Environmental Management and Policy

A. Experts such as Larry Burns, head of research at GM, reckon that only such a full hearted leap will allow the world to cope with the mass motorisation that will one day come to China or India. B. But once hydrogen is being produced from biomass or extracted from underground coal or made from water, using nuclear or renewable electricity, the way will be open for a huge reduction in carbon emissions from the whole system. C. In theory, once all the bugs have been sorted out, fuel cells should deliver better total fuel economy than any existing engines. D. That is twice as good as the internal combustion engine, but only five percentage points better than a diesel hybrid. E. Allowing for the resources needed to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbon, oil, coal or gas, the fuel cell has an efficiency of 30 %.

What are the possible limitations of India in mitigating the global warming at present and in the immediate future? 1. Appropriate alternate technologies are not sufficiently available. 2. India can not invest huge funds in research and development. 3. Many developed countries have already set up their polluting industries in India. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

What, according to the author, needs to be done in order to make electric cars more eco-friendly?

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the question.

As the price of gasoline spiked to record highs in 2007 and 2008, interest in alternatives to fossil fuels and electric transportation in particular, also spiked. It raised, however, many questions about the true environmental impact of electric cars.
The electric car is being upheld as an ethical, green, nifty and cheap alternative to the carbon dioxide-emitting automobiles clogging city roads around the world today. Though electric cars are not a popular choice, the industry's future plans are riding high on the hope that on improving certain factors, (which are currently deficient) such as, effective marketing, a growing public awareness of the need for clean air and the increase in demand, the prices would eventually be driven down.
However, battery powered vehicles may still fail to completely replace liquid fuel-fed–ones but with more electric and hybrid vehicles on the road, there is a greater scope for a makeover in the way environment is impacted by the automobiles. However, if the power to charge the battery-operated vehicle is to be sourced from grids using conventional coal–fired power plants, the electric car wouldn't really be all that green. These would actually cause an increase in demand on the power plant's energy production causing them to produce more power and thus, more pollution unless greener ways of energy production are used. But as of now, the bulk of the electricity used to charge the batteries of electric vehicles is generated by fossil fuel burning power stations and only 12% by clean methods. Also, the amount of energy used by coal fired power stations   to create the electricity to recharge electric vehicles makes them half as efficient as diesel cars. Recent studies indicate that carbon emissions may reduce only by an insignificant level even if there is a sudden surge in demand for electric cars.
Other factors making rechargeable cars less efficient include the amount of electricity lost in the journey between the coal fired power stations which generate it and the point where it recharges the car and the energy lost by the faulty first-generation batteries and motors. The researchers calculated that of the energy burned in a power station, only a quarter reaches an electric car after leakages and losses along the supply chain, giving the vehicle an energy efficiency score of 24%. This amounts to more than 75% energy loss much before the car is even put on ignition. A modern diesel engine, by contrast, achieves 45% efficiency. This suggests that if fossil fuels are to be burned, it is much more efficient to do it within the engine of a vehicle rather than at a power station and then try to send it via the National Grid, where a lot of energy is wasted and finally to store it in a battery which in itself might leak power.
Electric cars may still survive since the car's emissions would be far less polluting than those that run on fossil fuels. With very minor emissions of sulphur caused when the batteries charge and discharge, when compared to current emissions standards, electric cars are zero emissions. The gasoline engine by comparison does not fare as well. Gasoline and diesel fuel burned in internal combustion engines for transportation account of 54 percent of nitrites of oxygen, 89 percent of carbon monoxide and 28 percent of carbon dioxide pollution produced. Switching to electric vehicles drops those percentages to zero and only slightly increases sulphur emissions. So, even when the power plants hum dirty fuel, the amount of pollution is less than an oil burning car would create. And this picture is improving all the time, as clean energy sources are added to the grid.