Electric Vehicles

[jennythereader]

So I'm listening to an episode of the Commonwealth Club where they're talking to a bunch of people involved with different aspects of the electrical vehicle industry.

The moderator asked a very good question about how much of a difference switching from gas cars to electric cars really makes today, when so much of our power still comes from coal burning plants. I mean, we're still putting carbon and other pollutants in to the air, right? The people had several good answers, but they left off one that I think is very basic: namely, that it's a lot easier to put a filter on the smokestack of one power plant than on the tailpipes of thousands of individual cars.

Added: And here's the episode I'm listening to - Turning Over A New Leaf

Comments

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

OK, insert the phrase if they ever figure out a good way to capture carbon somewhere into my statement.

They actually addressed your point, by noting that not everybody would make the switch at once, so the electrical industry could probably absorb the demand in the same way they've absorbed the increased demand from all sorts of high-drawing home tech becoming more common. On the other hand, we do need to update the distribution infrastructure regardless of whether we all switch to electric cars or not.