Ambitious proposal a little too green

When I’m craving some In-N-Out, a BJ’s pizzookie or Diddy Riese, Westwood is my destination. With a car full of people, I make the trek to Bruin land and usually park in the parking structure on Broxton Avenue. The lot is often busy, so I drive past the long, empty row of spots reserved as electric car charging stations. Of all the times I have been there, I only recall a vehicle in those spots once; it was one of those nice, sporty golf carts.

In an effort to welcome more electric cars to San Francisco, the city is reforming its building code to require electric car charging stations in all new parking structures. So if you want to find parking in San Francisco, you better have an electric car. Otherwise you may be driving past a long row of unutilized spaces similar to the garage in Westwood.

The green movement fascinates economists as the green industry presents potential for growth in jobs and national income. But many fail to consider the ripple effects green initiatives can have on society. We need to become more aware of entire consequences.

What many people forget is that electric cars still pollute. These cars get their electricity from power plants. Power plants include everything from hydroelectricity and wind (green and clean) to nuclear and coal (dangerous and dirty).

According to U.S. statistics for 2009, coal accounted for more than 45 percent of total national energy production — the same energy that would be utilized by electric vehicles. Yet studies show that coal processes have a more dangerous effect on the environment than gasoline emissions.

The New York Times reported one in every five vehicles sold in the environmentally conscious town of Berkeley, Calif., is a Toyota Prius hybrid. If San Francisco demonstrates this scale of electric car demand, the city’s gasoline usage in the city would decrease.

Betsy Avila | Daily Trojan

Citywide energy procurement from power plants would need to increase. Since hydroelectric, wind and nuclear sources are more difficult and expensive to expand, San Francisco would have to inflate its coal and natural gas sources. Coal would likely develop most quickly because of its ease, large rate of energy return and low current usage (approximately 10 percent total city energy).

Any city with a large-scale increase in electric cars would likely face a similar initial expansion of coal energy sources. Thus, the cars would still pollute, they just outsource the pollution.

Andrew Tang, a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. utility executive, reported that one electric car can consume three times the amount of electricity as an average San Francisco house.

Another harsh effect on society from an increase in electric vehicles — essentially an increase in houses by Tang’s estimates — could be massively inflated energy prices. Electricity demand would increase, causing blackouts or higher utility prices, which could be disastrous for people already struggling.

Pollution and energy price concerns mixed with the general inconvenience of electric cars (the new Chevrolet Volt will get up to 40 miles on a single battery charge) make the vehicles rather unpromising as a solution to our pollution and energy problems.

On the bright side, it might be easier to find renewable sources of energy for power plants than for individual travel systems potentially giving a grand future to electric cars, assuming they start getting more than 40 miles on a charge.

Although San Francisco’s intended building code reformation might harm more lives than it helps, the city is setting an example to develop infrastructure to wean us off pollutants,as infrastructure is the biggest hindrance to new fuel sources is infrastructure.

We don’t buy electric cars or hydrogen vehicles because of a lack of charging stations. But we don’t build hydrogen pumps because no one has the car.

It is the classic chicken versus egg predicament.

Jensen Carlsen is a senior majoring in mathematics and economics.  His column “The Bridge” runs Wednesdays.