China: Electric Cars Could Cause Worse Pollution Than Conventional Cars
China: Electric Cars Could Cause Worse Pollution Than Conventional Cars
February 19th, 2012
While it might be obvious to you and me that burning coal to charge electric vehicles makes about as much sense as pissing into the wind, my guess is that this would be news to many.
Via: io9:
The electric (or even hybrid) car has been heralded as a way to help limit the amount of aerial pollution hitting the skies and our lungs, but a new study out of China has shown that they’re actually even worse than regular gas guzzlers.
The study in specific looked at the emission of particulate matter, as opposed to the usual comparisons of greenhouse gases. What they found is that per person per mile, electric cars are worse than gasoline ones, but it’s not immediately obvious because the pollution is happening at power plants instead of out of a tailpipe. Because so much of China’s power comes from fossil fuels — primarily coal — the energy that goes into the electric vehicle is very dirty, and actually more polluting than just using a standard gasoline engine.
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