Electric cars a mixed bag for health, climate

Driving an electric car could be worse for both the climate and public health if the electricity that runs it was generated at a coal-fired power plant. If that electricity came from solar or wind generators, then an electric vehicle is among the cleanest forms of transportation around.

In fact, the environmental and human health costs of operating an electric vehicle using electricity generated from coal may be as much as 80 percent greater than driving a gasoline-powered vehicle, according to a study conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota and published on Monday (15 Dec 2014) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The environmental health cost of driving an electric vehicle using electricity from solar or wind generators could be as much as 50 percent less than environmental and health toll of using gasoline.

“To have large improvements in the environmental health impacts of transportation relative to our current technology — gasoline — you really need to switch to electric vehicles, and that electricity needs to be clean, or radical improvements need to be made in fuel economy,” said study co-author Julian Marshall, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Minnesota.