Hit piece?

[snoltor]

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-speed

 

[miimura]

I read that whole piece. My favorite comment at the bottom of that story is:

This is opinion. Dressed as analysis. Very dangerous and worse than a waste of your time to read.

 

[user 340]

I get annoyed by articles like this that don't fully cite sources and don't explain the differences in the assumptions that lead to different analytical results. The article repeatedly cites a NAS study, but the author draws different conclusions from it (BEVs always worse environmentally than high mpg gas cars) than are presented in the NAS article I think he's referring to. We'll never know though: he never gives the author and journal info for any of his references!

I do think that this PNAS article by Michalek et al. gets it about right:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/09/19/1104473108.full.pdf+html?with-ds=yes
The basic conclusions are:

1. No car is environmentally friendly
2. PHEVs and BEVs with modest batteries do have lower impact IF they are powered by clean energy sources AND if they are driven for a very long time.

If you read the article, note that the authors estimate that the BEV240 has a battery with total capacity of 66 kWh. That may - or may not - be a bit bigger than the RAV4 that has a _usable_ capacity of 42 kWh. The article isn't perfect though.... they use a driving model based on a 2009 National Household Travel Survey that is a nationwide average and may not fit all drivers very well. I also think that they don't account for battery recycling IIRC.

 

[jspearman]

Do EV's have problems? Sure, but no comparison of EV's vs ICE's is complete without placing hundreds of thousands of lives lost, economies disabled, environments damaged, and trillions spent to fight wars for oil into the ICE column. While current battery tech is not great for the environment, batteries can evolve, energy sources get cleaner, whereas gas will always be gas, will continue to spill into neighborhoods and soil our oceans. EV's are pushing the ball down the field, and I'm still glad to be part of the movement.

 

[edmc]

Do EV's have problems? Sure, but no comparison of EV's vs ICE's is complete without placing hundreds of thousands of lives lost, economies disabled, environments damaged, and trillions spent to fight wars for oil into the ICE column. While current battery tech is not great for the environment, batteries can evolve, energy sources get cleaner, whereas gas will always be gas, will continue to spill into neighborhoods and soil our oceans. EV's are pushing the ball down the field, and I'm still glad to be part of the movement.

I'm all for the sentiment of JS here... save for the extrapolation aspect. To wit, in the not so distant future, the U.S. is set to be a net oil exporter. Are we being "bad citizens" not consuming our own country's products?