Hank (Visitor)   Plug-Ins Dirtier than Hybrids? by Hank 4 Months ago I just read this article at WBCSD that plugins are, at least in some ways, dirtier than hybrids. I'm about to write a full story on it, but I was hoping to see some opinions from others on the subject. Enter code here    Please note, although no boardcode and smiley buttons are shown, they are still useable Reply | Quote | Report to moderator   Logged   Mitch (Visitor)   Re:Plug-Ins Dirtier than Hybrids? by Mitch 4 Months ago Hi, QUOTE: # Power plants produce far more SO2 than cars (especially old coal plants). # In areas where coal generates most of the power, PHEVs can produce more carbon than similar sized cars. # PHEVs increase electricity demands, which increases coal mining, which is bad news. Those should not be arguments against PHEV's. They should be additional arguments for eliminating Coal. Mitch Enter code here    Please note, although no boardcode and smiley buttons are shown, they are still useable Reply | Quote | Report to moderator   Logged   Simmons (Visitor)   Re:Plug-Ins Dirtier than Hybrids? by Simmons 4 Months ago I agree that PHEVs may be detrimental in the short run (and that may not even be the case, as you pointed out ), but they will be at least part of the solution in the long run. Once we can get off our dirty energy based economy, PHEVs would be clean. Of course, that could be a while, and we really need a quick solution. But, IMO, we've got to think long term. Simmons Enter code here    Please note, although no boardcode and smiley buttons are shown, they are still useable Reply | Quote | Report to moderator   Logged   Hank (Visitor)   Re:Plug-Ins Dirtier than Hybrids? by Hank 4 Months ago I agree...moreor less, but the problem is, right now, we're getting 50% of our power from coal, and, unfortunately, that's not going to change in the next 20 years. We might be able to decrease the percentage, but coal is part of our future, as much as it pisses me off... So we have to consider the impacts of adding more demand to our power grid. Will the new demand be taken care of by renewables? I hope so...but some of it will undoubtedly be coal. Enter code here    Please note, although no boardcode and smiley buttons are shown, they are still useable Reply | Quote | Report to moderator   Logged   Ryan (Visitor)   Re:Plug-Ins Dirtier than Hybrids? by Ryan 4 Months ago Hank, While I agree that changing power plants won't happen very quickly, neither will the transformation of the vehicles. You're right that the ramping up needs to happen with renewables, but lets face it, if we can't add renewables or nuclear under this fresh demand, then will we ever pull it off? It seems unlikely that waiting for the power grid to change to cleaner energy sources which involves adding new power sources while taking other functioning ones (albeit dirty sources) will occur as quickly as a simultaneous transition. Furthermore, widescale production of batteries should encourage more funding and development in that market, allowing for better batteries down the road. I guess my question is: what is the alternative to PHEV's now - staying with hybrids and effectively, oil? Enter code here    Please note, although no boardcode and smiley buttons are shown, they are still useable Reply | Quote | Report to moderator   Logged   Bryan (Visitor)   Re:Plug-Ins Dirtier than Hybrids? by Bryan 4 Months ago With PHEVs I could never understand why people never thought of the enviromental impact of a million batteries driving around and sooner or later ending up in some land fill destroying the earth in other ways. The best solutions for new fuel based vehicles, IMO, are the air powered cars or hydrogen powered. Also, if citizens of the US are going to keep driving those big SUVs hydrogen would have to be the next fuel source. I know hydrogen fuel cells are expensive and take lots of energy to produce, but with all the renewable energy that's coming our way it shouldn't be a problem in the future. My 2 cents, anyways Enter code here    Please note, although no boardcode and smiley buttons are shown, they are still useable Reply | Quote | Report to moderator   Logged