Featured Electric Car Pollution Study

Energy inside refineries most cases come from gas or oil firing. Not coal, but a much similar carbon emitting source...

 

EV are best argued for drive quality, near maintenance-free convenience, a technology area America would like to stay ahead on, and +jobs. In places like EU with ultra high gaso taxes, there is cost benefit.

Like ethanol, the +eco argument is something many want to emphasize but that tends to be a personal preference argument.

 

I bet most refineries rely their electricity (pumps, compressors) on cogeneration, I know two examples of.

 

Out of morbid curiosity, I used Argonne National Laboratory's GREET model to calculate full life-cycle emissions of EV using Midwest electricity grid mix for charging (WTW), compared to gasoline (GDI - E10) and diesel. Included well drilling and well infrastructure for petroleum-based (gas and diesel) technologies. Also used latest electricity generation mix of Midwest ("East Central U.S.") per EIA (Q4 2015 - Q3 2016).

Results are mixed, and it depends on what "pollutant" is being considered, according to GREET:


Life-cycle emissions per GREET_2016

(Grams/Mile)

	Emission (g/mi)	2017 SIDI (GDI - E10)	2017 Diesel	2017 BEV @East Central U.S. Grid Mix
1	VOC	0.550	0.371	0.276
2	CO	2.841	3.048	0.274
3	NOx	0.326	0.308	0.391
4	PM10	0.059	0.054	0.091
5	PM2.5	0.029	0.027	0.046
6	SOx	0.326	0.271	0.822
7	GHG	419	407	266

 

I'll try to contact the authors Bob. Will let you know if I get a response.

 

Refineries purchase relatively little electric per gallon, but they do use nat gas to make some elec and produce heat. But one is generally barking down the wrong tree when doing life cycle analysis on fossil fuels. Basically mother nature gave us gaso and diesel in the ground that does not have to manufactured from scratch by farming or whatever. It already exists, except for some dusting and cleaning and transporting.

 

Received a response from the lead author (Holland). He was appreciative of the full life-cycle emissions calculated by GREET.

They used a previous study (Michalek 2011) to determine that upstream emissions of EV and GV were roughly the same. Of course, 2011 data are a little dated. Electric generation from coal is now down to about 45% in the Midwest.

 

Here we have 2 problems with the study. First assumption is that as load increases so will pollution. But in the majority of the power comes from states (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas) where emissions are capped by the epa rules. The other states included in this (Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska) are not, so these are capped by the clean power plan, but the epa may cut that under this administration. I may have states a little wrong, but the gist is the same.

Then comes the problem that power plants are cleaner than when the study took place and are getting cleaner.

Still most gasoline pollution is happening in refieries, so I would guess that Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska still have less pollution with a gasoline car than a phev or bev.
http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20150897

 

Agree, which is why I used the latest available EIA data for electricity generation mix for that region (data available at Electricity Data Browser ) for GREET life-cycle emissions.

The referenced paper is a damage assessment report which uses the second generation of the "APEEP" model (AP2) to calculate public health and environmental damages from the emissions. I don't have the software required to run AP2, so I've had to resort to using published EPA damage factors, which are really just an average of damages from emissions and do take into account whether the emissions are rural or urban, at least to the extent that AP2 does.

 

Substations at refineries are huge (I have worked on the design for a couple). They use lots of grid power to operate. Loss of power for a significant period (measured in multiple hours, if I remember right) can result in process shut down that takes a long time to restart. Refineries like to be located at points with multiple independent grid connections to provide redundancy in case of power failure on the primary grid source.

The only true source of "clean" power for EVs would be independent recharging from the sun (independent car charging for each EV -- no grid). Range-unbounded EVs should include on-board solar conversion. Range-bound commuter vehicles might use stationary chargers at parking spots (work, home) depending on the distance between.

Hydro and modern nuclear options are next least polluting. Coal and natural gas are at the bottom.

However, at the very top of the spectrum is human power. Walking or bicycling. No electricity used.

 

all the conclusions seems to ignore the substantial portion of plugin users that incorporate PV solar which defrays the alleged filth of flyover state electricity - nevermind that flyover states are NOT the lion's share of PV owners. Dear Mr factoid author - Is that drama i smell cooking for dinner ?
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A rambling thought about the efficiencies of EVs vs. Hybrids.

Let's say a Prius Gen 4 gets 52 miles per gallon, and it takes 4.5 kilowatt hours to make that gallon of gasoline (refinery power consumption per the video). That means a Gen 4 consumes about 0.087 kilowatt hours per mile (not counting the cost of fuel consumed in distribution) of electricity in gasoline/electricity equivalent. There is no plug consumption of electricity since the car is a fully self-contained hybrid unit.

So, in my Prius (I drive 30,000 miles a year), I use 0.087 x 30,000 = 2610 kilowatt hours of electricity as an equivalent in refined gasoline.

The Nissan Leaf (the Tesla Model S is similar) consumes about 34 kilowatt hours to go 100 miles per greencarreports.com or 0.34 kilowatt hours per mile, That is 10,200 kilowatt hours for the same 30,000 miles as a pure EV.

So, the less polluting of the two systems (hybrid vs. EV) seems to be the hybrid when power generation pollution is taken into account, unless of course, the source of the power is solar or hydro. And if solar is of the commercial variety, it relies on natural gas to fire the boilers on low-sunshine days and at night, which is painfully obvious when I drive past the huge desert solar farms in Eastern California and see the tell-tale plume of steam in the early morning.

 

I do think that if we eliminate the states capped by epa, the remaining 4 - Minnosota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska really will produce more pollution with plug-ins than efficient gasoline vehicles. These are also cold states, not ideal for BEVs.

There are 2 mitigating factors. 1) There is a lot of wind available in those states to replace the coal, that means cleaning the grid is not that difficult, but ... with the new epa cheif and cheap coal mined in the region, the cleaner grid may take 20 years instead of a decade.
2) There still is the use less of the toughest resource, and there is a lot more wind, natural gas, and coal available than oil.

The main thing though is those states don't buy many plug-ins. California, Texas, Florida, NY, Illonois, Ohio buy a lot more and their grids don't put off the additional pollution for adding plug-ins.

 

To illustrate how few people are in these areas - North Dakota one area code. South Dakota one area code. For all their cel phones, hard-line phones, pagers, fax machines, etc. So you not only have a VERY low % of the nation's population comprising that area - you have an area that is less likely to be plug in owners in the 1st place. A minuscule % within a minuscule %.
lol.
Kind of makes me wonder why this fella authering the article isn't concerned about the coal-fired toasters, microwaves, TV's, central air conditioners, factories, businesses, the states' lighting, sewer pumps, etc .... you know ... virtually everything else?

How does this author spell; 'majoring in the minors'
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