EV’s have the best possible environmental advantage over gasoline or diesel powered cars.
ps, dont get me wrong, i am definitely anti-coal combustion as well as any other fossil carbon.
As long as the treators (traitors?) who lead the world will kill Free Energy inventors, in order to protect the oil and nuclear mafia, nothing will change.
Everything exists in the field of free energy : Tesla free energy and wireless electricity transportation, HHO, Cold Fusion, Yul Brown, Keshe plasma generator and Spaceship institute, John Searl Effect Generator, anti-gravity, Pons & Fleishman, Stanley Meyer (assassinated), Pantone…
Pierre, France
What on earth does the phrase,”you’re actually causing more eco-damage than you would be with the equivalent car burning the equivalent amount of gasoline or diesell” mean? All off the EV emission calculations that I’ve seen say that, while charging an with electricity generated from coal may produce more emissions than a Prius, the emission ofEV the average vehicle on the American road does not emit like a Prius. It emits like a Chevy Tahoe. So your opening comment is not at all accurate.
R.L. Cochran. , Ph. D.
Sorry. I suppose that could have been more clear. I meant: in an apples-to-apples comparison, say the gas and electric versions of the Ford Focus, the latter will do more ecological damage per mile driven than the former, as long as coal is the “go-to” fuel for addressing an incremental load on the grid. In considering coal, we need to keep in mind that we’re talking about more than just greenhouse gas emissions here; we’re talking about a variety of heavy metals, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, and many different radioactive isotopes.
I would refer people to the NRDC/EPRI Joint study released in 2007 (presently being updated to reflect the increase of renewables on the grid) that laid out the emissions for the different grid supplies by region. Even coal generated electricity was still shown to have an advantage over gasoline powered vehicles. The west coast grid is heavy in hydro from the north and renewables from the south, so that profile is dramatically cleaner as a fuel source.
Let me try that again with fewer typos:
What on earth does the phrase,”you’re actually causing more eco-damage than you would be with the equivalent car burning the equivalent amount of gasoline or diesel” mean? All of the EV emission calculations that I’ve seen say that, while charging an EV with electricity generated from coal may produce more (CO2) emissions than a Prius, the average vehicle on the American road does not emit like a Prius. It emits like a Chevy Tahoe. So your opening comment is not at all accurate.
Craig, thanks for the further explanation.
R.L. Cochran, Ph.D.
I was recently in Portland, Oregon for a Union Utility conference and a lot of these things you mentioned were raised, debated, feared, etc., but in the evening to visit the area via electric public transit( some powered by coal, by hydro, by whatever) it was a thrill and as people like us keep pounding our drums, and as we keep creating needs, and as we keep offering possible solutions, we at some point will turn on the soul of America which is problem solving thru ingenuity for profit(which I would of wrote the better good, but I thought I would go real world today).
Craig, I completely agree with your ultimate conclusion and do believe that sometimes we push too hard where the facts don’t fully support our perspective, but my own tendency is to see not only future but present benefits of electric transportation. Facts are sometimes hard to come by and it is in fossil fuel interests to obfuscate them where they do not appear to be beneficial to their bottom line.
I divide the analysis of electric transportation into strategic, economic and environmental aspects. Most of the benefits you describe could probably be categorized as strategic. You don’t mention the economics which seem to favor long term ownership of an EV 6+ years.
The environmental benefits are complex. We are trying to compare an EV to an ICE when information about refinery pollution, efficiency and use of electricity is not an open book. Even if the analysis were not complex it makes comparison some guesswork. Different studies seem to use a different collection of facts so naturally they come to different conclusions.
At a minimum we should be comparing something of the energy input, the refinery process, transportation to distribution centers and the ICE vehicle … to the energy input, the electrical generation process, transmission and charging efficiency and EV.
If refineries are about 83% efficient, transportation and distribution is 98% efficient at a favorable guess, the real world efficiency of the ICE is approximately 15% giving an overall efficiency of about (83x98x15=) 12% efficiency. For the EV we might see for the most polluting coal fired power plant 34% efficiency. Transmission=95%, Charging =95% and EV = 85% (Tesla roadster claimed 92%) = (.34x.95x.95x.85=) 26% efficiency. While I might agree that Coal is more polluting than oil it is not twice as polluting. If we are using twice the energy to power an ICE anything more than 1/2 the pollution is going to be a disadvantage.
