The German branch of the environmental group World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) has conducted a study… on the environmental impact of electric vehicles in Germany.
Just like the U.S., Germany has an ambitious goal of introducing electric vehicles. Germany, which today has 41 million cars, aims to have 1 million electric cars or plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2020. The conclusion of the study is that these electric cars only reduce greenhouse gases marginally.
The study, which was published in German in March, has not been widely circulated in English yet. The WWF Germany said a summary in English is set for publication this summer.
“What surprised us was that the carbon dioxide savings were so small,” Viviane Raddatz, vehicle expert at WWF Germany, said in a phone interview from Berlin.
The carbon dioxide emission reductions from these 1 million electrical vehicles in Germany’s transportation sector would be only 1 percent, according to the study, and overall national carbon dioxide emissions would only be cut by 0.1 percent. “That is not a very big deal,” Raddatz said, adding that “it is not going to help us out of the transportation emission mess.”
dont tell al gore this…he might just go into a 12yr old-esque temper tantrum
Nice selective quotation there. Lets see how many commenters read the whole CNET article, including the assumptions about where the CO2 would come from, and the comments. Hint: the situation would be different in the USA.
LOL. Don’t tell the sheeples.
I’d still rather give my money to techies instead of oil-funded terrorosts, thanks.
Oops, terrorists.
MANUFACTURE OF BATTERIES.
LIFE of batteries
replacement of Batteries..
SUPPLY of power
WHAT form of power is used to MAKE the power. wood, coal, solar, ???
Making the car..
Come on ECA, everyone knows that electric cars are made from sunshine,lollipops and rainbows!
Paddy-O, you forgot advertising and smiles all around.
Let’s see here…
Oil
* Dirty
* Oil barons
* Supports terrorism
* Dependent on gas stations
* Limited resource
Electricity
* Clean
* You can produce it yourself (if you want to)
* Made locally (domestic)
* Fill up (charge) at home
* Abundant resource
# 9 Jägermeister said,
“Electricity
* Abundant resource”
Electricity is an abundant resource? Really? ROFL
Brian wrote: “Nice selective quotation there.”
Shhhh… I’m trying to break 100 comments!
Isn’t 1% of a large number still a significant figure? For example, I’ll take 1% of a trillion dollars, thank you.
lynn, the ‘experts’ are calling for an 80% reduction of all emissions.
On a side note. It’s time governments stop subsidizing the oil industry to keep the cost of oil low.
The cost of deploying military in the middle east to protect oil should be added to the cost of each barrel.
If protecting the environment for the future of their family is not enough reason for conservatives, then hurt them where they really hurt – in their wallet! OUCH
#20 – Patty-Oh – Electricity is an abundant resource
You can create as much as you need. Try that with oil.
The reason is because they are expecting people to charge their cars when they come home from work, and this is a peak demand period, so they need coal plants to handle it. There is no solar at night, how much wind is there?
#16 – MikeN – … how much wind is there?
If you count in Faux News anchors… UNLIMITED!
Or Olbermann, he could power a continent all by himself!
If you guys want an excellent breakdown on how loopy and short-sighted some environmentalist can be, read this article. It’s excellent. Basically, it compares the environmental footprint between making 1000+ paper cups compared to one reusable ceramic cup.
http://tinyurl.com/5o8hmf
This is also very, very good.
http://www.sedona.biz/disposable-cups0108.htm
So, if making one reusable cup potentially could be more damaging to the environment than 1000 paper cups, then what about a full blown hybrid?
In a nutshell, making a car with the extra hybrid dodads increases it’s environmental footprint so much that the gas savings are negligible.
Last sentance in the article for those too lazy to read the whole thing.
“The electric car is a serious option for low-carbon future transportation,” Raddatz said, “but must be linked with renewable energy to make the difference.”
The study was conducted using the worst generating plants available in Germany. Renewable energy was not considered in the study.
#16 Mikey. You’re getting into issues above your pay grade that experts have a handle on. The whole reason behind a smart electric grid is deal is to with issues such as this.
Consider the following:
* Energy from Solar sources can be stored. YUP.
* Solar energy is always somewhere.
* Solar energy can be captured at night by absorbing the infrared part of the spectrum.
* Coal is not the only energy source to turn a turbine.
