EV are the worst polluters over time?

Bob, the title of the EEA report is "Monitoring CO2 emissions from new passenger cars and vans in 2017, EEA Report No 15/2018 - Monitoring CO2 emissions from new passenger cars and vans in 2017 — European Environment Agency ." I downloaded the pdf available on that page.

This report addresses GHG emissions only; I should have noted that in my previous post since my main focus was criteria pollutant emissions.

 

Diesel emissions have improved, but whatever they, or any combustion engine car or even FCEV, emit will still be locally to population centers.

 

Perhaps we need new regulations that require any pollutants be captured, rather than spewed out in someone else’s neighborhood

 

Thanks!

This makes sense. I've long felt that single focus on CO{2} can lead to ignoring other health risks.

Bob Wilson

 

I'm late to the party, but it appears this study has fallen into the same trap as previous "OMG, EVs bad" studies: charging the EV with a significant amount of coal. The rule of thumb for life cycles is that CO2 emissions is a proxy for coal (for electricity) and oil (for liquid fuels). If you see something that should be better for climate change, but looks worse then one of those two are likely the culprit.

It is, but the good news is that CO2 is often a good proxy for other environmental impacts, e.g. particulates, smog formation, ozone depletion, resource depletion, etc. The one area that it isn't a good indicator is with water or soil impacts, e.g. eutrophication, terestrial or aquatic ecotoxicity, land use, water depletion, etc

 

Bob - here are a few more recent EEA reports that do address non-GHG emissions:

"Air quality in Europe — 2018 report," EEA Report No 12/2018, Air quality in Europe - 2018 — European Environment Agency

"Electric vehicles from life cycle and circular economy perspectives, TERM 2018: Transport and Environment Reporting Mechanism (TERM) report," EEA Report No 13/2018, November 2018, https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/electric-vehicles-from-life-cycle/at_download/file

"Emissions of Air Pollutants in the UK, 1970 TO 2017," https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/778483/Emissions_of_air_pollutants_1990_2017.pdf (UK government report)

 

Brake pad dust @77. I appreciate this mention because it is infrequent. Because upper limit can be easily derived from service life and 'before and after' weighing. Because release rate is much lower for all regen cars.

Tire dust can be assessed similarly. Modern radial designs have much longer service lives than previous design (against which I am 'biased').

Not aware of any modern studies if these. Decades ago, urban air samplers collected a lot of tire dust.

Other important questions include aerosol size (because only tiny ones are good at lung-surface deposition) and composition of brake-pad friction material (is any still asbestos?)

 

I will read the whole thread *after* posting my post. However : My Nissan Leaf - is only charged overnight. In NZ, that means it is charged via hydroelectric and geothermal. In most of the world, a Prius (hypermiled) is a better option than an EV. Home solar panels with some form of energy storage during the day makes EV charging clean. Also, EV batteries will gradually become easier to re-process to 'reverse' entropy.

 

Pushing electrons around New Zealand comes with an interesting story:

HVDC Inter-Island explained

 

Indeed - I haven't read the whole article just now, but the link between the South Island and North Island was by a mercury-based rectifier contained in glass. That was actually quite cool but I know they shut down the last old-school rectifier a few years ago. The North Island has geothermal (also hydroelectric, mainly from the Mighty Waikato River); the South Island has the Southern Alps, and major hydroelectric resources.

Between the two islands is a full tectonic boundary, meaning transmission of energy is interesting (if only because the depth of the 'sea bed' is quite high between the two islands, despite both being part of the Zealandia continent.

I need to think more about this, however, most things in the universe are governed by electrons; chemical reactions are caused by pushing electrons around; electrons surround atomic nuclei, and most hadrons are contained in atomic nuclei, meaning most electrons end up 'attached' to atomic nuclei - electron configuration defines most chemistry and physics (also biochemistry and biology), so electrons are likely the most important 'thing' (wave or particle) in the universe.

All that said, if I can get electrons into my EV with high efficiency, and if the Lithium battery can be reprocessed with solar energy, it all works out fine; I still wonder what happened at all that mercury? I will read the High Voltage Direct Current Link NZ article now in case I have forgotten as I last researched it approx 2008; I have absolutely no idea what tech they are using now??!

 

I just scanned quickly through the article - basically it is pretty much the same, except they don't use as much toxic mercury.

In NZ, the South Island has a much lower population but a much higher energy production capability - hydroelectric
The North Island has at least 75% population, but has some hydroelectric (the Mighty Waikato River which is actually pretty awesome), and also geothermal. The North Island relies upon the South Island for power.

