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Life cycle water footprint of electric and internal combustion engine vehicles in China

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Abstract

With the expansion of China’s automobile market and the increase in the proportion of electric vehicles, the influence of the automobile industry on water resources has been increasingly, and as a result, water resources will become an important factor restricting the development of the electric vehicle industry in China. Until now, there are still no in-depth studies on the influences of the water footprint of electric vehicles. The paper establishes a life cycle assessment model by which to analyze the reduction potential of the water footprint of various types of passenger vehicles in their operation. The paper also compares the water footprint of passenger vehicles under different power structures, revealing the potential influence of developing electric vehicles on the demand of water resources. The results show that at the base year (2019), the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles consume more water than the gasoline-based internal combustion engine vehicles do, while water consumption of the hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles is lower than that of the gasoline-based internal combustion engine vehicles; as for the year 2035, even after the proportion of renewable energy generation increases, the water withdrawal and consumption of the battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will still be larger than those of the gasoline-based internal combustion engine vehicles.

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Data availability

All data and materials pertaining to this work has already been included within this manuscript either in the form of figure or table.

Abbreviations

ANL:

Argonne National Laboratory

BEV:

Battery electric vehicle

BFG:

Blast furnace gas

BP:

British Petroleum

CCS:

Carbon capture and storage

CHA:

China Hydrogen Alliance

COG:

Coke oven gas

CPEA:

China Petroleum Enterprises Association

CGC:

Coal gasification with ccs

EOL:

End-of-life

FCV:

Fuel cell vehicle

GDP:

Gross domestic product

GICEV:

Gasoline-based internal combustion engine vehicle

HEV:

Hybrid electric vehicle

IBP:

Industrial by-product purification

ICEV:

Internal combustion engine vehicle

IEA:

International Energy Agency

ISO:

International Organization for Standardization

IWHR:

China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research

LCA:

Life cycle assessment

PHEV:

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle

REW:

Renewable energy water electrolysis

SUV:

Sport utility vehicles

WTW:

Well-to-wheel

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to show their sincere gratitude to the respected editors and the anonymous referees for their help in the current study.

Funding

This research was supported by the Innovation Project of the Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, (No. 2020STSB02) and the Major Project of Research Institute for Eco-civilization, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (No. STWM-ZS-2021–001).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Eco-Civilization, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 100710, China

    Lai Yang

  2. Faculty of Applied Economics, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 102488, China

    Hongbo Chen

  3. Environmental Defense Fund Beijing Office, Beijing, 100007, China

    Hao Li

  4. Faculty of International Trade, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Ye Feng

Authors
  1. Lai Yang
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  2. Hongbo Chen
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  3. Hao Li
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  4. Ye Feng
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Contributions

Lai Yang: Formal analysis, software, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft. Hongbo Chen: conceptualization, resources, review and supervision. Hao Li: data curation, writing—review and editing. Ye Feng: data curation, writing—review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lai Yang.

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All authors agreed to publish the work.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table

Table 9 Weight distribution of materials of vehicle main body (Chen et al. 2018; Chen et al. 2017; Li et al. 2013; Qiao et al. 2017)
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Table 10 Weight distribution of power battery materials (Chen et al. 2018; Hao et al. 2017b; Qiao et al. 2019; Robin 1994; Yang, Z. et al., 2020)
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Table 11 Weight distribution of lead-acid battery, liquid and tire materials (Hao et al. 2017b; Liu et al. 2015; Qiao et al. 2017; Wang and Li 2020; Yu et al. 2018)
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Table 12 Energy consumption factor of raw material production (MJ/t)
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Table 13 Direct water withdrawal and water consumption factors of different materials production (Argonne National Laboratory, 2019; Kim et al. 2016; Wang et al., 2020a) (L/kg)
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Table 14 Water withdrawal and consumption factors of different types of fuels (Kim et al., 2016; Wang et al. 2020a) (L/MJ)
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Table 15 Distance from Guangdong to other provincial capitals and weighted average distance of GDP
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Yang, L., Chen, H., Li, H. et al. Life cycle water footprint of electric and internal combustion engine vehicles in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 80442–80461 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28002-0

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