Electric cars. Are they really green?

[foxy lady]

I was listening to the radio on my way home today and there was a discussion about energy efficient light bulbs.

 

A chap suggested that as 90% of the energy used by a normal light bulb is given out in heat , the central heating would have to compensate and thus offset the energy saving...

 

The expert conceded that this would be the case but as gas has only 1/4 of the carbon footprint of electricity, provided you had gas central heating, rather than electric, the bulbs would cause less polution.

 

However. If electricity has 4 times the carbon footprint of gas, then surely electric vehicles are 4 times more poluting than ones powered by gas. It is just that the polution happens at Ferry Bridge rather than Ecclesall Road. Gas is no more and no less efficient than running a car on petrol and less efficient than running a car on deisel.

 

So why are there these stupid concessions made to electric powered vehicles? Shouldn't we instead be seeking ways to make normal cars less damaging to the environment.

[Cynic]

The argument by supporters of electric cars is that the electricity can come from any source, it just happens to come from a source that makes pollution currently. I would think that many electric cars produced now will be ready for scrap before their energy comes from a clean source though, I don't know the counter argument to that.

[sharrowman]

The carbon footprint of a vehicle does not exist only in it's use of fuel, either the electric or the petrol driven. Raw materials extraction, processing and manufacture, delivery, storage, road building and repair must all be accounted for to arrive at a true life cycle cost. Additionally, focus has been on carbon footprint alone, but this is not the only damaging byproduct of producing cars and their associated infrastructure.

 

I would suggest that any concession to minimizing carbon footprint allowed by electric cars is soon swallowed up in the general growth of the automobile industry worldwide. Electric car marketing is largely greenwash.

[HeadingNorth]

I would suggest that any concession to minimizing carbon footprint allowed by electric cars is soon swallowed up in the general growth of the automobile industry worldwide.

 

 

That growth will happen anyway; growth of industry minus savings from switching to electric cars, is better than growth of industry minus nothing.

 

 

Most of the advantages of electric cars are not much to do with the carbon footprint, though; an electric battery does not pump out other pollutants onto the street for everyone to breathe in. The same logic that saw us eliminate lead from petrol, by extension, would eliminate petrol altogether and switch to a battery.

[truman]

That growth will happen anyway; growth of industry minus savings from switching to electric cars, is better than growth of industry minus nothing.

 

 

Most of the advantages of electric cars are not much to do with the carbon footprint, though; an electric battery does not pump out other pollutants onto the street for everyone to breathe in. The same logic that saw us eliminate lead from petrol, by extension, would eliminate petrol altogether and switch to a battery.

 

Do you think that the extra electricity needed to power a nation's transport can be created without "pumping out" other pollutants elsewhere?

[HeadingNorth]

Do you think that the extra electricity needed to power a nation's transport can be created without "pumping out" other pollutants elsewhere?

 

Moving them away from the street means people are not breathing them in; and it's both cheaper and easier to "clean" the exhaust of power stations than it is to do the same for every single car ever built. The net effect on the environment might well be zero, but that isn't, and wasn't, the reason for wanting to abolish the internal combustion engine. It will clean up the streets, and that is where you find people.

[sharrowman]

Heading North, there are no savings from electric cars. The manufacturing process is the same as for petrol cars, the energy source is simply dislocated from the vehicle. The noxious goodness is pumped out at drax rather than on high street. Or in other words - as Truman said.

[HeadingNorth]

Heading North, there are no savings from electric cars. The manufacturing process is the same as for petrol cars, the energy source is simply dislocated from the vehicle. The noxious goodness is pumped out at drax rather than on high street. Or in other words - as Truman said.

 

Or in other words - as I said myself. It removes the pollutants from the high street. Not many people are breathing the air 500 feet above Drax power station.

[truman]

Moving them away from the street means people are not breathing them in; and it's both cheaper and easier to "clean" the exhaust of power stations than it is to do the same for every single car ever built. The net effect on the environment might well be zero, but that isn't, and wasn't, the reason for wanting to abolish the internal combustion engine. It will clean up the streets, and that is where you find people.

 

So the pollution just goes over the North Sea to Norway/Sweden...?

[sharrowman]

Heading North, the wind carries fine particulates and a cocktail of pollutants from their source to our none to eager lungs. You know this. On any UK high street we can find dust from the Sahara desert. We can also find particulates from our own and any number of european power stations