PHYSICS ASSIGNMENT

4

Electric cars and the climatic change problem outline paper

Name Hani Al Amri

University of San Diego

Professor Michael Anderson

1. Introduction

Air pollution has really been on a rise and this is due to rise in carbon

fumes CO2 from burning of fossil fuel, this pollution causes global warming. Automobiles that run on gas are a culprit to this. Electric cars can therefore bring this number down by replacing gas engines.

Topic sentence:

Electric cars can play a huge role in climatic changes by improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

Hook:

Electric cars are environment friendly for they have zero gas emission. This is a misleading statement. Even if the car itself does not emit CO2, its battery must be charged, and this is almost always done with electric current that comes from power plants, which burn fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels DOES release CO2 into the atmosphere. You should address this fact in your article

Background information:

Electric cars projects in the past were not advanced this is due to limitations in technology for instance battery technology. Batteries in the past have been known to be cumbersome but now there are smaller and longer lasting ones. Some numbers or more specific details would be useful here.

Thesis statement:

Automobiles contribute to 40% of greenhouse gases found in the atmosphere, this means that electric cars can bring down Earth’s air pollution by 40%,. This is ONLY true if the electric cars are charged by nuclear, solar, or some other means that does not release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

2. Body paragraph 1

Topic sentence:

Electric cars have zero green-house gas emissions. See my comments above.

Examples/reasons:

Since they can run on pure electric power (DC/AC), they have no green huse gas emissions. They run on a motor not a gas engine so they do not have exhaust.

Counter argument:

They require a lt of power to run and the batteries are cumbersome and heavy.

Refutation:

New battery technologies have been developed, and still getting better, for more compact and more powerful batteries that offer more mileage.

3. Body paragraph 2

Topic sentence:

Can displace over 4 million tons of green house gas, from the atmosphere, per year. For comparison, it would be helpful to know how many tons of greenhouse gases (or CO2?) get released into the atmosphere by humans per year.

Examples/reasons:

A million tons of green house gas equates to a hundred and twenty-nine thousand 2005 model year cars that use gas.

The electric cars will keep the gasoline cars away to give the atmosphere time to freshen up. Try to be more specific here. How can the atmosphere “freshen up”?

Counter argument:

The atmosphere will still get polluted from other sources of green house gases.

Refutation:

Automobiles that run on gasoline contribute to 40% of the green house gases in the atmosphere, this will be the number reduced when these automobiles are replaced.

Electric motors, battery and generator technologies are growing on all sectors thus very soon burning of fossil fuels for power will be a thing of the past.

4. Conclusion

Converting to electric cars will see a drop in the green house gases injected into the atmosphere per year, therefore the rate of global warming shall reduce even though not instantly stop.

Summary and comment:

Electric cars will not solve the climatic change problem that we have but the technology can help slow it down. If the technology is adapted instead to take the place of gas engine vehicles, there will be a significant drop in the amount of green house gas injected into the atmosphere. Other sectors should also adopt and use the same technology in replacement of burning fossil fuels.