Are Electric Cars Really Part of the Solution?

The future is knocking at Earth's door and bears a simple question, "What is the answer to a cleaner me?" Earth speaks to its advisors and replies, "Well, there are many parts to this solution. One of them is this: we could make electric cars." The future scratches its head and asks Earth, "Are your advisors sure that electric cars are environmentally friendly?" After a few minutes of a group discussion, an answer is given; "Well, my team seems pretty confident that they are." Earth closes the door with a resounding thud and the future walks away unsure of itself once again. Its gut keeps saying "This electric car business does not feel right."

The future may be on to something here. Even though the idea of cleansing the earth's atmosphere from environmentally damaging emissions is exciting, electric cars are not completely the answer to this dilemma. While these vehicles do cut down the hazardous gases released by vehicles, they basically slide the negative environmental impact over to the coal industry.

According to Wikipedia.org, "Approximately 40% of the world electricity production uses coal. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal)" Currently, over 90% of electricity in the United States is generated by coal. China's power is supplied by using over 60% of the resource. "The world in total produced 6.19 billion tons of coal in 2006 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal)." Not only is this resource the largest energy supplier to the world, but it is also the leader in carbon dioxide emissions. This is a problem as Carbon Dioxide is one of the known contributors to the global warming crisis that the planet faces. Unless a cleaner generator of energy is created soon, the development of more products that require electricity from the power grid, is to put it bluntly, a very bad idea. To put this in perspective, let's look at some statistics.

There are around 6.72 billion people in the world right now with a prediction of the population growing to over 9 billion in the year 2042 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population). Taking into account that not everyone will be able to afford the technology, etc, let's just cut that predicted population number in half and ponder that future date. Division tells us that there would then be around 4.5 billion people to consider as potential electric car owners. If all of these people start plugging their vehicles in every night to charge those lithium ion batteries or whatever the type may be, a lot of power over time will be used. "A lot of power" (assuming coal is still the primary supplier of energy) suggests that there will be even more coal usage. So, even though some of the electric car makers have claims of zero emmissions from the vehicle, the indirect effects they might have could be dangerous to the planet. This revelation brings up a final question for the Earth's advisors to ponder.

"Is it getting hot in here or is it just the thought of creating one more thing that uses electricity, that in turn uses coal, that gives often carbon dioxide, that gives off heat and results in an even more toasty planet?" While the Earth's advisors continue to insist that electric cars are part of the solution to the growing environmental crisis, the future does not seem so certain.