Guest Column: Electric Vehicles, Summing It All Up

— by Tom Owens —

In this article, I would like to summarize the pluses and minuses of buying a new electric vehicle, the Nissan Leaf in particular.

The Leaf does not run pollution-free unless you install a solar system to “fuel” the car. OPALCO stands to benefit from the sale of electricity to run the car. A new Leaf, in the past, could be purchased for a very reasonable price, after subsidies. The pollution of a gasoline fueled car can be transferred from the San Juans to some remote location by using a Leaf. The types of pollution from a gasoline powered car versus the Leaf using coal generated electric for fuel are different. A Leaf is a LOT less expensive to fuel than a gasoline power vehicle here in the islands. People that own one really like them.

The new Leaf is not pollution-free and does not run on hydro power. In my view, OPALCO’s position that energy consumed here is 97% greenhouse gas-free is simply incorrect. OPALCO, BPA and all western utilities operate in an interconnected electric power system called the WECC. This system connects all electric loads on the system to all power generation plants on the system. Power from a specific generating plant (hydro for example) cannot be directed to a specific customer (OPALCO for example). The power plant responding to the new Leaf’s charging load (or any new electric load) will very likely be a coal fired plant. This is due to the practice in the power industry of bring power plants on and off line using “economic dispatch”. Low variable cost plants (hydro, solar, wind and nuclear) will be on line first and will be operated at their highest available capacity. The higher variable cost plants (natural gas, coal and oil) will be the ones coming on line last and will respond to new load. So, depending on the amount of load on the electric system, the responding plant will be fossil fuel and very likely coal. If powered by OPALCO electricity here in the San Juan’s, the Leaf will have about the same CO2 emissions as a gasoline power car that gets 35 miles/gallon (see prior articles on EV’s). Some folks have gone to the expense of installing solar systems on their homes that “fuel” their new electric vehicles as well as serve other electrical loads. This results in a truly renewable energy powered vehicle but at a high combined capital cost (vehicle plus solar system) that not everyone can afford.

A new electric vehicle will provide more load and thus revenue to OPALCO. The Leaf can be set up to charge at night when OPALCO should be in an off-peak situation, yet another advantage. This energy would come to OPALCO under their BPA contact at about $0.035/kwh . They would be selling you this energy under their variable charge rate of $0.0855/kwh. The “profit”, assuming the lowest OPALCO rate, would be $0.05/kwh. If you use more than 1500 kwh’s in the summer or 3000 kwh’s in the winter, your OPALCO rate will be higher and OPALCO’s benefit would be greater. Remember this is a new load and OPALCO hopefully is already covering their fixed cost in charges to existing load. So this is a good deal for OPALCO and all of us electric customers, if it is used for electric system purposes and not spent on the internet business.

You can get a great deal on a new $32,000 Leaf, at least you could two years ago! The tax breaks and incentives cut the price down to $18,500 for one buyer I know, a real nice discount of $13,500. He reports a $7,500 federal tax credit and no state sales tax when he purchased his Leaf. Dealers were also offering discounts. Someone had to cough up this $7,500 and the loss of state sales tax (sure enough it is us, the taxpayers). I could not get cost details of the more recent Leaf purchase from that owner.

There is a real neat transfer of pollution from here in the San Juan’s to somewhere else, sort of a NIMBY effect. The Leaf leaves no tailpipe emissions, since it has no tailpipe. Energy for the Leaf is created at some far off coal powered plant. A gasoline vehicle certainly pollutes right here. So the air smells better here and not so good somewhere else.

There is also a trade-off in the type of pollution that would be generated. The Leaf’s pollution would likely be from the combustion of coal. There is a lot of expensive technology limiting (but not eliminating) the emissions (not CO2) from coal plants; think SO2 scrubbers and bag houses to catch some of the particulates. The EPA lists CO2, SO2, NOx and mercury compounds as emissions from coal fired plants. The fly ash is also a big pollution problem. The EPA lists CO2, CO, NOx, water and unburned hydrocarbons (these react to form ground level ozone (a component of smog)) as emissions from the combustion of gasoline. So, without a lot of speculative calculations to compare pollutants, I can only say they both pollute. I have not tried to address the lithium battery environmental issue.

A Leaf is a LOT less expensive to run than a gasoline vehicle. The Leaf getting 4 miles/kwh has to pay OPALCO $0.0855/kwh to fuel up. This gives a fuel cost of $0.021/mile ($0.0855/kwh/4 miles/kwh). If you compare a 25 mpg (perhaps typical of the current car fleet) gasoline powered car paying $2.50 to $4/gallon, the costs come out at $0.10/mile to $0.16/mile, depending of gas price. (At 35 mpg the cost is $0.07/mile to $0.11/mile). So, say you drive 5,000 miles in a year on island in your Leaf instead of driving a gasoline power car (getting 25 mpg) on island using $3.75/gallon gas, you would save $643. If you park a 35 mpg car and use your Leaf instead, you would be saving $428 per year. At 10,000 miles these savings double. If you use more than 1500 kwh’s in the summer or 3000 kwh’s in the winter, your OPALCO rate goes up so your savings would go down.

People that I know that have a Leaf (and one has had his for two years) seem to love them. They report great comfort, good handling and clear air as reasons to buy one. One person recommends when you replace an island car, pick a Leaf and make it your prime mode of transportation on the island. Don’t forget to scrap the old gas buggy or someone else will be out there polluting with it.

There are a lot of positive reasons to own a Leaf, just please don’t be lead to believe it is non-polluting.