EV Article in IEEE Spectrum

I'm an electrical engineer and member of the IEEE- this month's Spectrum has some serious bear bait in it. Don't read if you're in a fightin' mood.


http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-speed

Cheers
Rich

Interesting article

Even if it were proven that EV's and ICE's were similar in overall emissions (which I personally don't believe) than I would still be excited about EV's just because they don't need crude oil to run. IMO, one of the biggest problems in the world today is where a large chunk of the oil reserves lie

"Upon closer consideration, moving from petroleum-fueled vehicles to electric cars begins to look more and more like shifting from one brand of cigarettes to another."Maybe so, but I sill like the fact that my brand of smokes doesn't involve funding the opposition. If we could use enough EV's here so that all of the country's ICE's could be run without importing ANY oil, we would really be accomplishing something good, IMO

Don

+1

The first comment following this InsideEVs piece is about as good an overall summary rebuttal as I've seen and includes quotes from Sherry Boschert (PlugInAmerica):

http://insideevs.com/former-electri...ng-the-dirtiest-forms-of-transportation-ever/

Can't argue that walking, bikeriding, and clean public transport is preferable, but since those are not options for public-transport-challenged suburban America, I figure we've got the next-best thing.

It's just more oil spin, these stupid articles serve a purpose to get into people's conscience that EVs are bad and oil is good. They repeat it enough to where it spills out of sheeples mouths, just the way they like it. My power is water generated, I can go down and check it out anytime I like and take the tour while I'm at it. But, like Don said even if it were a coal power plant - I'd still drive my EV. I like keeping my neighbors employed and not putting my money in the despot collection box. One more thing, my EV is far more efficient than a gas powered car - so even if it were a coal powered plant, driving my EV is like taking 2-3 ICE cars off the road at the same time!

I am also an electrical engineer and a member of the IEEE and I am not sure why the IEEE would publish this uneducated article? The author, Ozzie Zehner, is a sociologist who is making a profit by making unsupported and misleading claims about alternative energy. I am disappointed that the IEEE would publish opinion that is not based on facts.

Agreed- I was surprised to see something like this in a technical journal, although Spectrum has gone sort-of "Popular Science" of late.

Some of his points are salient- we must remember there are other costs besides fuel and lithium-ion batteries are not easy to make, nor is the end-of-life fully worked out yet. His attempts regarding "dirty" power plants are moot for many of us who "roll their own" with PV.

Generally I thought the article was short on data and long on puffery.

However, I thought it important to post it to see where some are coming from...

Rich