From the University of Tennessee at Knoxville comes this surprising bit of research. Taken in entirety, and electric vehicle has a greater impact on pollution than a comparable gasoline vehicle. Full disclosure – I own an electric car myself. I’m actually on my third one, shown below, made in China:
UT researchers find China’s pollution related to E-cars may be more harmful than gasoline cars
Electric cars have been heralded as environmentally friendly, but findings from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, researchers show that electric cars in China have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than gasoline vehicles.
Chris Cherry, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, and graduate student Shuguang Ji, analyzed the emissions and environmental health impacts of five vehicle technologies in 34 major Chinese cities, focusing on dangerous fine particles. What Cherry and his team found defies conventional logic: electric cars cause much more overall harmful particulate matter pollution than gasoline cars.
“An implicit assumption has been that air quality and health impacts are lower for electric vehicles than for conventional vehicles,” Cherry said. “Our findings challenge that by comparing what is emitted by vehicle use to what people are actually exposed to. Prior studies have only examined environmental impacts by comparing emission factors or greenhouse gas emissions.”
Particulate matter includes acids, organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust particles. It is also generated through the combustion of fossil fuels.
For electric vehicles, combustion emissions occur where electricity is generated rather than where the vehicle is used. In China, 85 percent of electricity production is from fossil fuels, about 90 percent of that is from coal. The authors discovered that the power generated in China to operate electric vehicles emit fine particles at a much higher rate than gasoline vehicles. However, because the emissions related to the electric vehicles often come from power plants located away from population centers, people breathe in the emissions a lower rate than they do emissions from conventional vehicles.
Still, the rate isn’t low enough to level the playing field between the vehicles. In terms of air pollution impacts, electric cars are more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled in China than conventional vehicles.
“The study emphasizes that electric vehicles are attractive if they are powered by a clean energy source,” Cherry said.”In China and elsewhere, it is important to focus on deploying electric vehicles in cities with cleaner electricity generation and focusing on improving emissions controls in higher polluting power sectors.”
The researchers estimated health impacts in China using overall emission data and emission rates from literature for five vehicle types—gasoline and diesel cars, diesel buses, e-bikes and e-cars—and then calculated the proportion of emissions inhaled by the population.
E-cars’ impact was lower than diesel cars but equal to diesel buses. E-bikes yielded the lowest environmental health impacts per passenger per kilometer.
“Our calculations show that an increase in electric bike usage improves air quality and environmental health by displacing the use of other more polluting modes of transportation,” Cherry said. “E-bikes, which are battery-powered, continue to be an environmentally friendly and efficient mode of transportation.”
The findings also highlight the importance of considering exposures and the proximity of emissions to people when evaluating environmental health impacts for electric vehicles. They also illuminate the distributional impact of moving pollution out of cities. For electric vehicles, about half of the urban emissions are inhaled by rural populations, who generally have lower incomes.
The findings are published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Cherry worked with Matthew Bechle and Julian Marshall from the University of Minnesota and Ye Wu from Tsinghua University in Beijing. The scientists conducted their study in China because of the popularity of e-bikes and e-cars and the country’s rapid growth. Electric vehicles in China outnumber conventional vehicles 2:1. E-bikes in China are the single largest adoption of alternative fuel vehicles in history, with over 100 million vehicles purchased in the past decade, more than all other countries combined.
This study is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. The prestigious CAREER award supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Cherry received his award in 2011.
Solar energy plus CO2 plus water are plant foods that made petroleum oil during million of years.
I drive an oxygen plus gasoline powered crossover car big enough for two telescopes and two astronomers, or family and groceries even on a rainy or cold day.
I think it would make no sense trading my $25K transportation for a $40K alternative contraption that will last less and/or get us killed even in a small crash.
Lithium exporters are more friendly than oil exporters. Besides, we can also use NiMH.
What fossil fuels aren’t we allowed to use for automobiles?
@Bruce
The analysis of PM2.5 in Beijing article: the profile has changed quite a bit since then. There is a simlar study for Ulaanbaatar which has much higher PM numbers, showing the attribution to source varies a lot across the city.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTMONGOLIA/Resources/Air_pollution_final_report.pdf
See especially the work of Prof Lodoysamba on PM measurement, real time analysis and source attribution.
One district in UB is 600 micrograms per cubic as the annual average (!) and there is basically none in summer so you can imagine what winter is like.
The change in Beijing since 2000 was I think attributable to a large scale switch to propane in the city. The urban coal combustion in China is done in poorly designed stoves/devices so the combustion efficiency is not good. As with UB, domestic fuel is much worse than power stations. In Ulaanbaatar there are three coal-fired power plants but they contribute nearly nothing to the PM2.5 number as they are correctly vented. Well, the big station is, above the inversion layer.
