Why Electric Cars Are Bad For The Environment: From The BBC
 

One word:

Coal.

Yes, electric cars produce essentially no pollution when they are running but the energy stored in the batteries which propel them has to come from something and in the USA for the most part that something for the most part is coal generated electricity.

A solar array which is large enough to recharge the batteries in an electric car has its own problems in terms of the pollution created in the production of the solar cells unless the cells come from China, where they don't care.

Solyndra anyone?

Obama's solar cell company now bankrupt.

oops

Windpower with those big windmills has its own issues with environmental damage as has been shown in the UK and the USA Midwest.

I suppose you could get your exercise with a pedal powered generator which would charge the batteries in your electric car but that would take you a week or so.........................

Perhaps the hot air blown off by certain GFY members could in some way be harnessed to produce electricity?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19830232

" 4 October 2012 Last updated at 19:03 ET

Electric cars 'pose environmental threat'

Electric cars might pollute much more than petrol or diesel-powered cars, according to new research.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology study found greenhouse gas emissions rose dramatically if coal was used to produce the electricity.

Electric car factories also emitted more toxic waste than conventional car factories, their report in the Journal of Industrial Ecology said.

However, in some cases electric cars still made sense, the researchers said.
Big impact

The team looked at the life-cycle impact of conventional and electric vehicles.

In essence, they considered how the production, the use and the end-of-life dismantling of a car affects the environment, explained co-author Prof Anders Hammer Stromman.

"The production phase of electric vehicles proved substantially more environmentally intensive," the report said, comparing it to how petrol and diesel cars are made.

"The global warming potential from electric vehicle production is about twice that of conventional vehicles."

In addition, producing batteries and electric motors requires a lot of toxic minerals such as nickel, copper and aluminium.

Hence, the acidification impact is much greater than that of conventional car production.

"Across the other impacts considered in the analysis including potential for effects related to acid rain, airborne particulate matter, smog, human toxicity, ecosystem toxicity and depletion of fossil fuel and mineral resources, electric vehicles consistently perform worse or on par with modern internal combustion engine vehicles, despite virtually zero direct emissions during operation," according to Prof Stromman.
'Counterproductive' efforts

With electric car production being so damaging to the environment, these cars have already polluted a great deal by the time they hit the road, the report says.

However, if the cars were then powered by electricity made from low-carbon electricity sources, they could nevertheless offer "the potential for substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and exposure to tailpipe emissions" over time.

However, in regions where fossil fuels are the main sources of power, electric cars offer no benefits and may even cause more harm, the report said.

"It is counterproductive to promote electric vehicles in regions where electricity is primarily produced from lignite, coal or even heavy oil combustion."
European benefits

In Europe, where electricity is produced in a number of different ways, electric cars do offer environmental benefits when compared with cars with internal combustion engines, according to the study.

"Electric vehicles powered by the present European electricity mix offer a 10% to 24% decrease in their global warming potential relative to conventional diesel or petrol vehicles."

This is in line with calculations made by some carmakers.

"According to our results, a battery electric vehicle, with electricity produced by the power generation mix we currently have in Europe, compares favourably in the magnitude of 10% or so with diesel," Daimler's chief executive Dieter Zetsche told the BBC.
Longer lives

The report pointed out that the longer an electric car in Europe stays mobile, the greater its "lead" over petrol and diesel engines.

"Assuming a vehicle lifetime of 200,000km exaggerates the global warming benefits of electric vehicles to 27-29% relative to petrol and 17-20% relative to diesel," it said.

"An assumption of 100,000km decreases the benefit of electric vehicles to 9-14% with respect to petrol vehicles and results in impacts indistinguishable from those of a diesel vehicle."

An electric car's longevity depends a great deal on how long its battery lasts, not least since it is very expensive to replace them.

Batteries are gradually getting better, which could result in electric cars being used for longer.

However, as petrol and diesel engines are also improving, the relationships between the different types of vehicles are not constant.

"A more significant reduction in global warming could potentially be achieved by increasing fuel efficiency or shifting from petrol to diesel," the report said.

"If you are considering purchasing an electric vehicle for its environmental benefits, first check your electricity source and second look closely at the warranty on the batteries," said Professor Stromman.

Those in power, meanwhile, should recognise "the many potential advantages of electric vehicles [which] should serve as a motivation for cleaning up regional electricity mixes".

I'm Big Oil and I approve this message.

Why are windmills damaging to the environment?

I don't know about damage to the environment, other than killing the odd bird. But I know around here there are people that swear the low frequencies they produce affects them physically.

Lame to bring partisan politics in this.

Kinda funny :1orglaugh

Fuck Fossil Fuels!

http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/ar...2/0/128620.jpg

Why dont you just walk everywhere, and stop bitching.

I like cunt... :2 cents:

The future is nuclear powered cars.

That's how the Mars Rover works. And imagine how carefully everyone will drive.

