![nissan-leaf[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/nissan-leaf1.jpg?quality=83)
A new study from North Carolina State University indicates that even a sharp increase in the use of electric drive passenger vehicles by 2050 would not significantly reduce emissions of high-profile air pollutants carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides.
For Immediate Release
Release Date: 01.21.14
A new study from North Carolina State University indicates that even a sharp increase in the use of electric drive passenger vehicles (EDVs) by 2050 would not significantly reduce emissions of high-profile air pollutants carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides.
“EDVs” is a catch-all term that includes hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles.
“We wanted to see how important EDVs may be over the next 40 years in terms of their ability to reduce emissions,” says Dr. Joseph DeCarolis, an assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper on the new model. “We found that increasing the use of EDVs is not an effective way to produce large emissions reductions.”
The researchers ran 108 different scenarios in a powerful energy systems model to determine the impact of EDV use on emissions between now and 2050. They 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.
“There are a number of reasons for this,” DeCarolis says. “In part, it’s because some of the benefits of EDVs are wiped out by higher emissions from power plants. Another factor is that passenger vehicles make up a relatively small share of total emissions, limiting the potential impact of EDVs in the first place. For example, passenger vehicles make up only 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.
“From a policy standpoint, this study tells us that it makes more sense to set emissions reductions goals, rather than promoting specific vehicle technologies with the idea that they’ll solve the problem on their own.”
The energy systems model also showed that key factors in encouraging use of EDVs are oil price and battery cost. If batteries are cheap and oil is expensive, EDVs become more attractive to consumers. “That’s consistent with results from other studies,” DeCarolis says.
The paper, “How Much Do Electric Drive Vehicles Matter to Future U.S. Emissions?,” is published online in Environmental Science & Technology. Lead author of the paper is Samaneh Babaee, a Ph.D. student at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Dr. Ajay Nagpure, a former postdoctoral researcher at NC State who is now at the University of Minnesota. The research was supported by National Science Foundation grant CBET-0853766.
###
The study abstract follows.
“How Much Do Electric Drive Vehicles Matter to Future U.S. Emissions?”
Authors: Samaneh Babaee and Joseph F. DeCarolis, North Carolina State University; Ajay S. Nagpure, University of Minnesota
Published: online January 2014 in Environmental Science & Technology
DOI: 10.1021/es4045677
Abstract: Hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric vehicles—known collectively as electric drive vehicles (EDVs)—may represent a clean and affordable option to meet growing U.S. light duty vehicle (LDV) demand. The goal of this study is twofold: identify the conditions under which EDVs achieve high LDV market penetration in the U.S. and quantify the associated change in CO2, SO2, and NOX emissions through mid-century. We employ the Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System (TIMES), a bottom-up energy system model, along with a U.S. dataset developed for this analysis. To characterize EDV deployment through 2050, varying assumptions related to crude oil and natural gas prices, a CO2 policy, a federal renewable portfolio standard, and vehicle battery cost were combined to form 108 different scenarios. Across these scenarios, oil prices and battery cost have the biggest effect on EDV deployment. The model results do not demonstrate a clear and consistent trend towards lower system-wide emissions as EDV deployment increases. In addition to the tradeoff between lower tailpipe and higher electric sector emissions associated with plug-in vehicles, the scenarios produce system-wide emissions effects that often mask the effect of EDV deployment.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If this reality were to be put into effect, the Tesla would drop like a rock … or stop like one, like Clooney’s (?), for example.
If as a society we choose to focus some of our efforts, it would be nice to actually achieve something. Even a Great Wall, especially if it were built around Washington, D.C.
“emissions of high-profile air pollutants carbon dioxide”
An embarassment to NCSU. Carbon dioxide is babies’ breath and plant food.
Nearly all of Tesla’s profits are te result of carbon offsets from regular vehicles. Most of Tesla’s customers are upper income coastal residents buying a third of fourth car. How much more does a working class Chevy buyer pay to make the rich coastal resident feel good and Mr. Musk rich while accomplishing nothing for the environment?
This pretty much confirms the back of the envelop calculations I made a few weeks ago, in
which I came to the conclusion that passenger cars only comprise about 18% of total
emissions. Since the reduction in emissions is rather modest for each car, it was obvious to me that electric cars won’t have any impact at all until the grid is emission-free, an even then
will not amount to much. Pretty much the same old thing – govts pouring tons of money into programs that can’t have any significant effect. Nobody bothers to do a detailed study before the politicians rush to pass yet another pointless, but expensive, law. And Tesla is raking in over $20,000 per car in govt subsidies and the car’s owner another $7500+. Obscene.
Well said Gamecock. I am appalled at the ignorant bleating sheep bad-mouthing CO2.
Would questions about EV millage be off topic here?
The only electric vehicles that have thus far been successful and invaluable are personal mobility scooters. I am getting older and my choice of mobility scooter will be a harley powered trike with the special white tyres that do not leave skid marks.
Electric vehicles will be a failure until some thing that makes it’s own electricity can be found.
Charging vehicles off the grid to reduce CO2 is about as sensible as squeezing soap as a propulsion system.
The cost of batteries is a reflection of the large amounts of raw materials that have to be moved to produce them (mining trucks & even electric shovels have to run off of some form of energy, after all) & the further (energy intensive) processing to get the good bits out of the ore. Subsidizing that would hide the cost from the car buyer, but inevitably end up costing far more total money per unit, which has to come out of somebody’s paycheck eventually. & the subsidies don’t change the energy expended to produce the refined product (which isn’t going to be very much nuclear or hydroelectric in the near future in the places where the stuff is dug up & processed).
In Ontario Canada 50% of our energy is nuclear. So EV could easily be called Nuclear Vehicles.
