In an interesting twist for the global electric cars industry, the latest report from the National Research Council had said that pollution from energy sources did $120 billion worth of damage to human health, agriculture and recreation in 2005. Of which electricity was responsible for more than half of the damage, which means that electric cars simply do not are the singular solution. They also have hidden costs. Like materials used in electric car batteries are hard to produce, and adds to the energy it takes to make them. In fact, the health and environmental costs of making electric cars can be 20 percent greater than conventional cars, and manufacturing efficiencies will have to be achieved in order for the cars to become greener, the report said.
Additionally, the report looks at transportation, which today relies almost exclusively on oil, accounts for nearly 30 percent of U.S. energy demand. In 2005 motor vehicles produced $56 billion in health and other non-climate-related damages, says the report. The committee evaluated damages for a variety of types of vehicles and fuels over their full life cycles, from extracting and transporting the fuel to manufacturing and operating the vehicle. In most cases, operating the vehicle accounted for less than one-third of the quantifiable non-climate damages, the report found.
Damages per vehicle mile traveled were remarkably similar among various combinations of fuels and technologies -- the range was 1.2 cents to about 1.7 cents per mile traveled -- and it is important to be cautious in interpreting small differences, the report says.
Non-climate-related damages for corn grain ethanol were similar to or slightly worse than gasoline, because of the energy needed to produce the corn and convert it to fuel. In contrast, ethanol made from herbaceous plants or corn stover - which are not yet commercially available -- had lower damages than most other options.
Electric vehicles and grid-dependent (plug-in) hybrid vehicles showed somewhat higher non-climate damages than many other technologies for both 2005 and 2030. Operating these vehicles produces few or no emissions, but producing the electricity to power them currently relies heavily on fossil fuels; also, energy used in creating the battery and electric motor adds up to 20 percent to the manufacturing part of life-cycle damages.
Most vehicle and fuel combinations had similar levels of greenhouse gas emissions in 2005. There are not substantial changes estimated for those emissions in 2030; while population and income growth are expected to drive up the damages caused by each ton of emissions, implementation of new fuel efficiency standards of 35.5 miles per gallon will lower emissions and damages for every vehicle mile traveled. Achieving significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 will likely also require breakthrough technologies, such as cost-effective carbon capture and storage or conversion of advanced biofuels, the report says.
Both for 2005 and 2030, vehicles using gasoline made from oil extracted from tar sands and those using diesel derived from the Fischer-Tropsch process -- which converts coal, methane, or biomass to liquid fuel -- had the highest life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions. Vehicles using ethanol made from corn stover or herbaceous feedstock such as switchgrass had some of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, as did those powered by compressed natural gas.
Fully implementing federal rules on diesel fuel emissions, which require vehicles beginning in the model year 2007 to use low-sulfur diesel, is expected to substantially decrease non-climate damages from diesel by 2030 -- an indication of how regulatory actions can significantly affect energy-related damages, the committee said. Major initiatives to further lower other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner mix of energy sources could reduce other damages as well, such as substantially lowering the damages attributable to electric vehicles.
The report was sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Treasury also makes the case for electric cars weak given that downstream and upstream issues on energy production also needs to be taken into account if they have to succeed to save the Earth from pollution and global warming. "For electric vehicles to become a major green alternative, the power fuel mix has to move away from coal, or cleaner coal technologies have to be developed," said Jared Cohon, the chair of a National Research Council report. Nuclear and renewable power would have to generate a larger portion of US power for electric cars to become much greener compared to gasoline-powered cars, Cohan, who is also president of Carnegie Mellon University, said in an interview.
Advances in coal burning, like capturing carbon at power plants for permanent burial underground, could also help electric cars become a cleaner alternative to vehicles powered by fossil fuels, he said.
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