Going green with Battery powered Cars,,, Really??
People go home and charge their batteries with electricity which inturn is generated out of coal (Yes, world still uses Coal for generation of electricity ).What is so Green about a Battery powered car??
About 40% of world electricity comes from burning Coal, about 49% of USA's electricity comes from burning coal.The figure is 70% for India.
Facts about Coal -->
Gross carbon dioxide emissions from coal usage are slightly more than those from petroleum and about double the amount from natural gas.
The thermodynamic efficiency of Coal at best is 35% which means, 65% of the coal energy is waste heat.
Coal is the largest producer of Carbon di oxide, a greenhouse gas, in environment barring the natural processes.
Coal-fired power plant releases emissions including mercury, selenium, and arsenic which are harmful to human health and the environment.
Consider this -->
Calculation says, a KG of coal is burnt to produce 2KW-hr of energy.
Now, if you keep using that electricity to charge your car batteries every alternate day, I wonder how much amount of Burnt Coal will you be responsible for??
However, if a country uses non renewable sources to generate electricity, battery powered cars are a go-ahead to them.
Considering the fact that more and more Electricity will be generated from non renewable sources in future, we should give a lot of thrust on developing Battery powered Cars, but as of now, I think, it ends up polluting more.
India's case
I came across an amazing article which I think all of you should read. Do read all the 6 parts
Some interesting points from the article :-
(India's)Estimated annual CO2 emissions: 1.275 billion tons in 2003 (4th biggest worldwide, not including entire European Union)
According to Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the renewable power capacity was around 8 Gigawatts at the end of March 2006, roughly 6.5 percent of the total power generation capacity.
Nearly 70 percent of the country’s electricity is generated from the inexpensive and abundant, but environmentally hazardous fossil fuel - Coal.
According to researchers at Stanford University, replacing 30 GW of coal energy with nuclear energy would save India up to 218 million tons of emitted carbon dioxide each year.
No, wonder I wanted to personally shoot down everyone from left (party) when they were against the Indo-US Nuclear deal.Anyway, Its a different issue, will discuss about it some day.
Now,why would someone want to use a battery powered car in India if only 6.5 % of electricity is coming from non-renewable sources??
I wonder when will Coal be replaced as a source for producing electricity?? not anytime soon I guess, atleast not in India!! So is battery powered car really a good deal for India?I don't think so.
You can also check out India's energy information at,
Weirdly, the statistics are a little different here, that too for the same year.For example, the below line
Hydroelectricity has been a consistent source of power in India, accounting for nearly 16 percent of power generated in 2006. (Remember the other article says, renewable power capacity is roughly 6.5%).
But even this article says
Nearly all power in India is generated with conventional thermal sources, which produced over 80 percent of electricity in 2006.
So, yeah the bottom line is!!
If you are in India, Don't use Battery Powered Cars as of now :-)
By the way, all the users of REWA in Bangalore, Pune, the car has miserably failed German crash tests, and is banned, refrain from using one.Either ways, it doesn't look like it can take a crash even from a cycle.
