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Electric Cars And The Environment | Earth Wise

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There are articles in the media all the time questioning whether electric cars are really better for the environment than those powered by fossil fuels.  The usual argument is that once emissions from vehicle production and electricity generation are taken into account, electric cars are no greener than gas cars, or even worse for the environment.  Of course, these arguments tend to be made by oil companies and their supporters.

A new study by three European universities looked at this very issue in detail. They carried out a life-cycle assessment in which they not only calculated greenhouse gas emissions generated when using cars, but also in the production chain and waste processing.

Their conclusions are that under current conditions, driving an electric car is better for the climate than conventional gasoline cars in 95% of the world.  The only exceptions are places like Poland, where almost all electricity comes from coal-fired plants.

Average lifetime emissions associated with electric cars are up to 70% lower than gas cars in countries like Sweden and France and about 30% lower in England.

It is important to note than in a few years, even inefficient electric cars will be less emission-intensive than gas cars because electricity generation is becoming less carbon-intensive all the time.  The study projects that by 2050, half of the world’s cars will be electric resulting in carbon dioxide emission reductions of 1.5 billion tons.

The study states that the idea that electric cars could increase emissions is a myth.  The detailed study has run the numbers for all around the world and even in the worst-case scenario, there would be a reduction in emissions in almost all cases.

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Electric cars better for climate in 95% of the world

Photo, posted February 13, 2019, courtesy of Guillaume Vachey via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Building The World’s Largest Battery Energy Storage Plant | Earth Wise

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The Monterey County Planning Commission has unanimously approved a joint project between Tesla and Pacific Gas and Electric to turn the Moss Landing Power Plant in California into the world’s largest battery energy storage facility.

The Moss Landing Power Plant is a natural gas-powered electricity generation plant located at the midpoint of California’s Monterey Bay.  At one time, it was the largest power plant in the state of California with a generation capacity of 2560 MW but has been gradually shutting down over time.

The new facility will incorporate 1.2 GWh of storage capacity for energy generated by solar and wind systems.  The stored energy will be available for use during periods of high energy demand and lower output.  This is about ten times larger than Tesla’s Hornsdale energy storage project in Australia, which was three times bigger than any other batter storage facility when it was built a few years ago.  In 2018, the battery system at Hornsdale made back a third of its cost in just one year.  The systems make use of Tesla’s Megapack battery products which come in pre-assembled units that provide 3 MWh of energy storage capacity.

The project will make use of existing power lines to transmit energy around Monterey County and parts of Silicon Valley.  Tesla and PG&E hope to break ground in early spring with completion scheduled for the end of the year.  California has been adding massive amounts of wind and solar power to its electrical grid and incorporating energy storage is an important step towards creating a truly resilient power system.

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Humongous Tesla Battery Plant Approved In California Is 10× Bigger Than World’s Biggest Battery Plant

Photo, posted September 22, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Strategies To Promote Green Products | Earth Wise

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Green products are environmentally-friendly products with features that are less harmful to people and the planet.  For instance, green products may require fewer resources to produce, consume less energy, contain non-toxic ingredients, or create fewer emissions.  Some examples include biodegradable waste bags, LED light bulbs, low-flow shower heads, organic cotton clothing, and reusable coffee cups and water bottles.  

But according to new research from two universities in the United Kingdom, companies looking to promote their latest environmentally-friendly product should actually downplay its greenness if they want consumers to buy it.

The study, by researchers from the University of East Anglia and the University of Leeds, found advertising that highlights a product’s green attributes can lead consumers to associate it with weak performance.  The findings, which were recently published in the Journal of Advertising, indicate that companies should downplay a product’s green qualities and instead promote it on more traditional aspects.

An example of these two distinct advertising strategies – green emphasis versus green understatement – can be found in the auto industry.  Car manufacturer Toyota prominently highlights the low emissions and low fuel consumption features of the Prius, employing what the researchers term as ‘explicit signals’.  In contrast, automaker Tesla reduces the prominence of its green attributes, focusing instead on its cars’ acceleration, handling, and other performance-related characteristics.  This is known as the ‘implicit signals’ marketing approach.

After conducting two experiments, the research team found that the implicit, rather than explicit, marketing approach about greenness leads to higher performance evaluations and purchase intent.

Consumers appear more likely to engage in pro-social actions when it’s accompanied by some form of personal benefit. 

