Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater of electric vehicles or Elon Musk; in fact, I love them. They are more efficient, they don’t pollute while driving, they are quiet, and they have caused a major disruption in the market. However, just because they don’t emit pollutants while driving doesn’t mean they don’t emit pollutants at all. Sure, they have a carbon footprint in their manufacturing process, and there are many studies that try to discredit electric cars by claiming that they pollute a lot, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about when it comes to charging the car. These vehicles clearly use electricity that comes from power generation, which is the main source of pollution on planet 1.
Here you can review more information about the CO2 that is generated.
1 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-by-sector?country=~MEX
Imagine a world where the entire vehicle fleet becomes electric. This would mean an exponential increase in the demand for electricity to generating plants. Let me briefly explain how the most commonly used electricity generation in the world works to meet the needs of a city. Different types of generating plants can be used for electricity generation, such as thermoelectric (the most used and cheapest), hydroelectric, wind, nuclear and geothermal.
If I were given the choice of which type of generating plant I would prefer to power my city, I would say nuclear, as it is the cleanest and most efficient. But let’s focus on the most widely used and most polluting: thermoelectric power. It uses heat to generate electricity. How does it do it? Fuel, such as coal, natural gas, wood, plastic or gasoline, is burned in a combined cycle system that produces hot air and then cools it. During this combustion process, water vapor and CO2 are generated. These products pass through tubes connected to a turbine, which is moved by the current originated by the air. Power plants cannot release this hot air into the atmosphere, so it must go through a cooling process. This is where the water comes in: it is used to cool the water vapor and generate additional electricity. So, in essence, this plant generates power twice, but its efficiency is low, at 45-50%, the most modern ones reaching an efficiency of 60%. 2
So, if we take this information into account, by creating electricity to charge electric cars we are generating CO2. Currently, 290,100 GWh of electricity 3 are generated, which translates into 132,865,800 tons of CO2. If we consider that electric vehicles need 75 kWh for a 2-hour charge, the energy demand would be very large, resulting in higher pollution due to the electricity consumed daily. On the other hand, we would stop emitting CO2 while driving, which is excellent since transportation emits approximately 16%4 of the CO2 generated annually in Mexico. However, this percentage would be transferred to electricity generation and possibly increase to 25%.
So what is the solution to climate change? It is simple: limit or reduce the use of electrical equipment, install solar panels to generate our energy, establish or manufacture more generating plants with renewable, geothermal, or nuclear sources, which are cleaner than those most commonly used today, plant trees to reduce greenhouse gases and, finally, an option that I consider one of the best: use our Captaa filters that capture CO2. These filters, installed in cars, capture CO2 while we drive, without the need for energy to operate, and what’s more, we get paid for it!
Links of interest:
2. https://www.iberdrolamexico.com/te-interesa/cinco-datos-interesantes-de-los-ciclos-combinados/
3. https://www.gob.mx/cms/uploads/attachment/file/649612/PRODESEN_CAP_TULO-4.pdf
4. https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector