Investor's Business Daily posted an article today about the environmental footprint of electric cars. The article quotes Mark Gaffigan, who authored a GAO report on the impact of electric cars on the environment:
"If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."
Electric cars use electricity--in America a large part of our electricity comes from coal, so we are trading one carbon fuel source for another--we are still using carbon based fuel. The article also points out that there are many unanswered questions about what the environmental hazards would be after a collision between an electric car and an eighteen-wheeler.
There are other questions regarding the sources of and disposal of the lithium involved in the batteries of electric cars. Bolivia, a country ruled by a leader who is not really a friend of America is the major source of lithium. The other question is how much impact the manufacture of lithium batteries has on the environment.
The electric car may be a great idea for the future, but we are not yet ready to make a full transition to the new technology. Hopefully, we will further investigate the unintended consequences of switching to electric cars before we fully commit to the change.
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