Low carbon electricity for hybrid cars

 

US University urges sympathetic power plants.

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Engineers from Carnegie Mellon University have authored a report which calls for legislators and the electricity industry to build low carbon power plants to help fuel a surge in hybrid car use.

The article, which appears in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, sees the authors outline the potential for hybrid vehicles but only if power stations are built sympathetically.

“Plug-in hybrids represent an opportunity to reduce oil consumption, leverage next-generation biofuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The types of power plants installed in the next two decades will not only affect how much we can reduce emissions from electricity, but also from vehicles if we plan on plug-in hybrids playing a substantial role,” commented Constantine Samaras, a Ph.D. candidate in Carnegie Mellon’s departments of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP) and Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE).

Increase for increase

“We are finding that even when the impacts from producing batteries are included, plug-in hybrids still produce slightly less greenhouse gases than hybrids that run only on gasoline. But plug-in hybrids could cut emissions in half if they are charged with electricity from low-carbon sources,” continued Kyle Meisterling, a Ph.D. candidate in EPP and co-author of the report.

Due to the increase in the price of oil, as well as the environmental implications, interest in hybrid cars is soaring, with the state of California ruling that car companies must sell nearly 60,000 plug-ins throughout the state by 2014.

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