– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own. —
The world is falling in love with plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars. President-elect Obama wants to put 1 million on the road by 2015. GM features them, particularly the Chevy Volt, in its new business plan for a debut in 2010. The EU wants them to shrink greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 by 20% from 1990 levels. This week the Chinese auto company BYD began selling the world’s first commercially-available plug-in hybrid sedan.
No matter that these cars are not widely available; that they are priced far above traditional models; that many have a short range, making them useful only for local trips; that batteries may be prone to catching fire; and that many motorists park on the street, where charging is impractical.
For some, these issues pale in importance to saving the planet from harmful emissions of carbon, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide—all of which are released from internal combustion engine vehicles. If battery powered cars reduce emissions, environmentalists argue, they should be produced and consumers should be enticed to buy them.
But whereas electric cars don’t pollute when they’re running on batteries, they’re not pollution-free. Making the lithium-ion batteries is pollution-intensive and recharging the batteries uses electricity. And most electricity generation, from coal- and gas-fired power plants, still causes pollution.
Which means that pollution from the extra electricity for car batteries has to be weighed against savings from burning less gasoline. Whether battery power can trump the internal combustion engine, which is continually getting more efficient, depends on when drivers decide to charge their future cars, as well as how the electricity is made.
A 2008 study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory projected U.S. power needs in 2030 if 25% of the car fleet used some form of battery power.
If drivers charged vehicles after 10:00 p.m., when household power consumption is at its lowest, then at most eight extra power plants would be needed for electric cars. In contrast, if drivers charged cars in early evening when household use is peaking, 160 new power plants would have to be built.
At issue here is the way that America will generate its electricity when Obama’s 1 million plug-in hybrids hit the road in 2015. Nuclear power plants do not generate harmful emissions, and are a far cleaner source of electricity than oil, natural gas, or coal. Yet America has refused to build them for fear of accidents and because of controversy about where to dispose of spent fuel. A third problem is long delays in winning government licenses for new plants.
Private companies don’t want to face litigious American consumers, trial lawyers at the ready, and so do not dare embark on nuclear power plants. Until Congress makes serious efforts to shield companies from liability, nuclear power won’t be viable. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not licensed a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years.
France, on the other hand, does have nuclear power; it generates 78% of its supply from splitting the atom, far more than America’s 19% share. Electric cars in France, therefore, if they can overcome problems of range, safety, and price, would be more environmentally friendly than their American counterparts.
Until America can resume construction of nuclear power plants, it might be that the way to energy efficiency on the road is not through the electric car but by making improvements in the way cars burn gasoline. That would be a good use of the $25 billion that Congress gave to the auto industry last year to improve efficiency.
Call it a dual-highway route to saving energy on the road.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth can be reached at dfr@hudson.org. For previous columns, click here.
The solution is already here. I suggest you travel to California and test drive a Honda Clarity.
It uses a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricty; the waste product is water.
The range of the car on a single tank of liquid hydrogen is approximately 280 miles.
It is expected once the car is in large scale production it will cost the same as a conventional 4 door saloon. A tank of hydrogen will cost roughly the same as your petrol.
I agree battery powered cars are a lame ducks but then so is the US auto industry (if not dead ducks).
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We need to get our transportation system off the dependence on (foreign) oil. Especially for economic and national security purposes. We need to stop the wealth transfer to rogue nations. Forget about the global warmig fairy tale.
The reason why electric cars are the way to go is they are the ultimate flex fuel vehicle. The most important thing that I can do as a consumer to make foreign policy for the United States easier is to use less oil.
Electric cars are not the only alternative vehicles out there. How about creating jobs by establishing a network of hydrogen filling stations? Emission byproduct - water.
Just a thought.
There is an affordable plug in electric car, but it is made in China, by what was three years ago a battery and technology company. Sales of the F3DM made by BYD began in China yesterday. The GM Volt ,a similar design,is three years away from hitting the streets. I wonder why we are so far behind? Well the answer is we are not behind, just repressed by “big oil”. We had plug in electic cars in the 90’s but all of the GM leased models were un-leased and crushed. Toyota made a plug in electric RAV4-EV that is still running today, many with over 100m miles on the original Nickel Metal Hydride batteries. I am sure it is just a coincidence that Chevron bought the rights to the battery and shelved the battery. Some of the surviving RAV 4 EV’s are being charged by solar panels and the owners love them. This article only propetuates the backwards thinking, misleading information that has allowed China beat to market by three years. Wonder why GM is going “belly-up”?
Please do due diligence on the current resurgence within the nuclear industry and you will get a different viewpoint.
[...] http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/20 08/12/18/electric-cars-will-not-cure-env ironmental-woes/ [...]
If we do not find forms of energy that can sustain us in ways we find acceptable, that is, in ways that help us maintain our current standards of living, while not destroying the environment, then we will inevitably return to some form of slavery. In effect, we will revert to a pre-industrialized economy, so the issue is not just cars.
