Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions with Electric Cars
How putting more electric cars into the world will help with the decrease of carbon equivalent emissions and greenhouse gas emissions.
There are many ways that people today are trying to reduce carbon emissions, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in general. One company that is striving to do this is Project Drawdown. Their goal is to help the world reach what they called “Drawdown” — where there is a point in the future when the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start decline as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible. One of the 35 solutions that can help with the decline of these polluting gases by 2050 is the use of electric cars.
Electric cars are known to have many benefits in reducing the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, compared to the cars that have gasoline or diesel engines. In this article I will be speaking about how electric cars can reduce carbon equivalent emissions, the scale of this strategy to the amount that it will be meaningful, cost and benefits for implementing this, and the environmental co-benefits of pursing this drawdown strategy.
Reducing Carbon Equivalent Emissions
To reduce net carbon equivalent emissions means that we have to remove or balance out the amount of carbon, carbon monoxide (CO), or carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Drawdown calculated that if electric car ownership rises to 16–23 percent of total passenger km, 11.9–15.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent can be avoided or reduced [Fig. 1]. This data accounts for emissions from electricity generation and higher emissions of producing electric cars compared to cars with gasoline or diesel engines — internal-combustion cars. These emissions estimates are also based on the electricity and fuel usage data from a wide range of sources. The emissions factors were calculated based on guidelines from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and recent sources for grid emissions factors. The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, and it was created to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, it’s implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options. In the emissions model, indirect emissions were also included in the data. Indirect emissions include things such as the extraction and production of purchased materials and fuels, waste disposal, business travel, and consumption of purchased electricity, heat, or steam. Indirect emissions were included because electric vehicle production generates 6 percent higher indirect emissions than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. As of 2018, there were reported to be a little over 5 million electric cars on the road all over the world.
When will we see the desired effect?
In order for the world to see the desired effect of implementing more electric cars and for this change to be meaningful, there is a certain amount of activity that must be done. First consumer education is a key component of electric vehicle adoption. This is important in order to relieve concerns about the upfront price premium and the reduced range of electric vehicles compared to ICE cars. As the technology matures in regard to the battery and economies of scale grow, the price of manufacturing these high-capacity batteries will decrease. So, both the purchase price and the range of electric vehicles will become more attractive to the world population. To get to this point, Drawdown suggests that it may require greater financial incentives for consumers as well as a focus on the mass market rather than the high-end consumer like they are doing now.
Electric car producers would have to manage the problem that came with increase battery production, like sourcing key metals such as cobalt, copper, and nickel, whose supply chains can have negative environmental and social impacts on the world. Also, the disposal of old batteries is an environmental challenge right now so we would need to focus on finding better ways of disposing of the batteries. Another activity or policy that needs to be fulfilled in order for this Drawdown solution to work is the implantation of more charging stations, and for charging stations to become more available to put in homes. Another way that can help this desired effect to take off is if we have more advertisement for it. If there was more advertisement to the middle-class economy, it would help to show that these cars are affordable to them and not only for people who are in the upper-class economy. Right now, most “advertisement” that people see comes from celebrities having showed off their car. If we accomplish these activities, the electric car industry will have a better chance of taking off.
Cost and Benefits
In order to reduce the CO2 equivalent by 11.87–15.68 gigatons between 2020 and 2050, there are some costs that we must include. Like stated earlier, car ownership must rise to 16–23% of total passenger km. This will have a first cost of $4.5–5.8 trillion by 2050 but have a net operational savings of $15.30–21.82 trillion US dollars [Fig. 2]. These numbers were calculated by adopting two different scenarios.
First Scenario
In the first scenario, it is aligned with the International Energy Agency (IEA) projection for electric vehicle stocks. It leads to 860 million electric vehicles on the road in 2050, with the carbon dioxide reduction of 11.9 gigaton between 2020 and 2050.
