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I think that EVs have the potential to be at least part of the solution to the problem of human activity generated climate change, depending on what use we make of them, but calling them zero emissions is not inaccurate.
Driving an EV at the moment is still mostly just moving CO2 production to the power station instead of directly from the exhaust pipe of an ICE, but having said that carbon capture technology may be an easier proposition at the power station chimney than trying to recapture what has been emitted from a billion exhaust pipes, plus swapping from petrol/diesel powered vehicles to EVs helps reduce CO2 due to their relative efficiency, even when the source of the power is still fossil fuels. And of course EVs give us at least the potential to change from fossil fuel generated power to using renewables.
However if we just carry on with the current level of usage of private personal transport, i.e. cars, with billions of us on the planet continuing to use them to travel to work or on business trips every day, then I seriously doubt we will be able to move away from burning fossil fuels (at least not without a substantial amount of nuclear power), as I am pretty sure that renewable energy sources are never going to provide enough for that plus our other priority energy needs such as for food production and heating.
So I think EVs can help, but I believe we need to combine them with a reduction of every day energy usage for transport, such as using public and/or active transport (trains, trams, buses combined with walking and cycling) to school and work and for business trips, with rail freight replacing as much road freight as possible plus, moving nearer to work, reducing the need to travel through working at home, using phone and video conferencing, then ordering our weekly groceries on line and having them delivered by an EV van. We can then keep the private (EV) vehicle for leisure and social uses, and seriously reduce our personal carbon footprints.
I and my family have a way to go, but I have largely been cycling to work for the last five years, a round trip of 11 miles five days per week, and now my employers have replaced a small number of their fleet of cars with Zoes for us community nurses to use for our visits and have set us up with phones with conference capability, they have even increased the business use cycling mileage payments from 10p per mile to 20p, and I do use the bike for journeys within the same town as my base. My partner’s and my own children all go to school or college by bus, or even walk, and my partner is not currently working, but likely to have to drive to work when she does get another job as we live in a rural area with poor public transport provision and scarce employment opportunities. At home we have all electric heating and hot water, on Economy 7, but no solar panels yet. We are not in a position to buy solar panels or an EV at the moment, but when they are affordable for us (e.g. EVs are on the used market at around half the current price and our current vehicle is at the end of its useful life), we may well make the move.Niggle, I agree with most of your points, but I am a stronger believer in EVs. On a day to day basis, for the average driver doing 10000 miles per year the CO2 and other pollution from that outweighs pretty much anything else they do (apart from flying). Just going to an EV will halve it. By getting a renewable energy supply (mine’s from Ecotricity) it can be eliminated entirely. That’s a huge opportunity – low hanging fruit, if you like.
I’m a big fan of solar (I have two separate arrays on my house) and highly recommend it. The first cost £16k in 2010, by 2013 the second cost just £6k. However, I do wonder if I would have done just as well for C02 to swap to a renewable electricity supplier sooner, for no cost!
Meanwhile I’m trying to work out how to cut our large use of natural gas, but have failed to come up with many options (swapping hot water heating to electricity would be one way, but could cost us significantly more).
I agree with Trevor that it is not necessarily the immediate impact that matters at the moment. It is about realising the potential for electrification of the national passenger car fleet, and the subsequent ways that the issues can go from there.
As solar improves in reliability and manufacturing costs come down, it is beginning to become a bit of a no-brainer. Driving around on daylight, I mean, beat that!
Unfortunately, my house has east-west facing roofs (in a way it is a shame because it could have easily been built with N-S roofs), but am still considering a set for the east facing because at least in summer time there is surprisingly little loss of generating efficiency. Unfortunately, in winter the generating capacity dies quite badly, so it is still something I need to keep an eye on.
The thing I wanted to mention specifically though is that power stations do not burn fuel by ‘internal combustion’, so the NOx and particulates can be much better managed and controlled. Very little output that is detrimental to air quality from a modern power station with the proper controls in place and working right. They are also far away from dense populations, so do not have the same air quality effects. Bear in mind that the research suggests degraded air quality from traffic kills more people than traffic accidents in the UK!
Power stations are also ‘fixed’ so you can in principle condense out the water from the exhaust and capture the CO2.
In regards whether we can meet the EV fleet need with renewables, I trust you have seen my comments/calculations in another recent thread and might make any comments on those observations you might like to. UK Wind power already generates enough electricity that it, alone, supplies the equivalent EV electricity that would be drawn if 25% of the whole UK passenger and small van fleet was electrified. That is not to say there won’t be capacity issues as EV uptake expands, but it is certainly doesn’t look impossible to expand renewables sufficiently just yet.
Oh, PS, I do agree that there are good grounds to look at where we all live. Thousands of people all driving in opposite directions simply because of where they have ended up living. A bit bonkers. If the Gov is keen to throw grants at EVs, then I think it could also usefully look at helping people swap houses to get closer to their work places, and to provide grants to help cover equity differences and removals costs. Our nation has evolved haphazardly, and people don’t always live in the ‘right place’ for their work/professions.
Add to the last comment the madness of the school run: people driving their children 1-2 miles every day to school while the obesity epidemic causes real concern about the next generation’s health. When I was at school in the 1970s the bike racks were full and you hardly ever saw a parent’s car at school, now any child that walks or cycles to school has to run the gauntlet with the Chelsea tractors dropping their peers off.
Or indeed driving children miles to school every day because the parents think another school is better than the one nearby, that ‘right’ ought to be removed IMO because of the impact on CO2 and congestion (not to mention the social divisiveness).
For niggle!
Donald – do consider getting PV on your east-west roofs. We have one set that nearly matches what we get from our south set. Partly that’s because there isn’t a huge difference in generation, and partly that it’s easier to fit a slightly larger set across two roofs than squashed onto one. With east-west you lose slightly on the feed-in-tariff because you generate fewer kWh over the year, but you gain in reducing your consumption because it starts generating earlier in the morning and finishes later in the evening (whereas south typically generates while people are out at work).
BTW, I came across an online course in climate change this evening. It happens to start today. I’ve signed up for it – it’s free so if you’re interested do consider joining (you have nothing to lose apart from a few hours per week):
San Diego Scientists Offer Free Online Course On Climate Change
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