Many people are counting on electric cars to be a successful alternative to gas-powered vehicles. Auto manufacturers have touted electric cars as being better for the environment than gas-powered cars, claiming they are much more “green” than gas-powered cars.
Gas Production and Electricity Production
While cars that run on gallons of gasoline and cars that run on electricity are made differently, they both require their source of energy to be produced somehow. Gas is obtained from oil, and oil must be drilled and collected from oil wells within the earth.
Drilling for oil can pose an environmental hazard; however, it can be very safe and have minimal impact on the surrounding environment if certain regulations and safety measures are followed while drilling.
Electricity must be produced by a power plant, and large power plants and facilities are used to power the “grid” that provides all of North America with electricity.
The amount of risk involved with electricity production depends on how it is being produced by a certain facility. Power plants can produce pollution in the form of carbon dioxide, and if power plants don’t follow certain environmental safety regulations, they can give off a substantial amount of pollution that can affect the area they’re operating in.
Costs of Gas and Electricity
Generally, gas is more expensive than electricity. Electricity can be produced fairly easily, and gasoline has to be produced from oil that is drilled out of the ground and shipped to a certain location.
For example, it’s important to compare electric rates in Texas to gasoline rates in Texas. If all vehicles ran on electricity instead of gasoline, most people would likely save a lot of money. Electricity is much less expensive, and although it may take a relatively large amount of electricity to power a vehicle, the current supply of electricity is much greater than the current supply of gasoline in North America.
Emissions From Vehicles
One of the major reasons that electric cars are considered to be significantly greener than other cars is the lower amount of emissions they produce. Gas-powered vehicles produce emissions that can harm the atmosphere and reduce the quality of the air; however, with usage of new technology in vehicles, the amount of emissions that many vehicles produce has been greatly reduced.
Vehicles that run on electricity don’t give off any harmful emissions from a tailpipe because they don’t have a tailpipe; however, they give off CO2 when they are driven. CO2, or carbon dioxide, can be especially harmful to the environment and it is well-known to be a greenhouse gas, and electric vehicles give off a significant amount of it when they are driven for any distance.
While it may be true that electric vehicles are better for the environment overall, the environmental cost of electricity production and the emission of CO2 from electric vehicles are two factors that make electric vehicles only slightly more friendly toward the environment than gas-powered vehicles.