Is the production of electric energy for electric vehicles less harmful to the environment?

Question

My question is this: in our rush to find an alternative to the ICE have the long term effects of going electric been investigated? Could our need for electric energy be just as detrimental to the environment as an oil rig? An oil spill can be cleaned up but a nuclear accident could kill us all. What happens to the battery in a Prius once the Prius is no more. If we reduce our oil consumption won't that increase our electric consumption. How about encouraging us all to drive less.

Answer 1

MTR has nicely answered your initial question. Electric vehicles are better for the environment no matter what is the source of the electricty than existing vehicles. If all our vehicles were electric the maximum expansion of our electric capacity would be no more than 12 to 16%. We use far more electricity for other things than we would ever use for transportation. However we have sufficient off peak capacity to power almost 3/4 this amount with no new generating capacity. Moreover some of that capacity is presently producing pollution and not producing electricity: "...a lot of the coal-fired electricity is run to ground at night because you can't dial down a coal-fired plant more than maybe one-third of its peak capacity. Simply put, utilities produce electricity for which there is no demand." http://evworld.com/currents.cfm?jid=160



An oil spill can be partially cleaned up but it can also kill thousands and perhaps millions of organisms disrupting the ecosystem for possibly decades. Prius batteries have a $200 bounty on them for salvage and they are reused or recycled.



I am not particular fond of Nuclear power plants. There is one in the NYC area that has been leaking water from the storage pond for over 20 years into the NYC watershed. Problems don't necessarily have to be in the reactor core. Similar leakage has caused a reactor in the New Hampshire area to not be recertified.



There are other solutions. New Zealand has no nuclear reactors on its soil. Most of Icelands power is renewable. California gets only about 16% of its electric power from Coal. And there are solutions that are proven to work but we are not pursuing, like solar chimneys... very similar to hydro but using air.

Answer 2

- An oil spill can be cleaned up but a nuclear accident could kill us all



Give me a break. Even Chernobyl, which was the worst accident to date, didn't "kill us all". Modern nuclear facilities don't create the waste products or the safety hazards that the old fashioned ones did.



- What happens to the battery in a Prius once the Prius is no more.



NiMH batteries are highly recyclable. In fact, batteries of all kinds have the highest recycling rates of any products. This is a non-issue.



- If we reduce our oil consumption won't that increase our electric consumption.



Not really because the majority of the time electric vehicles will be charged during non-peak periods. You do realize that most power generators can't be shut off, don't you? Right now these generators do make-work things like move water to a holding pond during the off hours so that the excess electricity generation will have somewhere to go. There are a few peak generators that can be shut off but these are highly inefficient.



In addition, electricity will never account for all vehicles unless you believe that electric strips will be incorporated into every road. At best electric vehicles might account for 20%. Hybrids like the Prius will increase in popularity because they are more trouble-free and more efficient. But they still get 100% of their power from the gas tank.



- How about encouraging us all to drive less.



Mostly people don't go for "Sunday drives" anymore. How much you drive depends on where you work and where you live and most cities in North America are too spread out to make public transportation a viable option. Note that transportation is only one area where we use oil. A bigger area is in heating houses. It would be more practical to have incentives for really good insulation to cut down on energy use. The most energy efficient houses can use less than $50 per year in HVAC costs.



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Minor correction. You're correct. Some energy is re-captured by using the water to power the generators, and while that's better than throwing it all away, it's not as efficient as if it were used when it was first made. I don't have the figures but it likely captures about half the energy used to pump the water to the pond.



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Although natural gas is used in some places and electricity in others, heating oil is oil. It's really diesel fuel, which is why the price of diesel goes up in winter. However, the point is that if houses are insulated properly the amount of energy required is reduced significantly regardless of it's origin.

Answer 3

The good thing about electric vehicles is that you can make electricity out of wind or sunlight. even nuclear power is much more environmentally friendly. If you are worried about danger, only one reactor has ever exploded (Chernobyl Reactor 4). There would have only been a few people dead if the (at that time Russian) government would have admitted that it exploded and evacuated nearby cities. About encouraging us all to drive less, where I live (NYC) there are always ads and people saying to use mass transportation like trains and buses. Overall, alternative energy is better than petroleum (and I say petrol not gas because gas is different and better than petrol).



@JerryJ "Note that transportation is only one area where we use oil. A bigger area is in heating houses." Heaters are powered by GAS not OIL. There is a difference.

Answer 4

Batteries have a recycling gadget in place already to seize the heavy metals . Lead acid batteries used to have some vapor emissions however the recent gel packs don't have that subject. the different situation to bear in mind is that as quickly as the batteries are not to any extent further giving you the selection you will like on your electric motor vehicle you will use them on your place to save the electrical powered energy out of your photovoltaic panels. you might have image voltaic panels in case you had an EV does not you? loose potential paid for by employing the decrease value fees in gas in some years.

Answer 5

The Tesla Roadster, Nissan Leaf, Plug in Prius and Chevrolet Volt all use less than 0.14 kWh of electrical energy from the grid to drive 1 km.



From a modern coal power station, that is equivalent to about 120 g CO2/km.

From the UK national grid, it's about 60 g CO2/km

From a modern gas power station, it's less than 60 g CO2/km

From a coal power station fitted with carbon capture and storage technology, it's about 20 g CO2/km

From a nuclear, hydro or wind power plant it's less than 5 g CO2/km.





For comparison, US average car is about 240 g CO2/km:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-car-fuel-economy-up-c02-drops-fo



EU average is somewhere around 150g CO2/km:

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1895621/eu-hails-biggest-recorded-dip-car-emissions



Best hybrids can get around 80g, good small diesels and moderate hybrids 100g.





So right now, electric cars are far cleaner. So long as we expand renewable energy, they will be even more clean and will give out far less pollution than any combustion engined car ever could. Lots of research has been done on this and it's why they're being pushed.



Electric cars are more efficient because electric motors/batteries and power stations combined are all far more efficient than a tiny engine. Also, they increase the amount of renewable energy you can use because you can use their batteries as a way to store renewable energy when it's windy or sunny for use later.





Electric cars take more energy to make, but the majority of energy consumed is in driving the car. Also, as we move to lithium technology, the recycle value of the battery should ensure that recycling rates are very high.



http://commontragedies.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/coal-fired-car/

Answer 6

Minor correction The make work jobs of moving water at night is released in the day time to meet spikes in daytime power demand. So it is used. It's not extra that is wasted. In Michigan we have a holding pond like that in Luddington, Michigan.

Answer 7

I dont think it is for like a Nissan Leaf or Tesla. But Im pree sure that the enviroment is better off with a Corolla over a Prius, as far as hybrids go.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

you know little about power generation. there are hundreds of nuc plants all over the world. 111 in the u.s. alone. they don,t blow up, or anything. coal power generation is a big problem. it is dirty from the mining to the waste products from burning. not to mention the crap that any coal stack dumps in to the air.

Answer 10

If the power is made from hydro electricity, sun or wind it would be totally clean.

Answer 11

yeah, i believe it is