Do electric cars really help the environment?
President Obama thinks so. So does Leonardo DiCaprio. And many others. The argument goes like this: Regular cars run on gasoline, a fossil fuel
that pumps CO2 straight out of the tailpipe and into the atmosphere. Electric cars run
on electricity. They don’t burn any gasoline at all. No gas; no CO2. In fact, electric
cars are often advertised as creating “zero emissions.” But do they really? Let’s
take a closer look. First, there’s the energy needed to produce
the car. More than a third of the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an electric
car comes from the energy used make the car itself, especially the battery. The mining
of lithium, for instance, is not a green activity. When an electric car rolls off the production
line, it’s already been responsible for more than 25,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide
emission. The amount for making a conventional car: just 16,000 pounds. But that’s not the end of the CO2 emissions.
Because while it’s true that electric cars don’t run on gasoline, they do run on electricity,
which, in the US is often produced by another fossil fuel -- coal. As green venture capitalist
Vinod Khosla likes to point out, "Electric cars are coal-powered cars." The most popular electric car, the Nissan
Leaf, over a 90,000-mile lifetime will emit 31 metric tons of CO2, based on emissions
from its production, its electricity consumption at average U.S. fuel mix and its ultimate
scrapping. A comparable Mercedes CDI A160 over a similar
lifetime will emit just 3 tons more across its production, diesel consumption and ultimate
scrapping. The results are similar for a top-line Tesla, the king of electric cars. It emits
about 44 tons, which is only 5 tons less than a similar Audi A7 Quattro. So throughout the full life of an electric
car, it will emit just three to five tons less CO2. In Europe, on its European Trading
System, it currently costs $7 to cut one ton of CO2. So the entire climate benefit of an
electric car is about $35. Yet the U.S. federal government essentially provides electric car
buyers with a subsidy of up to $7,500. Paying $7,500 for something you could get
for $35 is a very poor deal. And that doesn’t include the billions more in federal and state
grants, loans and tax write-offs that go directly to battery and electric-car makers. The other main benefit from electric cars
is supposed to be lower pollution. But remember Vinod Khosla’s observation "Electric cars
are coal-powered cars." Yes, it might be powered by coal, proponents
will say, but unlike the regular car, coal plant emissions are far away from the city
centers where most people live and where damage from air pollution is greatest. However, new
research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that while gasoline cars
pollute closer to home, coal-fired power actually pollutes more -- a lot more. How much more? Well, the researchers estimate that if the
U.S. has 10% more gasoline cars in 2020, 870 more people will die each year from the additional
air pollution. If the U.S. has 10% more electric vehicles powered on the average U.S. electricity
mix, 1,617 more people will die every year from the extra pollution. Twice as many. But of course electricity from renewables
like solar and wind creates energy for electric cars without CO2. Won’t the perceived rapid
ramp-up of these renewables make future electric cars much cleaner? Unfortunately, this is
mostly wishful thinking. Today, the U.S. gets 14% of its electric power from renewables.
In 25 years, Obama’s Energy Information Administration estimates that number will
have gone up just 3 percentage points to 17%. Meanwhile, those fossil fuels that generate
65% of U.S. electricity today will still generate about 64% of it in 2040. While electric-car owners may cruise around
feeling virtuous, the reality is that the electric car cuts almost no CO2, costs taxpayers
a fortune, and, surprisingly, generates more air pollution than traditional gasoline cars. I’m Bjørn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen
Consensus Center.
The TL;DR of it - this video's claims are basically a regurgitation of Bjørn Lomborg's claims from the WSJ article "Electric Cars Have a Dirty Little Secret". Most of that article leans on a 2012 article from the Journal of Industrial Ecology.
Hawkins et al's work was irredeemably flawed, because they made some extremely critical errors in their input assumptions, such as assuming a 1,000 kg motor for the Nissan Leaf, when it in fact has a 53 kg motor, and using battery manufacturing carbon debt values 3.6 times higher than in other recent studies. They also assumed a base case lifecycle of only 150,000 km, which is shorter than even the warranty on the electric cars' batteries.
He also references the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper 3 minutes into the video, which only looks at ozone and particulate matter to the exclusion of all others (especially CO2) to draw its misleading conclusions.
There's more misleading points - a lot more, in fact, but this is basically a five-minute Gish Gallop, and I don't have the time to rebut all the specific points in detail. The point is, the LCAs being cited are flawed for specific reasons, and contradict properly-done lifecycle analyses such as the UCLA's and Notter et al, which show that electric cars are, in fact, less harmful to the environment than normal cars.
EDIT: Found a Wayback Machine link to Lomborg's WSJ article to get around their paywall
39% of electricity in the US is coal-fueled. This number is on a downward trend. It should also be pointed out that generating electricity in singular locations is far more efficient than millions of un-tested/regulated ICEs - which are rarely inspected or running under ideal conditions.
This video is also ignorant of the ability to recycle batteries and their components. Can't do that with gas.
There's also a ton of subsidies for oil production - so his point that clean energy electrics get subsidies is moot.
