5 ms·

whats the carbon footprint of producing a single van?

djaychela 7y ago
IIRC the build energy is around the same as ~20k-30k miles of driving. Obviously this is dependent on many variables, but it's a significant amount - around 17 tonnes for a mid-range hatchback car [1] [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
penneyd 7y ago
Less than that of a van that continues to generate carbon after it leaves the factory.
danans 7y ago
The more correct question is: Liftime EV-Van Footprint = Production-Footprint(EV-Van) + Operational-Footprint(EV-Van, lifetime-miles-driven) vs Lifetime ICE-Van Footprint = Production-Footprint(ICE-Van) + Operational-Footprint(ICE-Van, lifetime-miles-driven) This calculation overwhelmingly favors the EV van, increasingly so as the carbon footprint of the operational electricity source itself reduces in footprint (i.e. increasing use of solar, window, nuclear, etc). Delivery vans in particular have a charging profile (late evening through morning) that matches the peak production of wind. Note that the carbon footprint of petroleum use is strictly higher than even the highest carbon sources of electricity, and it has a high extraction cost also.
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  I think it's clear the lifecycle calculation favors the EV, but I don't think it's night and day[1]. Likely the emissions associated with the manufacture of the ICE and EV vans are similar (the batteries in the EV may even make it a little worse). But there's no doubt that the EV is a huge improvement in use, and switching a large portion of the trucks in our cities to EV would be giant win for air quality. As you say, electricity generation can continue to get greener as well, unlike gas production... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    > (the batteries in the EV may even make it a little worse) I'm not sure it makes it worse. Lithium is a common, non-toxic element that is easily recycle-able. Pound-for-pound batteries are "just" mostly replacing steel and lead (and oil-based lubricating fluids) ICE engine components, which can be toxic, sometimes nearly impossible to recycle, and produced in very unclean smelting, machining, (and refining) operations. It's easy to forget that the electromagnet motors in an EV are not just a lot fewer moving parts than an internal combustion engine, but are a lot fewer parts entirely. The emissions savings in all those ICE parts is presumably pretty big given how huge the relevant supply chains themselves are. (Ever glanced at a Bosch parts catalog? And that's just one supplier of dozens.) I've never seen a good breakdown of the emissions costs of a contemporary internal combustion engine and exhaust system, but that's a much better comparison versus the emissions associated with batteries than a lot of the current battery emissions breakdowns assume as if batteries were in addition to a traditional engine, rather than almost a full replacement for one.
    - elihu 7y ago
      > I'm not sure it makes it worse. Lithium is a common, non-toxic element that is easily recycle-able. I think one of main constraints on battery cost is the price of cobalt, which is a conflict mineral. Some chemistries (like lithium iron phosphate) don't need cobalt, but a lot of the high-performing batteries do.
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        Cobalt is an off-product/"waste-product" of Nickel mines. Certainly, most of the world's Nickel mines are in questionably regulated locales such as Columbia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but Nickel is likely to continue to be mined whether or not the Cobalt those mines produce also gets sold to battery companies. Cobalt is also presumed to be entirely recycle-able from most battery compositions, but is in such small quantities that it isn't today economically feasible (and so long as people are mining Nickel, unlikely to be).
  - VBprogrammer 7y ago
- gpm 7y ago
  Lifetime footprint seems like the wrong thing to measure, you want something more along the lines of lifetime footprint divided by distance travelled. If X vans last 3x longer than Y vans, driving the same number of miles per day, they're an improvement over Y even if there lifetime footprint is twice as big.
- igravious 7y ago
  If you used a programming language where you could only create (prod-footprint) and modify the state of (op-footprint) objects but you could never garbage collect them … what would you think of that language? Don't you need + Disposal-Footprint(EV-Van) and + Disposal-Footprint(ICE-Van) tacked on to the end of both of your equations? EV and ICE vans don't magically poof! into thin air once you're done with them.
prions 7y ago
Carbon footprint is one thing to be critical about, but a bigger advantage with electric vehicles is removing point source pollution and moving the ghg production to powerplants. Powerplants are usually farther away from people (not idling under their windows) and often have more stringent emission standards than vehicles. There's also the opportunity to make electric vehicles with renewable energy barring the petroleum products that compose the vehicle itself.
- hadlock 7y ago
  Point source pollution, and also I am guessing, about 85% of dense urban daytime noise where average speeds are below 20mph. HVAC and tire noise make up a considerable portion of the remainder. Big cities are about to get a lot quieter over the next 20 years.
zelos 7y ago
For ICE vehicles production and disposal are about 15% of the total carbon footprint, the rest is fuel and servicing. Lat time I saw the figure the total impact of producing an EV was more, but the lifetime impact was about 30-40% of an ICE. EVs really are a lot more efficient. When I worked it out for an EV charging from 'average' UK electricity, it was about 25% of my (already small and efficient) ICE car.
- isostatic 7y ago
  Petrol is a large tax source in the UK -- every mile you drive in a petrol car funds your local school.
  - brackle 7y ago
    Governments can tax EV owners to offset the loss of fuel taxes. In many US States, the fees payed by EV owners exceed fuel taxes. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/electric-car-state-fees-often-cost-more-than-gas-tax-study-shows/ar-AAH8Zw9 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/electric-car-state...
    - isostatic 7y ago
      Sure, but that will change the cost per mile
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    So does chopping down trees and selling the firewood. Its a good point, but a perverse argument.
  - rsynnott 7y ago
    I mean, at one point fireplaces were a major tax source in the UK. Later on, windows.
  - de_watcher 7y ago
    Think about the kids! Because we've got an arbitrary tax connection between two things.
outworlder 7y ago
> whats the carbon footprint of producing a single van? Are you saying they should repurpose already built trucks, instead of buying new ones? Then we would have to calculate how long the new electric trucks would take to offset their emissions. If buying used was not on the table, this question is moot.
ars 7y ago
You can get a pretty decent number for the carbon footprint by using dollars instead. Add the cost of the van, plus cost of power to the van, vs cost of ICE van, plus fuel. Then compare.

