The myth of zero emission vehicle

While studying "Environment Law" I came across the term "Zero Emission Vehicle"  (ZEV). The first question that came to my mind was, is it even possible? Can we consume energy without emitting anything? What happens to the energy that we consume? At least, the energy that we use needs to be converted into some other form of energy. The overhyped advertisement of ZEV's created a question in my mind, is "zero-emission" just a catchy phrase like "chemical-free" to attract customers, or does it really mean what it says? It seems that the main purpose of using this phrase is to create an impression in the consumer's mind that the vehicle they are driving is not emitting any harmful gases, that is, it is not doing "any" damage to the environment. These so-called zero-emission vehicles run on some type of batteries. Technically when we use energy stored in a battery they do not emit any harmful gases the way fossil fuels do (for example, carbon monoxide). However, if we analyze it carefully, batteries need to be manufactured and then recharged every time they get discharged. Each of these processes consumes electricity or some other type of energy, they use different chemicals to manufacture batteries, and these chemicals are manufactured in different process plants that use conventional energy sources. The electricity used by batteries might be produced by the process which results in some kind of emission of the very harmful gases which the battery purports not to emit. Therefore, indirectly these batteries do cause emissions which we do not see while driving these vehicles but they do impact the environment. Emissions caused by the use of batteries may be comparatively less than the emissions of fossil fuels, but this does not mean that there is a zero-emission. This means the phrase zero-emission vehicle is an advertising gimmick, just a catchy phrase with no real meaning behind it, designed and used to grab the customer's attention.

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