How Electric Cars Impact the Environment Essay

Electric cars represent the future of transportation. Not only they can be upgraded with autopilot, as well as a number of other options, but they are also less harmful to the environment. If one takes a close look at the environmental problems that the human faces today, one will be able to see that one of the major factors that contribute to them, is the extensive use of fossil fuels (Boxwell, 2010). Many might blame factors that pollute the atmosphere, but the real problem may be much simpler: a large number of people who drive cars affect the atmosphere much worse than factors. With this in mind, it is clear that adoption of electric cars will not only help the humanity enjoy the next level of transportation, but will also reduce the negative impact on the environment. The massive use of electric cars will have a positive impact on the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, under the condition that all he aspects, related to manufacturing and utilization of electric cars are considered and upgraded correspondingly.

Electric cars have a number of meaningful benefits in comparison to the conventional internal combustion engine automobiles, and still they are subject to official environmental regulations. Mostly this is done because of the heavy reliance of rare-earth elements, including neodumium for example, which comes from China. At the same time it is necessary to admit that electric cars could be characterized by a number of serious advantages over usual cars, which are related to reduction of air pollution, especially it is actual for bigger cities, to lack of emissions of “harmful tailpipe pollutants such as particulates (soot), volatile organic compounds, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, and various oxides of nitrogen.” (Raut, 2016, p. 3). The amount of carbon dioxide emissions is related to the emission intensity of the power sources, which were utilized for charging of the vehicle, the efficiency of the said vehicle and the energy, which was wasted during the process of charging. “For mains electricity the emission intensity varies significantly per country and within a particular country, and on the demand, the availability of renewable sources and the efficiency of the fossil fuel-based generation used at a given time.” (Buekers et al., 2014, p. 27).

Electric cars are also characterized by relatively reduced greenhouse gas emissions, which depend upon the method of the electricity generation for charging the batteries. An example is usually considered for the electric vehicles, which do not produce COemissions at all, only in the cases, when they energy is received from such sources as solar, wind, nuclear and hydropower. “Even when the power is generated using fossil fuels, electric vehicles usually, compared to gasoline vehicles, show significant reductions in overall well-wheel global carbon emissions due to the highly carbon-intensive production in mining, pumping, refining, transportation and the efficiencies obtained with gasoline.” (Well-to-Wheels Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Petroleum Use for Mid-Size Light-Duty Vehicles, 2010). The numerous researches, conducted in Germany, showed that as long as there is an evident technical superiority of electric propulsion in comparison to the conventional technology, the fleet emissions from the effect of electrification of vehicles in most countries would be related rather to regulation, than to technology itself. Electricity production is process taking place on the basis of the emission quotas and at the same time the vehicle fuel production is not, this means that electrification shifts from non-capped sector to a capped sector are needed. In other words there is a tendency towards improving of the emissions of electrical grids with time, because more wind and solar generation would be deployed. “Many countries are introducing CO2 average emissions targets across all cars sold by a manufacturer, with financial penalties on manufacturers that fail to meet these targets. This has created an incentive for manufacturers, especially those selling many heavy or high-performance cars, to introduce electric cars as a means of reducing average fleet CO2 emissions.” (English, 2014).

It was already mentioned that one of the most important benefits of the electric cars over the conventional internal combustion engine cars is related to reduction of air pollution, especially in big cities and densely populated areas. This is possible thanks to the lack of emissions of harmful tailpipe pollutants, including hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, particulates (soot), volatile organic compounds. Such benefits are considered to be purely local, because it depends upon the source of the electricity, which is used for recharging of the batteries, air pollutant emissions could be shifted to the areas of the generation plants. Sometimes this is called the long tailpipe vehicle. “Charging a vehicle using renewable energy (e.g., wind power or solar panels) yields very low carbon footprint-only that to produce and install the generation system (see Energy Returned On Energy Invested.) Even on a fossil-fueled grid, it’s quite feasible for a household with a solar panel to produce enough energy to account for their electric car usage, thus (on average) canceling out the emissions of charging the vehicle, whether or not the panel directly charges it.” (English, 2014).

There was a research, conducted in the United States, which focused upon the comparison of the tailpipe and upstream CO2 emissions, according to the estimations, made by the American Environmental Protection Agency for all serious of production model in 2014 all electric passenger vehicles, which could be found in the United States market. Taking into consideration that fact that all-electric cars do not produce tailpipe emissions, the two most fuel efficient plug-in hydrides along with typical gasoline-powered cars were considered for the research. Total emissions should then include those emissions, which were associated with the production and distribution of the electricity, which is needed in order to charge the vehicle, whereas for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles those emissions, which are related to the tailpipe emissions, produced from the internal combustion engine, should be considered. The research data was gathered by the EPA and issued in the form of report. “The EPA estimates that the electricity GHG emission factors for various regions of the country vary from 346 g CO2/kWh in California to 986 g CO2/kWh in the Rockies, with a national average of 648 g CO2/kWh. In the case of plug-in hybrids, and since their all-electric range depends on the size of the battery pack, the analysis introduced a utility factor as a projection of the share of miles that will be driven using electricity by an average driver.” (U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2014).