There are other mitigating factors. In the US electrical energy produced by coal is only about 36% of the energy mix. Everything else is less polluting. In California coal is less than 16% of the energy mix.
Coal is also a base-load electrical energy fuel ie it must run 24/7 and does not substantially follow demand. Where Coal use is the heaviest (midwest at 90% of energy mix) excess night time energy is either being sold at longer distances at a discount, boilers are run (polluting) without electrical generation or electrical generation is wasted. The EV represents a time shaving benefit to this scenario. To some percentage an EV may be being charged with no additional pollution because the boilers are running in any event. I will begin to become concerned about EV pollution when the market share (presently less than 1%) begins to approach coal’s percentage of the energy mix (lowest is California, 16%)
On the other side of the energy equation refining oil requires a great deal of electricity. Best figures I have seen suggest about 4.5 kWh per gallon of refined gasoline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4 4.5 kWh would take a Nissan leaf (.3kWh / mile) approximately 15 miles just on the energy used to make gasoline. If we just used that gasoline in stationary electrical generators (more efficient & less polluting than ICE) the EV (ZEV) would be less polluting than an ICE.
This last example should make it clear that the problem, if there is one, is with coal fired power plants not an EV. So let us keep making them, using them, and buying them without a pollution concern. They will leverage every clean energy improvement made to our power grid which the ICE can never do.
I also agree with your ultimate conclusion, Craig, and I’m interested in the perspectives and considerations that Ronald Cochran and breathonthewind have brought to bear in this discussion.
We need to move, and are moving (albeit far slower than we should) away from the consumption of prehistoric sunshine that dumps fossil carbon and toxins into our bodies, oceans and atmosphere. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the growth of wind and solar already outpaces the growth of coal generation in this country.
To the extent that electric vehicles facilitate the transition where ICE’s do not, I think (as it seems you do also) that the choice is obvious, given sufficient income to afford the electric option (though TCO may be usefully debated).
For those finding the initial cost prohibitive, certainly a higher mileage ICE vehicle would be preferable to something grossing two or three tons. That’s especially true when in practice such a vehicle typically carries only one person most of the time.
I used to own a 4-Runner but traded it in long ago for a smaller, more efficient car – my Yaris sedan has a curb weight of about 2350 pounds and gets about 35 mpg on the highway, and I have at least one other person with me about half the time I’m on the road.
If course, I also have all my home lighting with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs that are four to six times more efficient than incandescent bulbs. I’m conscious of the average of 4 mg of mercury in each bulb, and the resulting disposal issues, but feel the efficiency is a good trade-off at this point. By the way, use http://search.earth911.com/ to find a place to recycle your CFL’s.
You’re absolutely correct about the growth of wind and solar vs. coal; there will never be another coal plant built in this country. I on’t wish that were true of India and China….
Hi Craig,
I unreservedly admire and applaud your passion for the environment, also your untiring involvement to further alternate energy technologies.
However, in recent years I have noticed many environmentalists ignore reality, and persist claiming what they believe ” Should be True ” , is true, and ignore any contradictory information .
I believe all this hype, overly-optimistic claims, and shouting down of dissenters, (deniers) by ardent green advocates, has created ennui, cynicism and disbelief among the general population, world-wide.
As a conservative environmentalist, I find the looney-right, to be far less dangerous to public acceptance and support for positive environmental action, than the environmental left. The left entwine leftist ideology, with environmental issues. As a result, when the general public rejects the leftist dogma, unfortunately genuine environmental policies are also rejected
Your latest article, (while well meaning and as always well written), is just such an example of saying something is true, because you believe it should be true. and concluding it is true ! 🙂
I own a number EV’s, so naturally I’m an enthusiastic supporter of EV technology . However, I’m aware that the vast majority of the motoring public doesn’t, share my interest. There are many reasons, but most relate to the current short comings of EV technology.
Ardent advocates, answer any doubter, who expresses the belief that EV technology may not suit his circumstances, or lifestyle, is to demand that he should change (along with the whole of society) to circumstances and lifestyle that suit the technology.
