I was
having an interesting discussion with my friend Arturo about what´s the real
carbon footprint of an electric car, in a country like Mexico, where 76% of the
electricity is generated by fossil fuels.
So I made some quick calculations to see if even in that case, an
electric car is a greener option. It
seems that it is, but just for a little difference.
BP reported
emissions of 135.32 Mtons CO2e in 2010, including extraction, refining and
petrochemicals. For the same year, BP
production was 3.81 millions of barrels a day, which means 1389.65 millions of
barrels in 2010.
That
means
0.0974 tons
CO2/barrel ; 1 barrel = 158.9873 L ;
1 ton = 1000 kg
0.6125 kg
CO2/ litre
612.5 g
CO2/litre
The Nissan
micra has a fuel consumption of 47.5 MPG and average CO2 outpout of 147.8 g/km
47.5 MPG
; 1 mile = 1.61 km ; 1 Gallon = 3.79
litres
Therefore 20.18 km/litre
So, the
CO2e for the oil production for the micra will be
30.35 g CO2/km
Total
CO2e, 30.35+147.8
178.15 g CO2e/km
Now, for the
Nissan Leaf (electric car) , it has a consumption of 0.34 kW·h/mi, or 0.211 kW·h/km
According
to greenpeace, the total emissions of
CO2 for electricity production in 2008 were 112.5 Mton CO2e, for a total production of 235.87 TW·h
That is
0.4769 kg CO2/kW·h or 476.9 g CO2/kW·h
Therefore
100.63 g CO2e/km
It's interesting to compare with the USA data. Again taking the Micra values, we have (20.18*147.8) = 2982.6 gCO2/litre. Nissan values for the leaf are 0.024 litre/km of gasoline equivalent, which will mean that in the USA the leaf will be producing 71.58 gCO2e/km
It's interesting to compare with the USA data. Again taking the Micra values, we have (20.18*147.8) = 2982.6 gCO2/litre. Nissan values for the leaf are 0.024 litre/km of gasoline equivalent, which will mean that in the USA the leaf will be producing 71.58 gCO2e/km
