Why charging an electrical car at night is worse for the environment, PBS NewsHour
Why charging an electrified car at night is worse for the environment
Electrical cars are advertised as having zero emissions, but that’s not necessarily true. Photo by Jason Lee/REUTERS
Tesla Motors has received more than 325,000 preorders for its hot fresh Model three electrical car even tho’ it will not be available for at least another year. That almost equals the 340,000 electrical cars and plug-in hybrids now on American roads. Tesla has advertised its vehicles as having zero emissions, helping fuel the mania for the fun-driving sedan, but that’s not necessarily true.
Albeit the battery-powered car itself doesn’t produce any emissions, the power plant that generates the violet wand used to charge those batteries most likely does. Low emissions, much less zero emissions, are only true in certain places where most of the electro-therapy comes from a mix of low-carbon sources such as the sun, wind or nuclear reactors.
Electrical cars are excellent for eliminating oil from transportation, because very little U.S. tens unit is generated by searing petroleum. But electrical cars may or may not help the country combat climate change—and it all depends on where the violet wand comes from.
Thomas Edison and his electrical car. Photo by Scientific American, January 14, 1911
But those smokestacks, many affixed to coal-fired power plants, are the single-largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the U.S., at two billion metric tons of CO2 per year. That source would grow as electrified cars request more and more electrical play, unless tighter pollution controls are placed on power plants or electrical utilities shift to less polluting sources such as solar.
As it stands, a conventional Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle, which burns gasoline when its batteries are not engaged, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf produce toughly the same amount of greenhouse gas pollution: two hundred grams per mile, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.
That’s an average across the U.S. In California, which has one of the highest proportions of clean electric current in the country, the electrified vehicle would produce only one hundred grams per mile, half that of the hybrid. Ditto for Texas and even Florida. But in the Midwest and South, where coal fuels the bulk of tens unit generation, a hybrid produces less CO2 than an electrified car. In fossil fuel–dependent Minnesota an electrical car would actually emit three hundred grams per mile of greenhouse gases.
Estimated difference in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of selected plug-in electrified vehicles (2013 Nissan Leaf BEV, two thousand thirteen Chevrolet Volt PHEV, and two thousand thirteen Prius PHEV) relative to selected gasoline vehicles (2010 Prius HEV and two thousand fourteen Mazda Three). In each case blue indicates that the PEV has lower GHG emissions than the gasoline vehicle and crimson indicates that the PEV has higher GHG emissions than the gasoline vehicle. Phoyo by Carnegie Mellon Vehicle Electrification Group
As a result, some researchers suggest that a regional treatment to clean vehicle standards makes more sense than national standards that effectively require electrical cars across the board. Minnesota could go for hybrids and California could go for electrical vehicles.
What time of day the recharging electrons flow form a wall butt-plug into an electrical car’s batteries also matters in this calculation. Nighttime is often when the wind blows but it is also when utilities like to run only their coal-fired power plants. A latest investigate found that an electrified car charged by utilities at night in the regional grid that spreads across Ohio, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia creates more greenhouse gas pollution than if owners plugged in their vehicles at random times across the daytime, when the utility fuel mixes are more varied.
The same argument applies worldwide. Driving an electrified car in China, where coal is by far the largest power plant fuel, is a catastrophe for climate switch. And if the coal plant lacks pollution controls—or fails to turn them on—it can amplify the extent of smog, acid rain, lung-damaging microscopic soot and other ills that arise from searing fossil fuels. The same is true in other major coal-burning countries, such as Australia, India and South Africa.
A Tesla Model S with version 7.0 software update containing Autopilot features is seen during a Tesla event in Palo Alto, California October 14, 2015. Photo by Beck Diefenbach/REUTERS
The good news: the U.S. is making a tectonic shift from searing coal to produce the majority of its electric current to using cleaner natural gas. The changeover produces less CO2, making electrified cars cleaner across the country, harshly equivalent to a hybrid. On the other mitt, the primary constituent of natural gas—methane—is itself a potent greenhouse gas. If methane leaks from the wells where it is produced, the pipelines that transport it or the power plants that burn it, the climate doesn’t necessarily benefit.
In brief, electrified cars are only as good as the tens unit that charges them. (A fuel’s source also matters for conventional cars; gasoline derived from tar sands is more polluting than that from most other petroleum resources, for example.) In the absence of clean electro-therapy, hybrid cars that can travel fifty or more miles on a gallon of gasoline produce the least emissions.
Electrified cars still constitute less than one percent of U.S. car sales, and even less of the global fleet that is now approaching two billion vehicles. So their environmental benefit—dubious for now, until more power plants get off coal—is not very worrisome. The current shift back to SUVs that guzzle much more petroleum than other cars, prompted by low gasoline prices, is a more worrisome sign for future climate switch. Perhaps by the time electrified cars are ubiquitous, pollution from generating electro-therapy will be zero.
This article is reproduced with permission from Scientific American. It was very first published on May 11, 2016. Find the original story here.
