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.
Anthony: The fact that you buy into this crap (electric cars) suggests to me that you are more political than scientific. Sad.
REPLY: The fact that you don’t know me or my specific motivation suggests you are more judgmental than studious. If you apologize, I’ll tell you. – Anthony
@ur momisugly KevinK says:
February 13, 2012 at 7:12 pm
The “greens” usually promote their ideas as “progress”. However, progress is often defined as simply replacing a historical or current problem with a more complex and harder to solve new problem. Many examples exist. The internet is one such, in many previously unforeseen ways, as we are discovering every day. EV’s and other such efforts to ‘improve’ things will no doubt meet the same fate, as we are currently discovering every day.
Oregonfarmer wrote;
”So let’s try one more approach. We install solar panels on our place and power our house and car batteries from the sun.”
I don’t know about you, BUT I REFUSE to wait for SUNNY days so I can drive into town to get food, medicine, and all those other things we consider modern. I could do better with a mule that will at least cooperate somewhat and take me into town on a cloudy day, although it may take some persuading with a 2 by 4.
Cheers, Kevin.
@Bruce
“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.”
That has been a focus for about one and a half years: the traditional ignition method does not work as well with coal as with wood. We found an 80% reduction in PM 2.5 was possible with a $1.00 change to the stove and a different lighting technique.
What has been a shock to everyone is that the coal, a wet lignite, does not have high inherent emissions at all. It is an extremely clean burning fuel. Power stations produce a lot of PM10 because they have fans lifting ash, not because of bad combustion. Domestic stoves with no fans produce virtually no PM1.0-PM2.5 let alone something as large as 10 microns. It is all sub-PM1.0.
Electric vehicles would clean up the downtown a bit but there is no excess generating capacity. Any new station will be lumbered with all sorts of very expensive emissions controls – even talk about a gasification plant. Big Money for contractors.
Smokey and Mac the Knife..
I think most bicyclists would gladly pay the proportionate fee of what their bike vs car wear and tear on the road would be, if motor vehicles gave bikes “equal rights” of the road. I don’t defend jerks who break the law, but there are those of us who ride on the road who do follow the law. In Illinois we just got a law changed that allows motorcycles and bicycles to go through a red light after waiting for 2 minutes since they are not heavy enough to trigger many interchanges. I can’t tell you how many times I have waited at lights for several minutes for a car to trigger the light…
Back to the proportionate fee, going under road design criteria, pavement damage caused by a particular load is roughly related to the load by about the power of 4. So a car being roughly 20 times heavier than a bike ( with rider ) to the power of 4 would mean a car does 160,000 times the damage to the pavement than a bike. So if you can specify exactly what fees you are paying to use the road that is being shared, I would gladly pay 1/160,000th. Oh and Toll Roads don’t count since we generally can’t use them.
I am also a strong supporter of user fees. So, if I am not using gas, shouldn’t need to pay gas taxes, but I would be willing to pay the proportionate amount that I use the road, which I already do since most road building monies other than fuel taxes come from general revenue…
Not quite and no. You have an internationally-recognized Metric system prefix incorrectly chosen for the desired multiplication factor*.
Or is it Ralph’s day to get to set the ‘standards’ (an offshoot of ‘opposite day’)?
*See and note the “Prefix” and “Symbol” relationships: http://www.chemteam.info/Metric/Metric-Prefixes.html Become educated, persuade more ppl to your POV using the correct terms and terminology, at least.
.
“…harmful particulate matter pollution…”
The post and most comments seem to accept adverse health effects as a proven fact. That, however, is debatable.
William M. Briggs has several excellent blog posts about dust (fine particulate matter) as it relates to alleged deaths caused by air pollution.
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?s=Fine+Particulate There are multiple posts with the most recent on top; anyone interested should start with the 9/13/11 item and work upward.
Jim G says:
February 13, 2012 at 10:31 am
> And I believe natural gass produces more water vapor than gasoline. So, if you
> believe in AGW, natural gas produces more GHG than gasoline as water vapor
> is a stronger GHG component.
Although water vapor causes more GHG effect than CO2 does, that is because
there is so much more water vapor vapor than CO2. Change in GHG effect
(in W/m^2) per change of PPM in the atmosphere change is greater with CO2 than
with water vapor.
Does this bear out using any of the the on-line MODTRAN calculators?
.
DocRock,
Nice try. But at least in the Peoples’ Soviet Socialist Republic of California, a 48 foot wide road has eight feet on each side reserved for bicycles. I’m sure it is not much different in gangsta Illinois. Since you are in favor of porportional use, you should agree that a 25% bicycle user fee is extremely generous.
All roads were originally paid for entirely by carbon belching automobiles, trucks, and buses. They still do their patriotic duty by emitting harmless, beneficial CO2 into the biosphere, where it greens the planet. So start paying your fair share for the portion of the roads now reserved for your personal use, and we’ll all be happy campers.
If you think I’m kidding about any of this, I’m not.
Seriously? Whilst I don’t like electric cars, I wonder if these people really did the Math.
Electric Cars – sources of PM = Excavators, Loaders,
Hall Trucks, Crushers, generators to drive conveyors, emissions from power plant (assuming coal fired power plant is next door to mine – if not then train, ships, whatever?
Motor Vehicles – sources of PM = genset for drill rigs, steel for pipeline, pumping for pipeline, shipping, refinery emissions, possibly more shipping, trucks for distribution, power generation to maintain and operate gas station.