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Highlighting product greenness may put consumers off buying

Photo, posted December 21, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hyping Electric Cars | Earth Wise

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During this year’s Super Bowl, at least three car companies – GM, Porsche, and Audi – ran commercials for plug-in cars.  This is a sign that automakers are ramping up their efforts to persuade the public that electric cars really are the future.

The auto industry is investing billions of dollars to develop electric vehicles, spurred by stricter emissions rules in places like California and concerns about climate change.  In fact, more than 100 new plug-in models are expected to become available in the United States over the next five years.

In Europe, electric cars are increasingly popular.  Norwegians, for example, buy more electric cars than gas cars.  And several European countries have banned the sale of gas cars starting in 2025.

But in the US, enthusiasm for electric cars has been slow to build.  Automakers sold fewer than 330,00 electric vehicles in the US in 2019 and more than half of those were from Tesla, which actually does not even advertise its vehicles.

The auto industry spent nearly $9 billion in national and local advertising in the US last year, but less than half a percent of that went toward promoting electric vehicles.

A big part of the problem is that car dealers are not very enthusiastic about selling electric cars, which require far less maintenance than conventional cars and have far fewer costly replacement parts to sell.   As a result, the industry’s efforts to speed the transition to electric cars has been ambivalent at best.

World-wide, Tesla has sold about a million cars, mostly in the past 4 years, so there is clearly a growing demand for electric vehicles.  It is up to the rest of the industry to create demand for the new cars they have committed to produce.

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Super Bowl Ads Hyped Electric Cars. But Will Anyone Buy Them?

Photo, posted October 6, 2018, courtesy of Mike Fonseca via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Lighting Up Batteries

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One of the things that hampers the adoption of electric vehicles is range anxiety.  Drivers worry that they will run out of charge before they get to the closest charging station.   Range anxiety has lessened considerably in recent years as electric cars have incorporated larger and larger battery packs yielding driving ranges well over two hundred and even over three hundred miles.

With these extended driving ranges, drivers then turn their attention to how long it takes to charge.  Tesla’s Superchargers have gotten to the point where a car can add 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and 200 miles in less than half an hour.  Fast charging systems are improving the charge times for other electric models as well.

Nevertheless, drivers would ideally like to reduce charging times to as little as possible in order to provide the convenience experienced in gasoline cars.

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have reported a mechanism for speeding up the charging of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.  By exposing the battery cathode to a beam of concentrated light, the charging time can be reduced by a factor of two or more. If this could be commercialized, it could be a real game changer for electric vehicles.

The research used specially crafted lithium-ion cells with transparent quartz windows.  Shining white light into the windows caused a semiconductor material known as LMO to change its charge state and drive the charging reaction more quickly in the lithium ions of the battery.

Using this photo-assisted technology in vehicle batteries would require substantial redesign that would allow concentrated light to illuminate battery electrodes during charging.  How practical that is remains to be seen, but the payoff would be substantial.

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Shedding new light on the charging of lithium-ion batteries

Photo, posted June 30, 2018, courtesy of Open Grid Scheduler via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Other Ways To Cut Vehicle Emissions

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It is pretty clear that the way to drastically reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions is to switch as many vehicles as possible to electric power.  As a result, more and more localities are putting in place policies that encourage electrification.

While there is no doubt that electrification is the long-term solution to vehicle emissions, a recent study by MIT and the Ford Motor Company found that, in the short term, there are some places in the US where electric cars are not the best way to reduce emissions.

The study looked at a variety of factors that affect the relative performance of vehicles.  These include the role of low temperatures in reducing battery performance, regional differences in the average number of miles driven annually, and significant differences in the way electricity is generated in different parts of the US.

The results showed that electric vehicles definitely provide the greatest impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for most of the country – and particularly on both coasts and in the south – but that there are some places in the upper Midwest where the greatest reduction would be achieved by the use of lightweight gasoline-powered vehicles.

In places like parts of Wisconsin and Michigan, it is mostly rural, there are cold winters, and electricity is predominantly generated by coal-powered plants.  In these places, if gas-powered lightweight cars were to be used, the overall benefit would be greater than that of electric cars.  Unfortunately, there are no high-volume lightweight gasoline-powered mid-sized cars on the market in the US.  Ironically, the only cars of that class using lightweight aluminum construction are Teslas.

While electric cars are truly the long-term solution, the study does demonstrate the benefits of reducing the weight of vehicles.

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What’s the best way to cut vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions?

