Plug-in vehicles finally get an environmental stamp of approval
Zachary Coile - San Francisco Chronicle - July 20, 2007
(07-20) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Only a handful of plug-in hybrid electric cars are driving around the Bay Area today. But the vehicles -- with fuel economy that can exceed 100 miles per gallon -- could play a crucial role in fighting global warming and America's addiction to foreign oil.
A study released Thursday by the Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council confirmed what advocates of plug-in vehicles had long suspected: Hybrid electric cars, if widely adopted in the United States, would yield huge reductions in greenhouse gases over today's fleet of gas-fueled cars and hybrid vehicles.
"The studies finally give an environmental stamp of approval" to plug-in vehicles, said Felix Kramer, founder of CalCars.org, which promotes electric hybrids. "Scientist have confirmed that unlike gasoline cars, plug-ins will get cleaner as they get older -- because our power grid is getting cleaner."
If most Americans switched to electric hybrids by 2050, greenhouse gases would be slashed by 450 million metric tons annually -- the equivalent of taking 82.5 million cars, about one-third of the U.S. fleet, off the road, according to the study.
Despite the promise of plug-in hybrids, most consumers will have to wait years before they can buy one. Seven major automakers are talking about building them -- GM is already hyping its concept car, the Chevrolet Volt -- but no company has yet set a date to start mass production.
But the same forces that led many drivers to buy conventional hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Prius, are spurring new interest in this next generation of hybrids. The new vehicles are powered by batteries that can be charged at home but also carry a backup gas tank for longer trips beyond the range of most electric cars. In the Bay Area, consumers are starting to make the leap by buying electric vehicles or converting their hybrids into plug-ins.
The new study sought to answer a key question: Would switching American's fuel of choice from gasoline to electricity significantly reduce greenhouse gases? Or would a new fleet of electric hybrids increase the use of coal at power plants, producing emissions as bad or worse than gasoline?
Scientists from the Electric Power Research Institute -- a nonprofit think tank funded mainly by electric utilities -- and the Natural Resources Defense Council used computer models to simulate what would happen to emissions. They tested different scenarios based on how quickly Americans embraced the new hybrids and what type of energy -- clean or dirty -- was used by utilities.
The study found that if 60 percent of Americans shifted to plug-in hybrids by 2050, it would lead to an increase in electricity usage of 7 to 8 percent -- a relatively small increase, indicating that hybrids would not necessarily require a surge of new power plant construction. Plug-in hybrids are charged mostly at night, when demand for electricity is low.
At the same time, the report estimates that electric hybrids would displace the need for 3 million to 4 million barrels of oil per day by 2050, more than twice what the United States imports each day from Saudi Arabia.
Researchers also found that plug-in hybrids reduced greenhouse gases no matter what energy source was used to produce the electricity, whether coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind or solar. Electric hybrids generated 40 to 65 percent less greenhouse gas than gas-fueled vehicles and 7 to 46 percent less than conventional hybrids.
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