BY KENNETH HANSON
Los Alamos

An extremely interesting article by Nancy Walecki appeared in the most recent Harvard Magazine with the caption “Who Should Drive an Electric Vehicle?” https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/09/right-now-electric-vehicles Given the liberal bent of the magazine, this is a remarkably frank piece.

The article describes the results of Harvard research that addresses the poignant question of when do EV starting paying for themselves, climate-wise. The researchers find the production of EV cars creates twice as much CO2 as making gasoline-powered vehicles; only after being driven for 28,000 miles does an EV begin to pay off in terms of overall reduced carbon emissions.

So, if people buy an EV and only occasionally drive it or just let it sit in their driveway, they have contributed to climate warming more than if they buy a gasoline vehicle. Although to a lesser extent, a similar statement can perhaps be made for hybrid vehicles.

A corollary to this is that in today’s world every vehicle contributes to atmospheric carbon dioxide, even if it runs on renewable electricity