green technology

How Green Are Electric Cars? | Earth Wise

April 12, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Environmental groups, governments, and automakers are all promoting electric vehicles as an important technology to combat climate change. For example, GM plans to stop selling gas-powered cars by 2035 and Volvo intends to be all-electric by 2030.

There are still those who question how green electric vehicles actually are. All products and technologies do have their environmental impacts. In general, today’s electric cars produce significantly fewer planet-warming emissions than gas-powered cars, but there are factors that affect the results for specific vehicles.

The biggest issue is the source of electricity used to charge up the cars. In places where coal still provides a substantial fraction of electric generation, electric cars don’t fare as well. But coal’s contributions to the grid are declining rapidly and even cleaner fossil fuels like natural gas are gradually being replaced by green generation from wind and solar power. If the grid was entirely carbon-free, then there would be no emissions associated with operating the vehicle.

MIT has created an interactive online tool that incorporates a comprehensive set of factors contributing to the emissions associated with cars: what it takes to manufacture the cars, how much gasoline conventional cars burn, and where the electricity to charge electric vehicles comes from.

The tool provides information like the average amount of carbon dioxide emitted for every mile driven over a car’s lifetime.

Results will vary with location and various other vehicle factors, but in the great majority of cases, electric cars are much greener than gasoline cars, and as the grid becomes greener, the cars will become greener as well.

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CarbonCounter 2021

How Green Are Electric Vehicles?

Photo, posted January 29, 2020, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Green Hydrogen | Earth Wise

December 11, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Saudi Arabia is a country built around oil, but it is now placing a big bet on green hydrogen as the next big thing in its energy future. The country is constructing a $500 billion futuristic city called Neom in the desert along the Red Sea. The brand-new city will be home to a million people, and it will be powered by green hydrogen.

The U.S. company Air Products & Chemicals has been building a green hydrogen plant there for the last four years. The giant plant will be powered by 4 gigawatts of wind and solar projects.

Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced without carbon emissions. Most hydrogen produced commercially is made from natural gas, which results in CO₂ emissions. Green hydrogen is made by using electricity to split water into its component elements using renewable energy to power the process.

Saudi Arabia is an ideal place for a giant green hydrogen plant. The Middle East has the world’s cheapest wind and solar power. The sun reliably shines there almost every day and the wind blows almost every night.

While some proponents argue that hydrogen should fuel the entire energy system, other experts see it as a more targeted solution. The view is that wind and solar power can provide the electricity we need to power homes and electric cars. However, green hydrogen could be ideal to power energy-intensive industries like concrete and steel manufacturing, as well as parts of the transportation sector that are more difficult to electrify.

While green hydrogen is barely on the radar in the US, around the world a green hydrogen rush is underway, developing it as an energy source that could help end the reign of fossil fuels.

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Green Hydrogen: Could It Be Key to a Carbon-Free Economy?

Photo, posted November 6, 2020, courtesy of RSM Chrystie via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewables Could Take Over By 2035 | Earth Wise

July 15, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A study by UC Berkeley looked at the prospects for renewable energy sources to become the primary source of energy in the United States over the next 15 years. Even though fossil fuels continue to fill that role at present, the plummeting costs of alternative energy sources – primarily solar and wind power – are making them increasingly attractive on the competitive market.

These cost reductions have occurred much faster than what was anticipated even just a few years ago. According to the study, it is technically and economically feasible for renewable sources to provide 90% of our electricity by 2035.

The Berkeley researchers took the available data on renewable energy and created two scenarios for the next 15 years. The first has energy policy remaining as it is now, without ambitious policy changes that encourage the growth of renewable energy. In that scenario, they estimated that 55% of the US energy infrastructure would come from renewables. That amount will not produce the change needed to meet Paris Climate Agreement goals but would simply come about because of the dramatically lower costs for renewable energy.

The second scenario includes state and federal governments leading the way to finance and facilitate the energy reform needed for a greener 2035. It also relies on the large-scale use of grid-scale batteries to store the energy collected from solar and wind installations for when it is needed.

Which scenario is more realistic will depend on several major influential factors, notably the trajectory and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the results of the November elections. These things will have a huge impact on the future of our energy system.

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Report: By 2035, 90 Percent of the US Could Be Powered by Renewables

Photo, posted May 25, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.