Article in the Wash Examiner Electric cars may be worse for the environment than gas"

[caddieo]

People believe what they want to believe. They've been told this lie for so long that it's become the truth to them, and it validates their existing decisions.

Cognitive neuroscientists call this "Confirmation Bias".

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MODS- there is a parallel thread on this exact same article, using the link ad verbatim as its title. Please merge. Thanks.

 

[dsm363]

Cognitive neuroscientists call this "Confirmation Bias".

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MODS- there is a parallel thread on this exact same article, using the link ad verbatim as its title. Please merge. Thanks.

Working on it. Reporting the other thread and providing a link to this thread for example makes things easier. Thanks.

 

[rickgt]

Your summary and analysis are spot on... amazing what drivel constitutes "news" today.

well, don't have time to read the full thing, but the first thing that pops immediately to the forefront is that, as I suspected, they only count the tailpipe for ICE, the fuel just magically gets out of the ground, refines itself and appears in the tank...

Their evaluation of electricity generation on the other hand seems quite thorough.

They also argue that EVs are worse because their pollution occurs somewhere further away from the vehicle, when in fact that's one of the advantages (less pollution where the people are)

But basically it's a hit piece on EVs arguing that existing subsidies should be lowered, stopped, or reversed in all states.

Wow... the more I read, the more ridiculous it gets, they argue that under CAFE regulations, an EV (which they already argue is environmentally harmful) also causes manufacturers to make less efficient gasoline vehicles to harm the environment more because they can due to the credits CAFE gave them for the EV. And therefore blame the EV for the ICE being built!! (and yes, they really do make the argument that the EV is then responsible for that environmental harm as well!)

 

[Stoneymonster]

The thread title says the Washington Post, but the article is actually on the Washington Examiner, which is a very conservative rag. Which is to say, it's very much tailored to their audience and not likely to have broad reach and impact.

 

[bonnie]

Aw heck. A few years ago, this type of FUD was a daily event. It all blows over. More and more people are starting to understand how ridiculous these "articles" are and question the ethics of the publications.

 

[Law&Disorder]

Although the typical assumption is that electric cars are cleaner than gasoline-fueled cars, the power for electric cars has to come from somewhere, and it's often from coal-fired power plants. "Rather than simply accepting the assertion of environmental benefits from electric vehicle use, this paper conducts a rigorous comparison of the environmental consequences of gasoline and electric powered vehicles, specifically by quantifying the externalities (both greenhouse gases and local air pollution) generated by driving these vehicles," the authors write.

This just sounds like the "long tailpipe" theory that holds that electric cars can be more harmful to the environment because the electricity to power them is (sometimes) generated by a coal-fired plants.

There's a devastating takedown of the long tailpipe theory in Tim Urban's masterful How Tesla Will Change The World article. It's too long to cut and paste here, but Uban convinced me. I can't believe anybody on this forum hasn't read that article yet, but if you haven't you need to take the day off from work and go read it.

 

[gordo]

https://www.aeaweb.org/aea/2015conference/program/retrieve.php?pdfid=394

So many smart people working on so much algebra and detailed models, yet an indication of how limited their research actually is is offered on p. 6:

Gasoline vehicles cause damages through tailpipe
emissions and electric vehicles cause damages though
smokestack emissions from the electric power plants that
charge them.

So, that's the flawed premise the whole 76 page paper is based upon. I skimmed the rest, and there is absolutely no discussion of the costs of drilling for, refining or transporting oil or gasoline. I mean if your whole premise is about the externalities associated with powering vehicles, why would you completely ignore all externalities associated with one of the two alternatives you review?

... It's plainly obvious to me and I don't have a PhD!

 

[Skotty]

Even if it were true, which it's not, it doesn't matter, because for a complete solution to the problem you have to address both the production and consumption of energy. Elon says something to this effect in almost every interview he does, but those in opposition always ignore this important point. EVs solve the consumption side. Solar and the evolution of the PowerWall will probably end up solving the production side.

 

[Law&Disorder]

https://www.aeaweb.org/aea/2015conference/program/retrieve.php?pdfid=394

So many smart people working on so much algebra and detailed models, yet an indication of how limited their research actually is is offered on p. 6:

So, that's the flawed premise the whole 76 page paper is based upon. I skimmed the rest, and there is absolutely no discussion of the costs of drilling for, refining or transporting oil or gasoline. I mean if your whole premise is about the externalities associated with powering vehicles, why would you completely ignore all externalities associated with one of the two alternatives you review?

... It's plainly obvious to me and I don't have a PhD!

