6 ms·

Even if we have more electric vehicles, that doesn't decarbonize anything unless the source of the energy doesn't generate carbon dioxide. In many places you're

Even if we have more electric vehicles, that doesn't decarbonize anything unless the source of the energy doesn't generate carbon dioxide. In many places you're just moving the source of carbon dioxide (often with a total increase). I think that part is often overlooked.

YPCrumble 4y ago
I find it hard to believe that pulling electricity from the grid would increase carbon emissions vs. a vehicle burning gas in its own engine. How is that possible?
- bombcar 4y ago
  And even if it were (I suppose a very clean natural gas car vs the worst coal plant ever made) the electric still has the advantage of regenerating braking.
  - slow_typist 4y ago
    Driving overland will not recover much breaking energy. That is only an advantage of EVs under town traffic conditions, where cheap efficient public transportation is the better solution.
- matsemann 4y ago
  An EV is much heavier, thus you need more energy to move it. But I think in total it should still be a net win for EVs. But the real problem is that we move 2000+ kgs around to move a human of 80 kgs around. EVs don't fix that. EVs are mostly to save the car industry, the solution is to drive less by creating a society where people don't need to own a car and drive everywhere.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > An EV is much heavier The most popular EVs in the US are roughly 0-10% heavier than the comparable ICEV. Yes, some EVs are much heavier.
    - matsemann 4y ago
      US already have insanely big cars, though. So very different than in other markets.
    - leetcrew 4y ago
      what vehicles are you using for this comparison? I was surprised to see that a base model 3 weighs in the same ballpark as a 330i. however, a model s weighs >500 lbs more than a 540i, and there doesn't seem to be anything in the corolla size class that's even close to 3000 lbs. I suspect that if this is true, it's only because the most popular cars in the US are so large that the battery weight doesn't matter as much.
  - malfist 4y ago
    > But the real problem is that we move 2000+ kgs around to move a human of 80 kgs around. Why is that a problem? If I want to visit my friend who lives 200 miles away, I'm not going to hop on a bike, or walk, or find a horse and buggie to take me there. Vehicles are not inherently evil. In fact they're a great enabler. Even if we take your example at face value and assume nobody travels beyond their city. How is that person who needs a wheelchair to get from point A to point B going to go a mile or two to the grocery store and get their groceries home? The problem with cars is their carbon footprint, and EVs go a long way to solving that.
    - matsemann 4y ago
      How often do you travel those 200 miles? Why can't you use a car share service for that one occasion? I'm not assuming people never travels beyond their city. Why do car enablers always use people needing a wheelchair to push their agenda? If you're so concerned with their well being, wouldn't it be better if they got the roads for themselves and didn't get stuck in traffic and could always find parking close? Or if they didn't need a car to travel miles to a grocery store but it was next door instead? And no, the problems with cars are much greater than their carbon footprint. What about their area footprint for parking? The insane land used for roads? All the deaths? The pollution and micro plastics from their wheels? How children can't play outside in streets? How the streets instead of a nice neighborhood is just traffic? The noise? And no, EVs doesn't solve much about the carbon footprint, not unless the energy is all green. It just moves it around.
      - AstralStorm 4y ago
        Funnily enough cars suck for people with wheelchairs compared to a specialty designed EV. Mostly due to the doors, lack of a ramp, misplaced steering column and an unnecessary chair. Turning a wheelchair into a speedy electric vehicle is quite easy if not cheap. It's one wheel removed from an electric recumbent trike.
        matsemann 4y ago
        Exactly! As can probably be gleaned from my posts here, I'm an activist working for better cycling and human transportation in how we do urban planning. And one thing I often see, at least locally, is how those using a wheelchair or other amenities want better pedestrian infrastructure (or cycling infrastructure). Not car infrastructure. Many don't have the ability to drive, or the money for a special car. But a motorized tricycle, or an electric wheelchair using bicycle ramps works great.
- malfist 4y ago
  It's not, GP is wrong and making a deceptive argument. The energy grid is already lower carbon than gasoline powered ICE vehicles, especially with natural gas taking over a lot of the energy production. But it's only going to get even better as more and more renewables come online. It's easier for your giant utility company to have the capital to build out a solar farm to power your car/house/etc than it is for you and I to have the capital to build personal solar production to do the same thing. Even more so, some things only make sense at scale, like large scale wind energy. Placing a giant turbine in my backyard, even if the HOA and city allowed it, would work for me, but not my neighbor, and if they built one too we'd be competing with each other. Better to do it on farms leased or ran by utilities. Besides, how is the renter going to de carbonize their electric car unless the grid does it?
  - dwheeler 4y ago
