A brand new study from UC Berkeley confirms what EV fans already know: EV adoption does, in truth, make the air cleaner. Perhaps much more importantly, the study offers some quantifiable, granular data about how much electric vehicles are impacting emission rates within the here and now, not within the foreseeable future.
Not that these numbers will blow you away, mind you, but still, it’s excellent news.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that between 2018 and 2022, CO2 emission from all sources (industries, homes, traffic) across the San Francisco Bay Area dropped around 1.8% per 12 months – a difference the researchers attribute to widespread EV adoption in the world. For vehicle emission rates, those numbers dropped 2.6% annually. EVs made up nearly 40% of recent auto registrations in San Jose and 34% in San Francisco last 12 months.
“We show from atmospheric measurements that adoption of electric vehicles is working, that it’s having the intended effect on CO2 emissions,” said Ronald Cohen, a University of California Berkeley chemistry professor and senior creator of the study. The study was published this week within the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Researchers were able to track that data via a network of sensors across the Bay Area that monitor each CO2 and five critical air pollutants: carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides (NO and NO2), ozone, and particulates (PM 2.5).
According to the research, by comparing the air pollution and CO2 data, the sensors help determine the emission source. The sensors are also unique in that they track CO2, which just isn’t a pollutant regulated by the Clean Air Act and never picked up by Environmental Protection Agency sensors – the EPA in fact does track CO2 but not as an air pollutant.
To get to their results, the researchers divided the emissions captured by the sensors into three categories: industry, comparable to refineries, which churn out a gradual stream of emissions; seasonable various emissions, like home heating and cooling; and traffic. After isolating the traffic emissions, researchers were able to link a dip traffic emissions to the rise in EVs, hybrids, and vehicles with higher fuel efficiency.
While the sensors have been in place for greater than a decade, it’s taken time to analyze the findings – and one could argue some time for EVs to reach a critical mass to trigger a difference. Looking at the info, the researchers also saw a drop in emissions through the pandemic.
The network of fifty sensors, arrange in 2012 by Cohen, make up what’s called the Berkeley Environmental Air Quality & CO2 Network (BEACO2N), a system that has already been adopted by Providence, Rhode Island, and Glasgow, Scotland, to track their city air pollution. Around 70% of world CO2 emissions come from cities, yet few urban areas have granular data about where those emissions originate.
Another study last 12 months, published by Keck School of Medicine on the University of Southern California, found similar results emissions in California. That study tracked real-world pollution levels, electric automobile penetration, and emergency room visits across California between 2013 and 2019, and controlled against overall improvements in California air quality through the study period.
Electrek’s Take
Of course, any optimism is tempered by the truth that, to meet California and Bay Area carbon reduction goals, the yearly decrease needs to be much greater – twice what it’s now. California has a goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2045, and Cohen says that we want emissions to drop 3.7% per 12 months to reach that. Still, the onus isn’t only on traffic emissions. Home and industry emissions need to drop too, and making that occur requires policies.
Credit : electrek.co