Nuclear power has it problems, as Dr. Furchtgott-Roth lays out so well, but it does not cause greenhouse effects. Back in the 50s there was talk of thorium as a reactor fuel. It is abundant and does not produce elements that can be used in fission weapons. The beginning of nuclear weapons technology seems to have pushed the power industry down a uranium - plutonium path, which is more dangerous than a thorium one. Any nuclear industry will ultimately force subtle changes on society, particularly in terms of security and degree of regulation.
As to electric cars being powered from a central station, large scale power production is inherently more efficient than numerous small scale engines. This is because large power generators can be designed to operate at high temperatures and pressures with relative safety. This is a law of thermodynamics: the hotter the engine, the higher the pressure, the more efficient it is. So, electric cars would on balance be more efficient than internal combustion driven cars. The latter can only be pushed up the thermodynamic curve (with ever diminishing returns) toward greater efficiency by using higher pressures and temperatures. These features are dangerous. Such car engines would be potential bombs.
What ever happened to fuel-cell technology? The buses in Victoria, BC, ran for most of the 90s on fuel-cell engines and performed just fine.
As to trucks, they are flexible in where they can go and should therefore be used for short-haul delivery. For the long haul trains should be used. A switch over to more trains would yield a major savings in gasoline and in pollution, especially if the rail lines were electrified (again that central power source).
Your premise is that the case for electric cars is an environmental one. Even if there were NO net environmental benefit, there are compelling arguments for electric cars; flexibility of fuel production (nuclear, natural gas, PV solar cells, wind, etc.), freedom from future supply uncertainties (no dependence on petrodictatorships and Muslim fanatics), and no wars to protect our “strategic interests” in middle eastern oil. Combine that with the likelihood that we can improve our battery technology (assuming R&D commitments) in the future, and I’d want an electric car even if there were NO environmental benefits. That there are many is just “icing on the cake”. If we do not take this opportunity now, we will regret it later.
So are you against electric cars or for nuclear energy? Oak Ridge also stated that dropping incandescent light bulbs would turn off 10 power plants a year. Nuclear energy can be part of the solution, but it does not come without problems (a 1-million-year problem with waste disposal, especially as nobody, not even Yucca Mountain, wany it in their back yard, so it sits in above ground bunkers today). Other solutions, including solar, wind, microgeneration, and building a smarter grid would allow for distributed electrical supplies. Better metering and efficiencies would reduce demand. All work for a less polluting, more energy independent solution. Nuclear can’t provide the whole solution, and proposing to make more efficient internal combustion until we can make everyone nuclear converts is irresponsible. And the other unspoken question with nuclear: what about the inputs? If everyone goes to nuclear, where would we get all of the enriched uranium? Prices could spike, and the great geo-political game of procuring energy resources would replace our Mid-East dictatorships with those offering cheap uranium (most likely Africa).
The solution is already here. I suggest you travel to California and test drive a Honda Clarity.
It uses a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricty; the waste product is water.
The range of the car on a single tank of liquid hydrogen is approximately 280 miles.
It is expected once the car is in large scale production it will cost the same as a conventional 4 door saloon. A tank of hydrogen will cost roughly the same as your petrol.
I agree battery powered cars are a lame ducks but then so is the US auto industry (if not dead ducks).
Hi Diana,
There are more than one study showing that gas-hybrids are far less green than the simple gas engined version of the same car. The reasons include the battery issue you mention and the complexity of the combined engine systems in hybrids.
In any case, electric propulsion offers many other benefits, aside from promoting the development of alternative energy. Electric propulsion requires no transmission, reducing mass, lubricants, etc. Electric propulsion cars can be built with battery and generator compartments for today’s systems, that will, with emerging improvements in technology, be able to carry larger batteries or capacitors, and cleaner backup generators, if needed. An electric motor requires no spark plugs, no oil changes, ie. little if any dealer servicing, which is why GM shelved the EVO initiative years ago. gas or diesel generators for electrical backup operate at constant RPM, in the ’sweet spot’ for the engine design, offering the highest efficiency. Fuel cells for backup can provide constant trickle charge when the batteries run low, and generate adequate power to extend range from 50 to 200 miles with a half gallon of methanol.
Now the true challenges are around the treadmill of consumption, and corporate control of agendas to keep people working the consumption mill to provide corporate profits. In a world with limited resources this is a recipe for disaster, and the reduction of the planet to feedstock for inefficient, unsustainable, and short sighted mismanagement by governments and corporations alike.
A nice superficial glance at the concept. NOTHING is the absolute solution! Safety problems? Other than saying the “safety problems” need to be overcome, zip mention. If shifting to electric-hybrid cars (which meet exactly the same safety requirements as any gasoline vehicle) and remotely controlling the chargers to do base-load balancing cuts our use of oil 15-20%, I see that as a net. The production of lithium-ion is far less of a problem than the author seems to think and the materials are recyclable.
Range? This has been addressed thousands of times. Do you run your cellphone until the battery is dead, then charge it? Most trips fall into the 40 miles range. Plug it in when you get home, end of problem.