I would have though EV would increase emissions as the majority of electricity come from coal, nevertheless personally I think EV will be the saviour of utilities they just need to come down in price as they are doing and have more significant penetration into the global market…
Anyone with a lick of common sense knows these cars won’t have any measurable impact.
If batteries are cheap and oil is expensive, EDVs become more attractive to consumers.
========================
No shzt. And water is wet.
1 gallon of gasoline has 33kwh of energy. About the amount of electricity a large house uses in a day. How many gallons of gas a day do you use in your car? How much must the capacity of the grid be increased in were all driving electric?
SideShowBob says:
January 21, 2014 at 5:14 pm
I would have though EV would increase emissions as the majority of electricity come from coal
==============
40 modern compact cars with one passenger each pollute the same amount as a 40 passenger bus. However, the bus runs whether it is full or not. The cars however never run when they are empty of people. Thus, the cars will never pollute more than the buses, but the buses will often pollute more than the cars. for a given number of people miles.
Thus, the idea that we can cut pollution by moving people out of cars into buses is also false. Cars are very efficient because both their route and their loading is more efficient than running large buses on fixed routes with uncertain loads.
I’m going to completely ignore any considerations of CO2 emissions, as I don’t think that is a goal worth expending resources on. There are some advantages to EVDs in reducing other (real) pollutants, or rather shifting the emission location away from major urban areas. However with current battery technology, I don’t see them having any practical effect even in that respect as absent regulatory mandates, they will never come even close to the assumed 42% of US passenger vehicles.
What will likely make a significant difference is a practical liquid fuel cell (methanol seems to be the most promising current candidate). All the advantages of liquid fuel internal combustion engines without the combustion. But we don’t have a practical fuel cell at present and are unlikely to develop one as long as R&D resources are devoted primarily towards reducing CO2.
Now if in the course of achieving real transportation improvements you happen to also reduce CO2 emissions and thereby appease the Carbon Cult, that an added bonus. But it should never be the main objective.
“Oh yeah… well you’re a stupid head” – typical EV lover
“We found that increasing the use of EDVs is not an effective way to produce large emissions reductions.”
————–
It would be if it obama issued a proclamation that gasoline powered cars were illegal and that everyone must purchase a Chevy Volt.
If he can tell us what medical coverage we must buy for our own good, why wouldn’t the above be a logical step in his extension of his “executive powers”?
Mark and Two Cats (6:31pm) says:
Bookmark that comment – – just might be uncomfortably prescient in the next 3 years.
Mark and Two Cats (6:31pm) says:
————————————————————————-
Struth. Would “the war on coal” fail to convince anyone?
Car & Driver magazine recently did a comparison test between a Tesla and a Ford Model T. That’s right; a Model T. I believe it was a 1910 version. It’s cold out and I’m curled up in bed so I’m going on memory (not good at my age) rather than getting out of bed to grab the magazine. Anyway, I believe the run was from Michigan to New Jersey. The only stops were for fuel (a few minutes for the Model T) or recharge (a few hours and a hotel room for the Tesla). 103 years of improvement to the electric car has now enabled it to beat a 104 year old gas car. The Tesla got to New Jersey 1-2 hours earlier. Whoopee!
I wrote about this some years ago: here http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/electric-cars/
What depresses me is that we had all this well researched and tried and tested forty years ago and along come some whizz kids who think they can bypass the laws of physics: well they can’t not for all their whirligigs etc.
Equally depressing of course is how advocates ignored and tried to disappear the sound climate science of forty years ago and replace it with a political agenda based on CO2 by corrupting good work to meet their ends..
Nothing new there of course, there are too many of such frauds over the years to list, and like all the others this one is dying: which does not mean it may not have few twitches in its tail.
It is the way of world I suppose but it is all very sad.
Kindest Regards
.
I would suggest that the money, cash and bank transactions, flows into Obama’s accounts, those in the USA and Kenya, as well as Switzerland needs careful accounting and a checks-n-balances approach against the IRS and Department Of Energy in regards to Obama’s “Benefits” needs to be actualized at once.
Obama is the Stoner-N-Chief and we need protection against his FUBARs!
Of course, the additional demand on the electric grid of some 102,000,000 electric autos* charging 16 hours out of every 24, coupled with the SCOAMF’s shutting down of power plants, won’t do anything detrimental to the price of electricity or anything.
*0.42 x 243million
I have been dying to ask a question about the range on hybrids and EV’s. I remember reading
that the Chevy Volt had a “Combined fuel economy” or some such term of 200+ MPG. Their
claim was that the car could go 40 miles on electricity alone. I read later that they were actually
getting between 25 to 35 miles per charge.
I also read that even the mileage of the Internal Combustion Engines on the hybrids was being
greatly exaggerated. So along comes Elon Musk, who claims 400 mile ranges on the highest
capacity battery with his Tesla. My question is this: Has Elon Musk managed to create a
Lithium Ion battery with power density several hundred percent more efficient than the Chevy
Volt?
If so, this would be earth shattering news. But I also read an account of an automotive
journalist who took a Tesla for a drive and the battery crapped out after about 60 miles.
This makes sense because there is a bit more room for the battery in a pure EV.
I am not an engineer, but someone on this site may be able to answer my question. There
is a lot of evidence that suggests that there is a whole lot of fraud going on around here,
and that is not even counting carbon credits, fake battery swaps, government subsidies,
power plant emissions, etc…
If this is a scam, it needs to exposed!
“Much ado was made by the auto press early last month when the Tesla Model S electric luxury sedan was the best-selling model in Norway in September. October’s figures are out, and last month’s volume tells a different story with 98 Model S deliveries, or 0.8 percent share of all passenger vehicle sales in the country that month…”
http://www.ibtimes.com/tesla-model-s-sales-norway-down-significantly-october-september-benefitted-pre-order-bump-1453974