Frequently Asked Questions: Electric Vehicle

Electric Cars and Coal Power Plants
Yes, electric cars have no tailpipe emissions. They produce no local pollution or carbon dioxide, but they aren't entirely pollution-free, especially if they are recharged from an electric power grid that burns significant quantities of fossil fuels like coal.

So, are they any better than a normal gasoline car? Absolutely.

For starters, in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, they generate a fraction that expelled by a normal gasoline engine car. For every gallon of gasoline burned, approximately 22 pounds of CO2, an important global warming gas, are created. If a car gets 25 miles a gallon it will emit 22 pounds of carbon dioxide over that distance, as well as other pollutants. By comparison, an electric car may travel the same distance consuming 5 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electric power at a rate of 200 watt hours/mile. Assuming the local grid is 100% coal-fired, roughly 5 lbs of coal would be consumed to create that 5kWh. Depending on the grade and carbon content of the coal, one kilowatt hour creates approximately 1.4 pounds of CO2. That's 7 pounds of CO2 vs. 22 pounds to travel the same 25 miles. But recall that the power grid isn't entirely coal-fired; it includes hydroelectric, natural gas, nuclear and a small, but growing segment of renewables.

But what about other pollutants, aren't today's cars significantly cleaner? Yes they are and getting more so all the time, which is good. But so is the power grid, at least in terms of many criteria pollutants, if not CO2. And as more wind and solar electric power is added to the grid, and older, more polluting power plants are decommissioned, the grid can get cleaner, though it will still take citizen awareness and pressure, especially in the light of the fact that hundreds of coal-fired plants plan to be built around the world in the come decades, to ensure the very best technology is used, including carbon sequestration if we plan to continue to utilize coal.

Electric Car Economics
If you can travel 25 miles on 5kWh of electric power, that means it cost you something like 40 cents to cover the same distance (@ 8 cents/kWh) it takes a gallon of gasoline at $2 and $3 a gallon at current (2006) prices. And if you recharge your electric car from solar panels, like many EV owners in California do, your per mile costs are even less and the payback period on your solar panels dramatically shorter because now you're replacing not relatively cheap grid power, but increasingly expensive gasoline. In the process, you're helping the environment and saving yourself a lot of money for decades to come.

Electric Car Battery Pollution
But what about all those batteries and the pollution they cause, especially when the cars are recycled?

Well, it turns out that if the batteries are NiMH, the nickel has economic value, like the lead in conventional starter batteries. They can and are being recycled, but even before they reach that point, there is a strong probability that EV batteries will find a second life as electric power storage for the grid. While their useful life in cars may end at 100,00 or 150,000 miles, they still can perform useful roles in providing businesses and homes with electric back-up or peak-shaving services. Only after that will they end up being recycled.

Lithium ion batteries don't currently appear to have the same commodity metal value as nickel, but they too can find useful second lives and their manufacturers contend that they when properly disposed of they will not present any environmental hazard, certainly not like that associated with older, heavy metal chemistries like lead and cadnium.

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