People keep saying that electric cars better for earth, but isnt electricity made by mostly burning coal?

Question

People keep saying that electric cars are better for the envirnonment cause they will use little or no gas, (no emissions) but isnt electricity made mostly from the burning of coal and natuaral gas anyway...whats the difference... (not taking into account wind turbines and more natural ways to make electricity)

Answer 1

YES !!! and considering the inefficiency in producing electricity ,it could produce 20% more CO2.

Answer 2

Yes, a significant amount of electricity is produced by burning coal and electric cars aren't the perfect or only answer.  The manufacturing process isn't much different for electric or gas powered cars - not to mention that some of metals or chemicals in batteries are pretty nasty.

However, electric cars are generally more efficient overall.  Even after generating the electricity, shipping it through the grid and charging the car, and storing it in the battery there is less CO2 released then by burning gas in an inefficient gasoline engine.

The CO2 output is also centralized at a single plant that can have its emissions controlled much more easilly then thousands or millions of individual cars.  The scrubbers that clean the exhaust from the coal plant also can be fixed in one place, benefit from the economy of scale, and aren't more mass that needs to be moved around with the vehicle.

Electric cars can also benefit from changes to cleaner or more renewable electricity.  You can install solar panels at your home that charge or partially charge your car.  Many places also use hydro-electric power or wind power and the amount of electricity generated by these alternate sources is increasing rapidly.

Finally, electric cars are generally engineered to be smaller, lighter, and more efficient.  Even though they need to carry batteries and electric motors, they don't need to carry fuel, fuel systems, an engine, a transmission (normally), an exhaust system, etc.  That is less mass that needs to be moved around and an overall increase in efficiency.

Nobody is saying that pure electric cars are the whole answer.  In fact, it's likely that there is no single answer that will replace gasoline.  A combination of better designed communities with mass transit and bike / walking paths, electric / hybrid vehicles, and alternative fuels like ethanol, bio-diesel, or even hydrogen are all likely to play a part in the future.  

However, in the short term if someone can drive an electric car across town to get their groceries it is a huge improvement over them driving their Tundra.  When people realize that there is no 'magic bullet', that is when some progress can be made.

Answer 3

For one thing only about 52% of the US power grid is coal.  That is a large number, but much of the rest is nuclear and renewable energy.

Studies have shown that on the current US power grid, electric cars create lower emissions than gas cars, hybrids, and even plug-in hybrids.  EVs even create lower emissions than gas cars if getting their electricity 100% from coal because they're so efficient (electric motors are 90% efficient, internal combustion engines only about 20%).  See a summary of studies here:

http://www.pluginamerica.com/images/Emis...

Plus we can and are planning on making our power grid greener with more renewable energy, and it's easier to clean up the emissions at a few power plants than from millions of cars.

Answer 4

Heya!

It is all about efficiency. Its like saying what requires more energy, starting up 70 cars or one bus.

Plus the advantage here is that as we increase our green energy intake our cars will also.

gotta be better than a nuclear car  ;-)

Answer 5

Don't forget nuclear power plants.  

Electricity is the most versitile form of energy available, from the viewpoint of how it's generated.  Any source of energy - heat from coal/gas/nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, tides, solar, etc. - can be turned into an electric current at different conversion efficiencies.

The thing to remember, however, is that 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'.  If everyone started using electric cars, the burden on powerplants would be overwhelming.

Answer 6

coal is the most used but,there are many other ways to produce,,water,air magnetic fields,motion etc.

The bottom line is,,where are the companies gonna profit the most?

Answer 7

The batteries used in electric or hybrid cars is made with nickel, and that is very costly to mine.  It takes an much fuel for heavy machinery to mine and offsets carbon footprints saved by the electricity used by the car.

And you're partially correct in that when you go to charge an electric car, it takes power from the grid created by burning of coal...

Answer 8

Well that's exactly the point. The renewable sources for alternative energy can completely make the battery environmentally friendly if not help significantly.

Even that would be BETTER, even though it may not be perfect.

Also, gas needs to be put in tanks more than the battery needs to be charged and charging it will ALWAYS be better than using gas because that is a non-renewable source.

Not to mention the way it's taken destroys the earth and to create it into car gas is bad for the environment, too.

Edited to add:

The batteries are made out of metal which may be costly to mine and it's not renewable, but it's one of the easiest thing to recycle and least costly to. That gas your car uses can't be recycled but when the battery is no longer of use for your car, you can recycle it. That is also much better than traditional gas.

Answer 9

Best answer here is an alternate fuel that can be used in current equipment with little mods, that is renewable

That source is Ethanol, and will be the answer within the next 5 years...

Just like when we switched from leaded to unleaded....

Answer 10

At this time, yes.  Coal is one of the leading producers of electricity.  However, if you stop burning petroleum while the coal burning is going on, that is a slight improvement.  With time, we will see more renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.), and that will help reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burned even more.

It is also true that batteries are made from materials like nickel and lithium, among others.  These materials are usually able to be recycled to make new batteries.  Many recycling stations, mechanics, and auto parts stores will take old car batteries so that they can be recycled.

Furthermore, energy technology is a hot field, and new innovations in storing electricity are emerging everyday.  Electrical engineers are constantly looking for ways to produce and store energy in more powerful and less polluting ways.

With the current rate of technological growth, I predict that within 20 years, we will have cars which are highway capable and are powered with a battery no bigger than your fist.  Time will tell.

Answer 11

Some folks have calculated that running a battery-electric vehicle on power from a coal-fired plant emits less CO2 than running an equivalent car on gasoline.

The picture is complicated by the mix of generation sources.  France gets 78% of its electricity from nuclear and a large fraction of the remainder from hydro and such, so a French BEV would be very clean.  The USA gets about 50% of its electricity from coal, 20% from nuclear and the balance mostly from natural gas and hydro, so a US BEV wouldn't be as clean, but still cleaner than the pure-coal assumption.

Answer 12

Well, NO batteries, lead based or other.

Answer 13

Yes, mostly. But many cities take advantage of solar and wind power, etc. Hybrids are the best option in my opinion.