Hidden benefits of electric vehicles revealed
2015-03-19
(Press-News.org) Electric vehicles are cool, research shows. Literally.
A study in this week's Scientific Reports by researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) and in China add more fuel to the already hot debate about whether electric vehicles are more environmentally friendly than conventional vehicles by uncovering two hidden benefits.
They show that the cool factor is real - in that electric vehicles emit significantly less heat. That difference could mitigate the urban heat island effect, the phenomenon that helps turn big cities like Beijing into pressure cookers in warm months.
Moreover, the cooling resulting from replacing all gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles could mean city dwellers needing less air conditioning, another environmental win.
"It's easy not to see the big picture on issues like electric cars and global warming, but when we look with a holistic approach, we find these unexpected connections," said co-author Jianguo "Jack" Liu, who holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at MSU and is director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS). "Heat waves kill, and in terms of climate change, even one degree can make a difference."
The research was led by Professor Canbing Li of Hunan University in Changsha, China, who was a visiting scholar at CSIS. The electric vehicles' benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions are countered by the expense and pollution from producing the vehicles, leading to debate on whether they are the best replacement for conventional vehicles.
In the paper, Li and his colleagues take a wider view to find new positives for plug-ins. Conventional vehicles and air conditioners are the two biggest contributors to the heat island intensity - the difference between urban temperatures and the cooler temperatures of rural areas. In that arena, electric vehicles are cooler - giving off only about 20 percent of the heat a gas vehicle emits.
The researchers used Beijing in summer of 2012 to calculate that switching vehicles from gas to electricity could reduce the heat island intensity by nearly 1 degree Celsius. That would have saved Beijing 14.4 million kilowatt hours and slashed carbon dioxide emissions by 11,779 tons per day, according to the paper "Hidden Benefits of Electric Vehicles for Addressing Climate Change."
The authors caution that several factors can influence the urban heat island effect, not all of which were addressed in the study. For example, there are conflicting reports regarding the impact of reduced aerosol pollution on heat island intensity. These factors may need to be considered when weighing the benefits and disadvantages of replacing conventional vehicles with electric vehicles.
INFORMATION:
In addition to Liu and Li, the paper was written by Yijia Cao, Mi Zhang, Jianhui Wang, Haiqing Shi and Yinghui Geng.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-03-19
Researchers funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have found that two common antibiotic treatments work equally well against bacterial skin infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) acquired outside of hospital settings. Known as community-associated MRSA, or CA-MRSA, these skin infections have been reported in athletes, daycare-age children, students, military personnel and prison inmates, among others, and can lead to hospitalization, surgical procedures, bacteria ...
2015-03-19
Nanoparticles of various types can be quickly and permanently bonded to a solid substrate, if one of the most effective methods of synthesis, click chemistry, is used for this purpose. The novel method has been presented by a team of researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
A small movement of the hand, the characteristic 'click!' - and the snap fastener quickly and securely fastens our clothes. One of the newest methods of synthesis in modern chemistry, click chemistry, works on a similar basis. Here, molecules ...
2015-03-19
Clear and realistic expectations are key to successfully hiring heads of departments, say Professor Pierre-Alain Clavien, University of Zurich, and Joseph Deiss, former President of the Swiss Confederation, in a commentary in Nature magazine.
Selecting a chair for a position in clinical academic medicine is often problematic, with the diverse demands placed on the position proving a constant source of debate. Today's heads of departments are not only expected to be outstanding physicians, researchers, and teachers, but also adroit and cost-conscious managers. Finding ...
2015-03-19
A pioneering class of drugs that target cancers with mutations in the BRCA breast cancer genes could also work against tumours with another type of genetic fault, a new study suggests.
Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, found that errors in a gene called CLBC leave cancer cells vulnerable to PARP inhibitor drugs. Around 2 per cent of all tumours have defects in CLBC.
The study, which was carried out in collaboration with colleagues in Denmark and the Czech Republic, was funded in the UK by the European Union, and was published today (Thursday) in ...
2015-03-19
Are humans born with the ability to solve problems or is it something we learn along the way? A research group at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, is working to find answers to this question.
The research group has developed a computer game called Quantum Moves, which has been played 400,000 times by ordinary people. This has provided unique and deep insight into the human brain's ability to solve problems. The game involves moving atoms around on the screen and scoring points by finding the best way to do so.
In this way, ordinary people ...
2015-03-19
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have successfully created 'mini-lungs' using stem cells derived from skin cells of patients with cystic fibrosis, and have shown that these can be used to test potential new drugs for this debilitating lung disease.
The research is one of a number of studies that have used stem cells - the body's master cells - to grow 'organoids', 3D clusters of cells that mimic the behaviour and function of specific organs within the body. Other recent examples have been 'mini-brains' to study Alzheimer's disease and 'mini-livers' to model ...
2015-03-19
Women who received a text message reminding them about their breast cancer screening appointment were 20 per cent more likely to attend than those who were not texted, according to a study published in the British Journal of Cancer today (Thursday)*.
Researchers, funded by the Imperial College Healthcare Charity, trialled text message reminders for women aged 47-53 years old who were invited for their first appointment for breast cancer screening.
The team compared around 450 women who were sent a text with 435 women who were not texted**. It found that 72 per cent ...
2015-03-19
PISCATAWAY, N.J. (March 18, 2015) - New research published by Rutgers University chemists has documented significant progress confronting one of the main challenges inhibiting widespread utilization of sustainable power: Creating a cost-effective process to store energy so it can be used later.
"We have developed a compound, Ni5P4 (nickel-5 phosphide-4), that has the potential to replace platinum in two types of electrochemical cells: electrolyzers that make hydrogen by splitting water through hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) powered by electrical energy, and fuel cells ...
2015-03-19
The number of people living with cystic fibrosis into adulthood in the UK is expected to increase dramatically - by as much as 80 per cent - by 2025, according to a Europe-wide survey, the UK end of which was led by Queen's University Belfast.
People living with cystic fibrosis have previously had low life expectancy, but improvements in treatments in the last three decades have led to an increase in survival with almost all children now living to around 40 years. In countries where reliable data exists, the average rise in the number of adults with CF is expected to be ...
2015-03-19
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports that following military parents' return from combat deployment, their children show increased visits for mental healthcare, physical injury, and child maltreatment consults, compared to children whose parents have not been deployed. The same types of healthcare visits were also found to be significantly higher for children of combat-injured parents.
Children of deployed parents are known to have increased mental healthcare needs, and be at increased risk for child ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Hidden benefits of electric vehicles revealed