I was just going to mention the very same sentence! Both petroleum production and petroleum refining are major sources of greenhouse gasses.

Edit: From Page 23:

To the extent that there is a geo-political externality from gasoline use, our results understate the total benefits of electric vehicles.

Is there any doubt that there is a geo-political externality from gasoline use? How about extraction, refining and transport of oil and gasoline? Those sure don't take place in an ICE car's tailpipe. How about the externalities of fighting two wars in the Middle East to protect our access to oil? How about the externalities of the oil spills from the Exxon Valdez running aground in Prince William Sound or the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico?

 

[JMG]

This just sounds like the "long tailpipe" theory that holds that electric cars can be more harmful to the environment because the electricity to power them is (sometimes) generated by a coal-fired plants.

There's a devastating takedown of the long tailpipe theory in Tim Urban's masterful How Tesla Will Change The World article. It's too long to cut and paste here, but Uban convinced me. I can't believe anybody on this forum hasn't read that article yet, but if you haven't you need to take the day off from work and go read it.

Completely agree. The Wait But Why article was the most fascinating and fun thing I've read in a long time.

 

[Max*]

Mods -- can we get a title change, please. This is the Washington Examiner, it's like the enquirer -- they print garbage. This is not the Washington Post, which sometimes prints garbage too, but in general is more reputable.

 

[Damiano]

As others have noted, the model conveniently ignores several inputs to pollution, including pollution associated with fuel extraction, production and transportation. It also performs the study on a marginal 1000 vehicles basis. Doing it on this basis may simplify the modelling but is unrealistic. Putting aside the fact that the nation is looking at adding a lot more than 1000 EVs to the roads over the next few years, the marginal approach ignores the long terms development response of the grid (i.e. a lot more EV cars drives construction of newer, cleaner power generation resources). It also ignores the short-term non-marginal responses of the grid (i.e although coal and oil plants are used to regulate load on a marginal basis, the grid forecasts power loads and uses those forecasts to schedule generation from core generation facilities like nuclear and hydro). Secondly, it ignores the electrical power savings from the fuel production and delivery industry associated with the ICE cars that are replaced. Third, it ignores the added mileage associated with ICE cars travelling to gas stations and idling. Fourth, it ignores tie ratio of the small portion of EV driver who invest in their own solar system at the time they purchase an EV.

Lastly they have been selective in the regions they have highlighted in the model. For example they have not drilled down on the Pacific Northwest, which has a cleaner power mix than other parts of the country. LA has a relatively dirty marginal power mix thanks to LADWP's old oil generation facilities used for load balancing, so they conveniently chose to highlight that area instead.

 

[spottyq]

(image)

(hint : press shift-command-3 to do a screenshot on a Mac ;-) )

 

[ThosEM]

I've posted a copy of the original paper here.

I have scanned the actual paper (linked above) and don't see any obvious flaws. The Tesla Model S comes off looking like a wash as compared to a BMW 7 series gas guzzler, but the smaller EVs have tougher competition from small ICEs. And eastern coal burning states sway the results compared with the west.

Perhaps some of us can find a fatal flaw in the arguments, but pointing to the "externalities" of getting fossil fuels out of the ground and refining them to products that can be burned is not a valid rebuttal, since those processes apply just as much to fossil fuels burned in electric power plants. The assumption on the part of the authors is that all electricity comes from the local grid. They go to a lot of trouble to characterize the grid in every county and every power plant.

So, we may have to actually clean up the grid to fulfill the EV promise; which is no big surprise.

 

[green1]

Perhaps some of us can find a fatal flaw in the arguments, but pointing to the "externalities" of getting fossil fuels out of the ground and refining them to products that can be burned is not a valid rebuttal, since those processes apply just as much to fossil fuels burned in electric power plants.

How much refining do they do to coal before burning it?
how many wars have we fought over coal?
Is it more efficient to operate a rail line to a few select coal power plants, or by truck to thousands and thousands of individual gas stations?
How many "coal spills" have you heard of recently?
I'm sorry, no, you can't say it's the same.

As for other fatal flaws, as I mentioned earlier, they actually have the nerve to say that EVs contribute to the production of less efficient ICE vehicles through CAFE fleet mpg averaging and they literally add the extra emissions from those ICE vehicles to the environmental load of the EV!! If that's not the most convoluted logic I've ever seen and the most "fatal flaw" I don't know what else to tell you....

 

[abc20000]

I may regret this, but here goes.

I am one of the authors of the study. I have also been reading this site for years, and so I am willing to respond to some questions about what we do, and not do, in our study.

