Some people get a little concerned about more electrics and electric-hybrid cars. That’s because 50% of electric power in the U.S. comes from coal-burning power plants. And, just about every state wants to build more power plants to meet peak demand. (Photo by Ed Edahl, courtesy of FEMA)
The big automakers are working on
coming up with plug in hybrids. By the
end of 2010, G-M and Toyota plan to have
cars you can plug in to charge up batteries,
backed up with small gas powered engines.
Lester Graham reports there are concerns
about whether pollution from power plants
will be any better than pollution from tailpipes:
Transcript
The big automakers are working on
coming up with plug in hybrids. By the
end of 2010, G-M and Toyota plan to have
cars you can plug in to charge up batteries,
backed up with small gas powered engines.
Lester Graham reports there are concerns
about whether pollution from power plants
will be any better than pollution from tailpipes:
I was out the other day with a guy who converted his Saturn four-door into an all electric
vehicle. Did it all himself.
His name’s Bob Gurk. He’s one of a lot of people who think there’s a better way, and
they want you to see for yourself.
Bob Gurk: “Here are the keys.”
Lester Graham: “I’m drivin’?”
Guys like Bob Gurk think the big automakers should have come up with electrics and
plug-in hybrids a long time ago.
Lester Graham: “Unplug here?”
Bob Gurk: “Yeah.”
(sounds of driving)
Bob Gurk says, sure, he spent a lot converting his car to electric. And there are some
sacrifices: no air conditioning, he can only go just a little over 50 miles without a charge,
but then, he’s not paying close to four-bucks a gallon for gasoline now.
Bob Gurk: “I figure it’s about three cents a mile.”
Lester Graham: “Three cents a mile?”
Bob Gurk: “Yeah.”
Lester Graham: “As opposed to gasoline, which is?”
Bob Gurk: “Ten cents a mile, I’d say. At least.”
Some people get a little concerned about more electrics and electric-hybrids. That’s
because 50% of electric power in the U.S. comes from coal-burning power plants. And,
just about every state wants to build more power plants to meet peak demand.
A guy who’s supposed to know something about electric cars is Andy Frank. He’s at
the University of California Davis. Some call him the father of the plug-in-hybrid. Andy
Frank says we don’t use all the power that’s available right now.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is that the grid actually has excess capacity. The
reason why is there has to be enough capacity to satisfy the peak draw in the middle of
the day. But, at night everybody turns off their lights and that draw goes down to about
anywhere between a half and two-thirds of what is required during the peak of the day.”
So, the idea is you could plug in your plug-in hybrid overnight.
“And then the question is how many cars could you charge with that idle capacity on our
existing grid? About 75 to 80% of cars in our entire fleet in the U.S. could be charged
with that excess capacity that we currently have.”
That’s assuming most people would only plug in at night, during the off-peak hours. If
most of them did, that would be a lot of cars that would not be emitting pollution from the
tailpipes.
But that also means some power plants will be burning more coal at night, billowing out
pollution, including greenhouse gasses.
Dustin Dwyer reports on automotive issues for Michigan Radio and he’s covered this
issue.
“One of the benefits, the power companies will tell you, is that if you have millions of
tailpipes out there spewing emissions, it’s much more difficult to capture those emissions
or manage those emissions than it is to manage coming out of one smokestack at the
power plant.”
But, you do end up shifting some pollution upstream to the power plants. And that
would pollute rural areas more, because that’s where they build the power plants.
The experts say that’s why we ought to start building parking lots with car ports covered
in solar panels, put up more wind turbines, and find other ways to use energy better – to
power all those electric and plug-in hybrids that are coming.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.