Electric vehicles would in the case of Mongolia help urban exposure to PM2.5 because it would replace smoky 1983-88 Hyundai taxis that are kept going forever. Vehicles and fugitive dust are major PM2.5 sources downtown.
Whatever happened to the steam powered car a British inventor developed in the 70s ?
He put a steam engine powered by kerosene into a sports car – a Triumph I think.
It got phenomenal mileage, had performance that was more than a match for contemporary moderate gasoline engines and only required a short “warm up” time, and of course emissions from a complete burn are far less than from internal combustion.
Saw it once on a TV show – The Inventors in Aus. I think – never heard of it again.
Also saw an invention of a self cooling beer can – compressed air in a layer between the can outer and inner layer is released when the ring pull is lifted cooling the beer (or whatever liquid).
Brilliant idea – I presume one of the refrigeration companies bought the patent and shelved it – who would need ice or fridges for beer if that one caught on ?
I agree. I think electric vehicles only makes sense to replace the second family car for commuting at first. If they are successful than they could probably replace enough vehicles to reduce oil consumption by 25% or so. I think that would be huge.
vboring: “Is it cheaper to control particulate emissions from a few hundred coal plants or several million cars?”
93% of particulate emissions in Beijing are NOT from coal.
Most of the coal particulate emissions are from coal burned in the HOME, not power plants,
“The major sources of PM2.5 mass in Beijing averaged over five sites on an annual basis were determined as dust (20%), secondary sulfate (17%), secondary nitrate (10%), coal combustion (7%), diesel and gasoline exhaust (7%), secondary ammonium (6%), biomass aerosol
(6%), cigarette smoke (1%), and vegetative detritus (1%)”
“The coal profile was obtained from the analysis of direct emissions from the burning of Datong coal in a small cooking oven in a house in Yungang, China, which were collected by placing the inlet of the sampler into the diluted smoke plume.”
http://mzheng.eas.gatech.edu/ZBJ05.pdf
Go ahead. Tell China to squander billions for no damn good reason. Better to pretend to do good and feel smug than to do actual good.
@Crispin.
Thanks. I’ll bookmark.
“A large share of the PM10 concentrations
come from these wintertime peaks that may
correspond to the cold start ignition and reloading
phases for heating stoves combined with
the poor meteorological dispersion conditions at
those hours. There is an indication that, as a
short-term measure, significant reductions in
emissions can be achieved from changing the
way raw coal is lighted for heating.”
“The main sources of the high ground level
PM concentrations in UB are the approximate
130,000 Ger household (2007) heating systems
(stoves, heating walls and coal water heaters) that
use raw coal and wood for heating and cooking,
the about 250 HOBs in the city using raw coal,
and the suspension of dry dust from paved and
unpaved roads and other surfaces.”
wobble says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:42 pm
“I agree. I think electric vehicles only makes sense to replace the second family car for commuting at first. If they are successful than they could probably replace enough vehicles to reduce oil consumption by 25% or so. I think that would be huge.”
Transportation fuels are less than half of oil consumption nationally, about 41% last time I checked, but that was several years ago. Even in the unlikely prospect that EVs could replace 25% of transportation usage, it would only be about 10% of the total.
It takes about 6mWh of electricity to refine 1 gallon of gasoline. That will power an electric car about 20 miles. Just another case of the pot calling the kettle black.
On an EROEI basis electric cars are worse than gasoline powered cars.
However, the pollution study in question is probably scewed, because the emissions controls on American coal fired power plants are much superior to those in China.
So, if another study was made comparing electric cars using American coal fired power plants as a generation source, perhaps the electrics would come out on top of gasoline powered cars on a pollution basis.
Ralph says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:54 pm
It takes about 6mWh of electricity to refine 1 gallon of gasoline. That will power an electric car about 20 miles. Just another case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Justify that claim.
With real numbers.
Ralph says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:54 pm
It takes about 6mWh of electricity to refine 1 gallon of gasoline. That will power an electric car about 20 miles. Just another case of the pot calling the kettle black.
———————–
How about a source for this. Anyway 6 milli-watt isn’t a lot of electricity. and 6 milli-watt hour is a measurement of capacity.
Really!!?? Shirley you gest … How hugh?
‘Under load’ losses or static losses?
Got any ‘numbers’?
Do you understand the history and theory of transmission and distribution?
.
mWh=megawatt Hour.
Six milli-Watt Hours? Approximately 20.4 Btu?
