Posted on 05/15/2016 10:45:38 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
Daily Caller News Foundation Electric Vehicles Emit More Pollutants Than Fossil Fuel-Burning Cars, Says Study
A study from the University of Edinburgh shows that electric and hybrid vehicles emit as many, if not more, atmospheric toxins than fossil fuel-burning vehicles.
The study, conducted by Victor Timmers and Peter Achten at the University of Edinburgh, and published by the journal Atmospheric Environment, found that heavier electric vehicles produce as many pollutants as their lighter weight conventional vehicles.
Electric vehicles tend to produce more pollutants from tire and brake wear, due in large part to their batteries, as well as the other parts needed to propel them, making them heavier.
These pollutants are emitted when electric vehicle tires and brakes deteriorate as they accelerate or slow down while driving. Timmers and Achten’s research suggests exhaust from traditional vehicles is only about one-third of the total emissions.
Further, the particulate matters are worse than fuel emissions, because they cause more health problems.
“We found that non-exhaust emissions, from brakes, tires and the road, are far larger than exhaust emissions in all modern cars,” Achten wrote in the study.
He continued: “These are more toxic than emissions from modern engines so they are likely to be key factors in the extra heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks seen when air pollution levels surge.”
The study does not include the production of energy needed for each vehicle, from coal or other fossil fuel sources. It only calculates the driving of the car. The increase in pollutants are generated from factors like tire wear dust and brake pad dust, and tend to increase as the electric vehicles and hybrids get heavier — due in part because of the added weight of the cars’ lithium batteries.
Adversely, the study shows the popularity of electric vehicles are unlikely to have much of an effect on the level of pollutants. In fact, electric vehicles actually emit 90 percent of particulate emissions, while traditional vehicles push out 85 percent of particulate emissions in traffic. These proportions will only increase as electric vehicles become more popular. The study’s authors concluded that future policies should focus more on the weight of electric and hybrid vehicles.
The Edinburgh study comes on the heels of research conducted in March by the investment firm Devonshire Research Group, a company that specializes in valuing and devaluing tech firms, showing that Tesla electric vehicles are “not as sustainable as they may seem.”
The study also shows that Tesla’s CEO, techno-wonder Elon Musk, could expose the company to “serious brand risk and an unknown legal exposure.” In fact, according to the research, everything about the Tesla — from its headlights, to its chassis, to the way it is produced — contributes to environmental degradation.
Yeah, but the buyers FEEL so much better about themselves and can look down their noses cause they’re doing something to save the erf.
LOL
The environment-friendliness of an electric vehicle is only as good as where it gets its electricity from. By burning coal and natural gas to generate the electricity needed to power electric vehicles, we are just moving the emissions from the road to the power plant. The majority of the electricity comes from fossil fuels.
Yep, it’s not about the planet, its about the FEEEEELS
Ahh and there in lies the rub. Feeling good is good enough and reality doesn’t matter.
A technical question: I’d expect electric vehicles to produce less particulates from braking, because they do their best to use regenerative braking, where the energy is largely recycled into the battery by driving a generator connected to the wheels.
That doesn’t affect the overall discussion of whether EV’s are overall more energy-costly, because of what goes into producing and salvaging them, or the fact that while they don’t burn petroleum, they get somebody else (the power plant) to burn it (or coal) for them.
South Park “Smug Alert!”
PROF: Electric cars actually causing more pollution
March 25, 2015
By Olaf Ekberg
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/prof-electric-cars-could-actually-cause-more-pollution/
Currently, brake dust consists of cellulose fiber particles (organic pad material)...silicon dioxide (the "ceramic" friction material, aka fiberglass) and powdered iron.
Probably all of which can be found naturally in your back yard.
True, but that applies to brake pads regardless of what type of vehicles they are used on. My point was that with regenerative braking, there should be less wearing of the pads, because they don’t have to be used as much.
What is that supposed to mean? The total is 175%? Sorry, but this article reads like a collection of stupid statements. Electric cars are heavier? Than what? A car weighs what it weighs. I'm betting an Escalade weighs more that most any electric car.
Just passed a “Pria(pa)s” with Go Green with a Sanders sticker over it.
An Escalade Hybrid weighs more than a Escalade non-hybrid. Better fuel mileage yes.
Remember E=MC^2. A simple fact which cannot be ignored.
ROTFLMAO!
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I refer everyone to season 10 episode 2 of South Park, entitled “Smug”.
Takes a great shot at Clooney as well.
Will not matter to the Pious Prius drivers.
Not one bit.
I might have missed it, but how about THIS factor?
All that BS about “alternative” energy sources is — well — BS! They are NEITHER cost effective NOR environmentally friendly over the long haul. Never HAVE been. In fact, nearly all those energy forms simply move the often
greater pollution they produce to another area of the country or world and concentrate it THERE. Hell, let’s just put all those dirty solar collector, BATTERY, pump and pipe plants in — say — Pennsylvania or West Virginia so WE can live that eco-friendly lifestyle HERE! Textbook NIMBY idiocy!
Yes, an Escalade weighs more than an EV, but no ICE vehicle has to spend extra energy moving several hundred pounds of battery around. EVs, by there very nature, have to do more work moving that battery...meaning there is more energy consumption per mile traveled.
And then you have to take into account the fact that even new, a battery is never 100% efficient....you never get all the energy out of a battery that you have to put in it....and batteries degrade over time and the # of charge-discharge cycles, meaning that as the battery goes through its’ life cycle, it takes more and more energy to drive the same number of miles.
It’s very basic....battery economics will never overcome battery physics.
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