Will the Electric Car Put Money in Your Pocket?

Excellent article.

The only thing I find odd is "The United States now gets about 50 percent of its electricity from coal" I live in Socal. We have a nuclear power plant and a few methane power plants. It's 2010, for crying out loud. Who in the heck in the United States still uses coal??????? (and if anyone does, they need to be shut down by the EPA!!!)

Ahhh...you say I need to get out more, read more? Okay, I have heard that there are still coal power plants in the U.S. But I have to ask ... WHY??? It's 2010 !!!

 

Because coal is cheap. The below image is from the wiki. It seems to me Coal is used in areas where hydro isn't easy to find, coal is mined and cheap, but for the life of me I can not figure out why they don't use nuke.

Yes nuke plants have pollution outputs per year, but at least they are easy to put in cans and bury somewhere, instead of flying into the air. (Some sarcasm in there, but not much)

 

Hi All,

The Coal thing keeps coming up year after year regarding EV's. An EV uses 1/6 the energy than a standard car, and Coal is no more than twice the CO2 of other fossil fuels (Methane being the lowest carbon). So, an EV on coal electiricty is on the order of 1/3 to 1/2 the CO2 emissions of present cars. Which is better than Prius level hybrids slightly.

The bigger thing is that electricity sources are variable. In my town, I could sign up for maximumly wind-mill electricy supply for a modest increase in my rates. I heard on the news that Wind-mills are now the cheapest supply of electricity, even cheaper than a coal fired plant, to build and install per KW.

 

I am a libertarian and do not like that the only way your nuclear plant was able to be constructed was with federal insurance at a large discount to real rates. Why should I pay for your nuclear plant? Coal with sequestration is cheaper than the real cost of nuclear. Nuclear only makes sense with federal subsidies.