In reading the comments, one thing that keeps coming up are the "life-cycle" externalities of gas vehicles and EV's (things like refining gas and mining coal).
We do not look at these in our study. Other studies have done this already. We are concerned with the effects of air pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes, and in particular how these effects vary from place
to place. In the paper we discuss a number of caveats to our study, and of course in this section we mention life-cycle externalities.

I might also point out that we pay homage to Elon Musk in the very first sentence of the paper.

 

[Max*]

I may regret this, but here goes.

My hats off to you for coming here and taking the time to answer questions.

And you probably will regret it

 

[mknox]

As for other fatal flaws, as I mentioned earlier, they actually have the nerve to say that EVs contribute to the production of less efficient ICE vehicles through CAFE fleet mpg averaging and they literally add the extra emissions from those ICE vehicles to the environmental load of the EV!! If that's not the most convoluted logic I've ever seen and the most "fatal flaw" I don't know what else to tell you....

I think that actually might be true. Make just enough "ZEV compliance vehicles", and not one more, to make the fleet efficiency number comply, then carry on selling much more profitable pickup trucks and SUVs.

 

[Law&Disorder]

I've posted a copy of the original paper here.

I have scanned the actual paper (linked above) and don't see any obvious flaws. The Tesla Model S comes off looking like a wash as compared to a BMW 7 series gas guzzler, but the smaller EVs have tougher competition from small ICEs. And eastern coal burning states sway the results compared with the west.

Perhaps some of us can find a fatal flaw in the arguments, but pointing to the "externalities" of getting fossil fuels out of the ground and refining them to products that can be burned is not a valid rebuttal, since those processes apply just as much to fossil fuels burned in electric power plants. The assumption on the part of the authors is that all electricity comes from the local grid. They go to a lot of trouble to characterize the grid in every county and every power plant.

So, we may have to actually clean up the grid to fulfill the EV promise; which is no big surprise.

Hold on though, we barely use any petroleum for electricity generation in the U.S. (0.262% actually). http://28oa9i1t08037ue3m1l0i861.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/US-2013-copy-compressor. And we don't do much refining of coal which provides 16.5% of our electricity generation. That leaves natural gas which is increasingly used for electricity generation in the U.S. and is obviously processed, but it's still much cleaner when burned than coal or fuel oil. (Yes, there's methane leakage at extraction and transport of natural gas, but I don't think the study's authors even tried to account for that).

I certainly agree with you that we need to clean up the grid to fulfill the EV promise, but that's a lot more likely to happen and sooner than some radical new invention to cut pollutants emitted from an ICE. As improvements to the grid are made, EVs will get cleaner every year. ICEs will stay dirty.

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I may regret this, but here goes.

I am one of the authors of the study. I have also been reading this site for years, and so I am willing to respond to some questions about what we do, and not do, in our study.

In reading the comments, one thing that keeps coming up are the "life-cycle" externalities of gas vehicles and EV's (things like refining gas and mining coal).
We do not look at these in our study. Other studies have done this already. We are concerned with the effects of air pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes, and in particular how these effects vary from place
to place. In the paper we discuss a number of caveats to our study, and of course in this section we mention life-cycle externalities.

I might also point out that we pay homage to Elon Musk in the very first sentence of the paper.

Thanks for coming here Professor Yates (I assume that's you since you're in Chapel Hill). We appreciate your responding directly to us.

Looking at this at the most macro level possible, do you agree that all the externalities for both ICEs and EVs need to be considered in order to decide which is the greater contributor to pollution for the nation as a whole?

 

[green1]

I may regret this, but here goes.

I appreciate your candour, and bravery.

In reading the comments, one thing that keeps coming up are the "life-cycle" externalities of gas vehicles and EV's (things like refining gas and mining coal).
We do not look at these in our study. Other studies have done this already.

Exactly, other studies HAVE looked at it, and only by completely ignoring it have you managed to come up with results that fit your pre-determined conclusion. Those other studies have, when done fully and completely, at worst shown that EVs are equal to ICE in fully coal powered grids. By conveniently ignoring all of this you've managed to skew your results.

I might also point out that we pay homage to Elon Musk in the very first sentence of the paper.

one sentence in an otherwise biased piece does not redeem the paper. I also paid my respects to you in the first sentence of my reply. That doesn't mean that I believe your paper has any merit.

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I think that actually might be true. Make just enough "ZEV compliance vehicles", and not one more, to make the fleet efficiency number comply, then carry on selling much more profitable pickup trucks and SUVs.

But that's not the fault of the EV, blame the company, or blame the CAFE regulations, but don't add the polution on to the EV!