Study: Plug-in cars are cleaner than gas, hydrogen cars could be worse

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hydrogen, Green Daily

Sometimes, it seems like people are out there studying things just to get our little community here up in arms. Case in point, a study published in Science Direct that looks at the well-to-wheels emissions of various “vehicle and fuel platforms,” including plug-in vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells that get their energy from different places (like hydro-power and night-time electricity generation). The goal of the study is to determine what impact the various studies will have on California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, an effort to reduce the carbon impact of transportation.

Looking at the “marginal electricity mix” - defined as “the mix of power plants that is used to supply the incremental electricity demand from vehicles and fuels” - the study’s authors found that even though most of the electricity used to move plug-in vehicles would come from “relatively inefficient steam- and combustion-turbine plants,” those plug-in vehicles will still be loads better, carbon-wise, than traditional gasoline vehicles and hybrids.

So, what’s the problem? Reading through Green Car Congress‘ take on the article, we learn that the study found that “All of the pathways except for [fuel cell vehicles] using hydrogen from electrolysis reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions compared to ICEs and [hybrid electric vehicles].” Hydrogen fans can rest easy, though, since the most greenhouse gas emissions are reduced when using either pure electric vehicles “recharging according to the load-level profile” or fuel cell vehicles that use hydrogen made from steam methane reforming.

[Source: Science Direct via Green Car Congress]
Photo by Kenneth Hynek. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

Study: Plug-in cars are cleaner than gas, hydrogen cars could be worse originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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