about electricity and global warming?

Question

Some electicity vehicle advertisers ask the people to prefer their electric bikes intead of petrol using bikes which emits smoke. So by using those bikes or scooters we can control global warming..?? But anyhow using electricty also indirectly causes global warming know? what i meant is production of electricity by nuclear or thermal power station also emits gases which causes global warming. So using any type of vehicles it causes global warming,right? or does electricity fuelled vehicles make any differences? Is there any other way of using vehicles which avoides global warming?

Answer 1

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Good question! But the answer may surprise you. It doesn't matter what power plants burn. Electric cars do not cause anywhere near the pollution that gasoline fueled cars do, and I will show exactly why this is so, below.
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First, about half the electricity created comes from burning coal, so this is the major pollution worry. Only 3% comes from oil, so we need not worry about this. But the coal plants are base-load plants. They take a long time to start up, so they run all the time. When the grid is loaded, and new plants are started up, for the most part, these are cleaner plants. So adding load to the grid does not increase pollution very much.
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Secondly, much electricity is wasted in the evening, and at night, because of those base-load plants, the ones that can't be turned off when demand goes down. Electric cars charge mostly at night. There is currently enough wasted electricity to charge millions of electric cars, before more plants will need to be built. No new pollution will be created by using electricity that otherwise goes to waste.
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Third, how about when electric cars catch on, and new plants have to be built? Hopefully these will be clean plants. But even if they are coal plants, new designs for coal generated electrical plants are 85% efficient, far more efficient than your sub-25% efficient gasoline engine. Greater efficiency means more miles on less fuel, and therefore less pollution per mile.
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Fourth: even if all the above were not true, electric cars would still produce much less pollution than gas cars, because of the greater efficiency of electric drive (electric motor, 95% efficient, gas engine, 25% efficient.) Delivering energy by wire to electric cars (95% efficient) is also much, much more efficient than trucking gas to thousands of service stations.
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The proof of all this is right in the fuel prices. Gasoline costs about 10 to 15 cents per mile. Electric cars drive around for only about a penny per mile. The difference comes from efficiency. Much greater efficiency = much less pollution.
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Answer 2

To start out with, the power plants that produce global warming gases do so at a much more efficient rate. So they get more energy per amount of pollution that a typical car creates. So it does help to use electric power. And many new electrical plants produce little to no greenhouse gases, like nuclear, solar, wind or hydro.

Answer 3

Nuclear power doesn't generate any gases. Some steam may be released but that is the extent of it.

You are correct that all forms of electricity produce some warming of the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is still questionable but that is another subject. In short, every form of power creates some form of pollution. Wind generators have to be manufactured so produce pollution through that and they have to be mounted on huge concrete bases. They also kill thousands of birds, many protected.

The answers are not nearly so clear cut as the environmentalists would like you to believe. You are on the right track, in my opinion. Question everything! You are more likely to get at the truth than those who take all the claims at face value.

Answer 4

The assumption is that electric power generating stations and the delivery of that power to recharge the bike is more efficient than an internal combustion engine mounted on the bike. Although this assumption has not been the focus of any intense debate, there actually is some question as to its validity.

Experiments on internal combustion engines (e.g., Kerley/Thurston, Caris/Nelson) show that the indicated efficiency, i.e., the efficiency of the engine based on its pressure/volume diagram, is higher under some operating regimes than gas-turbine generators (e.g., Rockey/Weinstein). Brake efficiency, that is the efficiency of the engine delivered to the crankshaft, for these internal combustion experiments, is approximately equal to the efficiency of those generators.

These internal combustion experiments do show, however, that the efficiency varies widely over the operating conditions of the engine. So, the mean efficiency of an internal combustion prime mover should be less than the turbine generator.

Answer 5

You are right. Electric vehicles just move the pollution away from the car to the power station. In future when power gets generated from wind and solar then electric vehicles will be less polluting.

The best vehicle to use is the bicycle. I can do at least 20 miles to the pint of beer on mine.

Answer 6

Using scooters or bikes can do nothing to control global warming because man has no influence on the climate.

That's not to say we shouldn't be reducing the amount of pollutants we spew into the air, we should. And nuclear power is the best way to accomplish that goal since it can generate an enormous amount of power without producing any so-called "green house gasses".

Answer 7

Energy is energy and will produce CO2 some where but CO2 is not a pollutant because the plants have already taken care of it. If the CO2 is not there neither is global warming.

Answer 8

Interesting movie on this topic- by, Ed Begly
It's about clean solar energy.
http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php?p=edu_solution

Answer 9

here in USA they want plug in cars but most elect comes from COAL!!!