The Chevy Volt- is it Greener?

The Chevy Volt, claiming 230 MPG, is the latest entry in the effort to green up our highways by converting our gasoline burning cars to electric power or a hybrid of gasoline and electric power. The Chevy Volt is a hybrid that uses a combination of stored electric power and gasoline to provide a supposedly green alternative to cars that run only on internal combustion, but is the Chevy Volt, or any electric car really greener than gasoline burning cars? There are some troubling facts which suggest that cars like the Chevy Volt may not be a more green alternative after all.

The Green Argument for the Chevy Volt

The arguments for the electric vehicle (EV) or hybrid cars like the Chevy Volt being more green are quite simple and easy to follow. Burning gasoline in an internal combustion engine creates green house gases such as carbon monoxide that contribute to global warming. The EV or fully electric vehicle produces no emissions and, therefore is the more green solution. Hybrid cars, similarly, use a combination of gasoline and electric power to reduce the amount of gasoline they burn, thereby reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Those are easy messages for advertisers to communicate and, to most people, it seems like basic common sense.

The Green Argument Against the Chevy Volt

On the other side of the argument, however, critics point out that the electricity consumed by plug in electric cars or EVs has to be generated somewhere. In America today, the vast majority of our electricity comes from coal fired electric plants. Since the technology for clean burning coal fired electrical power plants has yet to be perfected and implemented, that means tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases are being created in order to create the electricity for cars like the Chevy Volt that plug in to an electrical outlet.

Dvice does the Math on the Electric Vehicles

If a home is powered by solar panels, a windmill, or other clean energy sources, then there is no question that your Chevy Volt or other EV is more green in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. To determine whether EVs powered by electricity generated by coal fired generators is more efficient, we need much more information- and some fancy mathematical calculations. Fortunately, someone has been kind enough to do the heavy lifting. Dvice.com has collected the data and crunched the numbers. According to their calculations, which, by necessity, must make some generalizations, if all American cars were converted to become pure EVs, then these electric cars would consume about 600 billion kWh of electricity which would result in 1.2 trillion tons of greenhouse gas emissions from coal fired generating stations.

EVs and Hybrids have the Advantage

On the other side of the equation, gas burning vehicles would produce approximately 3 trillion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the data collected from the EPA and other official sources by Dvice. That gives the EV the clear advantage according to Dvice. When we talk about plug in hybrid cars like the Chevy Volt, reducing a portion of the gasoline they consume in favor of electricity is still a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, making them a greener alternative to cars using only gasoline. As one might expect, a similar report by the Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington shows an even more lopsided advantage.

More Green Arguments Against the Chevy Volt

If it were that simple, we'd have a clear green car winner. Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. Electric vehicles are produced (generally) with fewer parts than their gasoline burning counterparts, resulting in a lesser environmental impact during construction with one major exception. Fully electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt and hybrids like the Toyota Prius or the Honda Insight all store their electrical power in vast onboard battery systems. Batteries are created from some very noxious and persistent toxic chemicals. Which are often derived from environmentally unfriendly mining operations. Furthermore, these batteries need to be replaced about every five years as their charging capacity gradually deteriorates over time. We won't go into coal strip mining and the environmental damage that can cause.

More Green Arguments for the Chevy Volt

Even gasoline doesn't appear magically at the gas station, it is refined from oil. That oil is most often carried from overseas by massive oil tankers that use some of the dirtiest internal combustion engines still in use today. Then that oil is refined into gasoline. The refining processes also uses electricity from coal fired generating stations, so the greenhouse gases from that operation must be added in as well. The further we go up the chain, the more complicated the whole equation becomes and it is nearly impossible for the average person to determine whether a 230 MPG Chevy Volt, a Subaru Prius, or a conventional gas burning car is the best green choice when all things are considered.

The Only Real Green Vehicle

As near as we can tell, electric vehicles and hybrids like the Chevy Volt do have a green advantage over conventional gasoline burning cars. When we look at the much cleaner diesel buring vehicles, then the advantage of EVs is decidedly less. As our country develops a more green infrastructure and we begin to produce more and more of our electricity from clean sources such as wind or solar generators, then the equation will shift even more toward the EV as the green alternative, but for now, despite the claims made by the Chevy Volt and other electric car manufacturers, the only real green vehicle is the bicycle.

Sources:
dvice.com/archives/2009/07/shift-sorry-cri.php
electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml