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EV's And PHEV's Not As Green As One Might Think?

 
11 2,397 views October 19, 2009

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 A U.S. National Research Council report released on Monday concludes that in North America at least, "For electric vehicles to become a major green alternative, the power fuel mix has to move away from coal, or cleaner coal technologies have to be developed...".

According to Jared Cohan, chair of the council and president of Carnegie Mellon University, nuclear and renewable power would have to generate a larger portion of U.S. power for electric cars to become much greener compared to gasoline-powered cars.  He went on to say that Advances in coal burning, like capturing carbon at power plants for permanent burial underground, could also help electric cars become a cleaner alternative to vehicles powered by fossil fuels.

The NRC report, requested by the U.S. Congress in 2005 and sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, uses dollar figures as a metric to quantify "damage caused to human health, agriculture and recreation" by the fabrication and operation of various technologies.

Emissions from operating and building electric cars in 2005 cost from 0.20 cents to 15 cents per vehicle mile traveled, compared with from 0.34 cents to 5.04 cents per vehicle mile traveled for internal combustion vehicles.  The report projects that by 2030 electric cars could still cost more than gasoline-powered cars to operate and manufacture in 2030 unless U.S. power production becomes cleaner.

However, hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles with batteries that are charged by the driver hitting the brakes scored slightly better than both gasoline-powered cars and plug-in hybrid cars, which have batteries that are charged by the power grid.

[SOURCE: REUTERS]





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Comments (11)

  1. By DC Posted: 10/19/2009 11:06pm PDT

    Nice report, reads like something sponsered by Exxon and Chevron. Where to begin?, carbon capture=vapor, a hoax.Or lets not adapt electric cars untill the grid is all 'clean'(translation)- lets wait another 50 years till that happens. Greewash hybrids are better than EV or even PHEV?, what a suprise. Hybrids are powered by....Gas-o-line, of course they are "better". And why is the US treasury requesting reports on EV's anyhow? They are quaulifed to judge EV's now? We all know useing money soley to evaluate external costs is not only futile, but downright misleading. I see they dont factor in the massive amounts of artfical subsidies the US offers to the ICE dirty fuel indusrty for the last century. If americans knew and actually paid the real cost of their ICE vehicles, the entire industry would disappear faster than betamax, leaveing EV;s as the only sane and logical alternative
     
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  2. By russ Posted: 10/20/2009 12:33am PDT

    @DC - Sponsored by car companies when it hits them the hardest? What are you thinking about?
    I really don't expect the regeneration systems to be worth their while but we will see.
     
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  3. By russ Posted: 10/20/2009 12:35am PDT

    All hail the mighty europe!
    That may be the most silly headline of the month or year!
     
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  4. By Desertstraw Posted: 10/20/2009 4:41am PDT

    "Not As Green As One Might Think", how does the headline writer know what I think? Even with coal, electric cars are greener than any other kind of car. As time goes by, this country will undoubtedly go to renewable energy, primarily solar. Many people have the option today of installing solar panels and generating their auto fuel.By the way, your verification letters are too hard to read.
     
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  5. By ziv Posted: 10/20/2009 5:53am PDT

    BEV's being $0.15 to $0.20 for operating and building I can believe, tho it sounds just a bit high, but the ICE figures of $0.34 to $5.04 seem to have been gamed. What is the methodology that brought those numbers? I would bet the true range for ICE vehicles is more in the $0.50 to $3.00 range.
    Another report tailored to someones agenda.
     
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  6. By Verde Posted: 10/20/2009 7:04am PDT

    I give this article a usefulness rating somewhere in the range of 34 to 504 (based on 2005 numbers).
     
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  7. By Glenn Posted: 10/20/2009 1:22pm PDT

    "hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles with batteries that are charged by the driver hitting the brakes"
    The writers of this article have a clear bias. I think it is intended to 'educate' the non eco-minded public. The 'hitting the brakes' recharging comment makes it sound like regeneration is the primary way hybrids get the electricity they run on. It also implies that phev's don't use brake regeneration to recapture kinetic energy.
    And I would say that the early adopters of phev's and bev's are far more likely to already have installed or have plans for installing a system to generate their own elecricity, making transportation for them about as green as it gets.
     
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  8. By omnimoeish Posted: 10/20/2009 2:42pm PDT

    Yeah, I'm sure we'll all be glad we are still stuck burning 20 million barrels of oil a day when the price goes up to $200/barrel and its all going to fund Taliban regimes and other terrorist organizations and our economy and military totally falls apart because at least we won't be stuck using as much electricity as a refrigerator which is so bad for the environment.
    Who give a crap about Carbon Dioxide. We have to the end of time to let plants and forests suck that up, we have maybe 10 years before oil prices go to hell.
     
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  9. By Eletruk Posted: 10/20/2009 3:51pm PDT

    Does anybody even believe these stupid studies anymore? As soon as any come out they pretty much get promptly dismembered and repudiated. Well, let the gas/car mavens try throwing their money into propaganda, nobody's buying it.
     
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  10. By  Eric E Posted: 10/20/2009 6:29pm PDT

    I estimate the size of an underground CO2 storage facility for ONE 100MWe coal fired power plant operating for seven years to be approximately the size of twenty two thousand Boeing 747s.
    That's 22,000 Boeing 747s.
    Clean coal = My sh-t doesn't stink.
     
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  11. By Ken Grubb Posted: 10/27/2009 12:57pm PDT

    I think it's nearly impossible to claim that NAS is anti-environmental or that the report does not factor in Climate Change.
    Chapter 5 devotes 43 pages to Climate Change.
    http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12794
    The NAS does say clearly that anthropogenic climate change is occurring.
    http://www.nationalacademies.org/includes/G8Statement_Energy_07_May.pdf
    Furthermore, the NAS has a tremendous amount of info available online about Climate Change.
    http://americasclimatechoices.org/
     
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