GS69

USA 2day
By James R. Healey, USA TODAY
The expected introduction of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles could cut U.S. gasoline use but could increase deadly air pollution in some areas, two reports say.

That's because a plug-in's lower tailpipe emissions may be offset by smokestack emissions from the utility generating plants supplying electricity to recharge the big batteries that allow plug-ins to run up to 40 miles without kicking on their gasoline engines. Plug-ins, called PHEVs, are partly powered, in effect, by the fuel used to generate the electricity.

About 49% of U.S. electricity is generated using coal, so in some regions a plug-in running on its batteries is nearly the equivalent of a coal-burning vehicle. The trade-off is one that even plug-in backers acknowledge. It could undercut the appeal of vehicles that appear capable of using no gasoline in town and hitting 50 to 100 mpg overall fuel economy.

If large numbers of plug-in hybrids were being recharged with power from the least-sophisticated coal plants, "There is a possibility for significant increases of soot and mercury," says a report by environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council. Soot particles can make it hard to breathe, especially for asthmatics. Mercury is toxic.

"Plug-in hybrids are perhaps not good for all areas," says Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, a Chicago-based advocacy group. In "states that are heavily coal, that equation doesn't work out very well for the environment."

After PHEVs drain their stored energy, they operate like conventional hybrids, triggering their gasoline engines to help drive the wheels and recharge the batteries. Conventionals can't be plugged in; their batteries are recharged only while driving.

The longer a plug-in is designed to operate on just the batteries, the less gasoline it uses, but the more electricity it needs to recharge the larger batteries.

Thus, the better the PHEV — that is, the longer it goes just on its batteries — the greater the charge required and the more the pollution that might result from an electric utility's power generation.

Learner calls PHEVs "really important emerging technology — where the cleaner technologies are used to charge them."

Sulfur dioxide also may be an issue

A study by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found plug-ins also could result in more sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions. SO2 is toxic in large amounts and is a component of corrosive acid rain.

The Minnesota study found that use of PHEVs would lower most emissions compared with other vehicles, but that resulting SO2 emissions would be more than double those from gasoline vehicles and about three or four times greater than from driving a regular hybrid. Exactly how much depends on how far the PHEV can run on battery power alone.

The Minnesota study also found that PHEVs would emit more carbon dioxide (CO2) than driving a conventional hybrid. CO2 is a greenhouse gas thought to contribute to global warming.

The Minnesota numbers are striking because they predict the big jump in SO2 even if 40% of the state's electricity were generated by wind power, not coal or other polluting fuels. About 4% of the state's electricity now is from wind, according to state officials.

The state's PHEV study concludes: "Alternative vehicles offer benefits, but no single technology currently stands out as a clear choice."

The NRDC calculus shows that a plug-in charged from a power plant burning the dirtiest type of coal still has an overall pollution level less than a conventional gasoline car. But it would produce 11% more greenhouse gas emissions than a regular, non-plug-in hybrid, according to Luke Tonachel, vehicles analyst at the NRDC and co-author of the group's report on plug-ins. The report was produced jointly with the non-profit Electric Power Research Institute.

He says, however, that charging a plug-in with electricity from renewable resources — wind or water, for instance — cuts overall greenhouse gas emissions to as low as a conventional gasoline car getting 74 mpg. No current gasoline car does that.

The NRDC and Minnesota studies were published last year but have yet to trigger alarms. PHEVs still are experimental; their possible threat is distant.

"It seems a little premature to think of it being a problem — but there are a lot of issues we should have been thinking of sooner," says Charles Griffith, auto project director at the Ecology Center, an environmental non-profit based in Michigan. He cites as an example debate over use of land to grow crops for ethanol fuel vs. for food.

Even so, Griffith says, "The scenario where there are so many plug-in hybrids plugged into the (electric power) grid that you'll see a change in air quality just doesn't sound true to me."

Plug-ins may be on streets soon

Automakers say PHEVs could be on the streets in significant numbers within five years. Prototypes being tested by car companies suggest they should be able to go up to 40 miles on battery power, which could enable them to deliver average mileage in the neighborhood of 100 mpg in general driving.

The first plug-in vehicle in production, however, is likely to be General Motors' Chevrolet Volt, which is not a hybrid. Due in 2010 or 2011,Volt runs entirely on battery power. Like PHEVs, its battery pack can be recharged by plugging into a normal outlet, using electricity from a utility generating plant. A small gasoline engine recharges Volt's batteries when an outlet isn't handy, but unlike in a hybrid, that engine never directly powers the car. GM could sell 60,000 or more a year, forecasts consultant J.D. Power and Associates, if the price is $30,000 or less.

GM said at the Detroit auto show in January that it also will produce a plug-in hybrid version of its Saturn Vue SUV near the same time Volt is to launch.

Toyota Motor and Ford Motor each showed a prototype plug-in hybrid at auto shows this year and will test the designs. "It will come," says Toyota's Jaycie Chitwood, senior planner at the automaker's advanced technologies unit in the USA. "It's more a question of 'when' than 'if.' "

Ford's Greg Frenette, chief engineer of zero-emission vehicles, says it should take no more than five years to decide if plug-ins can be made reliable and inexpensive enough.

The U.S. Energy Department is backing PHEVs.

