Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
If you drive a fully electric car, hoping at least to benefit the environment by reducing carbon emissions, the location of your home can actually affect how carbon neutral your ride is.
Why is this significant? It depends on which electric utility provides service.
Compare two vehicles: The all-electric Tesla S; and the Toyota Prius hybrid, garaged in two neighboring cities: Bellevue, WA; and Seattle. The cities are separated by Lake Washington and a floating bridge. It is not about sunlight or cloud cover it is the utilities used.
It seems your zip code could dictate the environmental benefits more than might be expected.
Seattle residents use Seattle City Light. Bellevue residents have Puget Sound Energy. Seattle City Light receives approximately 1% of its energy derived from coal whereas Puget Sound Energy uses 20% coal derived energy sourced from a coal plant in Colstrip, Montana. The coal plant is dirty by comparison with other energy sources and according to Seattle newspaper “The Stranger” is the eighth largest producer of greenhouse gases in the United States. Puget Sound Energy has a twenty percent ownership position in the plant.
The percentage of coal sourced electricity of PSE nearly eliminates the environmental benefit of using a pure electric vehicle such as a Tesla, making its carbon footprint nearly identical to that of the hybrid gas/electric Toyota Prius.
A study by the Sightline Institute’s Clark Williams-Derry presents some rather sobering news about location and carbon neutrality. Using PSE’s 2012 emissions figures a Tesla Model S with an 85 kilowatt battery emits 0.50 pounds of “carbon dioxide equivalents” per mile, compared with 0.51 pounds per mile for a Toyota Prius C. (This assumes a 5 percent rate of energy loss between the power plant and your outlet; PSE did not provide its specific loss rate, but 5 percent is pretty average.) Williams-Derry believes: “Having a lot of coal in your generation mix significantly reduces the benefits of driving a Tesla.”
Across the water in Seattle, the Tesla becomes greatly better environmentally while obviously the Prius’ difference is none.
PSE for its part has made bona fide efforts in trying to embrace renewable energy, a promising work in Kittitas County with the Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility that can generate up to 273 megawatts of clean, renewable energy. Yet, the company still sources 30% of its electricity from fossil fuels.
Despite the utilities’ power mix there still remains the possibility the individual electric vehicle owner may install solar panels for charging, but therein reveals the problem of capital outlay costs aside from tax credits and other government and utility reimbursements.
What is clear is the need to address the energy, carbon costs and other pollutants as often as possible. Even the environmental cost of lithium ion batteries exists. But when location can dictate carbon costs for the environmentally conscientious, having to factor in zip codes is a problem best eliminated.
By Darren Smith
Sources:
The Stranger
Puget Sound Energy
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
As is the majority of the irrational, hysterical “climate change” reaction to exogenously induced, political, cult-based paranoia, the faux, pass-through, “electric car” solution is a mirage.
In the final analysis, abiotic oil is the absolute, reliable source of energy for personal transportation.
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@ Dredd
You said: :”Our national power grid needs to be updated to more easily accept renewable energy. ”
This IS another consideration that people don’t want to consider. In our area we have large Hyrdo Electric plants that were built long ago and are efficient, paid for (fully amortized) and can run 24/7. However, the new shiny and SUBSIDIZED wind plant with its towering windmills that can be seen for 50 miles on top of a local mountain ridge, is not efficient or paid for. When that plant is on line (on those occasions when the wind is blowing) they actually shut down the hydro plant and put the expensive subsidized power through the lines because the grid can’t handle both at once.
So….in the name of Gaia ….or something, we stop with the natural hydro power and pump in the wind power which isn’t reliable 24/7 like the hydro is. More expensive power because California has decided that water power is not “green” enough. Using components manufactured overseas. A blight on the scenery. And btw: chopping up Golden Eagles, Bald Eagles, migratory birds of all kinds.
Once the subsidies are done, the financial backers of the wind farm will just pack up and leave and we will have these giant windmills polluting the area. Not just in the United States either. There are abandoned wind farms all over Europe. Google it.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
L.A. uses coal burning power plants in Utah for power which amounts to just about a zero gain for the Tesla
Karen : dream on Population dictates quality of life, The more people the higher the risk of war, disease, and famine
Sorry….forgot the quotation marks around Karen’s posting.
