Can Electric Cars Help Me Breathe Easier?
The push for electric cars grew out of persistent air pollution in the Los Angeles basin, which lead California's erstwhile plan to require that 2% of new vehicles sold in 1998 be "zero-emissions vehicles." (That proportion is still supposed to rise to 10% by year 2003.) In addition, several Northeast states signed on to the California standards, enlarging the market push for e-cars.
(If you want to order an electric car,
However, nobody is in a position to coerce consumers to buy these cars, so the car-makers face the prospect of subsidizing the new vehicles--which they are less than eager to do.
But can electric vehicles deliver on their promise to reduce emissions? Are they even "zero-emission" vehicles to begin with? In other words,
can e-cars doom the fume?
That depends on where the electricity originates. If it's from a coal- or oil-fired generator, the answer is "Not." In this case, the electric vehicle shifts the pollution from the tailpipe to the generating plant.
They also alter the chemical composition of the pollution. Michael Quanlu Wang of Argonne National Laboratory used a computer simulatation to compare the use of electric and gasoline cars in four large U.S. cities. The results showed that electric vehicles would reduce hydrocarbon (defined) and carbon monoxide (defined) by 98%: see Magnitude and Value of Electric Vehicle Emissions. (Hydrocarbons create ground-level ozone, which causes cardiac and respiratory disease.) Emissions of nitrous oxides, another cause of ozone and acid rain, also fell.
But Wang found that emissions of sulfur oxide (a key cause of acid rain), and particulates would actually increase. (The health effects of these ultra-fine soot particles are now under increasing suspicion.)
The story for carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that's taking heat for causing global warming, was more complex. At slow speeds, electric vehicles greatly reduced carbon dioxide; the effect was less dependable at higher speeds. And as you read them, remember that all calculations of pollution trade-offs will depend on the age and pollution controls of the gasoline autos and the electric-generating plants in question.
Clean? That depends on whereTo urbanites, electric vehicles truly produce"zero-emissions," Wang says, since they move all pollution to the power plant. Overall, he suggests, electric vehicles would benefit the environment by reducing hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions, and thus ground-level ozone. And while more particulates would be produced (particularly if the electricity came from coal), Wang observes that most electric generators are "away from populated areas, so there would be less population exposure."
you live... (Sound Familiar?)
Electric vehicles also offer a way to use "green electricity" (from solar, wind and geothermal sources), as clean transportation power.
Finally, electric cars may be less energy-intensive: A recent study by Ford Motor researchers found that electric vehicles with experimental sodium-sulfur batteries would use 24 percent less energy over their life cycle compared to similar gasoline cars. See p. 29, Total Life-Cycle Analysis.
But will electric vehicles cause a huge increase in lead pollution?
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