Francis Scully- All-Electric Cars:Not Quite Zero Emissions

Francis Scully
Professor Di Fiori
Physical Science 2 #0543
1 December 2012

                                                  All-Electric Cars:Not Quite Zero Emissions

    With the release of vehicles like Chevy’s Volt and Nissan’s Leaf it is clear that electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining popularity among some United States consumers. This increase in popularity has largely been due to many benefits that these vehicles can offer over traditional automobiles. Among other benefits many of these EVs can be simply plugged in and charged on household electrical systems greatly reducing their cost of ownership relative to internal combustion vehicles. Additionally some of the newer EVs are “zero emissions” vehicles essentially meaning that they do not produce any exhaust or other form of pollution while operated, and consequently do not feature a tail pipe of any kind. This in particular has appealed to some consumers because of the notion that they are “green”, or in other words, they are not harmful to the environment. However, simply because electric vehicles do not actively spew pollutants does not necessarily indicate that there impact on the environment is less than gasoline or other hydrocarbon fueled automobiles.
    Electric vehicles like the BMW ActiveE and the Nissan Leaf allow owners the ability to drive a range of 50 to 100 miles, and the convenience of charging from a common household outlet. Being that these cars run on completely electric motors they lack the drawbacks of common engines such as the need to fuel up at a gas station and noise. These benefits paired with the zero emissions trait may at first allow them to appear significantly less harmful to the environment than traditional automobiles. Unfortunately this is not the case. According to Johs Smith of Discovery Science, a significant amount of the electricity used to charge these vehicles comes from coal burning, or gas-fired power plants which spew many of the same emissions that traditional automobiles emit. Additionally, the typical battery used in these vehicles contains the chemical Lithium. Many Lithium mines have been notorious for causing pollution in the extraction process. These factors indicate that these cars do in fact indirectly result in a large amount of pollution.
    Nevertheless, a report recently published by Swiss research institute Empa, found that while the production of components such as batteries and the charging of electronic vehicles may produce pollution it is still generally less that the pollution produced by similar internal combustion vehicles. This essentially indicates that while electric vehicles are environmentally cleaner; their environmental impact is not significantly less than traditional vehicles.

Sources:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es903729a
http://news.discovery.com/tech/are-electric-cars-better-for-the-environment.html