Electric and hybrid cars are often promoted as a partial solution to help reduce carbon emissions and decrease global warming. While it is true that increasing the mileage of cars and reducing the amount of fuel burned are both helpful, it is still unclear that the use of electric cars en masse is significantly helpful, if not somewhat damaging.
First of all, replacing the entire fleet of gasoline and diesel powered cars would take decades, and the energy and materials cost of manufacturing so many cars would be massive. It is by no means clear that this would result in a net reduction of energy use or greenhouse gas emissions. The gains from low emission automobiles would have to be balanced with the massive emissions generated in the production of so many cars, including the extraction and transportation of the raw resources, and the industrial processes of their manufacture. This includes not just the cars themselves, of course, but also their batteries.
A second issue is that while the electric cars themselves may not generate emissions, the energy used to charge them comes from the general electric grid, which is largely powered by coal or natural gas burning plants which produce massive emissions. Coal alone accounts for about half of all electricity production. Some does come from nuclear or hydroelectric sources, but neither of these sources can be increased rapidly (and there is a large debate over whether nuclear should be increased at all.)
Another problem with electric cars and hybrids is that many of them cost far too much money to be widely used, with the cost of the batteries (both to replace and dispose of) making this worse. I pointed out a particularly bad example a few days ago. Even worse is that many hybrids don't provide particularly good mileage compared to other similar gasoline or diesel powered vehicles. There already exist many small affordable vehicles (gasoline or diesel) that can provide better mileage than hybrids. The technology already exists to make cars with mileage as high as 100 MPG. This can be done using existing plants, without requiring extensive new technology or retooling. Even better, it is possible to convert many existing vehicles to have much higher mileage, which removes the need to manufacture as many new cars.
The idea of using electric cars on a large scale is also based on the idea of maintaining (or even expanding) the existing system of highways and roads. This system requires a massive amount of resources and energy to maintain. A great deal of fossil fuels are needed to build and maintain these roads, and the asphalt itself is composed of oil-based products. This is a hugely wasteful and inefficient system of transportation. While this system cannot be eliminated anytime in the near future, new construction can be halted and the system can be scaled back, allowing maintenance to focus on a smaller area.
In order to compensate for the above, electrified rail, which is one of the most energy-efficient transportation methods, can be expanded both for cargo and passenger transportation. Eventually this can be used to eliminate the use of most long haul trucking. Not only would this reduce emissions in itself, it would reduce damage to roads and highways, dramatically decreasing the the maintenance required. Trucks would still be required on a local level, however, to transport goods to and from local train depots. For passengers, expanding public transportation can help provide a link from the rail network to local destinations.
The main point here is that electric and hybrid cars are not a mass solution, but that doesn't mean they are useless. In fact, electric cars can provide a great benefit. Lightweight efficient electric trucks can be used to replace gasoline or diesel trucks for local delivery of goods to warehouses and to and from train depots. Other smaller vehicles can be used for local delivery to homes, especially if their routes and schedules are designed to maximize efficiency. This can often be much more energy efficient than having many individuals each use personal vehicles to drive to stores to buy products. On the personal level, small electric vehicles can also be used for local transportation in an urban or rural setting where public transportation is lacking or impractical. For shorter distances, electric bicycles can also fill an important niche.
We should continue to develop and improve the technology for building efficient, long lasting, and easily recyclable electric cars. They can serve a very important role in helping to reduce emissions, other types of pollution and general energy use. This smaller scale use of electric vehicles makes it much easier and more practical to use renewable energy sources, such as wind, or small-scale hydroelectric, to charge these vehicles. But the idea of replacing gas-powered cars with electric ones on a one-to-one basis, leaving the existing road system intact, is counter-productive and environmentally destructive.
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11 comments:
"First of all, replacing the entire fleet of gasoline and diesel powered cars would take decades, and the energy and materials cost of manufacturing so many cars would be massive. "
The energy and material cost would be the same! because cars will be made anyway.
"It is by no means clear that this would result in a net reduction of energy use or greenhouse gas emissions. The gains from low emission automobiles would have to be balanced with the massive emissions generated in the production of so many cars, including the extraction and transportation of the raw resources, and the industrial processes of their manufacture. This includes not just the cars themselves, of course, but also their batteries."
The emissions would be no greater than the current emissions and future emissions that already exist with current car production. You seem to believe that MORE cars are going to be made. What about maintaining the status quo. I have a petrol car, and it lasts for another 5 years, then I scrap it because it cannot be fixed. I then buy an electric car. I don't - own my petrol car and get rid of it in order to buy an electric car. That would be a waste of resources and energy. We are talking about a change that is going to take decades not instantly. Your first point is wrong
Funny, you don't detail how much the environment will suffer by the contruction of lightweight electrified rail system, nor do you detail how that rail system is powered!
Baz,
Regarding replacing the fleet of cars, the main point is that we cannot afford to replace the current fleet, either by electric cars or standard cars because of the resources and time required. In 20 years or so we will need to have reduced emissions by quite a bit to avoid several problems. Also, electric cars would likely require somewhat more resources because of the extra resources required for the batteries.
