Are Electric Cars Really Green?
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Are electric cars greener than conventional gasoline cars? If so, how much greener? What about the CO2 emissions produced during electric cars‘ production? And where does the electricity that powers electric cars come from? Environmental economist Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, examines how environmentally friendly electric cars really are
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Script:
Do electric cars really help the environment? President Obama thinks so So does Leonardo DiCaprio And many others
The argument goes like this:
Regular cars run on gasoline, a fossil fuel that pumps CO2 straight out of the tailpipe and into the atmosphere Electric cars run on electricity They don’t burn any gasoline at all No gas; no CO2 In fact, electric cars are often advertised as creating “zero emissions” But do they really? Let’s take a closer look
First, there’s the energy needed to produce the car More than a third of the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an electric car comes from the energy used make the car itself, especially the battery The mining of lithium, for instance, is not a green activity When an electric car rolls off the production line, it’s already been responsible for more than 25,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emission The amount for making a conventional car: just 16,000 pounds
But that’s not the end of the CO2 emissions Because while it’s true that electric cars don’t run on gasoline, they do run on electricity, which, in the US is often produced by another fossil fuel -- coal As green venture capitalist Vinod Khosla likes to point out, Electric cars are coal-powered cars
The most popular electric car, the Nissan Leaf, over a 90,000-mile lifetime will emit 31 metric tons of CO2, based on emissions from its production, its electricity consumption at average US fuel mix and its ultimate scrapping
A comparable Mercedes CDI A160 over a similar lifetime will emit just 3 tons more across its production, diesel consumption and ultimate scrapping The results are similar for a top-line Tesla, the king of electric cars It emits about 44 tons, which is only 5 tons less than a similar Audi A7 Quattro
So throughout the full life of an electric car, it will emit just three to five tons less CO2 In Europe, on its European Trading System, it currently costs $7 to cut one ton of CO2 So the entire climate benefit of an electric car is about $35 Yet the US federal government essentially provides electric car buyers with a subsidy of up to $7,500
Paying $7,500 for something you could get for $35 is a very poor deal And that doesn’t include the billions more in federal and state grants, loans and tax write-offs that go directly to battery and electric-car makers
The other main benefit from electric cars is supposed to be lower pollution But remember Vinod Khosla’s observation Electric cars are coal-powered cars
Yes, it might be powered by coal, proponents will say, but unlike the regular car, coal plant emissions are far away from the city centers where most people live and where damage from air pollution is greatest However, new research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that while gasoline cars pollute closer to home, coal-fired power actually pollutes more -- a lot more
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Script:
Do electric cars really help the environment? President Obama thinks so So does Leonardo DiCaprio And many others
The argument goes like this:
Regular cars run on gasoline, a fossil fuel that pumps CO2 straight out of the tailpipe and into the atmosphere Electric cars run on electricity They don’t burn any gasoline at all No gas; no CO2 In fact, electric cars are often advertised as creating “zero emissions” But do they really? Let’s take a closer look
First, there’s the energy needed to produce the car More than a third of the lifetime carbon-dioxide emissions from an electric car comes from the energy used make the car itself, especially the battery The mining of lithium, for instance, is not a green activity When an electric car rolls off the production line, it’s already been responsible for more than 25,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emission The amount for making a conventional car: just 16,000 pounds
But that’s not the end of the CO2 emissions Because while it’s true that electric cars don’t run on gasoline, they do run on electricity, which, in the US is often produced by another fossil fuel -- coal As green venture capitalist Vinod Khosla likes to point out, Electric cars are coal-powered cars
The most popular electric car, the Nissan Leaf, over a 90,000-mile lifetime will emit 31 metric tons of CO2, based on emissions from its production, its electricity consumption at average US fuel mix and its ultimate scrapping
A comparable Mercedes CDI A160 over a similar lifetime will emit just 3 tons more across its production, diesel consumption and ultimate scrapping The results are similar for a top-line Tesla, the king of electric cars It emits about 44 tons, which is only 5 tons less than a similar Audi A7 Quattro
So throughout the full life of an electric car, it will emit just three to five tons less CO2 In Europe, on its European Trading System, it currently costs $7 to cut one ton of CO2 So the entire climate benefit of an electric car is about $35 Yet the US federal government essentially provides electric car buyers with a subsidy of up to $7,500
Paying $7,500 for something you could get for $35 is a very poor deal And that doesn’t include the billions more in federal and state grants, loans and tax write-offs that go directly to battery and electric-car makers
The other main benefit from electric cars is supposed to be lower pollution But remember Vinod Khosla’s observation Electric cars are coal-powered cars
Yes, it might be powered by coal, proponents will say, but unlike the regular car, coal plant emissions are far away from the city centers where most people live and where damage from air pollution is greatest However, new research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that while gasoline cars pollute closer to home, coal-fired power actually pollutes more -- a lot more
For the complete script, visit https://wwwpragerucom/videos/are-electric-cars-really-green