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Almost 75% of electricity in this country is still produced by burning fossil fuels, mostly coal a
fair bit of natural gas and a little diesel. And the energy companies have the most lax emission
permits of any industry. Additionally most of them also own the companies that test them to assure
they are in compliance with the permits. So anyway the point is that right now everyone switching to
electric just means a lot more fossil fuels getting burned somewhere else. The big turbines they use
to generate electricity are more efficient than your average car engine, however as electricity goes
through the grid more and more of it dissipated through resistance. Additionally more of the energy
is lost in conversion to the batteries that run the electric cars. I have seen some estimates about
at what distance from the power station and efficiency of the battery the energy efficiencies equal
out but they involve a lot of variables. The point is that until we start converting to other
cleaner sources of energy for electricity such as solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, and yes nuclear
converting to electric cars nets us less reduction than you think pollution wise. |
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So what your saying is to take the majority of the tens of millions of cars, maybe more, and change
their engines to run on electricity. I'm pretty sure that's a billions of dollar project. Just
imagine the time it would take. |
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The cars i want to work. They ought to be making electric racing bikes to try qualifying rounds.
Or wacky races styles events.
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What will happen when you run through a puddle? What about extreme heat?
What will happen if you rub against your fabric seat and release a static charge?
I think cars should run off of jelly beans and
wish you speedies. Then it would put out ha ha giggles from the exhaust in steady of yucky stinky
fumes. |
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Where does the electricity come from? It's not some magic clean source of energy. The electricity
has to be generated and, usually, it is generated by burning coal or oil or gas, all of which are
polluting. All electric cars do is shift the pollution further down the supply chain.
An electric car does not use the efficiency generated by a power station perfectly. In fact,
electric car batteries are notoriously inefficient, expensive to construct and have to be replaced
every few years. There is a potential for some environmental improvement through switching to hydro
or electric cars, but the idea that it is some magic wand solution that suddenly makes all the
pollution go away, an idea that many people have, is dangerously naive. I have actually seen an
idiot, when asked why he was buying an environmentally-damaging SUV, reply that he thought it didn't
matter, because, duh, we'll all be switching to hydro in a few years so it doesn't matter anyway. |
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24 Jun 2008 15:43
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