Electric cars, like those from Tesla and Leaf, are all the rage and are being touted as a new "eco-friendly" way to travel by car. But that may not be the case, as they MIGHT be just as bad as fossil fuel vehicles, if not slightly better, in their own way. Nissan advertises the Leaf as a “100% electric” vehicle that generates “zero emissions.” .”Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay But, according to Bjorn Lomborg, writing in a March 11, 2013 Wall Street Journal article, this is incorrect. Consider these facts from Bjorn's article:1. A 2012 comprehensive life cycle analysis published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology shows that nearly half of the carbon dioxide emissions produced by an electric car over its lifetime come from the energy used to produce the car, specifically from the battery. Lithium extraction, for example, is anything but an ecological activity. When an electric car rolls off the production line, it is already responsible for emitting 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. In contrast, the production of a gas-powered car is responsible for 17% of its lifetime carbon dioxide emissions. Amount to build a conventional car: £14,000.3. Life cycle analysis shows that for every mile driven, the average electric car indirectly emits about six ounces of carbon dioxide. This is still much better than a similarly sized conventional car, which emits about 12 ounces per mile. But remember, the production of the electric car has already produced considerable emissions, the equivalent of 80,000 miles of travel in the vehicle. If a typical electric car is driven 50,000 miles over its lifetime, the huge initial emissions from its production mean that the car will have actually put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than a similarly sized petrol car that has driven the same number of kilometers. miles. Similarly, if the energy used to charge the electric car came primarily from coal-fired power plants, it would be responsible for emitting nearly 15 ounces of carbon dioxide for each of the 50,000 miles driven—three ounces more than a car similar gas powered.5. Even if the electric car is driven 90,000 miles and the owner stays away from coal-powered electricity, the car will only cause 24% fewer carbon dioxide emissions than its gas-powered cousin. This is far from “zero emissions”. Over its entire life, the electric car will produce 8.7 tons less carbon dioxide than the average conventional car.6. That 8.7 tons may seem like a considerable amount, but it isn't. The best current estimate of the global warming damage from an extra ton of carbon dioxide is about $5. This means that an optimistic assessment of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with an electric car will save the world approximately $44 in climate damage to the owner. On the European emissions market, the credit for 8.7 tons of carbon dioxide costs 48.7 dollars. Yet, the U.S. federal government essentially subsidizes electric car buyers by up to $7,500. Additionally, more than $5.5 billion in federal grants and loans go directly to battery and electric car manufacturers. This is a bad deal for taxpayers. Another article explaining how electric cars may not be the best solution comes from David C. Holzman: In an attempt to increase sales, theChinese government recently announced that it will waive the 10% sales tax on domestic electric cars in addition to total government subsidies. up to $19,000 per car. But despite their eco-friendly reputation, electric cars in China, on a per-mile basis, cause more than 3.5 times more premature air pollution-related deaths than gasoline-powered cars, according to new estimates calculated for the country's 34 largest cities. . the researchers calculated emissions per person-km travelled, i.e. one person traveling 1 km in a vehicle (if 15 people travel 10 km in a bus, the bus accumulates 150 person-km). They considered five types of vehicles: electric cars (excluding hybrids), electric bicycles and scooters (e-bikes), petrol cars, diesel cars and diesel buses. They estimated exhaust emissions from gasoline and diesel vehicles based on emissions standards and data published in peer-reviewed literature. Electric vehicles produce no combustion emissions; the impact of their emissions instead comes from the power plants that produce the electricity they use. The vast majority of electricity in China is coal-fired (compared to just under 50% in the US). Electric vehicle emissions come not from gasoline or diesel but from coal and other energy sources used to power the electricity grid. Although vehicle-specific mortality varies greatly from city to city, electric cars are estimated to cause more premature deaths than gasoline cars in 33 of the cases. the 34 cities examined. “Emissions from coal-fired power plants are relatively high in China due to lower-quality coal and fewer power plants using emissions control technologies,” explains report co-author Julian D. Marshall, assistant professor of engineering environmental at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In Shanghai, for example, power plant emissions associated with electric cars caused approximately 26 excess deaths per 10 billion person-km annually compared to 9 excess deaths for gasoline cars. It is estimated that diesel cars caused 90 additional deaths per 10 billion person-km. Diesel buses, which have lower emissions per person-km than diesel cars because they carry more people, caused about 32 excess deaths, and electric bicycles performed best, causing only 3 excess deaths estimated at 10 billion person-km per year. Not surprisingly, the implications of this research for other countries are variable. Vietnam, for example, depends much more on natural gas and hydropower than coal for electricity generation, Cherry says, so much so that electric cars cause a third of the pollution than gasoline cars and a tenth of the overall pollution compared to those produced by Vietnam. do in China. By contrast, he says, average PM2.5 emissions in the energy sector in India are 10% higher than in China, causing more pollution per kilometer per electric car. that charges them, and a clean energy future includes both electric vehicles and a cleaner power grid,” says Don Anair, senior analyst and engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Anair points out that the US grid is cleaner than China's thanks to clean air regulations and increased investment in renewable electricity (US investment in renewable energy ranks second in the world, just behind China). The emissions intensity of the US grid – that is, emissions per unit of energy produced – will continue to improve as older, unimproved coal plants are retired,/