Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
EPA explicitly does not count carbon from electricity production, or from manufacturing of an EV or its battery production in EV fuel mileage rules. "EPA proposes to include only emissions measured directly from the vehicle in the vehicle."
Very disingenuous. Dubious benefits don’t deter government agencies from distorting the market for electric cars.
The EPA starts by assuming that an EV already exists. That’s how they figure that EVs would use less fossil fuel, be less polluting, and be cheaper in the long run.
Once you delve into the life cycle of electric vehicles, though, starting with manufacturing, you can reasonably conclude that all three of these views are questionable. EVs will use less or more of fossil fuels, will lead to less or more pollution, and will be cheaper or more expensive in the long run. We just don’t know. And that in itself is enough reason to oppose mandates. Moreover, there’s another way that advocates of EV mandates are like the economist who assumes the can opener: they assume away actual humans.
Comparing pollutants generated by EVs and gasoline-powered cars over the life cycle also leads to ambiguous results. Of course, EVs produce zero pollution but they do use electricity, and electricity production causes pollution. How does the EPA take account of this? It doesn’t. Go to page 203 of the EPA’s 728-page proposal for its new regulation and you will see this statement:
Quote:
EPA is proposing to make the current treatment of PEVs [plug-in electric vehicles] and FCEVs [fuel cell electric vehicles] through MY [model year] 2026 permanent. EPA proposes to include only emissions measured directly from the vehicle in the vehicle GHG [greenhouse gases] program for MYs 2027 and later (or until EPA changes the regulations through future rulemaking) consistent with the treatment of all other vehicles. Electric vehicle operation would therefore continue to be counted as 0 g/mile, based on tailpipe emissions only.
In short, the EPA assumes something it knows to be false, namely that emissions from producing electricity to power EVs are zero.
How could the EPA justify such an extreme assumption?
On the same page, it attempts to do so, writing:
Quote:
“The program has now been in place for a decade, since MY 2012, with no upstream accounting and has functioned as intended, encouraging the continued development and introduction of electric vehicle technology.”
Did you catch that? The EPA justifies its explicit bias against gasoline-powered vehicles and in favor of EVs by arguing that doing so will encourage the continued development of EVs. Well, yes, just as ignoring the cost of anything will justify more of that thing. Call it the EPA’s new frontier in cost/benefit analysis. Or maybe call it the Bart Simpson justification: “I only lied because it was the easiest way to get what I wanted.”
Based on its assumption that the electricity used by EVs is produced with zero pollution, do you care to bet about whether the EPA even bothers to estimate the pollution from actual production of EVs? I doubt it. Doing so might not encourage “the continued development of electric vehicle technology.”
The "carbon payback time" varies depending on model/battery configuration of an EV and on the method of electricity genration to charge those batteries. It can vary from 15,000km to 100,000 km of driving. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=avast&q=ev...ck+time&ia=web
..and then you have the environmental nightmare of battery disposal every 30-100,000 km or so.
About 2/3rds of electricity is generated in the US from fossil fuels, so the "average EV" pollutes the air at the power station, not the tail pipe.
One can make a good argument that any environmental problem (real or fantasized) solved by EVs brings on even bigger environmental problems of their own.
"Helping the Environment" is not a good reason to utilize EVs. They have their niche where they make sense, but it will be several generations before fossil fuels are depleted to the point that our grandchildrens' grandchildren will have to cope with alternate ways to supply their automotive power needs...The fact that the govt (such as EPA) uses the environment as a point of propaganda merely points out the political, not scientific nature of the situation.
Newer EV batteries are built to last over 1500 charge cycles about 300,000 to 400,000 or more miles.
So they say. I'll believe it when Elon starts warranteeing them for that long....and it would just delay the nightmare a few years rather than eliminate the problem.
Tesla claims they have the tech to build those longer-life batteries, but I don't know that they are selling them yet....and most EVs on the road are not Tesla.
We should not be setting policy based on hopes.
Back to the OP-- Maybe a firmly anti-EV emperor will use the EPA's thought process and decree that ICE emissions will only be counted as those emitted from 3-4 AM on Sunday. That would make them appear extremely Green too.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,550 posts, read 81,103,317 times
Reputation: 57750
"Directly from the vehicle" would ( or should!) include the pollution caused by the rubber particles released into the air, which are far more dangerous to our health than ICE vehicle tires, due to the weight of the batteries.