Second Scenario
In the second scenario, IEA projections and historical electric vehicle sales are combined to project the total stock of EV cars out to 2050. This scenario projects that 1.2 billion electric vehicles would be on the road by 250, resulting in 15.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided.
In regard to the net first costs for purchasing an electric car, this was estimated using several sources the cover key markets in US, China, EU, Japan, and the world as a whole. These costs were weighted by market sales and purchase costs for the EV were averaged to be $8,000 (US) higher than the ICE cars. Operating costs were calculated by including grid electricity for electric cars and fuel for the plug-in hybrid and ICE). Fuel and electricity use were based on many sources including US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. Also, operating costs included the maintenance costs, and fixed operating costs for cars. If we do follow either of these two scenarios, by 2050 we will benefit greatly economically and also environmentally.
What are the environmental co-benefits?
There are many environmental co-benefits for using electric cars over cars that use gasoline or deiseal engines. One major benefit of electric cars is the fact that it reduces the amount of CO2 put into the air significantly. Electric cars do not have a tailpipe, so they produce no carbon dioxide emissions when driving and as a result reduces air pollution considerably. Even with the electricity generation, the carbon emissions of an electric car are around 17–30% lower than driving a gasoline or diesel cars.
Direct and Life Cycle Emissions
There are two general categories of vehicle emissions: direct and life cycle. Direct emissions include pollutants such as particulates, volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Electric cars help with the lowering of direct emissions significantly because they produce zero direct emissions. Life cycle emissions include all emissions related to fuel and vehicle productions, processing, distribution, use, and recycling/disposal. Electric vehicles typically produce fewer life cycle emissions than ICE vehicles because most emissions are lower for electricity generation than burning gasoline or diesel. Electric cars can further minimize their life cycle emissions by using electricity generated by non-polluting renewable sources like solar and wind. Below, you can see the national average of the amount of carbon dioxide emissions for electric, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, and gasoline vehicles [Fig. 3].
This bar and pie graph take into account what is called the “well-to-wheel” emissions. This term describes the assessment of the environmental impact given on the car throughout its lifespan. This can start with drilling up petroleum from the ground or building the battery for the electric cars. This means it takes into account all emissions that it could emit even when developing the car. When pursing this drawdown strategy, the environmental co-benefits show just how much of an impact it can make on our environment.
A Successful Future
Electric cars are already in the works of becoming more relevant and common to drive on the roads. Some companies that have implemented electric cars into their companies or just manufacture electric cars are Tesla, BMW, Nissan, Chevrolet, Ford, Volkswagen, and Kia. All of these companies have started or have come out with electric cars, all at different price ranges and ranges. This shows that we are making progress towards having more electric cars on the road to help the environment, and that companies are starting to understand the importance of having electric vehicles.
Project Drawdown has an extensive list of solutions to mitigating net carbon emissions and climate change. I only focused on one of the 35 strategies, but you can see what effect just pursing one of these solutions can do to help the environment. This drawdown strategy is very important to improving our environment and decreasing carbon emissions and will hopefully gain attention of people all over the world. I hope that overall Project Drawdown is brought to many people’s attention and that actions are made to make this project successful and effective.
References
[1] Electric Cars @ProjectDrawdown #ClimateSolutions. (2020, March 01). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://drawdown.org/solutions/electric-cars
[2] Emissions from Hybrid and Plug-In Electric Vehicles. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html
[3] Explaining Electric & Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles. (2020, February 25). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/explaining-electric-plug-hybrid-electric-vehicles
[4] Iea. (n.d.). Global EV Outlook 2019 — Analysis. Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2019
[5] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.ipcc.ch/
[6] Model S. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.tesla.com/models
[7] Moses, M. (n.d.). Electric cars and the environment. Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.edfenergy.com/for-home/energywise/electric-cars-and-environment
[8] Project Drawdown. (2020, May 08). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://drawdown.org/
[9] Reducing Pollution with Electric Vehicles. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://www.energy.gov/eere/electricvehicles/reducing-pollution-electric-vehicles
