Coal vs 87 octane

Not all your electricity comes from coal, I put in the 20001 zip into How clean is the electricity I use? - Power Profiler | Clean Energy | US EPA and found that 35.4% of the electricity from that area comes from coal and 43% from nuclear.

There are other pollutants from coal burning and auto exhaust besides CO2, which wasn't even classified as a pollutant by the EPA until recently.

See Coal | Clean Energy | US EPA for example and About the Ratings | Green Vehicle Guide | US EPA, for example.

 

And when you add to that the soldiers lives that hopefully will not be put at risk, the money that is not sent out of the country (increasing our trade deficit as it goes) then yes, I definitely would say it was worth it.
I for one thank you for increasing your gasoline efficiency 50%

 

get solar then or windor geothermal

 

Yep, to steal from someone's signature on mynissanleaf: "No American soldier has ever served on foreign soil to bring electricity to this country."

And from doing some quick math via numbers from Oil: Crude and Petroleum Products - Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy - Energy Information Administration, currently about $800 million/day flows out of our country to pay for foreign oil. http://www.greencar.com/articles/vice-admiral-dennis-mcginn-clean-cars-patriotic.php explains some of the national security/geopolitical issues surrounding oil. CIA - The World Factbook shows were most of the world's oil resides.

 

Yes, given the information posted.
On the environmental front you can find a great resource here : http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf
It is a large report so be a little patient,

 

lol, power profiler says my energy comes 53% from gas, 14% nuke.....7.3% coal. Does all that gas come from foreign oil?

I have seen a few studies comparing EV to gas vehicles as far as coal vs gasoline. All these studies were out of China, I haven't seen one from a country other than China. They use lots of coal in power production there.

 

gas is natural gas, so it almost certainly doesn't come from any oil at all. canadian or american gas fields.

 

No, not all, as I recall it is a bit under half of our crude oil comes from foreign countries. That amounts to about 500 Billion of our trade deficit each year and an unknown number of soldier's lives and cost to have our military stabilize the straights of Hormuz and other oil sensitive areas of the world.

The study I linked does exactly what you asked for. It compares electric vs gasoline powered cars.

 

Try this site.

Clean Car Calculator, a project of the Institute for Energy Efficiency and the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UCSB

The grid may be cleaner now for your zip code, probably not worse.

 

Go to this EPA site, enter your zip code and pick a plugin car. It'll show you the CO2 emission that includes tailpipe and fuel production emissions. I entered a sample Maryland zip code (20606) and it shows PiP is rated 200 g/mi in your region.

Per EPA, Prius PHV's electricity consumption is 29kWh/100mi. The 2013 Fit EV has the same 29kWh/100mi rating.

Since you are only interested in EV miles vs. gasoline, we can use Fit EV to get the EV emission (no breakdown for PiP). I entered the sample Maryland zip code and picked 2013 Fit EV and it shows 160 gram of CO2 per mile in your region. For reference, a 40 MPG gas car would emit 277 g/mi.

Colorado seem to have the highest coal in the electricity. If I use 80101 zip code, Fit EV would emit 280 g/mi. Even for the worse case emission in the electricity, 29kWh/100mi emission is about the same as 40 MPG gas car.
In your region, 29kWh/100mi electric miles are cleaner (160 vs 277 g/mi) than 40 MPG gas car. The overall rating for PiP in your region is 200 g/mi so you would be cutting down 77 gram of CO2 per mile.

 

Hi Eric I live near you and I am somewhat of a EV-skeptic. However, I like PiP's.
PiP is sort of an EV-lite with best feature being high efficiency gaso engine (HEV).
EV is a very sensitive topic, as you have already discovered.
Below are a couple long threads from a while back under Environmental section.
Bottom line for me, you should view EV mainly as fuel switching away from gasoline to electricity.
The main purpose of fuel switching is to reduce dependence on petroleum.
That's a policy preference, not an environmental or economic target, so yes this does lead to the questions: does it make sense environmentally and/or economically?

When I see your quoted high 60's "EPA MPGe" thru my glasses that is really about 50 MPG gaso and about 40-50 MPG fossil fuel equivalents on elec, so you are getting 45-50 MPG fossil fuel equivalents...which is excellent. The somewhat confusing high 60's " EPA MPGe" reflects that you are getting many miles on a few gallons of gasoline, but it does not account for the pounds of coal etc you are using.

Coal power Volt vs. Gas power Prius | PriusChat
Well-to-wheels analysis of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of plug-in hybrid EVs | PriusChat

 

In the northwest most of our electricity comes from water powered turbines on
the Columbia River, and we have nooooo shortage of water here believe me.

 

how about the salmon?

 

So very correct, not ideal--but the dams are there, c'est la guerre. Notably, one was removed on the Elwha river last year (near Olympic Nat'l Park).
I try to concentrate on the inexpensive 93% carbon-free electricity and charge the PiP often. Also just signed up to pay a little extra to have the remaining power come from wind/geo/biogas. I really wish my house were as efficient as the car, but perhaps that sentiment is simply due to the relative improvement over the last car (?)
<NW anecdote>The good news is that the salmon are returning to a lot of rivers and creeks that haven't them in years, including right in Seattle. There are a couple nesting pairs of bald eagles in my neighborhood & it's a happy sight when they have a king in their talons.</NW anecdote>

 

It's a step in the right direction, probably back when the dams were built nobody realized the damage it was doing to the salmon, now there's an awareness.

 

Thanks Zythryn, it seems as though parts of the midwest are not much better than China in regards to % of coal sourced energy. I never looked into the source of my electricity before this thread, thanks OP.