Will electric cars save the planet?

Published a study by American scientists, whose conclusions are disappointing: electric cars are not able to save the Earth from pollution.

Global climate change is universally acknowledged. Many experts believe this process is the cause of abnormal natural and climatic phenomena.

Experts believe that one of the main factors affecting global climate change are greenhouse gases. It is known that a large proportion of these dangerous gases release vehicles with gasoline engines. For this reason, many call electric cars a good way to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

But there may be nothing on these vehicles is vested so many hopes. If you believe the research scientists, whose findings were published in Environmental Science and Technology Journal, electric cars will not save our planet from greenhouse gases.

As the researchers say, there are at least two reasons to say this: first, only 20% of CO2 emissions accounts for passenger transport. These data, though only affect US, but reflect the overall situation on the planet. So even if the whole transport will become electric, a global air pollution problem will not be solved.

Secondly, you should consider the production of electricity. It is itself an electric car, though not produces harmful emissions, but the production of energy for his work, "offset" pollution — factories, where it is made the vehicle and the batteries for it, causing considerable damage to nature.

Scientists estimate that even if the United States, and potentially worldwide, 40% of all cars by 2050 will be electric or hybrid, a significant difference is unlikely.

In a new report by the International energy Agency (IEA) gives the following figures: in 2015 the number of electric vehicles has reached 1.26 million 

Below is a table which shows the increasing number of electric vehicles in the world from 2010 to 2015

Currently on U.S. roads traveled more then 400 thousand cars, which is an indicator of a sharp rise compared to 2010, However this is much less than indicated by President Obama's target level of 1 million electric vehicles by 2015 

Meanwhile, China has become the largest sales market of electric vehicles, ahead of the U.S. in annual sales last year. 

1 million is a lot or a little? Depends on what angle you look at this question. In 2005 on the Ground was only a few hundred electric cars. In 2013 the total number of electric cars on the planet has tripled. 

For comparison, it is worth noting that currently on the roads over 1 billion cars on gasoline and diesel fuel. 

According to estimates of IEA, in order to avoid temperature rising more than 2°C of global warming, it is necessary that the number of electric vehicles on the road worldwide has reached 150 million by 2030 and 1 billion by 2050 

In early April, Elon Musk announced the release of a new electric vehicle Tesla Model 3. People were waiting for this announcement for a long time. Indeed, many support the idea of a fully electric, totally environmentally friendly car, but not everyone is willing to pay one hundred thousand dollars for a Roadster or seventy thousand dollars for the Model S, although many would be happy to win any of these supercars. As for Model 3, this machine will cost 35 thousand dollars, which is a much more reasonable price.

The media, of course, immediately pounced on the announcement, describing it in every detail. And if you read the press, you are likely to like what you see. However, the press focused specifically on the announcement of the new models, and almost no one paid attention to how Musk started his presentation. Before presenting a new model, he spent a few minutes detailing the current and future effects of global warming. 

The problem of global warming

Sometimes this man is impossible not to admire. His concern for the environment is real – and it's very to the point. All his arguments are correct and reasonable. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is growing rapidly, the temperature rises rapidly, and before the people brand new and very rapidly changing world.

And this is really important. Growth temperature at this point exceeds the number that was on planet Earth for many millennia. In the atmosphere in the past was more carbon dioxide, exactly the same as the Earth's temperature was previously higher. However, changes have occurred very slowly, over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. Now the same changes are observed within a single century. 

Too quick change

Everything is changing so fast that animals don't have the time to adapt. The weather is changing, the climate is changing, and it is a hundred times faster than the rate at which natural evolution can respond to such changes. And that's only if we talk about the climate in General but there are more terrible problems, in particular, such as the acidification of the oceans, rising sea levels, and more.

Will save the planet electric cars? No, at least not alone. But the transition to solar, wind and nuclear energy can help humanity save the planet. 

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