A Cautionary Word From Carnegie Mellon
The electric car honeymoon may be over before the first of them reaches the trembling hands of the first real customer. The New York Times reported the results of an unpublished study made by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh that says the electric car will be a killer.
The study is said to predict that emissions from digging, extracting and recycling the lead for batteries in fleets of electric cars would cause serious health problems. The developing brains of young children are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning and are affected by even trace amounts of the metal.
Lester Lave, an economist at Carnegie Mellon, together with Chris Hendrickson and Francis McMichael, his colleagues in engineering, authored an article for the publication, Science, examining the impact of emissions associated with lead-acid batteries. Their calculations indicate that even an electric car made with technology still in the talking stages would push six times as much lead into the environment as a Geo Metro automobile burning pre-1980 leaded gasoline.
Chris Hendrickson said, "When we got the lead out of gasoline, it was a triumph for public health. I'd hate to see us slide back and release lots more lead in the environment."
Robert Hahn, an environmental economist at the American Enterprise Institute said, ''We're talking about very real health hazards. This could be the kiss of death for electric vehicles.''
There are batteries other than the lead-acid variety, but all have cost and other problems with solutions that are still over the time horizon, if they exist at all.
Electrosource Inc., of Austin, Texas, has a new lead-acid battery it describes as "revolutionary," it claims will take care of any lead dispersion problems.
Electrosource Chief Executive Officer Michael G. Semmens says his firm's radically different battery is environmentally friendly.
Semmens said that Electrosource's "Horizon" battery uses 25 percent less lead than conventional batteries while delivering three times the power. He also claims the Horizon is made in a state-of-the-art environmentally conscious facility.
Semmens added, "We believe that the Horizon battery is a major step forward in the reduction of the use of lead in batteries. With much higher efficiency and less lead content, the Horizon is an environmentally responsible solution, versions of which could eventually also replace the batteries in conventional automobiles."
Meanwhile, an Environmentalist group held a protest meeting outside Pacific Gas & Electric's headquarters in Los Angeles yesterday. They were expressing their displeasure with PG&E's efforts to bring poisonous, toxic, baby-killing, awful, dreadful and icky lead batteries to California.
Don't you think it would be pretty funny of the anti-electric and pro-electric tree huggers all met in front of PG&E and began hitting each other with their protest signs?