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Doug Miller

In article , wrote:
[...]
The second big omission is that you always hear the media gushing over
this cars as "zero emissions". Which is true only if you
conveniently ignore that all this power still has to be generated
someplace. In some small amount of cases today, it could be green, eg
where the car is charged at night using excess hydroelectric. But
for most of the country, the power today still has to come from
conventional fuels and all you're doing is moving the pollution from
one place to another.

Moving the pollution from one place to another is, in itself, a laudable goal;
seen what the air looks like in LA or Chicago recently?

And possible introducing more, as I'm not sure
what the total energy/emissions balance looks like, ie burning a
gallon of gasoline in a car vs burning say coal to generate the
electricity, then sending it over a transmission system with losses,
etc.

You're overlooking a few points in favor of the electric cars. First off, by
concentrating the emissions at the power plant, the air quality in most major
cities will be tremendously improved. Second, again by concentrating the
emissions in one place, it's easier to scrub them; one power plant producing
the electricity to power a million electric cars will likely produce much less
pollution than a million cars with internal combustion engines. Third, one
large power plant has the potential for economies of scale that a million
point sources lack. Fourth, and perhaps most important, the internal
combustion engine is terribly inefficient, since it derives all its power from
the mechanical energy of the expanding exhaust gases and wastes all of the
heat; coal-fired power plants are *far* more efficient.