Hidden Benefits of Electric Vehicles for Addressing Climate Change

[Focus-Ak]

Just published. I haven't read it -- just passing it on.

Canbing Li, Yijia Cao, Mi Zhang, Jianhui Wang, Jianguo Liu, Haiqing Shi & Yinghui Geng. Hidden Benefits of Electric Vehicles for Addressing Climate Change. Scientific Reports, 2015 DOI: 10.1038/srep09213
Hidden Benefits of Electric Vehicles for Addressing Climate Change : Scientific Reports : Nature Publishing Group

There is also an article about the paper here:
Hidden benefits of electric vehicles revealed -- ScienceDaily

"... They show that the cool factor is real -- in that electric vehicles emit significantly less heat. That difference could mitigate the urban heat island effect, the phenomenon that helps turn big cities like Beijing into pressure cookers in warm months. ..."

But, of course the ultimate effect on the climate depends on the carbon emissions (if any) of the electricity source.

[MetroMPG]

No comment on the climate angle, but...

I can vouch for how nice it is to drive an EV in the summer without hundreds of pounds of 200F heat sink on the other side of the firewall. The car was always pleasantly at ambient temperature, regardless of how long you just drove it. (Which in my case was admittedly never very far!)

[user removed]

Walk across a lawn barefoot, then black asphalt, both in summer when the thermometer is pushing 100 degrees.

regards
mech

[freebeard]

I read the Science Daily article because I wanted to see what other benefits accrue. It turns out the [only the second] second benefit is not needing to run air conditioners in the city:

In the paper, Li and his colleagues take a wider view to find new positives for plug-ins. Conventional vehicles and air conditioners are the two biggest contributors to the heat island intensity -- the difference between urban temperatures and the cooler temperatures of rural areas. In that arena, electric vehicles are cooler -- giving off only about 20 percent of the heat a gas vehicle emits.

The researchers used Beijing in summer of 2012 to calculate that switching vehicles from gas to electricity could reduce the heat island intensity by nearly 1 degree Celsius. That would have saved Beijing 14.4 million kilowatt hours and slashed carbon dioxide emissions by 11,779 tons per day, according to the paper "Hidden Benefits of Electric Vehicles for Addressing Climate Change."

I was hoping for more and other benefits. Here is a link to Under the Dome:

Chai Jing's review: Under the Dome – Investigating China’s Smog

A 1° drop in temperature is small potatoes, when people are dropping dead from 'fog'.

[gone-ot]

China is "learning" (or "burning") from California's SMOKE+FOG history?

[niky]

I'll tell you this... sitting in an airconditioned bubble without smelly ICE fumes leaking in is quite nice.

[user removed]

Hottest thing in cities is black asphalt pavement. In houston you could feet your shoes sinking in the asphalt, like walking on a stove. 1.4kw per sq meter?

regards
mech