Feelings.

Feelings are based on emotion and therefore irrational by their very nature.

No points.

No facts refuted here but it was fun to see as it went by.

Can you afford cunt?

:winkwink:

Why don't you try to offer or refer to a solution instead of just being an asshole with your Red Herring comment?
:mad:

And since you proffered a question, you should have ended your sentence with a question mark. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously if you cannot punctuate properly?

Go back a couple of hundred years and you could replace "solar" with "slavery" and that graph would be true as well.

Having said that...I'm one of the ones who would like to see solar energy become the norm. I've been told since I was in high school in the 1970's that we would be using solar energy and it was plentiful and FREE.

Of course the oil companies bought up all the patents and actually getting solar for your home is fucking expensive. :(

I even read a few years ago that they were going to NOT sell solar panels but instead only LEASE them so the power companies could continue to get you with a monthly bill. :disgust

:1orglaugh

Coal the way we use it now has it's problems, some very serious, but, some of those problems can be reduced by investing in better technologies like fluidized bed combustion and gasification.

Natural gas burned in turbines tho is just as likely as coal, for powering the fixed-demand parts of a electricity economy. Acrually, what we would probably see is a multiple fuels approach, depending on transport - because you want to ship the fossil carbon the shortest distance possible.

Combine that with wind turbines and solar for variable-demand supplies, and the picture looks a bit better.

Coal is a dirty form of fossil carbon, but wether we like it or not, it will be burned.

Whats the choice? Whatever alternatives to coal will either be expnsive or also dirty.

Big Oil uses electricity to refine gasoline and electric cars use electricity to charge it's batteries.

Coal, lol, hillbillies

Natural gas is one of the worst choices to make.. It's no cleaner than oil and is likely just as damaging as oil to the environment.

The burning of natural gas is not the issue, it's everything they do to get it to the point it can be sold. To start with the whole process of fracking which is how they get to the gas in the ground totally contaminates all the near by drinking water.

Added to this they inject shit-loads of chemicals into the ground with "secret" formulas they don't have to disclose the contents of because they claim it's "trade secrets". Once it's out of the ground it has to be shipped or piped all over and the amount of carbon gas it produces is just as bad as the CO2 from cars.

Check out the documentary "GasLand" if you think natural gas is actually a good alternative. http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

Few clips from the documentary..

Electric cars rule. Here's why :

- Petroleum currently fuels 95% of the United States transportation sector, a sector that demands nearly 28% of total energy usage. Globally, demand for personal transportation is increasing while reserves are decreasing. Not only is petroleum a diminishing resource, but it is also a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.



CORRECT, and this is what everyone always forgets. Assuming a zero gain at production, gas cars pollute endlessly, while electric cars produce zero emissions.

NOT TRUE. In 2011, Coal produced 42% of the 4 trillion killowatthours electricity used in the US. 25% came from Natural Gas, 20% came from Nuclear, 8% came from Hydro, biomass, wind power and geothermal.


NOT TRUE. Solar Arrays actually take too long to charge electric cars. You can if you want to but its not economic simply because electricity from your power company is cheaper than solar. As for producing them in China, pollution in China affects the entire world, not just the area around the factories. Whoever said this is an idiot.

Lol! Not true. Windmills produce ZERO emissions. They capture energy of moving air and turn it into electricity. They do not burn anything, they do not emit anything. Windmills concert one form of energy into another.

Not a good idea. It would take just under 7 days of peddling 24 hours a day to charge a car. A fit person can only generate about 250 watts of power per hour on a stationary bike which is only enough to light a 25 watt light bulb for a about 8 hours.

No shit, but they excluded some important facts. The US relies on Coal for 40% of its electricity. In Germany, less than 19% of electricity comes from coal. The rest : 13.6% natural gas, 16.5% Wind + Solar, 22.6% Nuclear, 23.7% Lignite. In Swden, only 29% comes from gas and oil. The rest comes from Nuclear (37%), Wind & Solar (> 25%), etc. In Canada, 57% comes from Hydro, 14% comes from Nuclear, and only 18% comes from coal, 6% comes from natural gas.


Batteries in electric cars are (a) replaceable, (b) guaranteed for up to 8 years, and (c) upgradable. Buy an electric car with 250 mile range today, upgrade it to a 500 mile range later when better battery technology becomes available.

Also, electric cars should automatically last longer than gas cars. Gas cars wear out because of hundreds of moving parts which wear out over time. Electric cars have much less moving parts.

Sure. But that doesn't matter, society at large does not care about that, it cares about keeping the carbon civilization running, and does not care about pollution and costs as long as the party keeps going.

If you try to stop them from burning the gas they are going to kick you to death, end of story.

So, the gas will be burned. Arguably, we should create fleets that burn compressed methane instead of gasoline, but, will we? I don't see any sign of it. Electric cars are a more mature technology than natural gas cars at the moment.