this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Are they? Because unless you live in some green energy paradise, most EV are charged using coal plants.
Doesn't need to be a "green energy paradise", just a reasonably well connected first world country.
Take a look at Electricity Maps. Unless you live somewhere isolated or with very poorly developed grid infrastructure (or some central US states, apparently), you should see a non-trivial amount of electricity being generated by non-fossil fuels. For example, at the time of typing this 77% of the electricity I'm using is low-carbon and 50% of it is renewable.
That's the kicker. EVs don't have to rely on fossil fuels to operate (but they can make use of them depending on the grid infrastructure). ICE cars on the other hand are burning fuel wherever they go.
Walking or cycling will always be the least polluting means of getting around, but if you really need a car then you could do a lot worse than getting an electric one.
The problem is, the way I see it, all energy use is connected. Basically the problem we have is energy consumption grows faster than clean energy production. So requiring more green energy in this context still sucks. Even where I live where all of our energy is green (at least in the grid), extra energy can be sold either via selling it to other provinces/states, or by making deals with companies to do their production here where energy is cheap and green.
Energy is a commodity on a market. If you use it to inefficiently move people, you can't use it for other things. Remember that to move a 150 lbs person in a car, you have to move about a ton and a half of car...
I’m really sceptic about that kind of metrics because many of them take carbon offsets into account, and carbon offsets are mostly greenwashing.
Power mix in the world right now is over 50% coal and gas, and only hydro is over a 10%. This is worldwide, so mix varies depending on where you are.
In the end EVs are no making a dent in power demand. They are increasing it. The percentage of fossil fuels is maybe going down but total fossil fuel consumption is increasing as our demand does. Green energy is only taking some of the slack from the increase.
EVs will be remembered as the thing we did to keep using cars and feeling good about it.
@Mars @wrinkletip Hello, what century are you living in? The US gets only 20% of its electricity from coal and dropping fast. In CA it's 0%.
Aside from that, EVs are so much more energy efficient that an EV using electricity from a coal plant still produces less CO2 than an ICE car.
Not op, but the material gathering and building of EVs is far more energy intensive and resource intensive than gas cars. They do even out but it takes a number of years on the road depending on the vehicle.
Additionally they are very heavy which requires more infrastructure maintenance and therefore more emissions.
That is to say EVs are not a sure fire improvement and it depends on the car, the place you are, the supply chain producing your car, where it's going to end up, and your own driving habits.
Or we could just invest in rail instead of doubling down on private vehicles. Then we can be sure.