Hybrids versus Electrics - Essay Example

Hybrids versus Electrics The media today is filled with news about the need for seeking alternative sources of energy to power cars (Facts on File, 25). The current outrageous increases in oil prices and the environmental concerns related to greenhouse gasses have rejuvenated public desire for alternatives to gasoline. This desire to shift from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy solutions has spurred both private and public investments in research and development in new and more cost-effective technologies, alternative fuels, durable batteries and expanded infrastructure with an aim of reducing costs and minimizing negative effects of energy production on the environment. Several auto manufacturers around the globe have joined the race to come up with the alternatives by manufacturing wide varieties of hybrids and electrics. Hybrid cars are vehicles that run on gasoline and ethanol fuel, ethanol fuel being non-oil based fuel gotten from corn while electric cars operate on rechargeable batteries. From this, several questions have come up and have sparked off the debate over which among the two technologies is superior, especially with regard to environmental pollution. This article will explore both the Hybrids and Electrics with the aim of determining which among the two is a superior technology when environmental conservation and friendliness is the key factor under consideration. History 1839 saw the building of the first electric vehicle by Robert Anderson and this was followed by Sir David Salomon’s light electric motor car that had heavy storage batteries in 1870. Both vehicles however hade poor driving speeds and ranges. Several other companies built more electric cars such that by 1900, more than 1500 electric cars had been produced by American car companies, compared to just about 900 gasoline cars and 1600 stream automobiles. Electric cars held many of the distance and speed records before ICEs (Internal Combustion Engines) became eminent. One notable record is the 1899 Camille Jenatzy speed record of 65 miles per hour. Even though the electric cars had low speed limits, they still held numerous advantages over their gasoline counterparts including minimal noise emissions, and no vibrations and smells produced by engine combustions and rotations. Furthermore, an electric car driver did not need to change gears while driving like the gasoline car driver had to and as such, they were easier to drive. The electric cars were especially popular among city dwellers, especially the women who were targeted by the cars’ marketers citing its easiness in operation. The electric cars’ sales were initially impeded by the limited electricity infrastructure but this set back was overcome by 1912 when most homes had access to electricity, driving a surge in sales of the cars. This was also the year when the early electrics sales peaked (Leitman & Brant, 36). The 1913 invention of the starter that enabled gasoline cars to start with ease almost caused the extinction of the electric cars and steam automobiles. Sales in electric vehicles dropped sharply with the next six decades experiencing dormancy in their mass production as gasoline cars became the preferred choice. However, the 1970s Arab oil embargo created new interest in the cars and environmental concerns also played a significant role in boosting their production. Their mass production was however halted by 1999 due to poor sales. Today there are relatively few electric cars (battery cell cars) compared to ICE cars. Hybrids are also considered electric though they are not purely electric as they only run as electric at low speeds above which the vehicles operate just like ICE with the exception of their braking systems. The history of hybrid cars can be traced back to 1898 when Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, a 23 year old German built a hybrid as his second car, his first one being an electric car. The hybrid utilized an internal combustion engine to run a generator that powered electric motors positioned at the wheel hubs (hub motors). The hybrid’s top speed was 50km/h and could generate a power of more than five kilowatts in 20 minutes. While running on its batteries alone, the vehicle could travel almost 40 miles. By 1901, hybrid busses were being sold in England by George Fischer and in the year that followed, Knight Neftal invented a hybrid for racing purposes. In 1915, a hybrid having an electric motor and a four-cylinder ICE christened the Dual power was produced and could make a top speed of 35 miles per hour. Below 15 miles per hour, the car could comfortably be ran on the electric motor alone. The 1970s saw the development of hybrids that acted as the prototypes of the current hybrids by Victor Wouk. Eight years later, the system of regenerative braking was developed by David Athurs on an Opel GT. This was followed by other experimental vehicles being built driven by the research to seek ways of making the vehicles more efficient and attractive to the public. The 1990s saw an expansion of automotive hybrid technology including the first mass production of a hybrid vehicle (Toyota Prius) in Japan and the subsequent launching of the Honda Insight in the US and Japan. By 2000, the Prius had gone global after being launched in North America and Europe. The first-generation Prius reported a fuel efficiency of up to 68 miles for every US gallon of fuel. As of early 2010, the Prius is estimated to have sold roughly 1.6 million units. Several other car manufacturing companies have released their hybrid models, of which some still receive good sales but others have been discontinued for making poor sales. A graph of hybrid sales in the US is shown below: Source: www.greencarcongress.com The following sections of this article will concentrate on environmental pollution as the main comparison between the two types of automobiles. Environmental Pollution Hybrids may be friendlier to the environment as compared to cars running fully on gasoline but compared to electric cars, they are they are worse at polluting the environmental. Hybrids still have an ICE which requires gasoline, motor oil and engine coolants which can cause contamination to ground water. The engine emits a mixture of poisonous fumes including carbon emissions which have been cited as major contributors to the greenhouse effect. There are those who argue that electric cars run on electricity, half of which, in the US is produced from coal, and as such, they still contribute to carbon emissions. It is true that electric cars are not fully green but compared to hybrids, they are greener. Comparing the carbon dioxide emissions of the 2008 Audi Q7 Hybrid and the purely electric Tesla Roadstar shows this clearly. A graph showing how electricity is produced in the US is shown below. The Audi Q7 Hybrid consumes a gallon for every 21 miles meaning for 100 miles, it will consume around 4.76 gallons which translates to roughly 93.3 pounds of carbon dioxide. This is because a gallon of gas produces approximately 19.6 pounds of CO2 gas after combustion (Stein, 15). This value does not even include the emissions generated from extracting, refining and transporting the gasoline to the fuel station. The Tesla Roadstar on the other hand promises to travel 245 miles for every charge. For 100 miles the Tesla would require 31 kilowatts and generating a kilowatt of electricity from coal generates about 1.55 pounds of CO2. This means that for 100 miles, the Tesla releases about 48 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere, and this figure assumes that all the electricity comes from coal, which is not really the case. These results clearly prove that electric cars are by far greener than hybrids. The theory of man-made carbon dioxide contributing to global warming still raises debates though. Scientists have previously stated that the earth began warming up after the little ice age that occurred around the year 1850, and by that time, man-made emissions were still negligible. Interestingly, by 1940 when man-made emissions had sharply risen, global temperatures started declining and the trend continued until the 1970s, sparking off fears of an eminent ice age (Dessler & Parson 5). The contribution of man-made CO2 to the green house effect is still clouded by some conflicting statements but assuming that the gas contributes to environmental pollution, then the electric car is less of an environmental pollutant than the hybrids. The emissions from engines do not only contain CO2 but also a mixture of other gasses including unburned hydrogen carbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2), soot and micro particles (particulate matter). Most of these fumes occur due to incomplete combustion of the fuel and are also released to the environment during the fuel refining process. HC can be directly harmful as they are associated with birth defects, cancer and other complications. They also react with NOx resulting in ozone smog which can cause illnesses when inhaled. SO2 has been associated with acid rain and being a lung irritant when it reacts with water to form sulphuric acid. SO2 in addition negatively affects catalytic converters. NOx can also result in acidic rain, respiratory complications and premature deaths. The acidic rain harms waterways, lakes, forests and other ecosystems (Godbold & Huttermann, 231). The particulate matter has been proved to cause lung complications beginning with shortness of breath, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, damaging lung tissues and causing lung cancer. The engines of hybrids need coolants which when released to the environment after use pollutes ground water. Engine coolants contain ethylene glycol (Beal et al., 276) which during use produces ethylene glycol acids, salts resulting from corrosion of cooling system metals and metal oxides. Coolants also contain sodium silicate which is included to reduce metallic corrosion of the cooling system. Most spent engine coolants are disposed into the open environment or drained into sewer lines and ends up mixing with ground water. It was not until the 1980s that the coolants effect on the environment began raising many questions to which the US government responded by enacting Section 313 of Title III of the Federal Superfund Amendments and the Reauthorization Act of 1986 that recognizes ethylene glycol as being toxic. The spent engine coolants also contain dissolved lead which is pollutes ground water when the coolant is disposed into the environment. In fact, most states have recognized spent coolants to be hazardous to the environment and have legislations prohibiting its disposal into the sewerage systems, ground or any other water treatment plants without prior permission. The electric cars do not require coolants and as thus are environmentally friendlier. Improper disposal of just a small amount of used engine oil has the potential of polluting several gallons of ground water. There is neither an accurate way of telling the amount of ground water that is contaminated by disposed motor oil nor is there accurate data just how much used motor oil is disposed on land or water. But data from EPA in 1994 approximated that about 160 million out of the then annual used oil collection of over 700 million gallons was improperly disposed into the environment (Grant & Chan 91). This translates to bout a fifth of the collected oil. Improper disposal of used oil does not only pollute sewerage