    I'm not trying to make a deceptive argument. I may be wrong, but I stated what I thought was an important point: you need generators to decarbonize, not merely a switch to electric cars. Electric cars are an enabler for decarbonization, agreed, but focusing only enabling technology is not enough. It must be coupled with changes in energy generation to achieve a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. I fear the emphasis on half the problem will leave the problem unsolved. The article "Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change" <https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-...> seems to make the same point (if that's a bad source let me know): * "EVs are responsible for considerably lower emissions over their lifetime than conventional (internal combustion engine) vehicles across Europe as a whole. * In countries with coal-intensive electricity generation, the benefits of EVs are smaller and they can have similar lifetime emissions to the most efficient conventional vehicles – such as hybrid-electric models." Which is my point: we need to decarbonize the generators. The article even goes on to state this: "However, as countries decarbonise electricity generation to meet their climate targets, driving emissions will fall for existing EVs and manufacturing emissions will fall for new EVs." Note the requirement to decarbonize the generators. This is a real issue, for example, in 2021, coal-fired electric power plants accounted for 91% of West Virginia's total electricity net generation <https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WV https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WV>. There's an assumption by many that utilities' electricity generators will over time produce less carbon dioxide, but I'm not convinced that it will "just happen". Such a change will require continued emphasis over time.
BadBadJellyBean 4y ago
AFAIK powering a BEV from electricity generated by fossile fuel has a higher efficiency than an internal combustion engine. Especially if you factor in the refining steps for car fuel.
syntaxing 4y ago
Let’s put aside the fact that a state of the art gasoline engine is about 20% efficient and an EV is about 50% efficient if you include power delivery deficiencies if we use non renewable fuel sources. What you’re stating is an infrastructure problem, not a specific EV problem. Genuinely would love to see literature how a EV increases the total carbon increase compared to a ICE vehicle.
- bob_theslob646 4y ago
  You don't need an academic paper to see how much carbon is used to actually manufacture a lithium ion battery that is mined versus recycled domestically in the country the car is produced. Just follow the supply chain in how the mining process works for typical batteries today. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufacturing-batteries#:~:text=CO2%20emissions%20for%20manufacturing,kg%20(16%20metric%20tons).&text=Just%20how%20much%20is%20one,as%20a%20great%20white%20shark https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac...!
  - syntaxing 4y ago
    An average sedan from production to driving within its life time produces 38 metric tons of CO2 emissions compared to 16 metric tons as quoted by your article for the battery. I still fail to see how an EV is by any means dirtier than a gas car.
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      Copper mining is very dirty (not necesseraly C02-wise), and an EV needs 4 times more of it (IIRC) than an equivalent ICV.
SigmundA 4y ago
No its not overlooked, its called wheel to well efficiency and EV's are more efficient than ICE even if run off fossil fuels at a power plant, which it won't completely since even the US has a renewable/carbon free mix of about 20% currently on the grid. Multi-stage heat recovery power plants are more efficient than even the best ICE engines in cars, there is no need to worry about space or weight so you can have very complicated heat recovery and emissions gear maintained by dedicated staff rather than being in my vehicle. Power plants can run off less refined or even unrefined fuel, the efficiency of refining is often overlooked along with physically shipping refined fuel to fueling stations. Finally it decouples the power source from the vehicle. Even if it where no more efficient to run EV's off fossil fuels burned at power plants, your vehicle can get upgraded to run off solar or nuclear or wind or whatever in the future while you get to keep the same vehicle. Any programmer should recognize the value of separating concerns for easier migration. Where I am we have a garbage incinerator power plant with an elaborated scrubber system, EV around here are technically running partially off garbage. This is not carbon free by any means, but effective at reducing landfill use and getting power out of it.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  In the US, even the power plants that run on fossil fuels tend to run on natural gas, which produces roughly half the CO2 of a coal fired plant.
  - SigmundA 4y ago
    True and we have a lot of natural gas and in a pinch we can run our vehicles off coal if needed even if not ideal. The flexibility of the power source due to decoupling seems so often overlooked especially when thinking about energy independence and protecting national interest.
rootusrootus 4y ago
> I think that part is often overlooked. On the contrary, it is one of the most popular bad faith arguments against EVs. Fortunately, science has long since come to the rescue. In the dirtiest coal-burning power generating region of the US, an EV is still ~20% less polluting than a car that burns gasoline directly. That is your worst case. Most US power generation is far cleaner.
powerbroker 4y ago
Wind provided 25% of electricity in Texas in 2021 [1]. A decade ago, it was close to 12%. A decade from now, it will be 45-50%. Even now, by selecting only the nights with strong winds, an EV driver can tap the grid when 50% of the electricity comes from nuclear and wind turbines. Carbon sources aren't moved. They are decommissioned. [1] https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2021/10/13/ERCOT_Fact_Sheet_10.13.21.pdf https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2021/10/13/ERCOT_Fact_Sheet...
stcredzero 4y ago
Even if we have more electric vehicles, that doesn't decarbonize anything unless the source of the energy doesn't generate carbon dioxide. The point of EVs, is that it liberates that energy use, allowing it to be decarbonized. If the energy storage is in the form of fossil fuels, then this is a significant blocker!