Graff Zivin together with economic researchers Matthew Kotchen and Erin Mansur conducted the research of the plug-in vehicle the Nissan Leaf and made the conclusion that it could be characterized with lower level of carbon dioxide emissions in comparison to hybrid electric- and gas- powered cars. Important is to note that this was reasonable only for concrete regions, where the productions rely upon les coal, for example in the western United States or Texas. If to consider other regions, which are more coal-dependant, it is possible to conclude that these cars could generate more emissions that average gasoline cars. There are also such regions in the United States, where plugging in at various times of the day could lead to double increase of the electric cars’ emissions and their impact. “Since we wrote this paper we have seen more and more coal going out [of use],” Zivin says. Natural gas-fired power plants emit less greenhouse gas per unit of energy produced than coal-fired power stations. As more coal plants are mothballed – partly in response to cheaper natural gas prices – so the electricity powering electric cars emits less carbon dioxide. “But the counter to that is that because of [Barack] Obama’s Cafe standards, we now have much cleaner gasoline cars.” (Buekers et al., 2014).

It is widely known that carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas is not toxic for human beings and is not the cause of the smoggy skies. At the same time gasoline and diesel cars also produce nitrogen emissions along with sulfur compounds. These combinations contribute to acid rains and participate in formation of airborne particles, which have negative impact upon air quality, leading to strokes by humans, cause heart disease, lung cancer, asthma and other respiratory diseases. Air pollution is without any doubts one of the greatest global environmental problems, which is the cause of at least 3 million premature deaths annually, as it is indicated by the World Health Organization. Such situation forced the Chinese government to support the development of electric vehicles with the aim to reduce air pollution. Other countries are also concerned about this situation. In 2015 there was a well-known emissions scandal in Germany, when Volkswagen falsified the diesel emissions level data during testing. Consequently the government of the country took the decision to pass the resolution aiming at banning of combustion engine cars by 2030. Mostly this regulation is considered to be symbolic, but it is expected to spur actions from the side of the European Union. The Netherlands and Norway launched their debates about bans and the outcome is that around 20% of all new car sales in Norway are electric.

The fact is that making people refuse from gasoline and shift towards electricity could be a time- and effort-consuming process. “If the whole world started going to electric vehicles, and the demand for gasoline substantially dropped, the price of oil would plummet,” says Severin Borenstein, professor of business administration and public policy at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. If oil demand drops by 10%-20%, Borenstein says, the price would “almost certainly collapse” to $20 per barrel or lower, or $1 per gallon gasoline before taxes.” (Buekers et al., 2014). Such situation would lead to the fact that it would be much less economic to use electric vehicles.

An important environmental challenge by electric cars is related to the materials of the lithium batteries of electric cars. On the one hand they are considered to be not particularly toxic and at the same time they are rather difficult to recycle. There are such elements as cobalt used for batteries, and its mining has led to a number of serious environment and ethical debates and controversies, especially in such countries as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is not correct to consider only environmental effects, related to the use of electric cars, ignoring the process of their production. Taking into consideration the fact that battery packs are very heavy, the major challenge for the manufacturers is to make the rest of the vehicle much lighter. “As a result, electric car components contain many lightweight materials that require a lot of energy to produce and process, such as aluminium and carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers. Electric motors and batteries add to the energy of electric-car manufacture.” (Zehner, 2013). The magnets of the motors of the most of electric vehicles contain rare-earth metals and according to the reports from the researchers in the corresponding areas, the mining of the rare-earth metals would have to increase between 700% and 2600%.

Overall, the more humanity is concerned with the environmental issues, the more attempts are made in order to reduce the negative impacts upon the environment. Unfortunately the situation with electric vehicles is a vivid example of how one environmental challenge could be substituted by the other in this process. However, there is an evident tendency in the modern developed and some developing countries of the modern world to shift to electric vehicles.

References:

Boxwell, M. (2010). Owning an electric car. New York, NY: Code Green Pub.

Buekers, J; Van Holderbeke, M; Bierkens, J; Int Panis, L. (2014). “Health and environmental benefits related to electric vehicle introduction in EU countries”. Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment. 33: 26–38.

English, Andrew (2014). “Why electric cars must catch on”. Daily Telegraph

Raut, Anil K.(2016) Role of electric vehicles in reducing air pollution: a case of Katmandu, Nepal. The Clean Air Initiative.

U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (2014). Light-Duty Automotive Technology, Carbon Dioxide Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975 Through 2014. EPA.

Well-to-Wheels Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Petroleum Use for Mid-Size Light-Duty Vehicles. (2010). Department Of Energy United States of America.

Zehner, Ozzie (2013). “Unclean at Any Speed”. IEEE.

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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