When he replies, “no thanks, I’ll just buy another tank of gasoline “, he finds himself castigated as an environmental vandal, and shrill cries that the government(s) should force him to change. (against his will, but for his own moral good !) .
You argue that the oil industry is the cause of wars, and terrorism. Again, this is a case coming up with an observation, then working backwards to included evidence to substantiate to claim. That’s wouldn’t be so bad, but you fail to include any evidence that doesn’t fit your claim !
In fact, the result of American involvement in Iraq, didn’t result in the US owning Iraqi oil, but instead the PRC became the recipient of Iraqi oil !
Just because a citizen of an oil rich nation, decides to become a terrorist, doesn’t mean that the oil rich nation supports terrorism, or that all terrorists come from oil rich nations.
(Timothy McVeigh, Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Red Army Faction, Japanese Red Army, Aum Shinrikyo , IRA, Sinn Féin, and a huge number of other terrorists, all came from nations without oil.)
Nor are US forces exclusively based around oil. Nor are oil producing nations all politically unstable, or fighting wars. Norway, UK, Australia, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, the next oil rich giant, New Zealand, etc and many other oil producing nations are perfectly peaceful.
Because oil is the most valuable product of the middle-east in terms of economic resources, it only natural it becomes a factor in the political, religious and cultural changes occurring in that region.
US policy concerning Israel, and western lifestyles, are far more a cause for anti-US sentiment, than any concerns over oil.
Lastly, your concern over “oil companies themselves and their virtual ownership of the U.S. Congress. The decline of the U.S. democracy is a nauseating thing to watch” , is just unsupportable.
True the oil industry is the biggest single US taxpayer. True also, the oil industry is largest contributor to the US economy, (nearly 28%). It’s also a very large employer. But, you have to suspend reality to claim “the oil industry is cause of the decline in American “democracy”
In fact, a better argument could be made, that the oil industry is essential to the continuance of a US society that can afford “democracy”. The fact that less than 40% of US citizens can be bothered to vote, is a far bigger problem.
Contrast the thousands of billions in taxes paid on oil products, with the pitiful tax contribution paid on vast profits by “new” industries like Google, Apple etc ! ( which is the better corporate citizen ?).
Yet you continue to repeat the myth of huge “oil Subsidies”. Nearly anything that could be called a “subsidy” has long since disappeared or expired, but old conspiracy theories die hard.
Just finding a convenient villain to hiss, and making wild claims about imminent environmental disaster, which don’t occur, while promising miracles by new technologies, that also don’t occur, or fail with devastating economic consequences, may convince the idealistically young and naive, but eventually the vast majority of the population, loses interest.
There is compelling evidence that we are entering a watershed of environmental creditability. Due to all the lack of reality, rabid fanaticism and hype, the genuine environmental message is getting obscured, and public support for environmental issues, is waning.
Well written and no doubt paid for by powerful interests who pretend concern about our future on this still beautiful planet. It is obvious that you do not actually own an EV. Agree with comment on Google and Apple et al.
Thank you for your reply.
(sigh ) Y’know it’s possible to be sensible, and not be in the pay of sinister “powerful interests” (if they’re that powerful, why would they bother ?)
But as to your doubting my enthusiasm for EV’s. I took and interest in EV transport nearly twenty years ago. In the intervening years, I have not only owned EV’s but built or commissioned, a large number of specialist electric vehicles, ranging from ride-on mowers, to buses !
In the UK, I have owned as personal transport for the last 4 years, an Liberty Electric Range Rover. In addition I replaced a BMW 7 series with a Tesla P85 Signature, for duty as a company courtesy car. I was instrumental in replacing 14 fleet BMW’s, with Vauxhall Amperas.
I was an early shareholder, in the electric maxi-scooter maker Vectrix, (luckily selling most of the shares before disaster). I was luckier with Tesla.
In Australia, I was a supporter, and customer of the brilliant Australian engineer, and EV pioneer, Ross Blade. It was the corrupt and hypocritical attitude of the Australian Labour/Green Alliance Government, which ensured the Blade Electron EV failed.
