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Electric cars belong on golf courses hauling fat drunks around, not trying to provide dependable transportation on real roads.
No S*** Sherlock! The production/pollution costs of making the batteries alone are a significant offset their ‘greeness’ and the idiots never considered that the power to charge them could NOT be produced by windmills.
All that BS about “alternative” energy sources is — well — BS! They are
NEITHER cost effective NOR environmentally friendly over the long haul. Never
HAVE been. In fact, nearly all those energy forms simply move the often
greater pollution they produce to another area of the country or world and
concentrate it THERE. Hell, let’s just put all those dirty solar collector, pump and pipe plants in — say — Pennsylvania or West Virginia so WE can live that eco-friendly lifestyle HERE! Textbook NIMBY idiocy!
Doesn’t anyone understand that IF we are to have a
technological society based on ENERGY, we’d better produce that energy as
efficiently as we know how? And that is NUCLEAR . I live in Georgia and at a time when places like CA are in the throes of an energy crisis, the 4 or so nukes here have helped keep our electrical costs well within reason.
And IF the national consensus is that we no longer want a tech society, I
have a supply of spears, loin cloths and stone axes for sale for those of
you who want to get ready before the rush.
My wife is still afraid of nuclear (because of the still not completely
solved waste disposal problem WHICH WE CAN AND WILL SOLVE in a satisfactory manner).
We visited one of those salvage/bargain
places over the week-end. After strolling around for a few minutes, she
remarked with disdain that we sure do produce a lot of “junk.” Most of the
“junk” was electrical switchgear and mechanical power transmission stuff. I
replied, “Yes, most of it is the stuff that causes the lights to go on when
you flip the switch.” She got very quiet as it settled on her that without
this “junk,” she’d be washing our clothes on a rock in the river.
SO WILL YOU!
If you haven’t seen “Survivors,” by all means do so. It’s a glimpse into our future if the greenies prevail.
And I hear they’re going to start the rock/river clothes washing thing in California in a few weeks and will let us all know how they like it.
LOL!
I had a wealthy student whose dad boasted to me about his new Tesla. So i went outside to see this nice looking car hooked up to a huge cable to a big box on the outside wall. It was a Charger that had to be specially installed onto the house with it’s own high intensity electric line that uses god-knows-how-much electricity from some source, which, of course, needs to be generated SOMEHOW, be it coal, oil, or nuclear.
Yep...I’m really impressed...NOT!
Too many drawbacks with an electric. The hybrid seems a better way to go,but it can pose some expensive problems as well. I don’t think we have near enough generating power for a lot of electric cars,especially with the idiotic decisions coming from the EPA.
It’s always kind of shocking when some liberal “study” meant to take down the coal industry ends up being so warmly received here at FR just because it plays into a perception that “liberals like electric cars, so we’re against them”.
The study essentially says “electric cars are great, except if you hook them up to coal plants, then they are really bad because coal plants are evil”.
Why Your All-Electric Car May Not Be So Green
It really comes down to the source of electricity. Coal and petroleum accounts for only 40% of US generation. The rest is nuclear, renewable, and natural gas.
The continental US grid is interconnected, into 3 sections (East, West, and Texas), but those should be interconnected eventually at Tres Amigas. So, no matter where you are, you would be charging your car, your cell phone, etc. with the mix of generation on your grid.
It really ISN’T about “being green”.
It’s about being morally superior and self-righteous for “being green”.
And, with most libs in this category, if you point out the findings of this study to them,
they’ll act as if you personally attacked them,
and deny the findings.
Click on the map for a larger version.
Ditto for other green energy boondoggles. Corn ethanol has been touted as an alternative to oil, but if you consider the energy needed to plant, harvest and ship the corn to ethanol plants as wells as make the corn into ethanol and ship the ethanol by truck or rail since it can’t be shipped by pipeline it takes more energy to make corn ethanol than you could get from using it as a motor fuel. The whole ethanol business exists solely because of government subsidies and tax credits.
Due to new regulations, including subsidies for wind and solar, the cost of electricity is going way up. Due to American innovation and private investment, the cost of gasoline is going way down. States are threatening to tax cars by the mile rather than by the gallon, so electric cars will be caught within the government web.
The economics of an electric car are way worse than they were a year ago.
Here’s the problem: electric cars don’t have the range on a per charge basis compared to gasoline-fueled, let alone diesel-fueled, vehicles.
I drive a Honda Fit and get nearly 40 mpg on the freeway on 87 octane unleaded gasoline—and this is a regular drivetrain. Small wonder why Volkswagen has trouble keeping their diesel-powered Golf and Jetta models in stock.
Study: Your All-Electric Car May Not Be So Green
That article has a typical click-bait headline, but it turns out the key word is “may”. It only applies to the states that use coal the most, like West Virginia, Wyoming, Ohio, North Dakota, and Illinois.
Since coal makes up only a minority of electricity production in the nation overall, and since the majority is produced by sources much cleaner than coal (like natural gas, nuclear, and hydro), the conclusions in this article do not apply to the vast majority of the country.
So yes, your electric car may not be so green, but only if you live in one of those six states.
Further reading: New Study Doesn't Say ‘Electric Cars Aren't Green’ (Headlines To The Contrary)
Study Finds All-Electric Cars Aren’t Very Green At All
...
Maybe I’ll get one then.