Electric car plans need new energy source first

There is an interesting debate on about electric cars at the moment.

At first glance I thought that everyone would support a transition to electric vehicles (EV’s). They are the future, aren’t they? Who could resist, for instance, the allure of owning a new Tesla Roadster?

These are exciting times for electric cars. There are many projects across Europe to support new EV technology. Denmark is partnering with Project Better Place and has raised € 130 million to build a new  electric car charging network by 2011. The network will consist of around 100 stations where drivers of electric vehicles can swap out or top up their depleted batteries. In France the government has pledged €400m (about £310m) to help carmaker Renault and French energy firm EDF get a nationwide electric recharging network off the ground by 2011, and Paris is set to introduce a new rental scheme for electric cars by 2010, similar to the succesful Velib bike hire scheme. Ireland recently announced that 10% of vehicles will be powered by electricity in 2020, and has set aside more than $1 million for demonstration projects. In the US, Obama’s stimulus bill announced major new funding for plug-in vehicles, including $600m for federal procurement of plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles, $400m for state procurements of acquisition of alternative fueled vehicles or fuel cell vehicles and a $1bn advanced battery loan guarantee scheme. Hong Kong is renewing the tax break for electric vehicles for a further 5 years, while in Portugal, drivers of electric cars aren’t charged for vehicle  registration. And in Sweden, fast food giant McDonalds plans to roll out recharging points at its outlets.

Electric technology has a lot of good things going it. Electric (battery) engines are 65% efficient compared to old internal combustion engines (ICE), which are at best 23% efficient. The batteries can be recycled, where an ICE can’t.

But not everyone supports EVs. In fact, in a recent meeting in Brussels, some environmental NGOs were resolutely against them. While at We Are Futureproof, we remain optimistic and supportive, we ask, what are the issues?

Perhaps the most obvious gripe is that electric cars are increasingly tagged as ‘green’, which in fact they aren’t. Electric cars still have a ‘carbon footprint’ from their manufacturing stage, as well as from the energy they use (more on that below). There are also concerns about the production of the electric batteries - this process is apparently quite polluting, and uses rare materials like lithium.

In terms of the energy they use, critics point out that if you drive an electric car but charge up on electricity produced from dirty coal power (brown energy), then you may as well be driving a petrol vehicle which will get a lower overall emissions. What’s important is to look at the future carbon intensity of the energy mix.

The argument often used that electricity from nuclear is somehow ‘clean and green’ also gets the shackles up. Very few campaigners would like to see electric vehicles promoted if this resulted in a green light for new nuclear stations.

So what is the way forwards? The only way to ensure that electric cars emit as little CO2 as possible is to make sure the electricity comes from alternative energy sources - solar, wind, biogas and tidal.

Professor Julia King recently reported that if all the cars in the UK were converted to EVs, then the extra demand on the energy grid would increase only by 17%. Whist that figure still seems significant, she said that with the use of smart metering systems, cars could be powered up at night when the demand on the grid was low.

It’s obvious that the electric technology needs to develop and grow. At this point we should embrace the evolution to EVs, whilst also monitoring the energy sources used for electrical charging points.

Blake, for We Are Futureproof

Electric cars would have no net effect on the grid

Very often, when people start speaking about a shift to electric cars there are criticisms about how this would place a high demand on our energy grid. As if this somehow means that no change is possible without adversely effecting our current standard of living, or worse, that somehow we need even more nuclear power stations built.

Well, Professor Julia King recently said something interesting on the radio. She says that if we were to change the entire UK car fleet to electric, it would increase the load on the energy grid by only 17%. Using smart metering, this increase could be met by charging cars overnight during the off-peak periods.

posted by Blake for We Are Futureproof