Originally Posted by
joshua362
I'd like to see a computation about electric cars with respects to the carbon that must be generated in a power plant somewhere to produce electricity in the first place.
A lot of that would depend upon the method of power generation.
In my area, the majority of power is produced by burning coal. Therefore, an electric vehicle is literally running on coal. We are slowly trying to generate more through hydro, wind, and solar, but, for now, TVA (our power generator) is 37% nuclear, 24% coal (my area), 20% natural gas, 9% hydro, 3% wind.
Nationwide:
63% fossil fuel (27% coal)
19% nuclear
18% renewable
I don't think anyone has done a study on the percentage of power generation emissions can be allocated to electric vehicles (probably a tiny amount) and compare that to traditional vehicle emissions. I would bet it is much smaller, but it most certainly is not zero.