I know nothing about cars, but this is a subject that’s been playing on my mind for quite a while so thought I’d use it as an example of the research services I offer.
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Electric Cars – Is it really worth the change we’re being forced to make?
Electric cars are the new-age thing. They’ve been promised for decades now and they’re really starting to deliver.
We only have a decade left to solve the climate crisis which involves making the vehicles on the roads as clean as possible.
The work is really being put into electric cars, whether they’re all-electric or hybrid models. Emissions from petrol and diesel vehicles contribute to long-term health impacts including asthma, lung damage, and heart conditions.
I’m not going to talk about the price of electric cars. What I’m investigating is whether electric cars are better for the planet than their petrol and diesel forerunners. In that, I mean, does the decreased carbon emissions in charging and using of an electric car outweigh the making and disposing after the useful life of it?
It’s been said for years that owning and running an electric or hybrid car is the way forward by reducing our carbon footprint. Although the electric car is better for the environment as there are no tailpipe emissions it doesn’t mean electric cars are as carbon neutral as manufacturers have stated.
Electric cars indirectly cause emissions from the manufacture, energy source and battery recycling. Here’s what I found about each of these component parts:
Manufacture
A lot of energy is used in making electric cars. Scientific studies have shown that building traditional cars uses less carbon emissions than manufacturing electric vehicles. They need to manufacture high-performance metals ensuring the electric vehicle is light to compensate for the weight of the batteries used to power it. The factories themselves use huge amounts of energy which, in turn, produces high levels of greenhouse gases.
Energy source
Electric cars are only as environmentally-friendly as the power you charge them with. Most of the UK’s electricity is extracted from non-renewable supplies. So before you get in your car and drive it, your car will have indirectly produced carbon emissions.
Until recently, the UK has produced most of its energy from coal-powered plants. Coal burning distributes enormous quantities of carbon dioxide and other toxic gases into the atmosphere which impacts human health and contributes to global warming.
Battery Charging
One advantage of electric vehicles is that you can recharge your vehicle while you’re parked at home, at work, even at the supermarket. But this will result in an increase in demand of recharging points.
Also, the time required to recharge your vehicle will need to meet demand. For instance, your drive home may incorporate a visit to the supermarket to carry out a weekly shop. If the drive to the supermarket leaves the battery empty, will the time it takes to do your shop be sufficient to recharge the battery?
Battery recycling
The chemical batteries used in electric cars are huge and it’s still being explored for a low-energy, environmentally-friendly solution to recycling them.
Recycling lithium-ion car batteries currently is an inefficient and long-winded process. Batteries can be shredded and separated into their component parts, and some materials and metals can be salvaged and reused. Alternatively, if it still holds some charge, frozen in liquid nitrogen and smashed into bits. However, even after these processes are used, only an estimated 20% of materials can be reused.
Staggeringly, an electric car battery is regarded as unusable when it holds less than 70-80% of its original capacity. However, many of them operate after removing them from vehicles and so they can be adapter for use with solar power PV systems. This is considered to be an effective way forward in terms of the greenest solution, but it’s a long way off being implemented on a significant measure.
Conclusion
While electric vehicles do have some impact on the environment, they are still a great option for reducing your carbon footprint, compared to standard petrol or diesel engines. Whether we agree with it or not, it’s the way forward to combatting the unfriendly carbon footprint problem.
Rumour has it that there’s another solution to battery-operated cars, and that’s using the power of water. Will this be any better?
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The above piece is 740 words long.
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