Seeds4Green

Not a huge differences overall, but complexity of scenarios. Online shopping bette.

The upstream performance of electric vehicle systems based on wind, hydroelectricity, nuclear, natural gas and coal is identical to the upstream performance of the electrolysis-based FCV systems using comparable sources of electricity, except there is less electricity required by the EV systems. For both the LDVs and the buses, 66% less electricity is required for electric vehicles, to travel the same distance as fuel cell vehicles. This effectively reduces the natural resource consumption in each of the systems compared to electrolysis and reduces the air emissions of both the natural gas- and coal-based systems. In nearly all stressor categories, life-cycle emissions from the natural gas–based system decrease by more than 40% compared to the base cases. The only increase in regional emissions occurs in NOX emissions for the Alberta trolley bus scenario (62% increase). For the most part, the majority of life-cycle air emissions from the coal-based systems remain higher than or unchanged from the base cases in the majority of stressor categories. In Toronto’s surrounding region, emissions for the LDV scenario increase more than three-fold for all stressor categories except CO. In the bus scenario, PM and SO2 increase 3.4 and 11 times respectively for the same region. In the Calgary scenarios, the air emissions are mostly shifted away from the cities to areas of coal-fired power plants. The majority of upstream stressor category emissions are more than twice as high as the base case scenarios for both LDVs and buses.

Overall, regional considerations are very important to system performance. Environmental, social and economic impacts in individual regions depend on the source of energy, the path of energy flow, and the point of energy use. Each of these factors helps determine both the magnitude and the location of impact.
The shifting of environmental, social and economic burden from one region to another is evident in a number of the systems analyzed. For example, the electricity-based systems shift many impacts from the cities of vehicle operation to regions of electricity production.

The results show that, considering the uncertainty of long-rang predictions and judging solely by lowest life-cycle energy use and GHG emissions, there is no current basis for preferring either FC or