Without Clean Electricity, Plug-In Vehicles Aren’t So Hot
 

Check out my latest post at gas2.0: http://gas2.org/2008/04/08/without-c...-arent-so-hot/

I was actually really excited to find this study, good to see these issues quantified.

True, but the opportunity to use Clean Electricity is there, it will also get people thinking about there electricity usage. I'd bet that a lot of people could cut enough off of their electricity usage to offset the watts used by their Plug In Hybrid; and / or install small scale wind/ solar to offset . . .

Similar article here
http://ilea.org/lcas/taharaetal2001.html

I've seen this discussion come up a few times before. I agree with SVOboy on it though. Its nice to see some actual numbers on it. I'll still respond with the same thing as I did before. Its going to be TONS more cost effective and easier to regulate emissions of the hundreds(?) of power plants of any type versus the millions of vehicles out there.

About 60% of electricity in the US comes from fossil fuels, today. About 30% of that comes from natural gas, which is very clean when compared to the other sources. Nuclear could provide all our needs, but it's hard to get them up and running due to how people feel about them. 15 years from now solar energy will probably cost about 10% of what it does today because of nanotechnology, solar paint and other breakthroughs. Clean electricity is the future.

Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/bu...=rssnytemc=rss

coal keeps the lights on.

Coal and Natural gas are much cleaner than petroleum, and more importantly, they are a resource that the USA has more of than any other country.

They also don't take into account the growth of Solar power and how it's production cost diminishes significantly when volume adoption happens.

Solar power is free, easy to produce/adopt and emission free.

why do people make such a big deal about things like plug in vehicles, but not things like satilite tv, satilite boxes run 24/7, drawing around 30 watts even when they are turned "off", this is about 1/3 of what it should be taking to charge my electric car every day! if you eliminate all the parasitic loads in the average house it would more then make up for the amount that an electric car would use to charge, no one is making a big deal about that stuff!

Read the third paragraph in the first link. The second link is just interesting.

http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?p=1782

http://www.metaefficient.com/cars/da...ind-power.html

Arminius and Ryland -

Wow, I didn't know that there was that much energy being wasted/lying around at night. I thought the power plants would lower their output to save $$$. It's a crime not to store it/use it the next day!

CarloSW2