UT researchers find China's pollution related to E-cars may be more harmful than gasoline cars [View all]

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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/uota-urf021012.php

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif]Public release date: 13-Feb-2012

Contact: Whitney Heins
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865-974-5460
University of Tennessee at Knoxville

[font size=5]UT researchers find China's pollution related to E-cars may be more harmful than gasoline cars[/font]

[font size=4]Electric cars have been heralded as environmentally friendly, but findings from University of Tennessee researchers show that electric cars in China have an overall impact on pollution that could be more harmful to health than gasoline vehicles[/font]

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Chris Cherry, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, and graduate student Shuguang Ji, analyzed the emissions and environmental health impacts of five vehicle technologies in 34 major Chinese cities, focusing on dangerous fine particles. What Cherry and his team found defies conventional logic: electric cars cause much more overall harmful particulate matter pollution than gasoline cars.

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For electric vehicles, combustion emissions occur where electricity is generated rather than where the vehicle is used. In China, 85 percent of electricity production is from fossil fuels, about 90 percent of that is from coal. The authors discovered that the power generated in China to operate electric vehicles emit fine particles at a much higher rate than gasoline vehicles. However, because the emissions related to the electric vehicles often come from power plants located away from population centers, people breathe in the emissions a lower rate than they do emissions from conventional vehicles.

Still, the rate isn't low enough to level the playing field between the vehicles. In terms of air pollution impacts, electric cars are more harmful to public health per kilometer traveled in China than conventional vehicles.

"The study emphasizes that electric vehicles are attractive if they are powered by a clean energy source," Cherry said."In China and elsewhere, it is important to focus on deploying electric vehicles in cities with cleaner electricity generation and focusing on improving emissions controls in higher polluting power sectors."

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es202347q