Photo, posted February 9, 2018, courtesy of Dave Field via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Solar-Powered Desalination

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Turning seawater into drinking water is an energy-intensive process and is therefore pretty expensive.  Worldwide, one third of people don’t have reliable access to safe drinking water and they are the least able to afford expensive ways to get it.   By 2025, half of the world’s population is expected to live in water-stressed areas.

At a newly-constructed facility in Kenya, a nonprofit company called GivePower has built a desalination system that runs on solar power.  The system started operating in the coastal area of Kiunga in July 2018 and can create nearly 20,000 gallons of fresh drinking water each day – enough for 25,000 people.

GivePower started in 2013 as a nonprofit branch of SolarCity, the solar-panel company that ultimately merged with Tesla in 2016.  However, GivePower spun off as a separate enterprise shortly before that.

GivePower mostly focuses on building solar-energy systems to provide electricity across the developing world. 

Desalination technology is not new, but it is notoriously energy-intensive because it requires high-power pumps.  The GivePower system is integrated with a solar microgrid that makes use of Tesla batteries to store energy for when the sun is not shining. 

Local residents pay about a quarter of one cent for every quart of water from the system.  The Kiunga community has faced ongoing drought and before the GivePower system was installed, was forced to drink from salt water wells, which present serious health risks.

The GivePower system cost $500,000 to build and is expected to generate $100,000 a year, to be eventually used to fund similar facilities in other places.

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A solar-powered system can turn salt water into fresh drinking water for 25,000 people per day. It could help address the world’s looming water crisis.

Photo courtesy of GivePower.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Agrivoltaics

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A new study by Oregon State University has found that the most productive places on Earth for solar power are farmlands.   In fact, if less than 1% of agricultural land was converted to solar panels, it would be sufficient to fulfill global electricity demand.

The concept of co-developing the same area of land for both solar photovoltaic power and conventional agriculture is known as agrivoltaics.

The synergy between agriculture and solar power is not surprising.   People have been growing crops around the planet for at least 8,000 years and, long ago, farmers found the best places to grow them which turn out to also the best places to harvest solar energy.  The needs for solar panels are pretty similar to those of food crops.  The efficiency of the panels decreases if they get too hot.  Barren land is hotter than cropland, so the productivity of solar panels is less in such places.

The Oregon State Study analyzed power production data collected by Tesla, which had installed five large grid-tied, ground-mounted solar electric arrays owned by Oregon State.  The researchers monitored air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, soil moisture, and incoming solar energy.  With the data, they developed a model for the best conditions for solar panel productivity and they coincide with excellent conditions for agriculture.  Solar panels are kind of like people with regard to the weather:  they are happier when it is cool and breezy and dry.

Previously-published research shows that solar panels actually increase crop yields on pasture or agricultural fields.

These new results have implications for the current practice of constructing large solar arrays in deserts.  Agricultural lands may be a much better option for both solar production and crop production.

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Installing solar panels on agricultural lands maximizes their efficiency, new study shows

Photo, posted April 20, 2011, courtesy of U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Booming Electric Car Sales

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Electric cars are becoming more and more commonplace over time.  There is no place in the world where this is more evident than in Norway.  This year, about half the new cars sold in Norway have been electric.  This compares to only 25% just last year.  In March alone, nearly 60% of vehicle purchases in Norway were plug-in cars, outselling gas and diesel cars for the first time ever.

Norway has encouraged the switch to electric transportation by making battery-powered cars tax exempt as well as offering various other incentives.  This is all part of the country’s plan to end the sale of fossil fuel cars entirely by 2025.

Although Norway leads the world in electric car sales on a per capita basis, there are many other places seeing rapid growth.  In Maryland, for example, so many electric cars were sold in the past year that the state’s tax credit program, which has a $3 million annual budget, ran out of money seven months before the end of the fiscal year.  Between 2017 and 2018, the number of EVs registered in Maryland doubled to over 18,000.

New York has also seen robust growth in electric vehicles.  There are now more than 40,000 plug-in cars registered in New York State.  About a third of those are Tesla models, with the increasingly popular Tesla Model 3 rapidly becoming the dominant plug-in car in the state.  In fact, this year the Tesla Model 3 has accounted for about 60% of all plug-in car sales in the United States.

Not only are electric car sales going up, so are the options for car buyers.  Within the next year or two, there will be numerous new electric car choices available from multiple manufacturers appealing to the tastes of a growing range of car buyers.