What a pathetic article. How much did the oil industry pay you to write this? Forget global warming. There is an energy crunch coming. Oil prices from summer ‘08 will seem cheap in a few years. That is the single biggest reason for going with electric cars. We are running out of cheap oil. Secondly, gasoline contains way more energe pound per pound vs batteries, so they danger of fire and explosions in gasoline driven cars is also a problem. Yet it does not deter us from driving them. The safety of battery technology will improve and is NOT a reason to condemn electric cars. People die from fires in internal-combustion engined cars every day. Thirdly, nucluear energy is not the answer. There is not enough nuclear fuel in the world to last a significant long enough time for it to be a long term solution. Renewables are the only viable long term solution at this point (cold fusion is still a dream unfortunately). Fourthly, carbon dioxide from coal burning plants (to supply electric cars with energy) can be sequestrated, and that is something we must be working on. However, the most important reason of them all to make the transition to electric cars is because we are running out of cheap oil. Wait till you pay $10 a gallon for gasoline. We’ll see how quickly you then believe in electric cars. Don’t be fooled by the respite in gasoline prices from the last few months. We might be able to enjoy it for the next year or even longer, but as soon as the global economy picks up, get ready for the return of bad news at the pump. Electric cars (about 90%) are way more efficient than internal combustion engines (only about 30%) which wastes most of it’s energy on heat. Lots of progress still needs to be made with battery technology, but electric cars are by far superior to internal combustion engines. Generating electricity from renewable energy is the medium to long term solution. Go to betterplace.com Shai Agassi’s research shows a much different picture of how many new coal plants the grid needs. There are lots of inefficiencies in the grid that can be improved which negates the need for new power plants.
Excess mortalies due to auto emmissions in larger centres cannot be understated. A wholistic approach is required whereby distributed systems are employed (solar electricity generation at home). We cannot allow ourselves to be encumbered by outdated technologies that have served our short-term requirements.
Of course the shift from combustion engine to eletric one s requires much more than just produce electric cars ! The whole energy matrix must be reviewed ! But improve combustion engines is not a long term solution ! Petroleum extraction will not be viable in 10 to 90 years ( till the end of the century) !
But as an electronic engineer I agree that change the way cars produce energy is secondary much more important it’s to eliminate the use of any kind of fossil fuels (petroleum, gas coal and charcoal or even methane) in generation of electric energy !
I’ve heard this argument before, but you did a good job a framing it, backing it up with data, and relating it to the future Obama administration.
One thing I don’t hear often enough is the proportion of the vehicle emissions that come from heavy trucks. Lately I have been wondering about the pros and cons of switching just the heavy trucks to CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). It wouldn’t bring about a carbon-neutral utopia, but it is a cleaner burning fuel, much cleaner than the diesel they now burn. Retrofitting the trucks and would be a lot of work but we’re looking to create jobs anyway. Installing all of the CNG pumps would also be a big job, but at least the heavy trucks travel on less of the roads than regular cars.
I think this would be a net gain. What do other people think? I can’t exactly get a think tank to do a study for me, so I’m really curious about people’s opinions.
The writer excels in a lack of imagination. More fuel efficient fossile fuel engines are a dead end street because of the deminishing oil reserves. The next economic boom comes from the development of green energy technologies. Batteries and solar panels are leading the charge, Consumers will expect a special deal on solar panels for their roofs when they buy their electric car. Batteries at home will store the energy that is fed into the car at night. Shopping centres will have recharge banks where cars can be recharged within an hour or batteries exchanged for those who can’t connect at home. Technological progress in these areas will go as fast as we have seen with the cellphone. Chip maker Intel has already been urged to use its considerable technological power to get into the fray. All this is not only about saving the planet. Cutting out the petrodictators also puts more money into the pockets of consumers, means more spending, more economic activity.
This article confirms my personal contemplations about hype behind promotion of ‘clean energy’ generated from the same ‘dirty nasty oil/coal’ source.
I still can’t understand why professionals do not like to promote idea of wider use of diesel engine that is very efficient, easy, and cheap - for those why say it is not clean enough, I’d recommend to make a trip to Europe
Nuclear plants, too, cannot cure environmental woes. In fact, nothing can cure environmental woes; what we can do is to lessen the impact that we make and electric cars are an alternative to gas guzzlers that are on the roads today. The building of more nuclear power plants is also very problematic due to factors such as nuclear safety.
Incidents such as Chernobyl still stay in the public’s minds, the consequence of a nuclear leak is far more devastating than the amount of carbon dixoide that is pumped into the air.
While electric cars may not be the perfect solution, it would be most unwise to criticize them because they are seen as “less efficient” than cars that run on gasoline. Moreover, the environmental impact of creating a lithium-ion would still be much less than a car burning gasoline for 3 years.
We can´t generate oil in our backyard, electricity we can, either literally at home or in power plants. Electric cars is an enabling technology. It sets us on course to charge the batteries with clean energy and to use them manage peaks, storing energy in the cars during low demand periods.
It is one step into the right direction and we need to go further. I believe a New New Deal where government spends on clean energy infrastructure with electric cars will pay itself off with the money saved from oil imports.
Besides it´s cool not to depend on petrodictatorships.