If you're wondering about the slant of the producers of this video - check out their other videos like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC7ZU5vGPy0
Pretty simple:
Never believe a statistic or "official sounding youtube guy" if you haven't "gamed" or " falsified" the statistic yourself. 44 metric tonnes for a Tesla? He could have vomited any another comparable number and there would be no difference, without sufficient citations or references, as well as transparent data-analysis his words mean pretty much nothing to educated people.
The argument: Electric cars run on electricity => Electricity is made through Coal and Gas => Electric cars are not green. is plain old stupid. Reason#1: Efficiency of coal or gas electric plants is a lot higher than ICE. "energy" for an electric car is significantly more efficient and effective than the energy in an ICE car. Reason#2: Given renewable and completely new energy sources (FUSION!!!) the "Electric" hardware and software must be ready to catch on to this revolutionary breakthrough we will be making in 10-15 years. Reason #3: In the very beginning nothing is perfect => the car of ONE SINGLE CAR COMPANY won't be perfectly "green". It takes time and many iterations of something to be perfect. Same with ICE cars => they were shit a long time ago. Comparing technology that was ripened and optimised for decades versus technology that hasn't even been in the common market place for a decade is Hypocritical and narrow-minded. Reason #4: Tesla is a huge Incentive to innovate in a "utopian pure electric future". Such positive external effects are extremely hard to measure and will only become apparent through through analysis in the far-future. Reason#5: Vertical Integration relies less on foreign suppliers => less transportation via boat or plane => Boats and planes cause proportionally more harmful substances than cars => Tesla uses "less" => production is carbon more efficient than ICE production where components get sourced from places you haven't even heard of. Lithium Mining does suck. BUT you "only"do it once for a lifetime of energy use. Did this Youtube pantsy even bother to consider the Oil industry and their extreme externalities in his half-hearted and unfair calculations? i don't think so. Electric cars are the future. it takes time and is inertial.
;P
The guy's a long-time climate change denier with his own think-tank.
I mean even the anti-nuke Union of Concerned Scientists has better data and more robust conclusions. Worst-case scenario in the US, EVs are on par for CO2 emissions with reasonably efficient ICE cars. And that's the emissions from the power plant all the way to the EV, vs just the ICE car itself (rather than including any of the fuel refinement or transport).
Sheesh, I felt like I watched a conspiracy theory video. Many of the "facts" used in this video conveniently played to the narrative. Electric car nay-sayers will always bash the tech, how it's manufactured, etc. They fail to point out the gasoline powered cars are extremely inefficient based on "Thermal Efficiency. Most cars don't even get over 30% inefficiency. Toyota came out with a 38% efficient engine not too long ago but it's still not earth shatteringly efficient.
If you really want to win your challenge I would research thoroughly and clearly state how after everything is considered, electric cars are better now and for the future.
He isn't completely wrong, but some ridiculous assumptions are made like assuming a 90k lifespan (who scraps a car after 90k?) and going with a stupidly coal-heavy power mix with crazy low estimates on renewables. Read this report for a better overall investigation into ICE vs. BEV, although keep in mind that's the relatively renewable-heavy California energy mix.
To be clear, it does take significantly more energy to produce an electric car. It does involve lithium mining, which can be nasty for the environment. It does mean that in some specific cases, electric cars are the poorer choice, and it does mean that the net benefit it some places isn't terribly large. But it also assumes the worst in a lot of aspects with no possibility of improving.
The case for EVs isn't that they're way greener right now, it's that we can make them way greener. Take /u/stevejust for example, running an EV from rooftop solar panels for 200k will mean a hell of a lot less pollution than running a comparable ICE or even running an EV off a coal-heavy power mix. And if we clean up the grid, that net benefit overall gets better and better.
So tl;dr: it's twisted with the worst scenarios, and the biggest benefit is what we can do in the future.
You don't need much more coal to power electric cars as the power plants don't change how much power is generated based on demand. Obviously if the demand exceeds current output it will generate more but they won't change it if it goes up a little. Also the model s only releases carbon emissions once while standard cars emit them for the rest of their lives
If you're going to judge an electric car by the emissions of its power plant, you also have to judge an ICE vehicle by the emissions created by the exploration, pumping, refining and delivery of gasoline. Those tanker ships and tanker trucks that are moving all that dinosaur juice are polluting while they do it. Do we also consider the pollution generated building gas stations, when most EVs are charged at home?
Here's a much more mathematically-explained version: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1084440_does-the-tesla-model-s-electric-car-pollute-more-than-an-suv/page-4
On the electrical generation issue:
About 39% of US electricity is generated from Coal, and that number is falling rapidly (it was 44% in 2009). 27% is generated by Natural Gas, which generates significantly less emissions. The video assumes all of it is generated by coal.
Data: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3
Also, this video (and many skewed studies) ignore the amount of electricity it takes to refine a gallon of gasoline from oil. It takes about 6kW. This is a very significant difference. Source: http://gatewayev.org/how-much-electricity-is-used-refine-a-gallon-of-gasoline