When the screen of a North American television springs to life and an advertisement for the seven o’clock news comes on, the viewer knows exactly what to expect; images of fiery explosions, massive riots, and all manner of other such attention-grabbing scenes. It is in the media’s best interest as a secondary source of information to present stories in such a way that the consumer is captivated by this account of the primary source, and although the practice of maximizing a story’s excitement is effective, it often leads to exaggerations of the truth. It is therefore surprising to find that in the case of the article "Your Car Would Have to Get 70 MPG to Be as Clean as an Electric Car, Study Finds", this secondary presentation of the primary paper “Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles” is quite accurate in its claims, although it lacks description of the study’s quantitative details, contains some ambiguous data, and is presented with a great deal of bias.
The article is precise in describing the environmental advantages of electric cars over gasoline cars. For example, the article makes it clear that, contrary to popular belief, it is not the process of manufacturing the battery that causes the most environmental damage, but is instead the production of energy for charging the battery. Clearly stated in the article, as it is in the original paper, is the fact that the efficiency of a battery-powered car (BEV) depends greatly on its source of energy; a vehicle running on 100% coal power is 13% less environmentally friendly than one running on 54% coal, which represents the average cleanliness of European electricity (Kraemer). However, these statistics are the only ones from the paper that are featured in the article, and indeed only provide a fraction of the detail examined in the primary source. The only other concrete value is reported when the article states that in order for an internal combustion engine car (ICEV) to make an equivalently low impact on the environment as compared to a BEV, the ICEV would need to be able to drive 70 miles per gallon of gasoline (Kraemer), and this is not even directly presented in the study. Unlike the article, the original paper goes on to explain in detail that during the life cycle of a lithium ion battery it is specifically the production of the anode, cathode, and battery pack that contribute the most to an ecological footprint, besides the battery’s energy source. A great deal of data regarding the manufacturing of these battery parts are discussed in the study, but left out in the article. Another, more unexpected difference between the secondary source and primary study is that, while the study notes that statistics presented in the battery’s life cycle are worst-case scenario in terms of disregarding useful recyclable materials after the battery has died, the article fails to highlight this point. This is unexpected because other media would be likely to take this concept of the study being ‘worst-case scenario’ and use it to further advertise the idea that BEV’s are much more environmentally friendly than ICEV’s. It could be speculated that because the secondary article is published on a science website, the author is striving to be more accurate than flashy. Yet despite the article’s accuracy, the fact remains that little of the information gathered in the primary paper and the process with which the information is analyzed is presented in the secondary source.
Also absent in the article is the study’s definition of ‘environmental impact’, where the burden created on the environment is articulated in terms of global warming potential over the next 100 years, cumulative energy demand (CED), and using the Ecoindicator 99 (EI99 H/A), which involves “using the hierarchic perspective and an average weighting” (Notter). Yet when the article states that an ICEV would need to be able to drive 70-MPG in order to break even with a BEV in terms of “environmental friendliness” (Kraemer), it is unclear what is considered to be environmentally friendly. This is not an issue in the original paper, which presents the break even values in terms of energy consumption and an EI99 H/A score. As stated above, this 70-MPG statistic is not even taken directly from the primary source, and in fact the break-even analysis in the study uses the units L/100km to show the data. The reason for this change in units could be that, while the primary study is based on European statistics, the secondary literature is intended for an American audience. The author refers to Europe several times from the point of view of a non-European, so it seems likely that the article is intended for American eyes. However, the 70-MPG maintains an ambiguous origin, seeing as the two values in the primary source are presented as such: “A break even analysis shows that an ICEV would need to consume less than 3.9 L/100km to cause lower CED than a BEV or less than 2.6 L/100km to cause a lower EI99 H/A score.” (Notter) When converted into American MPG, 2.6 L/100km becomes approximately 90.5-MPG, while 3.9 L/100km is converted to 60.3-MPG. Neither of these values is very close to 70-MPG. When converted to Imperial MPG however, 3.9 L/100km becomes 72.4-MPG. This could account for the 70-MPG claim, yet why the author of the article would choose to convert L/100km units to different European units remains unclear. Not only would choosing the American value of 90.5-MPG more obviously stress the superiority of BEV’s over ICEV’s but it would also prevent American readers from becoming confused; nowhere in the article does it state that 70-MPG’s is measured in European units. Still, whether or not the precise units of the break-even analysis are declared, the value that is presented is accurate, and this is more that can be said about many other studies through the lens of modern media.
A final discrepancy between the primary and secondary sources is the presence of bias. The author’s bias is blatantly obvious from the beginning of the article, with the first sentences reading, “Are electric cars less catastrophic for our future climate than gasoline cars? Well, duh.” The author approaches the study with the attitude that the idea of a gasoline car potentially being more environmentally friendly than a battery-powered one is preposterous. This is a biased view, whereas the scientists that developed the study approached the problem with an open mind; the study was performed because the production, use, and disposal of lithium ion batteries with regard to environmental consequences were unknown. The paper carefully articulates that, while there is a great deal of expectation for fossil fuel alternatives in electric cars, environmental impacts from lithium ion batteries have not yet been studied in depth. The paper is consistently unbiased compared to the article.
Despite the stereotypical melodrama that is associated with media and other secondary sources, this article is fairly true to the study that it describes. In the end, perhaps it is not the detail with which a study is described that is important, but the feeling with which it is presented. The article certainly does its job in that regard.
WORKS CITED
"KMERRITTBLOG » News." KMERRITTBLOG. 25 June 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2010.
Kraemer, Susan. "Your Car Would Have to Get 70 MPG to Be as Clean as an Electric Car, Study Finds – CleanTechnica." CleanTechnica. 30 Aug. 2010. Web. 18 Sept. 2010.
Notter, Dominic A., Marcel Gauch, Rolf Widmer, Patrick Wager, Anna Stamp, Rainer Zah, and Hans-Jorg Althaus. Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles. Environmental Science & Technology. American Chemical Society, 9 Aug. 2010. Web. 18 Sept. 2010.
Link to secondary source:
Link to website containing PDF of primary source:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es903729a
Link to website containing newspaper image:
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