Environmental Implication of Electric Vehicles in China
- 24 May 2010
- news
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Vol. 44 (13), 4856-4861
- https://doi.org/10.1021/es100520c
Abstract
Today, electric vehicles (EVs) are being proposed in China as one of the potential options to address the dramatically increasing energy demand from on-road transport. However, the mass use of EVs could involve multiple environmental issues, because EVs use electricity that is generated primarily from coal in China. We examined the fuel-cycle CO2, SO2, and NOx emissions of EVs in China in both current (2008) and future (2030) periods and compared them with those of conventional gasoline vehicles and gasoline hybrids. EVs do not promise much benefit in reducing CO2 emissions currently, but greater CO2 reduction could be expected in future if coal combustion technologies improve and the share of nonfossil electricity increases significantly. EVs could increase SO2 emissions by 3−10 times and also double NOx emissions compared to gasoline vehicles if charged using the current electricity grid. In the future, EVs would be able to reach the NOx emission level of gasoline vehicles with advanced emission control devices equipped in thermal power plants but still increase SO2. EVs do represent an effective solution to issues in China such as oil shortage, but critical policy support is urgently needed to address the environmental issues caused by the use of EVs to make EVs competitive with other vehicle alternatives.Keywords
This publication has 19 references indexed in Scilit:
- Structure and impacts of fuel economy standards for passenger cars in ChinaEnergy Policy, 2009
- Asian emissions in 2006 for the NASA INTEX-B missionAtmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2009
- High-Resolution Vehicular Emission Inventory Using a Link-Based Method: A Case Study of Light-Duty Vehicles in BeijingEnvironmental Science & Technology, 2009
- The future of electric two-wheelers and electric vehicles in ChinaEnergy Policy, 2008
- Environmental and Energy Implications of Plug-In Hybrid-Electric VehiclesEnvironmental Science & Technology, 2008
- NOx emission trends for China, 1995–2004: The view from the ground and the view from spaceJournal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2007
- Research, development, demonstration, and early deployment policies for advanced-coal technology in ChinaEnergy Policy, 2007
- Projection of Chinese Motor Vehicle Growth, Oil Demand, and CO2 Emissions Through 2050Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2007
- Projection of Chinese motor vehicle growth, oil demand, and CO{sub 2}emissions through 2050.Published by Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) ,2006
- GREET 1.5 - transportation fuel-cycle model - Vol. 1 : methodology, development, use, and results.Published by Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) ,1999