Quote:
Originally Posted by DGthe3
yes and no. I know exactly where you are comming from. But the electric grid is extremely modular. Replace a coal plant with a nuclear one and nobody really notices. Slightly different if you replace gasoline with ethanol or hydrogen. But thats not really your point.
The electricity issue is less important than you make it sound. First off, the bulk of car electricity use will be over night not durring the day time. So demand won't go up dramatically. Also, power plants have alot of excess capacity at night, juice is drasically turned down then compared to daytime. So you wouldn't need to build more plants, just get more fuel. Which brings me to my last point. ~50% of the electricity in the US is made from coal, and I think other fossil fuels account for 10% or less. The rest is nuclear, hydroelectic, and wind. So we can assume that about 60% of the electricity produced at night is derived from fossil fuels. So even then, electric cars will still produce less CO2 than gasoline cars will. Plus, more can be done to reduce pollution at a power plant than in an exhaust pipe. And it is also possible to increase the use of other sources besides fossil fuels to generate electricity, such as wind and nuclear
I still want internal combustion engines though, despite the fact that electric cars are better for the environment.
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A rebuttal:
Charging will have to be pretty fast to offset the range limitation of an electric car (in case you want to go out on a weekday evening). For the same reason (plus convenience), most people will plug the car in and start charging as soon as they get home. So most of the charging will probably happen in the evening, which is already when residential use spikes.
It is my understanding that because of natural costs and EPA fees the cleanest plants run at or near capacity while the dirtiest plants are largely idle. So unless someone builds more new power plants, any increase in peak power demand is going to be met largely with coal.