From my reading between the lines, a lot of this "green EV push" is using political power to shift from one energy company set to another energy company set. Tesla is an energy company just like Shell and GM are, just selling it in a different form.
The reason I say this is because if the environment was the true focus, we'd be looking at all the angles, total CO2 output, resources used and extracted etc, disposal... and use that to drive action. What's actually happening is there's the overt agenda of a switch away from ICE, and the metrics are geared to support that switch. And the automotive industry is MASSIVE worldwide, so there's a lot of $$$ on the line for how this transpires.
From my reading between the lines, a lot of this "green EV push" is using political power to shift from one energy company set to another energy company set. Tesla is an energy company just like Shell and GM are, just selling it in a different form.
The reason I say this is because if the environment was the true focus, we'd be looking at all the angles, total CO2 output, resources used and extracted etc, disposal... and use that to drive action. What's actually happening is there's the overt agenda of a switch away from ICE, and the metrics are geared to support that switch. And the automotive industry is MASSIVE worldwide, so there's a lot of $$$ on the line for how this transpires.
As an American citizen, I LOVE the push from foreign energy to domestic energy. Nuclear, natural gas, and even coal are all produced here. True, we produce oil as well, but if we're not burning it we can export it. Look at what is going on in Russia and Ukraine- net exporters have all the political power.
Separately, it's far more efficient to burn a fossil fuel in a power plant to create electricity than it is to burn it in the end use device. It's just economies of scale- the efficiency of your average ICE engine is around 30% and the efficiency of a power plant turbine exceeds 75%. Even with transmission losses you're still coming out ahead in the centralized production environment.
Note- none of my comments are about "climate change". This is purely about enhancing the strength of the US economy (spend your fuel dollars here so we can export more fuel) as well as overall efficiency (spend fewer total dollars on fuel).
Regarding tailpipe emissions vs total overall emissions, it's not disingenuous at all. There are tons of indirect emissions in all energy production sectors- extracting oil, transporting oil, generating hydrogen, producing electricity, etc. Let the auto regulators regulate the auto emissions, and let the power plant regulators regulate the power plant emissions.
As an American citizen, I LOVE the push from foreign energy to domestic energy. Nuclear, natural gas, and even coal are all produced here. True, we produce oil as well, but if we're not burning it we can export it. Look at what is going on in Russia and Ukraine- net exporters have all the political power.
Separately, it's far more efficient to burn a fossil fuel in a power plant to create electricity than it is to burn it in the end use device. It's just economies of scale- the efficiency of your average ICE engine is around 30% and the efficiency of a power plant turbine exceeds 75%. Even with transmission losses you're still coming out ahead in the centralized production environment.
Note- none of my comments are about "climate change". This is purely about enhancing the strength of the US economy (spend your fuel dollars here so we can export more fuel) as well as overall efficiency (spend fewer total dollars on fuel).
Regarding tailpipe emissions vs total overall emissions, it's not disingenuous at all. There are tons of indirect emissions in all energy production sectors- extracting oil, transporting oil, generating hydrogen, producing electricity, etc. Let the auto regulators regulate the auto emissions, and let the power plant regulators regulate the power plant emissions.
True, I do agree with all of this. I guess my only thing is that with EVs we are opening the door to other international sourcing headaches with minerals vs oil. It's not very politically palpable, but we could just carbon tax / gas tax to bring consumption down and allow for more complete energy autonomy, and let the auto development path go whichever way the currents dictate.
Separately, it's far more efficient to burn a fossil fuel in a power plant to create electricity than it is to burn it in the end use device. It's just economies of scale- the efficiency of your average ICE engine is around 30% and the efficiency of a power plant turbine exceeds 75%. Even with transmission losses you're still coming out ahead in the centralized production environment.
.
Good post in general, but combined cycle NG generators (the best fossil fuel efficiecy going) is only around 50% efficient. Add up all the ineffciencies of generation, transmission, charging & motive friction losses, and EVs and the newest ICEs are virtually a wash when it comes to "carbon footprint." (...and to those who actually know what's gong on, that isn't even important)
An important point often ignored is the strategic importance of energy independence. If we are to go with an electrified military, how will we fight a war with China, on whom we are so dependent for batteries, solar cells, etc etc?...Both WW I & II were essentially won because the US was so productive of war materials. We don't produce anything anymore, and if China cuts us off, we will produce nothing if we're dependent on alternative energy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
