Air Pollution Question....Click to see question!?

Question

Electric cars don't give off any exhaust. They don't cause pollution in the cities where they are driven. However, driving them can cause pollution in other places. How?
(Hint: Where does most electricity come from?)

Answer 1

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Good question! But the answer may surprise you. It doesn't matter what power plants burn. Electric cars can create some pollution, but 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 most plants are base-load plants, and 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, versus 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

Electric cars are indeed 'green' to drive – which is good – but at the moment MAKING electric cars still creates a lot of pollution – generating more waste than to produce a regular car!
You could say that they give with one hand and take with the other...

Answer 3

China is basically fooling themselves, and not something of the worldwide (different than the morons). i'm sorry i think that would desire to be something of the worldwide then. they're basically so pissed off that they are able to't beat u.s. in only about something, that they might desire to hotel to claiming a victory over pollution. If a rustic has over a pair billion human beings residing (in fairly close quarters), there is going to be huge quantities of pollution, regardless of something they might say. it is going to take years for the air pollution to return all the way down to a point it fairly is respected via scientists international. The cooling that definitely everyone seems to be experiencing, is basically yet another amazing way mom Nature works. it is likewise a primary occasion of ways there is no genuine thank you to regulate the Earth, no count what we do.

Answer 4

Till now Electric cars have not been used on a commercial scale...Currently all of them work on fossil fuels like petrol; deisel; natural gas....which cause pollution...
As for electric cars...They do have advantage like they reduce our dependence on petrol, deisel, etc...n if u r thinking abot the electricity from thermal plants for running these electric cars...then there are many other alternatives which are renwable....like hydro-electric powerplants etc...

Answer 5

there are many techniques to generating electricity: water was the first, but now, its mostly done by coal burning plants, and in California, they're burning tires. Also, on the rise are nuclear power plants, and an old technique was the use of windmills.

Answer 6

by water