Would electric-powered vehicles solve some of the enviromental and human health problems?

Question

Would electric-powered vehicles solve some of the enviromental and human health problems?

Answer 1

Indeed, that's by far the biggest problem with electric vehicles - how to create the electricity to power them. If you signed up to get green power (usually wind or solar, but some are hydro) from your energy company then at least you would be paying for more investment in the alternative energy market, but not everyone would do that.

Answer 2

Electric cars reduce several forms of pollution, eg:

1) noise, a major stress factor

2) particulates which kill thousands

3) NoX etc & other gasses which form acids bad for buildings & health etc

4) Oil extraction & transport, consider the damage in Nigeria, & tankers - road & sea

5) Oil refining, big environmental hazord

6) benzine off-gassing from the pumps

7) no coolant fluid/anti-freeze, no clutch material, no sump or gearbox oil, no catalycitic exaust ...

large generators constantly monitored and running at optimum load and temperature and using unrefiend fuel close to source are far more efficient energy converters than small combustion engines dependent on long vunerable supply chains from politically or environmentally sensitive areas. The electric distribution grid is >80% efficient and delivers direct to your home or work (compare to the fleet of tankers & filling stations)

There is enough existing grid capacity for electric vehicles because they are a more efficent motive force than infernal combustion, eg max torque at 0rpm. Also because they will normally be charged off-peak they improve the utilisation of the existing capactity and by vehicle to grid http://www.acpropulsion.com/technology/v... technology cars with a range of 200miles, but only do 20 a day on average, provide a huge stored capacity around the grid

Answer 3

Not unless the source of the recharging electricity be "clean", however you wish to define that.

If an electric car is merely plugged in at night to refuel, then what used to be burned under the hood has to then be burned at the local electric power plant, and there is a 70% chance of that being fossil fuel.

The electric car won't really solve air pollution problems until we start switching power plants to something other than fossil fuel such as nuclear, hydro, solar or wind power, the latter two of which can be installed "anywhere" on either a large or small scale, including residential scales.

Answer 4

It wouldn't solve it completely, but yeah, it would possibly stop pollution. It would definately slow it down though

Answer 5

Electrical powered vehicles have the effect of moving pollution from the vehicle to the generating station. Now if that is a coal plant, bad move. If it iw a nuclear or hydro, wind power, or solar power, great! (Unless by using this power you are forcing someone else to use power from a coal plant).

The most urgent problem for large cities is to get the pollution out of their immediate area. But it does not really work very well if there is not only a transfer of pollution but an increase because of inefficiency.

Nobody in North America could run an electrical car without causing someone to have to use more electricity generated by burning coal.

Answer 6

I do not understand how the electric car would help, unless the power supplied is from Nuclear, Wind, or Solar. here is my reasoning: I take a specific amount of oil. I can make say a gallon of diesel from it and send to a gas station for a car, or I can make fuel oil and send to a Power Plant to burn.

A typical power plant is only 20-30% eefficient when burning the oil to make electric power because I have energy losses when burning in the boiler to make steam. I then have losses when using the steam to turn a turbine. I then have losses in the turbine generator making the electrical power.

After the power leaves the power plant, I have losses in the transmission of the power to your city. I then have losses in the transformers reducing the voltage to what you can use. I then have losses in the charger that charges the battery. Then I have losses in the battery circuit. Finally, I get to your electric motor and I have more losses.

I cannot imagine that all these losses would be less than the loss of efficiency when just burning it in a modern diesel car. I haven't even considered all the environmental impacts of building the power plants and transmission lines to get all that power to the electric cars.

Answer 7

It's a start.

Answer 8

To convert to electric powered vehicles requires a massive increase in the power generating capability. Equivalent of a few thousand nuclear plants. Although there about 32 new nuclear plants in the planning stages, it will take 20-30 years fr a sufficient number to be built to supply a substantial part of the vehicles in the US. However no other energy is likely to proved equivalent energy in less time.

Answer 9

The keys to electric vehicles are twofold:

1.  They're more efficient. They make better use of their stored power (such as they can store) and are in an excellent position to take advantage of regenerative braking, getting back much of the energy it took to accelerate when you stop again (whereas gassers simply burn it off through waste heat in their brake discs).

2.  You concentrate your pollution.  Even if you burned coal to charge your electrics, you could come out ahead, since many of the most promising clean technologies (scrubbers, catalysts, etc,) work best or are only economical on a large scale (how would one sequester carbon or feed it to an algae pool from a moving vehicle?).  Better to have one big coal-syngas plant with a high tech stack than a bunch of little cars with whatever emissions control happens to fit under the bumper.

Answer 10

I think Kyle M makes a good point.

Electricity production, has it's own costs, including pollution.  However, the large generating plants are good at limiting those problems.

Using centrally generated electricity to charge electric cars and make hydrogen, does seem reasonable.

Further, nuclear power plants can be used with no air pollution at all.

For cities, it just seems like the thing to do.  Outside of cities, and on farms, not so good.

Thanks for asking.