IIRC the build energy is around the same as ~20k-30k miles of driving. Obviously this is dependent on many variables, but it's a significant amount - around 17 tonnes for a mid-range hatchback car [1] [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

penneyd 7y ago

Less than that of a van that continues to generate carbon after it leaves the factory.

danans 7y ago

The more correct question is: Liftime EV-Van Footprint = Production-Footprint(EV-Van) + Operational-Footprint(EV-Van, lifetime-miles-driven) vs Lifetime ICE-Van Footprint = Production-Footprint(ICE-Van) + Operational-Footprint(ICE-Van, lifetime-miles-driven) This calculation overwhelmingly favors the EV van, increasingly so as the carbon footprint of the operational electricity source itself reduces in footprint (i.e. increasing use of solar, window, nuclear, etc). Delivery vans in particular have a charging profile (late evening through morning) that matches the peak production of wind. Note that the carbon footprint of petroleum use is strictly higher than even the highest carbon sources of electricity, and it has a high extraction cost also.

blacksmith_tb 7y ago
I think it's clear the lifecycle calculation favors the EV, but I don't think it's night and day[1]. Likely the emissions associated with the manufacture of the ICE and EV vans are similar (the batteries in the EV may even make it a little worse). But there's no doubt that the EV is a huge improvement in use, and switching a large portion of the trucks in our cities to EV would be giant win for air quality. As you say, electricity generation can continue to get greener as well, unlike gas production... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  > (the batteries in the EV may even make it a little worse) I'm not sure it makes it worse. Lithium is a common, non-toxic element that is easily recycle-able. Pound-for-pound batteries are "just" mostly replacing steel and lead (and oil-based lubricating fluids) ICE engine components, which can be toxic, sometimes nearly impossible to recycle, and produced in very unclean smelting, machining, (and refining) operations. It's easy to forget that the electromagnet motors in an EV are not just a lot fewer moving parts than an internal combustion engine, but are a lot fewer parts entirely. The emissions savings in all those ICE parts is presumably pretty big given how huge the relevant supply chains themselves are. (Ever glanced at a Bosch parts catalog? And that's just one supplier of dozens.) I've never seen a good breakdown of the emissions costs of a contemporary internal combustion engine and exhaust system, but that's a much better comparison versus the emissions associated with batteries than a lot of the current battery emissions breakdowns assume as if batteries were in addition to a traditional engine, rather than almost a full replacement for one.
  - elihu 7y ago
    > I'm not sure it makes it worse. Lithium is a common, non-toxic element that is easily recycle-able. I think one of main constraints on battery cost is the price of cobalt, which is a conflict mineral. Some chemistries (like lithium iron phosphate) don't need cobalt, but a lot of the high-performing batteries do.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      Cobalt is an off-product/"waste-product" of Nickel mines. Certainly, most of the world's Nickel mines are in questionably regulated locales such as Columbia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but Nickel is likely to continue to be mined whether or not the Cobalt those mines produce also gets sold to battery companies. Cobalt is also presumed to be entirely recycle-able from most battery compositions, but is in such small quantities that it isn't today economically feasible (and so long as people are mining Nickel, unlikely to be).
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
gpm 7y ago
Lifetime footprint seems like the wrong thing to measure, you want something more along the lines of lifetime footprint divided by distance travelled. If X vans last 3x longer than Y vans, driving the same number of miles per day, they're an improvement over Y even if there lifetime footprint is twice as big.
igravious 7y ago
If you used a programming language where you could only create (prod-footprint) and modify the state of (op-footprint) objects but you could never garbage collect them … what would you think of that language? Don't you need + Disposal-Footprint(EV-Van) and + Disposal-Footprint(ICE-Van) tacked on to the end of both of your equations? EV and ICE vans don't magically poof! into thin air once you're done with them.

prions 7y ago

Carbon footprint is one thing to be critical about, but a bigger advantage with electric vehicles is removing point source pollution and moving the ghg production to powerplants. Powerplants are usually farther away from people (not idling under their windows) and often have more stringent emission standards than vehicles. There's also the opportunity to make electric vehicles with renewable energy barring the petroleum products that compose the vehicle itself.

hadlock 7y ago
Point source pollution, and also I am guessing, about 85% of dense urban daytime noise where average speeds are below 20mph. HVAC and tire noise make up a considerable portion of the remainder. Big cities are about to get a lot quieter over the next 20 years.

zelos 7y ago

For ICE vehicles production and disposal are about 15% of the total carbon footprint, the rest is fuel and servicing. Lat time I saw the figure the total impact of producing an EV was more, but the lifetime impact was about 30-40% of an ICE. EVs really are a lot more efficient. When I worked it out for an EV charging from 'average' UK electricity, it was about 25% of my (already small and efficient) ICE car.

isostatic 7y ago
Petrol is a large tax source in the UK -- every mile you drive in a petrol car funds your local school.
- brackle 7y ago
  Governments can tax EV owners to offset the loss of fuel taxes. In many US States, the fees payed by EV owners exceed fuel taxes. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/electric-car-state-fees-often-cost-more-than-gas-tax-study-shows/ar-AAH8Zw9 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/electric-car-state...
  - isostatic 7y ago
    Sure, but that will change the cost per mile
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  So does chopping down trees and selling the firewood. Its a good point, but a perverse argument.
- rsynnott 7y ago
  I mean, at one point fireplaces were a major tax source in the UK. Later on, windows.
- de_watcher 7y ago
  Think about the kids! Because we've got an arbitrary tax connection between two things.

outworlder 7y ago

> whats the carbon footprint of producing a single van? Are you saying they should repurpose already built trucks, instead of buying new ones? Then we would have to calculate how long the new electric trucks would take to offset their emissions. If buying used was not on the table, this question is moot.

ars 7y ago

You can get a pretty decent number for the carbon footprint by using dollars instead. Add the cost of the van, plus cost of power to the van, vs cost of ICE van, plus fuel. Then compare.