YPCrumble 4y ago

I find it hard to believe that pulling electricity from the grid would increase carbon emissions vs. a vehicle burning gas in its own engine. How is that possible?

bombcar 4y ago
And even if it were (I suppose a very clean natural gas car vs the worst coal plant ever made) the electric still has the advantage of regenerating braking.
- slow_typist 4y ago
  Driving overland will not recover much breaking energy. That is only an advantage of EVs under town traffic conditions, where cheap efficient public transportation is the better solution.
matsemann 4y ago
An EV is much heavier, thus you need more energy to move it. But I think in total it should still be a net win for EVs. But the real problem is that we move 2000+ kgs around to move a human of 80 kgs around. EVs don't fix that. EVs are mostly to save the car industry, the solution is to drive less by creating a society where people don't need to own a car and drive everywhere.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > An EV is much heavier The most popular EVs in the US are roughly 0-10% heavier than the comparable ICEV. Yes, some EVs are much heavier.
  - matsemann 4y ago
    US already have insanely big cars, though. So very different than in other markets.
  - leetcrew 4y ago
    what vehicles are you using for this comparison? I was surprised to see that a base model 3 weighs in the same ballpark as a 330i. however, a model s weighs >500 lbs more than a 540i, and there doesn't seem to be anything in the corolla size class that's even close to 3000 lbs. I suspect that if this is true, it's only because the most popular cars in the US are so large that the battery weight doesn't matter as much.
- malfist 4y ago
  > But the real problem is that we move 2000+ kgs around to move a human of 80 kgs around. Why is that a problem? If I want to visit my friend who lives 200 miles away, I'm not going to hop on a bike, or walk, or find a horse and buggie to take me there. Vehicles are not inherently evil. In fact they're a great enabler. Even if we take your example at face value and assume nobody travels beyond their city. How is that person who needs a wheelchair to get from point A to point B going to go a mile or two to the grocery store and get their groceries home? The problem with cars is their carbon footprint, and EVs go a long way to solving that.
  - matsemann 4y ago
    How often do you travel those 200 miles? Why can't you use a car share service for that one occasion? I'm not assuming people never travels beyond their city. Why do car enablers always use people needing a wheelchair to push their agenda? If you're so concerned with their well being, wouldn't it be better if they got the roads for themselves and didn't get stuck in traffic and could always find parking close? Or if they didn't need a car to travel miles to a grocery store but it was next door instead? And no, the problems with cars are much greater than their carbon footprint. What about their area footprint for parking? The insane land used for roads? All the deaths? The pollution and micro plastics from their wheels? How children can't play outside in streets? How the streets instead of a nice neighborhood is just traffic? The noise? And no, EVs doesn't solve much about the carbon footprint, not unless the energy is all green. It just moves it around.
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      Funnily enough cars suck for people with wheelchairs compared to a specialty designed EV. Mostly due to the doors, lack of a ramp, misplaced steering column and an unnecessary chair. Turning a wheelchair into a speedy electric vehicle is quite easy if not cheap. It's one wheel removed from an electric recumbent trike.
      - matsemann 4y ago
        Exactly! As can probably be gleaned from my posts here, I'm an activist working for better cycling and human transportation in how we do urban planning. And one thing I often see, at least locally, is how those using a wheelchair or other amenities want better pedestrian infrastructure (or cycling infrastructure). Not car infrastructure. Many don't have the ability to drive, or the money for a special car. But a motorized tricycle, or an electric wheelchair using bicycle ramps works great.
malfist 4y ago
It's not, GP is wrong and making a deceptive argument. The energy grid is already lower carbon than gasoline powered ICE vehicles, especially with natural gas taking over a lot of the energy production. But it's only going to get even better as more and more renewables come online. It's easier for your giant utility company to have the capital to build out a solar farm to power your car/house/etc than it is for you and I to have the capital to build personal solar production to do the same thing. Even more so, some things only make sense at scale, like large scale wind energy. Placing a giant turbine in my backyard, even if the HOA and city allowed it, would work for me, but not my neighbor, and if they built one too we'd be competing with each other. Better to do it on farms leased or ran by utilities. Besides, how is the renter going to de carbonize their electric car unless the grid does it?
- dwheeler 4y ago
  I'm not trying to make a deceptive argument. I may be wrong, but I stated what I thought was an important point: you need generators to decarbonize, not merely a switch to electric cars. Electric cars are an enabler for decarbonization, agreed, but focusing only enabling technology is not enough. It must be coupled with changes in energy generation to achieve a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. I fear the emphasis on half the problem will leave the problem unsolved. The article "Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change" <https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-...> seems to make the same point (if that's a bad source let me know): * "EVs are responsible for considerably lower emissions over their lifetime than conventional (internal combustion engine) vehicles across Europe as a whole. * In countries with coal-intensive electricity generation, the benefits of EVs are smaller and they can have similar lifetime emissions to the most efficient conventional vehicles – such as hybrid-electric models." Which is my point: we need to decarbonize the generators. The article even goes on to state this: "However, as countries decarbonise electricity generation to meet their climate targets, driving emissions will fall for existing EVs and manufacturing emissions will fall for new EVs." Note the requirement to decarbonize the generators. This is a real issue, for example, in 2021, coal-fired electric power plants accounted for 91% of West Virginia's total electricity net generation <https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WV https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WV>. There's an assumption by many that utilities' electricity generators will over time produce less carbon dioxide, but I'm not convinced that it will "just happen". Such a change will require continued emphasis over time.

