Comments on: China’s Coal-Powered Grid Negates the Green Benefits of Electric Vehicles

By: ronwagn

ronwagn — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 22:41:34 +0000

China is actually planning on replacing a lot of coal by importing LNG and piped gas plus trying to imitate the American fracking revolution in gas and oil production. It has one million natural gas vehicles,and is way ahead of us in that effort. The whole world is trying to replace coal with natural gas.

By: electric38

electric38 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:31:45 +0000

China’s solar industry will be building hundreds of thousands of consumer owned solar rooftops to alleviate the problem. They will be riding around using the free energy of natural sunshine many years ahead of most other countries. Germany also is building a solar infrastructure (much of it consumer owned) for the superior engineered electric vehicles. Both countries have put tens of thousands to work installing these systems.
The oil/dirty energy money of the US monopolies will continue to buy politicians and media to bog down our ability to achieve similar goals.

By: njb311

njb311 — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:01:54 +0000

And with four times the population of the US, China still consumes less coal per capita than the US, so I think anyone suggesting the US is less environmentally damaging should go out and learn basic mathematics.

In densely populated areas where congestion is a particular problem, e.g. in Chinese cities, electric vehicles make a lot of sense because at idle they produce next-to-zero emissions (i.e. just the car’s management systems are running, no motor). This means lower CO2 emissions plus less local air pollution. I’m no fan of coal, but the oft-cited “technology will save us” simply won’t happen (in time) where governments and large corporate interests back fossil fuels so heavily at the expense of investment in clean innovations in energy generation and transformation of the delivery of social wants.

The other spin-off benefit of China’s development at mass scale is it gets over the early-adopter costs and learnings, that bring about next-generation technologies much quicker.

By: caeman

caeman — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:40:51 +0000

Okay, the electrons came from coal-fired plants. Those plants would be operating anywho. Removing the emissions from car engines is a victory in of itself. This story kinda misses the point of being green…each little piece of puzzle helps.

If China was able to go 90% electric vehicles, that would be a huge step to centralizing the pollution creation. Controlling the pollution at a few places (power plants) is easier than millions of places (cars).

It is all a domino effect. The end goal is to be fossil fuel free, yes? Lowering gasoline usage is a step to that.

By: taciturnforsale

taciturnforsale — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:06:09 +0000

Aren’t electric engines more efficient than their outdated internal combustion ones? If so, I think it makes them more green friendly, while creating less carbon emissions, coal and all.