But no matter how enthusiastic I might be about EV’s, reality is reality.
At the risk of being labeled a “conspiracy theorist,” allow me to point out (as was firmly recognized by Teddy Roosevelt, Adam Smith, and many other notables across human history) that “capital organizes.”
The wealthy interests at the “top” of our society – and who exert massive and undue influence in all areas of human endeavor – have no interest in a critically thinking and imaginative population over which to rule. Instead they encourage ignorance and demand obedience and conformity.
This is why the regular consumers of Fox News are shown not only to be more ignorant and misled on a whole range of issues, but actually grow more ignorant and misled over time with increased exposure. This well-researched and demonstrated fact puts me in mind of a quote by Samuel Foote, a British actor and dramatist of the mid 1700’s, “He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.”
Rupert Murdoch and others like him are not interested in providing a public service to circulate crucial and valuable truths. They are instead intent on luring humanity into a snare of illusion and deceit, to preserve and expand their own political power and their own personal financial gain.
American society, in particular, labors under many severe misapprehensions. Chief among these, in practical terms, is that we are and have always been a democratic republic, yet our founders only appealed to the myth that all men are created equal, while at the same time enshrining slavery and granting suffrage only to white male landowners. Also, that capitalism and democracy are compatible or complementary (they are even mythologized as being one and the same). In reality, capitalism has – by design – always favored those with great wealth, and it operates according to predatory principles by which cooperation for mutual benefit applies only to trusts and cartels as convenience dictates.
Another important delusion is that self-interest and competition are the instrumental forces behind human progress. Yet our history shows that humankind emerged from the savagery of an animal existence by sharing and cooperating, not through greed and conflict.
How does this apply to renewables? The controlling interests in our society have not yet decided it is to their private advantage to shift from filthy ancient sunlight to the clean modern stuff.
However beneficial renewables will be to our United States and health and well-being for ourselves and our progeny, there is a substantial transition cost for all those firms that continue to regard these resources as competition. Their formidable lobbying power ensures that the feeble attempts to subsidize renewables will continue to be sporadic, unpredictable and anemic. We may also expect the campaign of misinformation, concealment, and discredit to endure long past the tipping point.
If we want to escape indentured servitude and act with true liberty, we will find instruction in the words of a man who accomplished those feats in great measure, Frederick Douglass:
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
In 2012, all the elections for president, house and senate cost about $6.2 billion ($21 per American), and ExxonMobil, by itself, profited $44.8 billion that year alone. That means ExxonMobil, all by itself, could have bought all the federal elections in the country with just 14% of its 2012 PROFITS!
Exxon-Mobil and its ilk are quite well organized, and not for altruistic public benefit. If we logical, critically thinking and imaginative humans want to see our national security and political sovereignty preserved, and if we want to defend ourselves and our posterity against the lethal ravages that fossil fuels inflict upon the biosphere and the economy, we had best get organized.
Nuke tech is not an option. All currently operating and genuinely planned commercial nuclear fission energy technology is prohibitively expensive when all the costs are accounted for – mining, refining, construction, insuring, waste containment, facility lifespan, decommissioning – and, given natural disasters, human error and sabotage/terrorism potential, it’s clearly proven to be inherently dangerous to the biosphere just to operate.
Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) is safe, clean, proven technology, and modern energy storage systems make it viable. Harvesting modern sunshine is much cleaner and safer (and cheaper in the long run) than sucking and digging up filthy prehistoric sunshine, dragging it dangerously all over the planet, burning it up, and pouring 32 billion metric tons of CO2 yearly into the modern sky. Only bribery keeps that toxic filth marketable.
What to say to someone so charming, yet bizarrely wrong ?
unfortunately, there just isn’t the space to refute all your utopian errors, instead I shall confine myself to just four points.
1) It’s a popular practice among proponents of any impractical, unacceptable philosophical or ideological belief, to claim that the reason their pet theory has not been accepted, is a) “powerful interests” oppose it, or b) the masses are too blinded, stupid or unenlightened to appreciate what’s in their own best interests. (the contempt for the people, by those who claim to represent them, is always astonishing.)
