Lowering your carbon footprint

[AFTT47]

Buying a hybrid or battery-powered vehicle allows one to move the pollution to those coal-fired plants in Utah.

Tesla did a study on this.

For starters, coal supplied just under half of the power in the US in 2008 and it's down to 30% (and falling) today.

Power plants are far more efficient than gasoline engines - typically double. Electric cars are > 80% efficient. Even if the electricity to charge an electric car is generated by a coal plant, there is still a net gain in emissions, albeit a very small one. In most cases, there is a very large advantage because ~32% of our power comes from natural gas and ~35% from zero-emission plants (nuclear, hydro,wind,solar).

Electric cars are definitely greener.