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EVs Make Up Half of New Car Sales in Norway So Far This Year

Photo, posted May 16, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

China And Rare Earth Mining

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Rare earth elements are a crucial part of much of modern technology.  Everything from computers to X-ray machines and aircraft engines needs one or more rare earth elements for magnets, lenses, and other functions.  The world’s tech giants such as Apple, Huawei, and Tesla depend on suppliers of rare earths.

Rare earth elements are not actually rare, but they are very expensive to extract in ways that are not extremely harmful to the environment.  China has been a major source of these elements since its rare earth mining industry took off in the 1990s.  The removal of rare earths from the earth’s crust, using a mix of water and chemicals, has caused extensive water and soil pollution.

Today, concrete leaching ponds and plastic-lined wastewater pools dot the hills of Southeast China.  Large wastewater ponds sit uncovered and open to the elements in many places.  Landslides or barrier failures can spill contaminated contents into waterways or groundwater.

Local and federal officials in China have started to shut down illegal and small-scale rare earth mining operations and have embarked on a cleanup of polluted sites.  The rare earth mining cleanup operation is part of wider efforts across China to address severe problems of water, air and soil pollution.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology estimated that the cleanup bill for southern Jiangxi Province could amount to more than $5 billion.  Many environmental experts and local officials say that the cost of the cleanup should not be shouldered by the Chinese government alone, but also by the rare earth industry and the global companies and consumers that benefit from rare earth technology.  As rare earth mining efforts start up elsewhere around the world, it is important not to repeat the mistakes made in China.

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China Wrestles with the Toxic Aftermath of Rare Earth Mining

Photo, posted April 21, 2019, courtesy of John Beans via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Affordable Electric Cars

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The main reasons that electric cars haven’t taken over are that they didn’t drive far enough on a charge, it took too long to charge them, and, most of all, they cost too much.

In recent years, the problem with driving range has steadily been disappearing as electric cars that can go over two hundred and even over three hundred miles on a charge have entered the market.  Charging time has also become less of a problem.  Tesla’s network of Superchargers can provide 200 miles worth of charge in half an hour and their next generation of chargers, which are just starting to appear, can cut that time much further.

As for cost, a new report by transportation analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that electric vehicles will be cost-competitive with combustion-engine cars by 2022.

The main reason is that the cost of EV batteries has been plummeting.  In 2015, batteries made up 57% of the total cost of an electric vehicle.  Today, that number is down to 33% and is expected to drop to 20% by 2025.  In addition, the cost of electric powertrain systems is also dropping.  The Bloomberg report predicts that over the next decade, costs for motors, inverters, and power electronics could be 25 to 30% cheaper than today.

The cost of electric vehicles has been dropping faster than predicted.  Bloomberg’s report on the subject in 2017 predicted cost parity in 2026.  Last year, they changed it to 2024.  And now, they are saying 2022.

Given that electric cars are much cheaper to drive than gasoline cars, finding reasons not to drive them is getting harder to do.

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Electric Cars Could Be As Affordable as Conventional Vehicles In Just Three Years

Photo, posted November 17, 2018, courtesy of Jakob Harter via Flickr.

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Electric Cars In Norway

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Norway has long been a world leader in sales of electric vehicles.  The country only has 5.3 million people, so the absolute numbers cannot compete with those of large countries.  Despite that, it wasn’t until the first quarter of last year that Germany became the leader in number of electric cars sold in Europe and Germany has 15 times the population of Norway.

In percentage terms, almost one-third of all new cars sold in Norway last year ran on batteries.  The country offers generous subsidies for buyers who opt to go electric.  The government has set a goal of having all new cars be emission-free by 2025.  Last year, three of the top five most popular new car models were electric:  the Nissan Leaf, the BMW i3, and the Tesla Model X.

Tesla’s Model 3, which has shattered all records for electric car sales in the United States, has yet to go on sale in Norway.  When the car becomes available there in the next few months, it is expected to generate very high sales figures.

The 31% market share for electric cars in Norway far exceeds that of most other countries.  In the United States, for example, plug-in cars account for only about 2% of new car sales.  Only Hong Kong and Iceland are also currently above 5% electric.

Norway’s role in all of this is rather convoluted.  The country has copious hydroelectric power resources that provide virtually all of its electricity.  Thus, electric cars in Norway are truly clean, green vehicles.  On the other hand, Norway is the 15th largest producer of oil in the world and gets about 17% of its GDP from oil exports.  Tackling climate change must ultimately deal with the emissions Norway continues to export.