What Karen S said.
Most of the batteries that power electric cars are made from components manufactured in China which is certainly not using clean and green methods. Toxic chemicals that are mined in horrible conditions and manufactured in conditions that produce the most awful pollution. The eco cost of manufacturing new shiny electric cars is much worse than just driving your old beater car with gasoline for a few more years.
That being said. I’m not against electric vehicles. They work in some areas. If I still lived in San Francisco, I would have one. They would never ever work in the rural areas for at least the next 50 years or until they get an infrastructure system in place to support such vehicles. It is all a pipe dream.
What I am against is unrealistic hype that is not based on ALL the facts about the product and doesn’t consider ALL of the ancillary effects and costs of production. Basically, electric vehicles are just not ready for prime time yet and to force people with punitive measures to drive them is just not going to work.
If you want this program to work….it needs to be targeted to the small market that will actually use and benefit from the electric vehicle (urban areas where people don’t drive very many miles) THEN improve the product slowly until it is useable by the rest of the country. Punishing everyone else with high utility bills, punitive costs to drive their current vehicles and people who have zero chance in H#LL to be able use an electric vehicle just will retard the acceptance of such vehicles and create resistance to any actual progress.
Follow.
Paul – and the oceans will stop rising and there will be world peace.
Was China seriously upheld as an example to follow in environmentalism? I have friends who lived in China for years, and they could eat their air. They would send screen shots of the daily air quality level, and it was always in the red zone.
Then there’s the chunky air in Mainland China.
So few people realize this – electric cars are only as clean as the method that produced the electricity it runs on.
Plus, there are the toxic components like the battery. My biggest concern, however, is that in many electric cars, replacing the battery costs as much as a car.
Electric cars are here to stay.
Solar progress is on the way.
At General Electric, Progress is Our Most Important Product
Which is why we have all those GE cars out there.
In 1914 the electric car was as sophisticated as gas cars.
Since 1914 the gasoline and oil industry has stifled progress.
We might have to go outside the U.S. box for progress.
It won’t make any difference. By the end of the Obama administration they will not be using fossil fuels so both will be equal.
Glen, Safety should be the number one aspect in car making. Ralph Nader would agree.
Climate Scientist tell us they will soon have to add line 18 because of you driving SUV
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
It’s Electric
Boggie Woogie Woogie
It comes from Coal but you can’t use it even though it comes from ev ree where
I’ll teach you the Electric Slide
Boggie Woogie Woogie
It makes you feel good
driving your Electric Car
Ola Ola Aye
The topic of Zip Codes and electricity, as it pertains to vehicular travel, is related to The BarkinDog Doctrine Part Two. Under the BarkinDog Doctrine as explained in Part One, the various Pirate Territories of the World are designated on a map like Zip Codes in America. Basically everything East of Corfu has a negative code and under the tourist and migration doctrine all persons who live in Pirate Territories such as Chechnia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia (home of the Twin Towers bombers), Iran, Iraq, Syria etc, are barred from stepping on a plane owned by an airline which travels to Western Europe or to the United States or South America. Further they are barred from entering the United States by any mode. Any person from the Pirate Territories in the condemned coded territories who is in the United States is to be immediately found and disembarked on a ship to Siberia. This doctrine and law is possible under the Piracy Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, discussed on this blog in the past few days. Terrorists are like electricity, they can flow across party lines, and territorially, across Zip Codes and boundaries. If you live in NYC please ask Representative Steven King to sponsor this Bill.
Very good post Darren. Thank you. This is on my mind for purchase. Fortunately for us in this area, SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District) is a national model for clean energy and low rates.
2014 Prius: I’m adding one more consideration. The crash test data.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQjZZyHdTyc
2013 Tesla S: Just one more consideration for the road. Battery fires.
Our national power grid needs to be updated to more easily accept renewable energy.
It can be done:
(A Grid We Can Believe In – 2 ).
Further, we should not blame techology x for the pollution technology y does.
The guilt for the polution a dirty coal fired plant does rests on the officials of that polluting plant, not on those who drive clean energy vehicles.