As for electrified rail, yes, that electrcity would come from the electric grid, which might even include coal-powered plants. It doesn't matter though, because the efficiency of electrified rail is so high, you can transport people and cargo using several times less fuel than you would using trucks and cars. The total energy required for transportation is much less with electrified rail (or even regular rail to a lesser degree.) Having a much lower energy requirement means it is also more likely we could power this with renewable energy down the road.
Some good arguments. You should do research and throw some references and facts behind your arguments, would make for a solid paper.
As for trains, it would be awesome to have national networks for goods and transportation, but you're facing mammoth costs. Good luck convincing taxpayers.
Thanks Trevor, I might look into this further when I have some more time.
One great benefit of rebuilding and expanding the rail networks in Canada and the US is that it would provide a lot of jobs (everyone keeps talking about green jobs, this is it!) and in many cases it might be possible to provide retraining for a lot of the autoworkers who have lost their jobs. That might it easier to pursue politically.
Also, we don't have to do it all at once, we can add extra lines, and cancel projects to expand highways. Down the road, when we have higher capacity, we can make scale back some roadwork. The burden on taxpayers also doesn't have to be too high if we divert funds from highway expansions to rail instead.
In europe, especially France, electrified rail goes everywhere. In France, almost every major town is serviced. We won't get there overnight, but this is the time to get started, I think.
As Trevor said it needs a little more.
Just to clarify. I want to bring up a complex example, so I can understand your scope better.
I get up in the morning to go to work, if I have to take tools I'd like to drive my electric car to the light rail station. Now I take the light rail as close as I can to my destination. I now need transportation from that station to my destination. Rent an electric vehicle, take an electric taxi. What do we do about travel at the other end?
At the end of the day I'll have the trip to do in reverse.
Not all of us are in this situation, but there are enough. a lot of people travel quite a bit for work, some cover states and regions. I hated being stuck somewhere because of a delay. There is no replacing the freedom of having your own long distance transportation. and if it's bad now just wait until we've really stressed the system with every person possible.
I'm not saying that this excuses the problem, but it adds to the complexity. I like the idea of a larger light rail, but what about an electric car that could go on both, local streets and a light rail between cites. This may also decrease accidents and speed up traffic.
It would call for a complete reworking of the entire transportation network, but if we have to change or die (global warming) wouldn't it make sense to do it right. just another idea not
THE BIG SOLUTION
-Patrick
Patrick, you're right there's still lots of details to be worked out. I don't have all the answers, but I do know the current transportation system, where everyone has a personal car to travel everywhere, just isn't sustainable.
Until after WWII, very few people in the US or Canada commuted by car. Most people took the train, or worked closer to home. Rebuilding the trains can help, but we also need other solutions. Maybe changing the zoning laws can help so that we have residential, commercial and even agricultural areas closer together.
We can probably learn a lot from Europe too, as a lot less people own cars there, and people get around okay. They have their own problems, of course, but we don't need to re-invent the wheel.
We don't have a lot of time though, so I hope we at least get things started before too long.
there is not a single number or source in this article, it's just: "I suppose", "I assume", "I think", "I didn't run the numbers but".
this article also fails to judge the business as usual, and judge all option on the same basis: electric cars take too much time, money and ressources to build, but a worldwide rail system doesn't
point 1: "it would take decades", wrong, the actual fleet on average is not decades old, that means the fleet is changed in less than decades.
point 2: "it would take too much energy", because maybe it doesn't take energy to replace ICE cars, by new ICE cars.
point 3: "we need some extra generation capacity to charge EVs", wrong, if we charge EVs when electricity demand is low (not at peak load time), you could charge millions of cars without any extra power plant, the existing power plants would just run at higher power.
point 4: "electric cars cost too much", now yes, because they are new technology, don't you know new tech is expensive, and the cost goes down quickly with time, the same as computers. electric car are not mass produced yet, so R&D costs have to be born by very few cars. there is also a fashion effect, I have a electric car, I'm cool, so people are ready to pay much more for the same car, so why would car manufaturer make them cheap, they sell everything they build. when they start mass producing EV, and with new techs, they will be cheaper than ICE cars.
point 5: "full scale transition to electric car means we still rely on full scale road infrastructure". you are right, it would be better to build a world that work without cars, but I don't think it will happen anytime soon, we will still need roads
point 6: "replacing ICE by EV, and leaving the road system intact is counter productive and environmentally destructive" it's a less than optimal solution, but that's still much better than the status quo.
Anon, here's some stats on US car turnover:
http://postpeakliving.com/content/youve-bought-your-last-car
This shows that, as of this year, the turnover rate is 27 years, previously it was 15. Others stats I've seen usually quote an average of 20 years.
I do, agree, though, that we can't spend the next 27 years building new cars to replace the current ones, whether they are electric or regular. We just don't have the resources or energy to do that, and even if we did, this would be catastrophic for carbon emissions. Note also, this doesn't take into account the exploding car use in the rest of the world, especially China.
You make a good point about recharging batteries in off-peak hours. I agree, this is something we should definitely do for the electric cars we have, and those we use in the future. I also agree costs will go down with economies of scale, but the point of my argument is we can't have as large an economy of scale as with traditional cars.
Hi dooberheim, thanks for the comment, couldn't agree more.
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