In January it offered $30 million for projects to "deliver up to 40 miles of electric range without recharging" and to make plug-ins "cost-competitive by 2014 and ready for commercialization by 2016."

"We look at plug-in hybrids as the next generation of hybrids. They run cleaner, they save oil and they can save consumers money at the pump," NRDC's Tonachel says. But, he says, "Until our oldest power plants are replaced or upgraded, there could be increases in local particulate matter and ozone."

JessePS

Plug in's probably wont have a problem here in Quebec seeing we use Natural gas or pretty much hydro electricity.

ES350Bob

I think he is wrong and falling into the current status quo trap of concerns.

Wind power, water power, turbines coming online offset his concerns as would building more nuclear plants.

Threxx

Sure it "could cause" more pollution but only in areas that have high polluting primary sources of energy in the first place - that, IMO, is the real problem... not the plug-in cars.

I'm mainly excited about plug ins because they present a huge potential cost savings for day to day commuting, less dependency on OPEC oil, and well, in areas that have clean power sources for homes it will also reduce pollution... though late model vehicles are really a trivial source of air pollution in the first place.

geko29

Building nuclear plants would, but wind makes no difference whatsoever. California has nearly 14,000 turbines online, consuming many tens of thousands of acres of land, to produce just over 1% of their current electricity needs--and that's without plugin hybrids. Few states have either the sheer space or the proper wind conditions to make any significant portion of their power from turbines.

So assuming they can increase the frequency and number new installations so that 1% of the overall power consumption for states like CA and TX (including the additional demands of plug-in hybrids) continues to be produced by wind, where do you suppose the other 99% comes from?

SoCalSC4

Also, nobody ever talks about the infrastructure required to support electric vehicles... or where the electricity comes from... or where the spent batteries are disposed of (maybe we can shoot them into space?).

When you add it all up, do they really make any sense from an enviro or economic standpoint?

Hopefully they will someday!

We shouldn't just ask can we do it.... let's address how.

ES350Bob

I would hope they would not simply consume a chunk of land, in NY state they are among crops growing so the land is not wasted simply by their being positioned on a chunk of land. Crops don't care and cows don't care if a wind generator is around.

In the old days many farmers had, some still do have windmills to pump water, done responsibly they can use the electric to pump their water and still feed some back into the grid.

Wind power is in it's infancy from what I see and setups to me are more interesting looking than cell towers are which have and continue to spring up everywhere.

Threxx

How do you define "consuming" land? Most wind mills I've seen are setup on land that is still used for cattle or crops with the wind mill itself taking up an extremely minimal footprint of just a few square meters. for even the biggest ones. The farmers also get paid for the energy so they consider it a "crop".

Well... either that or they're setup on land that wasn't going to be used for anything else anyway...

geko29

You guys do have a point on the land aspect. I've only ever seen them in the southwest, vast fields of them with nothing else going on, relatively near built-up areas. The only reason those areas aren't built up as well is because of the turbine farms. But I do see your point about farmland and the like. Fair enough. However:

Wind power has been in major use (in terms of being connected to the power grid) for right around 30 years. It's not exactly new tech.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Yes, but try ploughing, harvesting, or mowing around a field of wind turbine masts. Fuggedaboudit.

Windmills have been used to crush crops into flour for example, but I've not heard of them pumping water. Usually it's the other way around, running water drives a wheel used for various purposes.

Either way the output is so minuscule it's not going to be running your air conditioner.

Cell towers don't have anywhere near the visibility of wind turbines. I saw on HDNet that an island off Denmark is powered by turbines, a lot which are out in the ocean - now this makes more sense to me. Plenty of room out there.

Saw another technology that's very promising and that's a mirror solar-thermal solution - tons of mirrors direct the sun's power to boil water which drives a turbine. WAY more efficient than solar and CHEAP.

PhantomZX

What they need is a gas/electric hybrid with solar panels on its roof

Someone needs to figure out the cost and pollution per unit of energy from an electrical generation source and compare it with the cost and pollution per unit of energy from the hybrid's internal combustion engine to really say whether or not plug in hybrids are a good or bad idea.

ES350Bob

People mow around all manner of stuff in their yard, one would think a farmer would have input ( The NY documentary they did) as to where a utility placed a wind turbine on his crop land, and they generate far more power than would be used by an AC unit and then some.

The mirror solar you mentioned i have seen too, not bad, but if one is concerned about a system taking up hundreds of acres of land for no other purpose that system does make land single use.

As to windmills, more often for water pumping as they did not have Mod Cons back then of hooking up to a water utility and not going to pay for treated water when they can pump it up from a well which they did and many still do. Pumping water with them, I'd say the Dutch are the masters of that. But for their historical use for farmers you could take a glance at the link below.
http://www.windmills.net/

ES350Bob

I meant scale of installations and particularly so where major system efficiency improvements have been made over the last decade.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

nuclear it up IMO

sirkfc

In the summer, California already is on energy conservation, and occasional blackouts aren't uncommon.

Now, imagine that, and add everybody at 7PM plugging in their cars after getting home from work... Lots of people watching American Idol will be VERY UPSET.

Most people don't think twice about where alternative energy comes from. It's too simple to think that as long as it's not gasoline, it's better. One has to think about the coal for electricity, and the water, land, processing energy for ethanol.