BadBadJellyBean 4y ago

AFAIK powering a BEV from electricity generated by fossile fuel has a higher efficiency than an internal combustion engine. Especially if you factor in the refining steps for car fuel.

syntaxing 4y ago

Let’s put aside the fact that a state of the art gasoline engine is about 20% efficient and an EV is about 50% efficient if you include power delivery deficiencies if we use non renewable fuel sources. What you’re stating is an infrastructure problem, not a specific EV problem. Genuinely would love to see literature how a EV increases the total carbon increase compared to a ICE vehicle.

bob_theslob646 4y ago
You don't need an academic paper to see how much carbon is used to actually manufacture a lithium ion battery that is mined versus recycled domestically in the country the car is produced. Just follow the supply chain in how the mining process works for typical batteries today. https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufacturing-batteries#:~:text=CO2%20emissions%20for%20manufacturing,kg%20(16%20metric%20tons).&text=Just%20how%20much%20is%20one,as%20a%20great%20white%20shark https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-co2-emitted-manufac...!
- syntaxing 4y ago
  An average sedan from production to driving within its life time produces 38 metric tons of CO2 emissions compared to 16 metric tons as quoted by your article for the battery. I still fail to see how an EV is by any means dirtier than a gas car.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    Copper mining is very dirty (not necesseraly C02-wise), and an EV needs 4 times more of it (IIRC) than an equivalent ICV.

SigmundA 4y ago

No its not overlooked, its called wheel to well efficiency and EV's are more efficient than ICE even if run off fossil fuels at a power plant, which it won't completely since even the US has a renewable/carbon free mix of about 20% currently on the grid. Multi-stage heat recovery power plants are more efficient than even the best ICE engines in cars, there is no need to worry about space or weight so you can have very complicated heat recovery and emissions gear maintained by dedicated staff rather than being in my vehicle. Power plants can run off less refined or even unrefined fuel, the efficiency of refining is often overlooked along with physically shipping refined fuel to fueling stations. Finally it decouples the power source from the vehicle. Even if it where no more efficient to run EV's off fossil fuels burned at power plants, your vehicle can get upgraded to run off solar or nuclear or wind or whatever in the future while you get to keep the same vehicle. Any programmer should recognize the value of separating concerns for easier migration. Where I am we have a garbage incinerator power plant with an elaborated scrubber system, EV around here are technically running partially off garbage. This is not carbon free by any means, but effective at reducing landfill use and getting power out of it.

pfdietz 4y ago
In the US, even the power plants that run on fossil fuels tend to run on natural gas, which produces roughly half the CO2 of a coal fired plant.
- SigmundA 4y ago
  True and we have a lot of natural gas and in a pinch we can run our vehicles off coal if needed even if not ideal. The flexibility of the power source due to decoupling seems so often overlooked especially when thinking about energy independence and protecting national interest.

rootusrootus 4y ago

> I think that part is often overlooked. On the contrary, it is one of the most popular bad faith arguments against EVs. Fortunately, science has long since come to the rescue. In the dirtiest coal-burning power generating region of the US, an EV is still ~20% less polluting than a car that burns gasoline directly. That is your worst case. Most US power generation is far cleaner.

powerbroker 4y ago

Wind provided 25% of electricity in Texas in 2021 [1]. A decade ago, it was close to 12%. A decade from now, it will be 45-50%. Even now, by selecting only the nights with strong winds, an EV driver can tap the grid when 50% of the electricity comes from nuclear and wind turbines. Carbon sources aren't moved. They are decommissioned. [1] https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2021/10/13/ERCOT_Fact_Sheet_10.13.21.pdf https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2021/10/13/ERCOT_Fact_Sheet...

stcredzero 4y ago

Even if we have more electric vehicles, that doesn't decarbonize anything unless the source of the energy doesn't generate carbon dioxide. The point of EVs, is that it liberates that energy use, allowing it to be decarbonized. If the energy storage is in the form of fossil fuels, then this is a significant blocker!