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| Fig. 1: Street traffic on De Voeux Road, Hong Kong. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China with a population of approximately 7.4 million people and consuming approximately 157600 terajoules of energy per year. [1] China has been the largest growth market for energy for the past 17 years, producing approximately 9230 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide in 2017 emitting more carbon dioxide emissions per year than the US, Canada and Mexico put together. [2] Hong Kong's large population density and consequent heavy reliance on its transport industry, with a particular reliance on fossil fueled vehicles including taxi's and buses (see Fig. 1), provides a huge contribution to its overwhelmingly high production of this greenhouse gas. The emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels in the internal combustion engine of conventional diesel and gasoline powered vehicles is a leading contributor to the rising levels of pollution in Hong Kong, simultaneously causing an overall increase in the levels of carbon dioxide in the earths atmosphere.
In attempt to decrease the quantity of carbon dioxide emitted through vehicle exhaust, the transport industry has introduced a series of counter alternatives, including the introduction of electric vehicles to the market. Whilst conventional petroleum powered vehicles are propelled through the burning of combustible fuel within an internal combustion engine, battery powered electric vehicles are instead reliant on motors powered by electricity. The power needed to produce enough torque to rotate the wheels of the vehicle is produced through three essential components: the controller, the electric motor, and the battery. The battery functions as a store of chemical energy, providing the controller with power, which is in turn transferred to the vehicles motor which converts electrical energy into the mechanical energy needed to provide the torque to make the vehicle move. Through their reliance on batteries, electric vehicles are able to fully function without the production of roadside greenhouse gas emissions, most namely carbon dioxide, thus in theory reducing the levels of carbon dioxide produced by Hong Kongs transport industry.
The potential for Hong Kong to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through the introduction of electric vehicles essentially lies with Hong Kongs choice of fuel mix used in electricity generation at the power plants being used at the time of electric vehicle charging. Since electric vehicles rely on electricity to function, it is important to consider how this electricity is produced. If a country fundamentally relies upon coal or the burning of fossil fuels to produce their electricity, then this would provide little benefit for carbon dioxide reduction as this fuel is essentially burnt at a power plant used to produce the electricity for an electric car, instead of in the diesel or petroleum powered car itself. If the source of electricity is however produced from a non-carbon dioxide emitting power source such as renewable energy or nuclear power, this will have a greater effect on overall carbon dioxide reductions. [3] To analyze whether electric vehicles would be effective in reducing the production rate of carbon dioxide in Hong Kong, it is necessary to examine Hong Kong's fuel mix. Approximately 67% of the energy produced by CLP Power (Hong Kong's leading energy company) in 2016, was produced from CO2 emitting sources (26% from natural gas, and 41% from coal), with the remainder produced by non-greenhouse gas emitting sources (namely nuclear power sources). [4] With this in mind, it is clear that with such an emphasis on greenhouse gas emitting power generation, electric cars may not prove to be as effective as we believe.
The unfavorable composition of Hong Kong's fuel mix suggests that a widespread implantation of electric vehicles into Hong Kong would not necessarily be extremely effective in reducing carbon dioxide rates unless combined closely with a change in fuel mix, and a shift towards more renewable energy production. However, if Hong Kong experienced a widespread adoption of electric vehicles into their markets, whilst experiencing an increased reliance on non-carbon dioxide producing energy resources, then an implementation of electric vehicles could be exceptionally effective in an attempt to reduce carbon dioxide rates across the region.
© Olivia Lancaster. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] "Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics," Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2018.
[2] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018," British Petroleum, June 2018.
[3] T. Fawcett, "Electric Cars," Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2015.
[4] "CLP Information Kit," CLP Holdings Limited, September 2017.