systems but also waste water treatment plants and ground water supplies. This is because used motor oils contain toxicants like benzene which means that just one oil change can destroy up to a million gallons of fresh ground water (Grant & Chan 91). The environmental impact of any manufacturing process is a factor that many people tend to usually neglect when evaluating the amount of pollution that occurs to get the product ready for use. A lot of energy goes into the production of both hybrid and electric cars but so as the energy that is used to manufacture the gasoline powered cars. The controversial “dust to dust” report by CNW Market Research Incorporated clamed that hybrids are more of environmental pollutants when compared to the Hammer, which is known as its fuel guzzling if the two were to be compared by checking all the lifetime variables. If the report were accurate, then it would have meant that the electric car would be even worse of an environmental polluter, but the report was deeply flawed since the report did not provide detailed information on how it arrived at its findings. Besides, the drafters of the report refused to disclose the source of the projects funding making it easy to believe that the report may have been funded by those losing from the popularity of the hybrids. Research from most institutions, apart from CNW have shown that vehicles consume most energy and pollute the environment more during their operation stage (80-90%) followed by the disposal and manufacturing stages, the manufacturing stage consuming the least energy. The manufacturing stage involves assembling different parts, some of which may have travelled long distances to the manufacturing plant, examples being Dysprosium and Neodymium and other rare elements which are soured from China. The amount of electricity during the manufacturing process does not differ much between any of the cars including the convectional gasoline powered cars. Hybrids require bigger batteries than convectional gasoline cars and battery powered cars in turn require bigger batteries than hybrids. The mining, smelting the battery metals combined with the manufacturing and disposal of the batteries results to electric cars having more environmental pollution compared to hybrids. The increased discharges to the environment from battery materials of electric cars were even cited to be worse polluters than the discharges from hybrids by some researchers. Most electric vehicles still operate using lead batteries which sometimes make up to a quarter of the vehicles mass. During charging and operation, the batteries release small amounts of sulphur, hydrogen and sulphur, which are usually harmless if well vented and furthermore are naturally occurring elements. A large amount of used batteries in the US are recycled, thus preventing environmental damage. The figure even reached 94% in 1990 according to Kreith and Tchobanoglous (11-10). Currently batteries are made from different materials that are less damaging to the atmosphere. The cars are almost equal pollutants when it comes to metals though the hybrid requires more metals for its engine block. Their impact to the environment begins with the raw material mining and processing of raw materials that would be assembled to form the cars. For instance, iron is alloyed to form steel which makes the bulk of vehicles. Steel can be recycled to avoid environmental damage; in fact almost three quarters of a car can be recycled. The aluminium (wheels and engine) and copper (wiring) are also fully recyclable. Plastics however, which originate from petroleum, is not easy to recycle. Most of the environmental pollution that is associated with the manufacturing stage occurs due to the toxic substances release, energy consumption and air pollution during the manufacture and distribution of the cars. The recycling stage is a pollutant in terms of energy consumption. Conclusion Most electric cars have limited speeds limits and range compared to ICEs of the hybrids and their recharging takes a much longer time than refuelling ICEs. Their use is further complicated by the few public recharging stations available and their relative high cost. However, when it comes to environmental pollution issues, they are the greenest of all cars. This article has mentioned that most of the environmental damage from cars occurs during their operation. At low speeds, hybrids are as environmentally friendly as electric cars but at higher speeds they operate just like convectional ICE cars, releasing dangerous fumes that contaminate the environment and cause health complications. Their engine oil and coolants are also dangerous to the environment. The electric cars may not be 100 percent green but they are certainly better to the environment than all other cars. Works cited Beal, Roy and ASTM Committee D-15 on Engine Coolants. Engine coolant testing, third volume. Philadelphia, PA: ASTM International, 1993. Dessler, Andrew and Parson, Edward. The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Facts on File Inc. Issues and controversies on file, Volume 6. New York: Facts on File, Incorporated, 2001. Grant, Michael and Chan, Evelyn. Indicators of the Environmental Impacts of Transportation: Highway, Rail, Aviation and Marine Transport. Darby, PA: DIANE Publishing, 2000. Goldbold, Douglas and Huttermann, Aloys. Effects of acid rain on forest processes. New York: Wiley-IEEE, 1994. Kreith, Frank and Tchobanoglous, George. Handbook of solid waste management. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2002. Leitman, Stein and Brant, Bob. Build Your Own Electric Vehicle. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2008. Stein, Mathew. When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008 Read More