Are you a little low in your guestimate?
tommoriarty February 13, 2012 at 8:19 am: “when the price of gasoline (in constant dollars) goes high enough, then we will see less expensive gas efficient cars on the market”
In 1983, my VW Rabbit Diesel got 44 MPG. Isn’t that about the same as the “revolutionary” Toyota Prius?
It was a great car until someone hit it.
Where are the Mercedes lawyers when you them? Your car is a blatant Smart rip-off 🙂
Ralph,
Environmental Protection Agency claims Nissan Leaf EV will utilize 34 kWh/100 miles. Therefore 6.8 kWh of capacity is utilized for 20 miles. (6.8KWh = 6800000 mWh – BTW).
The EV forums are bandieing about the figure that 1 gallon of gas requires 6 KWh of electricity to refine. The typical retail cost of electricity is $.15/KWh so I’m a tad skeptical of this figure. I’m going to see if I can find some figures from the refiners.
Anyway an EV owner that charges a car battery with 6 KWh worth of capacity has utilized more than 6 KWh worth of energy because of the conversion and line loss.
Yaaaaawwwn. I have always asked myself where the heck electric vehicles mostly get their electricity from???
Furthermore, wind turbine production creates a toxic lake in China. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. ;O)
Will there be more green lakes like this. And yes I mean GREEN. ;>(
Here’s my favorite electric vehicle: http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php
US EPA claims 114 mile range on its 9 KWh battery, but that’s puttering around town. In real-world freeway driving it’s more like 60 miles range on approx $1 of electricity. Top speed is only 88 mph, but that’s because the electric motor redlines and it has a 1-speed transmission. It’s kinda pricey at $13,500 but you don’t pay road tax on electricity. [Insert rant here about electric vehicles not paying for road maintenance] In comparison, my Honda 599 gets 42 mpg, which is about 8 times the fuel cost of the electric.
When I studied chemical engineering in the late 70’s, the usual figure was that approximately 25-30% of the fuel value of a barrel of oil was consumed in its refining. That’s ballpark, and a lot depends on the source of the crude and your product breakdown. And refineries have boosted efficiencies by 30-40% since then. The rest is left as an exercise for the student ;-).
So let’s try one more approach. We install solar panels on our place and power our house and car batteries from the sun. The panels have a lifetime but no one is sure what it is yet. The batteries have a lifetime but that depends directly on which type of battery we choose to charge. No particulates as a result of this approach but some reuse and recycle challenges.
Is anything perfect? No.
Cute little baby car, Anthony – where do you insert the wind-up key? ;-p
Has anyone honest worked out the raw fuel to miles covered efficiency of pure electric vehicles? I doubt it is that high, you have the generating loss of efficiency, the transmission losses, the transforming losses to home voltage and then the losses in the charging device, then the losses in the vehicle itself, I expect that the first loss will be less than a gas powered car but when the others are compounded it will be very poor.
Try costing heating your home with electricity and then natural gas, I did long ago, sure the storage heaters are 100% efficient but the rest of the system is way off that and the 90% efficient gas system was less than half the running cost and the home was warm at 10PM!
Old news….. It has been known for quite a while that adding inefficiencies into any type of power train (i.e. AC transmission losses, heating of batteries while charging, charger inefficiencies (~95%), etc) only causes more “fossil” fueled energy to be WASTED ! And this of course creates more nasty by-products that come along with the burning of “fossil” fuels (i.e. soot, oxides, etc.)
There are two very good engineering (i.e. pratical) reasons that the petroleum distillate internal combustion engine won the whole “electric car” versus “ICE car” debate about a century ago;
1) The ICE is more efficient because there are fewer process steps between the combustion and propulsion actions. The inefficiency of each additional step multiplies. So, even if you can make all the steps 99% efficient (unlikely in the real world) you pretty quickly get 99% * 99% * 99% * 99% = 96% (plus some change) total efficiency. In the real world where an efficiency of 95% has been “state of the art” for decades this becomes 95% * 95% * 95% * 95%= 81% (plus a little change). It’s simple really, ADDED STEPS ALWAYS EQUALS LOWER TOTAL EFFICIENCY.
2) The ”fueling infrastructure” problem is unlikely to be solved no matter how much money we throw at it. The electrical transmission system here in the US started between Buffalo NY and Niagara Falls NY a little over 100 years ago. So, if it took us over a century to light most homes and provide heat, refrigeration, AC, etc. how long would it take to build enough power lines to recharge everybody’s car? With an ICE car you can always take enough fuel along (assuming a big enough tank(s)) to get to your destination sans infrastructure. It worked for General Patton while driving through France and Germany back in 45.
The “electric car” is a solution desperately in search of a “problem” to solve.
Cheers, Kevin.