Electric cars, fuelled by coal
There are thousands of charging points for electric cars in Rotterdam, where a fill-up costs about $30 Canadian.
In this traffic-packed Dutch city, electric cars jostle for space at charging stations. The oldest exhaust-spewing vehicles will soon be banned from the city centre. Thanks to generous tax incentives, the share of electric vehicles has grown faster in the Netherlands than in nearly any other country in the world.
But behind the green growth is a filthy secret: In a nation famous for its windmills, electricity is coming from a far dirtier source. Three new coal-fired power plants, including two on the Rotterdam harbour, are supplying much of the power to fuel the Netherlands’ electric-car boom.
As the world tries to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and combat climate change, policy-makers have pinned hopes on electric cars, whose range and convenience are quickly improving. Alongside the boom has come a surging demand for power to charge the vehicles, which can consume as much electricity in a single charge as the average refrigerator does in a month and a half.
The global shift to electric cars has a clear climate benefit in regions that get most of their power from clean sources, such as Canada or Norway. But in areas supplied by dirtier power, like China, India and even the Netherlands, the electric-car jump has slimmer payoffs. In some cases, it could even worsen the overall climate impact of driving, experts say.
In Rotterdam, city leaders have been searching for ways to cut the smog that has long plagued the gridlocked centre, where skyscrapers jostle with low, postwar office blocks. Generous Dutch tax incentives have cut the cost of electric vehicles, and the high cost of gasoline — roughly $2.50 Canadian a litre — has also spurred more people to buy the cars, making the country second only to Norway in terms of percentage of electric vehicles on the road.
Drivers say they appreciate knowing that they’re doing something positive for the environment, even as they contend with having to adopt a new driving style. “You get more relaxed. You don’t want to push down too hard because that will really drain your battery,” said Paul van den Hurk, an electric-vehicle consultant who drives a Nissan Leaf. “You can listen to the music on your stereo because you don’t hear the roar of your engine.”
In many ways, the Netherlands could be an ideal home for electric cars: The country is densely populated and smaller than West Virginia. The best vehicles can now cross the nation on a single charge.
But for all the efforts both locally and nationally, the Netherlands will blow past its 2020 emissions targets, the result of the new coal-fired power plants and delays in expanding wind power.
“There was a discussion going on to shut down the coal generators, and that’s over. The coal price is too low,” said Marko Kruithof, the manager of sustainability and innovation at Stedin, the grid operator for Rotterdam and much of the region surrounding it.