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Photo, posted October 3, 2018, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Misconceptions About Electric Cars

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Tesla’s Model 3 was one of the best-selling cars in the United States last year, eclipsing all but a handful of sedans.  This was the first time that an electric car had that honor and is indicative of how electric cars are finally becoming mainstream.  A host of other new electric models from multiple manufacturers will be the entering the market over the next couple of years.

Despite all of this progress, there is still a great deal of misinformation about electric cars.  A new study commissioned by Volkswagen revealed some of the widespread misconceptions about the vehicles.

Some people believe that electric cars can’t be driven through puddles.  Nearly one in five people believe that electric cars slow down as the battery depletes.  Many people believe that electric cars are fundamentally less safe than gas-powered cars.

More generally, people are unaware of how far current electric cars can drive on a charge.  More and more models can go 200 and even over 300 miles between charging sessions.  People also don’t know how quickly cars can charge up either.  Fast chargers like Tesla’s Superchargers can add 200 miles worth of charge in about 20 minutes.  And people don’t know what it costs to charge electric cars.  In most places, it is only a fraction of what it costs to drive the same distance using gasoline.

Despite their limited knowledge about electric cars, the 2,000 people surveyed in Britain were positively disposed towards them with nearly 6 in 10 saying that they would like to own an electric car some day and would even consider one as their next vehicle.

Electric cars will become more familiar and less exotic as more and more of them are on our roads and highways.

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Major misconceptions prevent drivers from buying electric cars, study claims

Photo, posted April 6, 2018, courtesy of Brian Doyle via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/electric-cars-misconceptions-battery-charging-safety-volkswagen-study-results-a8700536.html

Big Success From A Big Battery

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In the fall of 2017, Tesla took on the challenge of installing a 100-megawatt battery storage system in South Australia in under 100 days, promising that the system would be free if it was not built in time.  The project was actually completed in 54 days.

The system is located at the Hornsdale Wind Farm, which consists of 99 wind turbines with a generation capacity of 315 MW.  The Hornsdale Power Reserve installation is the world’s largest lithium-ion battery system and, after a year of operation,has proven to be a smashing success. Estimates are that the project has reduced costs associated with stabilizing the energy grid by about $29 million. The cost of the system was about $87 million, so it is paying for itself quite rapidly. The wind farm and battery systems are owned and operated by a French renewable energy company.

The battery storage system provides a variety of different services to the electric grid.  The primary motivation for it was to achieve system security and reduce the risk of blackouts and load shedding.   Having the battery system in place protects the regional interconnection from tripping,which reduces the risk of separation of South Australia from the National Electricity market.  The system also provides so-called ancillary services such as frequency control and other forms of electricity supply regulation.

The most significant contribution of the Hornsdale Power Reserve is that it has raised the profile of energy storage technology and demonstrated its unique capabilities.  Based on the success of the system, there are now about 2,500 MWh of new storage projects announced by the public and private sectors in Australia.

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Tesla’s Battery Has Already Saved South Australia a Huge Amount of Money

Photo courtesy of Hornsdale Power Reserve. 

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Hydrogen Powered Cars

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Hydrogen-powered cars are trying to make inroads in the rapidly-evolving automobile market. Several major automakers – including Hyundai, Toyota and Honda continue to invest heavily in the technology while selling a limited number of cars around the world.

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A Million Electric Cars

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Last year, China was the first country to reach the milestone of having one million electric cars.  This year, China will add another million plug-in vehicles.  Of course, with its huge population, China sells four times as many cars in total per year as any other country. 

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A Milestone For Energy Storage

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The United States has now added the capacity to store a billion watts of power for one hour and it may double that total by the end of this year.   According to the firm GTM Research, the energy storage industry – previously nearly invisible – is undergoing rapid growth.  Much of the growth has been in homes with products like the Tesla Powerwall but has also been on the scale of the electric grid, where power companies can use storage to control when to deploy excess electricity generated from renewable sources such as solar power.

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Hydrogen Progress

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As low-cost solar and wind energy become increasingly pervasive, the prospects for hydrogen-based transportation systems are improving.  The reason is that cheap electricity makes it practical to produce hydrogen by breaking down water rather than getting it from reforming natural gas, which results in carbon dioxide emissions.  The real goal is for hydrogen to be a renewable and carbon-free fuel.

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