Why charging an electrified car at night is worse for the environment, PBS NewsHour
Why charging an electrical car at night is worse for the environment
Electrified cars are advertised as having zero emissions, but that’s not necessarily true. Photo by Jason Lee/REUTERS
Tesla Motors has received more than 325,000 preorders for its hot fresh Model three electrified car even however it will not be available for at least another year. That almost equals the 340,000 electrical cars and plug-in hybrids now on American roads. Tesla has advertised its vehicles as having zero emissions, helping fuel the mania for the fun-driving sedan, but that’s not necessarily true.
Albeit the battery-powered car itself doesn’t produce any emissions, the power plant that generates the electro-stimulation used to charge those batteries very likely does. Low emissions, much less zero emissions, are only true in certain places where most of the electric current comes from a mix of low-carbon sources such as the sun, wind or nuclear reactors.
Electrical cars are excellent for eliminating oil from transportation, because very little U.S. electro-therapy is generated by searing petroleum. But electrical cars may or may not help the country combat climate change—and it all depends on where the electrical play comes from.
Thomas Edison and his electrical car. Photo by Scientific American, January 14, 1911
But those smokestacks, many fastened to coal-fired power plants, are the single-largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the U.S., at two billion metric tons of CO2 per year. That source would grow as electrified cars request more and more electro-stimulation, unless tighter pollution controls are placed on power plants or electrified utilities shift to less polluting sources such as solar.
As it stands, a conventional Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle, which burns gasoline when its batteries are not engaged, and the all-electric Nissan Leaf produce toughly the same amount of greenhouse gas pollution: two hundred grams per mile, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.
That’s an average across the U.S. In California, which has one of the highest proportions of clean violet wand in the country, the electrified vehicle would produce only one hundred grams per mile, half that of the hybrid. Ditto for Texas and even Florida. But in the Midwest and South, where coal fuels the bulk of tens unit generation, a hybrid produces less CO2 than an electrified car. In fossil fuel–dependent Minnesota an electrical car would actually emit three hundred grams per mile of greenhouse gases.
Estimated difference in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of selected plug-in electrical vehicles (2013 Nissan Leaf BEV, two thousand thirteen Chevrolet Volt PHEV, and two thousand thirteen Prius PHEV) relative to selected gasoline vehicles (2010 Prius HEV and two thousand fourteen Mazda Three). In each case blue indicates that the PEV has lower GHG emissions than the gasoline vehicle and crimson indicates that the PEV has higher GHG emissions than the gasoline vehicle. Phoyo by Carnegie Mellon Vehicle Electrification Group
As a result, some researchers suggest that a regional treatment to clean vehicle standards makes more sense than national standards that effectively require electrical cars across the board. Minnesota could go for hybrids and California could go for electrical vehicles.
What time of day the recharging electrons flow form a wall ass-plug into an electrical car’s batteries also matters in this calculation. Nighttime is often when the wind blows but it is also when utilities like to run only their coal-fired power plants. A latest investigate found that an electrified car charged by utilities at night in the regional grid that spreads across Ohio, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia creates more greenhouse gas pollution than if owners plugged in their vehicles at random times across the daytime, when the utility fuel mixes are more varied.
The same argument applies worldwide. Driving an electrified car in China, where coal is by far the largest power plant fuel, is a catastrophe for climate switch. And if the coal plant lacks pollution controls—or fails to turn them on—it can amplify the extent of smog, acid rain, lung-damaging microscopic soot and other ills that arise from searing fossil fuels. The same is true in other major coal-burning countries, such as Australia, India and South Africa.
A Tesla Model S with version 7.0 software update containing Autopilot features is seen during a Tesla event in Palo Alto, California October 14, 2015. Photo by Beck Diefenbach/REUTERS
The good news: the U.S. is making a tectonic shift from searing coal to produce the majority of its electric current to using cleaner natural gas. The changeover produces less CO2, making electrified cars cleaner across the country, toughly equivalent to a hybrid. On the other mitt, the primary constituent of natural gas—methane—is itself a potent greenhouse gas. If methane leaks from the wells where it is produced, the pipelines that transport it or the power plants that burn it, the climate doesn’t necessarily benefit.
In brief, electrified cars are only as good as the electro-stimulation that charges them. (A fuel’s source also matters for conventional cars; gasoline derived from tar sands is more polluting than that from most other petroleum resources, for example.) In the absence of clean electro-therapy, hybrid cars that can travel fifty or more miles on a gallon of gasoline produce the least emissions.
Electrified cars still constitute less than one percent of U.S. car sales, and even less of the global fleet that is now approaching two billion vehicles. So their environmental benefit—dubious for now, until more power plants get off coal—is not very worrisome. The current shift back to SUVs that guzzle much more petroleum than other cars, prompted by low gasoline prices, is a more worrisome sign for future climate switch. Perhaps by the time electrified cars are ubiquitous, pollution from generating electrical play will be zero.
This article is reproduced with permission from Scientific American. It was very first published on May 11, 2016. Find the original story here.