The whole of New Zealand is across a continental plate boundary.........

The South Island involves the boundary colliding, so it has the 'Southern Alps', which are amazing (you get tropical rainforest, and snow-covered road, within a few minutes drive - more impressive than the European Alps - and I am european). The South Island thus has lots of lakes and hydroelectric.

The North Island mainly has one plate going under the other. Far fewer earthquakes, but the plate going underneath melts and turns into liquid magma / lava. If you look at NZ on a map, the North Island has a large lake in the middle - Lake Taupo. This lake is actually due to a gigantic eruption where many 1000s of cubic km of rock were turned into ash, and the volcano 'caldera' collapsed. Rainwater then created a lake. The most recent eruption is recorded in Roman and Chinese history, turning the sky red in the northern hemisphere, although Taupo is in the southern hemisphere. That was a tiny eruption on Taupo terms - an eruption 18,000 year ago (very roughly) was much bigger and covered much of NZ in about 100 metres of ash rock deposits.

These days, NZ relies upon the South Island for most electricity, while about 75% of the people live on the North Island. The HVDC link is very vital. The South Island will someday, likely soon, experience a magnitude 8+ earthquake, which will (at the very least) make all the hydroelectric stations go into shutdown mode. This will mean people cannot access the money in their bank accounts, or even get petrol, given the petrol pump pumps are powered by electricity mainly from the South Island!

It is interesting that many people on the 'billionaire' rich-list are moving to NZ, preparing for a future apocalypse. They are concentrated in Queenstown. It is interesting that Queenstown is right next to the intercontinental fault line; it is an amazing area to visit, but too expensive to buy a holiday home. Apparently, many people have bunker built there. Hopefully the bunkers are designed for the possibility of 'liquification' as Christchurch suffered during the recent quakes.

NZ is paradise, but a fragile paradise!

 

I picked a bad week to quit philosophy

Pushing electrons is the whole deal. Except in stars and their simulants, where 'strong nuclear force' gets all feisty, and electrons are only confetti.

Four trillionths of Sun's energy runs biology on Earth. Call it 8 trills for whole solar system biology and chemistry and I'd not complain.

If our solar system represents, then almost all energy is starlight. Diminished by one over r squared and only enjoyed by rare biologicals with eyes.

 

N Zed is different enough from rest of world to merit a separate discussion of its environment.

 

"what happened at all that mercury"@90

One would expect to sell this liquid for >80 $USD per kilogram. If it needs to disappear, it probably will

==
I did inherit a lab with about 50 kilos of mercury in bottles under the sink. I did mention to lead lab tech that it would be expensive for me to dispose of that by way of proper channels. Soon after, it was gone. We did not further discuss that subject.

 

we

I absolutely agree; electrons are the whole deal (in the universe, also on our planet and when trying to be efficient in transport); the inverse square law and the distance from the sun shows that the huge majority of Sol's energy does not touch the Earth;

We biologicals (within the Solar System, let alone Earth) have only a tiny, tiny fraction of the Sun's energy; however evidence of life has been found far our in the Solar System, which is good in some ways.

Electrons are the real deal, except stars, neutron stars, etc; I agree; if we could fully understand electrons we could understand biology and chemistry. Protons and neutrons dominate the mass of the universe, yet electrons dominate the 'chemical' behaviour (admittedly, based upon hadron-based nuclei); if we could fully understand 'nuclei' and 'electrons' we would be more advanced!

 

Visible mass, yes. Total mass, No. They are currently estimated to make up only about 4% of mass of the universe.

 

Opinion: Whole thing about dark matter is just another way to say we don't know about higher dimensions, nor about how stuff there interacts with stuff here.

==
Dyson sphere seems to be an ~Eiffel Tower exa structure, with really big building instead of hoping that nuclear reactions might come under human control. Check back in a couple of hundred years about that...

 

For that opinion, I'd separate the dark energy from the dark matter. The former seems like a more obvious fit to that scenario.

(... and I'll be getting in way over my head ...)

 

fragile as in volcanic activity .... Ruapehu, & white island comes to mind. Paradise - until it's not. Volcanic / Geothermal has its own down side;
Which emits more carbon dioxide: volcanoes or human activities? | NOAA Climate.gov
So - it is clean .... sort of

.

 

Well, the volcano or hot springs are going to emit what they emit whether or not if we tap them for energy.