* Paying different power rates for different times of the day will address when most people plug their cars into the grid. I suspect it’s during nitenite time.
These are but a few things liberal scientists are working on.
Jägermeister said “You can create as much (electricity) as you need.”
No, you cannot. If we could do that, why would we face a continual energy crisis?! This is all stuff you should have learned in grammar school.
Electricity is energy and energy cannot be merely created out of nothing. We get electricity from giant electromagnetic turbines. Those are powered by coal, nuclear, oil, hydro, air, or through other means.
So the important thing to realize is that you cannot create as much electricity as you need. That’s because you first need some other source of energy to convert it to a more usable form, such as electricity.
You can’t plug your iPod into a lump of coal. You first have to convert the energy stored in the coal to electricity. We do that by converting the energy stored in the coal to heat, which causes water to covert to steam, which is used to drive huge turbines, which when giant magnets are rotated around iron, electricity is created. That’s certainly is not as simple as “creating as much electricity as you need.”
Now maybe one day we’ll get all of our electricity cleanly via windpower, hydro, and/or solar panels. But that day is a long way off. It certainly will not happen in my kids’ lives.
Imagine if you could snap your fingrs and magically turn all the cars in the country from gas-guzzling to clean electric.
And then pretend that all the cars could be charged in less than an hour and had a range of 300 miles between charges.
It would be a disaster – we simply do not have the infrastructure to produce enough electricity to power these cars.
You could build 1000s of power stations – which burn oil, gas, or coal – but then all that’s happened is the pollution has been moved around slightly.
You could build 1000s of nuclear power stations, at vast cost, and have tons of nuclear waste to deal with.
I know – we’ll use solar, wind and hydro – except there isn’t enough land area in the U.S. to provide enough power, the wind isn’t consistent enough, and hydro assumes we have 1000s of rivers to dam up – which we don’t have. Plus the concrete used to build a dam produces more green-house gases than all the cars in the country.
But let’s pretend we fix all that through some fantastic new technology – so we have quiet, energy-efficient, pollution-free cars. All stuck bumper-to-bumper in the same traffic jam we’re in now.
#23 – SN – If we could do that, why would we face a continual energy crisis?!
Because of greed. The energy companies are controlling the supply.
You missed my point. My point is that there’s enough ways to produce all the electricity we need for this generation and future generations.
Now maybe one day we’ll get all of our electricity cleanly via windpower, hydro, and/or solar panels. But that day is a long way off. It certainly will not happen in my kids’ lives.
So it’s meaningless to push the market in that direction?
Our kids will see production of energy in ways we never thought was possible. One such way might be space based power plants, beaming the energy down to earth.
#24 – chuck – Imagine if you could snap your fingrs and magically turn all the cars in the country from gas-guzzling to clean electric.
And then pretend that all the cars could be charged in less than an hour and had a range of 300 miles between charges.
It would be a disaster – we simply do not have the infrastructure to produce enough electricity to power these cars.
Snap those magic fingers of yours and you do.
Seriously… The market will evolve with the demand.
I know – we’ll use solar, wind and hydro – except there isn’t enough land area in the U.S. to provide enough power, the wind isn’t consistent enough, and hydro assumes we have 1000s of rivers to dam up – which we don’t have.
There’s plenty of waves on the ocean.
SN & chuck
FYI,
Add to this that there is considerable research into using capacitors to store electrical power in automobiles. This would allow the cars to be charged overnight when demand is low and put excess power back into the grid when power demand is high.
Besides wind, there is also solar power which is gaining more and more efficiency and efficacy all the time. Fusion, (ya, one of my favorites) is getting closer all the time. There is a very excellent probability it will be viable. Then there is thermal power to be tapped from the earth’s mantle.
So, add that potential to #26, Jag’s comment and what is that excuse again?
The right wingnut kneejerk windbags always enjoy having their puds pulled. We should move to all electric transportation while it is only marginal benefit so that when pollution free energy is developed it will have a transportation system that can actually use it.
Damn Darwin for making breathing an autonomic function.
Electric cars are greatIF they are no smaller or less powerful than current SUVs and trucks and cost no more to purchase or operate and can go 800 miles fully loaded in 12 hours.
Anything less is for non-Americans – not worthy of Americans.
I don’t know, but the girl is cute. As this can be said by a 20 year old.