It never occurs to these would be ideologues, that the reason their idea’s are not accepted, is a) nobody is interested, b) they are unworkable, and need lot’s of other peoples money.
2) Rupert Murdoch. I don’t know how he’s relevant, but even someone with as one dimensional and sanctimonious view of the world as yourself, must realize that multifaceted personalities do exist. Rupert Murdoch, is a media entrepreneur. He provides the media his market requires. He’s not a preacher, politician, or social engineer. He’s a media owner, and journalist. You may not like Fox News or fox, but it has it’s audience. It’s also a fierce upholder of the right to free speech, (especially if it’s wrong).
It may surprise you to learn than 40-60 % of the world’s “quality” newspapers, including the The Times and The Sunday Times. These financially unprofitable publications only exist because of the determination (and deep pockets) of Rupert Murdoch, despite the fact that they are often his harshest critic’s.
If you don’t like Rupert Murdoch, you are free to start your own media outlet, publishing ” a public service to circulate crucial and valuable truths “. ( well those ” truths ‘ according to you !). But don’t be surprised when you find a mass audience doesn’t find your “crucial and valuable truths ” either valuable, or crucial, or even interesting…..:)
3) The oil industry. Left wing comedians are always funny, because their targets are less sympathetic, and easily stereotyped. But there’s always a certain hypocrisy. The Eco-cyclist fails to mention that his bike uses, tires, brakes, paint, lubricant, saddle, reflectors, light, peddles etc are all product of the oil industry he so despises. He also fails to mention that the very road he so sanctimoniously peddled along, is a product of the oil industry.
Just as you writing on your lap top about evils of the oil industry, when 90% of your lap top is a product of the oil industry. ( including the lithium battery, invented and developed in an Exxon laboratory)
Look around you, most of the benefit of the modern world, are the products of the oil industry. The vast expansion of wealth, that has enabled a huge proportion of the global population to move out of grinding poverty, has been due to oil industry products.
Like all human progress and technology, there are, and always will be, advantages and disadvantages.
Let’s imagine you get your wish, and for the sake of a fair hypothetical, oil was replaced by “solar power/wind power”, and just for transport fuel in the US. (not really feasible, but for the sake of argument).
Currently, just the least profitable part of the oil industry, (gasoline/diesel) is the largest single contributor of Tax to US federal and state governments. It’s also the most valuable, since because it’s daily accumulation has a compounding effect ,and underpins most government financial arrangements.
The loss of nearly 22% of total tax revenue, would devastate the US economy, completely destroying any ability to finance any new technology.
In addition, gasoline/diesel provides an estimated 15-20 million jobs in the US (without the flow on). The social upheaval and disruption to the US economy, would make the great depression look like a mild hiccup.
Oh, and not forgetting the majority of the US retirement and superannuation industry, which depends on oil industry dividends. This industry would collapse, and the government would be forced to fund the industry from tax, tax it no longer possessed.
So when you start talking about “corrupt” influence, maybe you should pause and consider, that maybe, just maybe, in your passion and enthusiasm, you haven’t thought it through ..?
4) It’s always easy to be on the “Side of the Angels ‘, condemn others, and utter wonderful utopian proposals,…that is, until you have to implement them ! Of course, the Left never consider the practical aspects, because they’re experts at spending “other peoples” money.
Well ,in the new internationalized economy, as Apple and Google have proved, governments will no longer be able to fund Utopian ideas with taxpayers money. The era when even a giant superpower, like the US, can keep funding fantasy economies, by increasing national debt, is drawing to a close.
It will be a “hard rain” that going to fall. The US will need all the ingenuity and responsibility of it’s leaders, the strength of it major corporations, maturity of it’s citizens and loyalty of it’s allies, if it’s to survive without sliding into a morass of irresponsible denial, followed by economic misery.
Here’s a uniquely humorous and instructive history of resource extraction and geopolitics in the Middle East – Robert Newmann’s History of Oil – I think folks will find entertaining, informative and it well worth the time… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu47fIkIsY8
I agree. It’s fabulous. I’ve been through it several times; I learn more (and laugh harder) with each pass.
Excellent, it’s good fun and good data – if only NBC, ABC, CBS or even PBS felt the same. 🙂