Lesson from China: Electric Cars Pollute more than those that use Gas Posted on 14 February 2012 by Ben Peterson
China uses electric cars over conventional cars by a 2 to 1 ratio. While that is the average green enthusiast’s wildest dream, the reality is that electric cars are causing more pollution than gasoline powered cars ever could according to findings by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Chris Cherry, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, and graduate student Shuguang Ji, analyzed the emissions and environmental health impacts of five vehicle technologies in 34 major Chinese cities, focusing on dangerous fine particles. What Cherry and his team found defies conventional logic: electric cars cause much more overall harmful particulate matter pollution than gasoline cars.
“An implicit assumption has been that air quality and health impacts are lower for electric vehicles than for conventional vehicles,” Cherry said. “Our findings challenge that by comparing what is emitted by vehicle use to what people are actually exposed to. Prior studies have only examined environmental impacts by comparing emission factors or greenhouse gas emissions.”
People that get excited over electric cars miss a very important point. Where does the energy come from to charge and run these electric cars? Power plants. In China 85% of their power is produced using fossil fuels including coal. In reality electric cars run on fossil fuels just as much as conventional vehicles do and the emissions from those power plants “emit fine particles at a much higher rate than gasoline vehicles.”
Roughly 80% of power in the US is generated be fossil fuels. More proof that liberals do not consider the repercussions of the utopian policies they chase. If I heard a larger call for nuclear power I might take them more seriously. The only difference with electric cars and gas cars is where the combustion takes place. In a gas driven car its in the engine and for an electric car its at a power plant.
There has also been a disproportionate affect on the poor caused by the pollution from power plants.
The findings also highlight the importance of considering exposures and the proximity of emissions to people when evaluating environmental health impacts for electric vehicles. They also illuminate the distributional impact of moving pollution out of cities. For electric vehicles, about half of the urban emissions are inhaled by rural populations, who generally have lower incomes.
We all want a cleaner environment, but we must allow innovation to catch up to demand. We must stop the government from committing us to a technology that pollutes worse than the what we have now. China is teaching us a valuable lesson and we would be foolish to ignore it.
Poster Comment:
And Leftards try to blame the right for wanting dirtier air and water!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!