The list is potentially endless and I wonder if this was done properly or just used estimates from AP-42.
You just might be surprised who the partners have been in the Smart car endeavor …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_3B2_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo#Second_generation_.28since_2007.29
.
Because not everyone is you. How far can you haul all that without wasting most of your day?
To my knowledge, most traffic lights which detect vehicles do so by an inductive loop embedded into the asphalt. There may be a few which are done via pressure, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across one. In cities they’re most likely just timer controlled.
Jeff Alberts:
Touché!
Jeff Alberts says:
February 13, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Correct sir, nowadays, altho’ even now an inductive loop can be insensitive to small vehicles, especially if they have little or no metal in their construction.
The previous technology of seventy years ago used a pneumatic trip across the road, which was weight sensitive, to detect demand and sometimes at very busy or fast junctions dual trips one well in advance of the other to vary the time delay were used to provide adequate warning of the lights turning red by extending the amber light duration to the fast traffic on the main road.
Temporary lights as used to protect road works and the like have used microwave radar instead of a temporary pneumatic trip for at least fifty years. In the UK anyway.
Kindest Regards.
In regard to this comment of mine
Dave Wendt says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:53 pm
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.
I had a brain fart on that one, based i think on misremembering this graph
http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/dem_image_us_cons_sector.htm
The actual percentage of oil consumption by the transportation sector is more like 2/3rds, although there are recent indications of a serious decline in gasoline usage. Refinery deliveries for Nov ’11 were down 40+% from July ’08. At any rate, I apologize for my error.
Dave Wendt says:
February 13, 2012 at 1:53 pm
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.
10% is a major savings. This would reduce global oil demand by at least 1.5%,
and that will move oil prices downward. I think 7% is more realistic – and still very
significant.
USA energy consumption, even specifically oil consumption and electricity
consumption, breaks down into so many different ways that changing one
item will only reduce total consumption by a few percent or less. In order to
cut USA consumption of energy or a specific fossil fuel by so much as 1/3,
a multi-front assault must be applied to a wide range of areas where
consumption can be reduced.
Electric heat is a energy consumption factor that can be reduced by using
heat pumps (with any necessary supplemental heat) where they work well, or
by using oil/gas heat where the electricity is mostly from oil/gas. (Generation
efficiency for oil and gas electricity is mostly ~45%, and there are transmission
and distribution losses.) Doing this can reduce national electricity consumption
a few percent and fossil fuel consumption a couple maybe a few percent.
Electricity consumption can be reduced a couple more percent if people were
aggressive about having lower power consumption refrigerators, and a couple
percent lower still if home lighting used the most energy-efficient lamp types that
are appropriate and economical.
If car automatic transmissions were manual ones operated by robots, gasoline
consumption would decrease a few percent and petroleum consumption would
decrease at least a couple percent. If people wore sweaters or other warm
clothes so that they can turn their thermostats down to 60-62 F in daytime
during heating season, that can reduce national energy consumption another
couple percent. If Amercans could dress like most American Samoans in
summertime, that would reduce air conditioning needs by several percent and
national total energy consumption by a couple percent.
Lots of little things add up!
Garry says:
February 13, 2012 at 3:17 pm
> 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.
And why can’t an American buy a new non-hybrid car with 44 MPG?
Also, in recent years, car ads mentioning MPG are mentioning the “highway
MPG”, and even for that nowadays in America ~40 is about the limit. Back in
the ’90’s and “80’s and late ’70’s, car ads mentioning MPG had to mention a
city/highway combined MPG or city and highway separately, depending on
regulations at that time, although they were permitted to mention the
highway MPG. Lately, it appears to me thay they are allowed to mention only
the highway MPG.
I even heard of some USA-available gasoline-powered cars around 1980 and
in the early 1980’s achieving 40 MPG highway, with essentially no improvement
from that in about 30 years. What’s up with that?
The only actual take-away from the article is that coal plants in China, especially old ones, generate lots of particulate matter.
Yawn.
I built my own electric vehicle, driven it for 3 years, and my utility allows me to buy all renewable energy for my electricity. Shocker: there are no emissions. My lead acid batteries are 97% recyclable.
I say, have China’s government or its rare earth elements mining industry
subsidize nearby homeowners and farmers to move elsewhere. Put the cost
of that into the cost of producing rare earth elements and their products.
This is only spoiling a couple hundred or a few hundred square km of semi-arid
land in the “temporate zone” (where the weather has a temper). And, this rare
earth industry supports wind turbines, magnets for hard drives, headphones and
some loudspeakers, and the phosphors used in nearly all CFLs and 4-foot (1.2
meter) T8 (25-26 mm diameter) fluorescent lamps, and many other things.
Even if this industry spoils 500 or a thousand square km, out of the roughly
130 million square km of land on our world, I think this is worthwhile. I propose
merely to have the cost of products from this spoiled area to include the cost of
moving affected homeowners and farmers to elsewhere. And, land in Mongolia
is cheap.
No, your utility charges you a premium simply because you allow them to. You get the same electricity as all of your neighbors. Sucker.
From Resourceguy on February 13, 2012 at 10:01 am:
He already has solar panels installed on his house. If he’s charging the car at his house, doesn’t that already qualify as using a “solar charging unit”?
On your third electric car? You must be mad. You should have learnt the lesson with the first. Is this wishful thinking over objectivity?