After the West Texas fertilizer explosion

[Black Aeronaut]

robkelk wrote:

---

blackaeronaut wrote:

---

And really, that's all most people need. Sure, there's soccer moms out there in America that need massive people movers with enough cargo space to haul home the daily output of a small farm... But if the daily commuters would just switch to a basic electric car to get them to work and back, it would kill so many of the emission problems we're having that you'll wonder why we never did it sooner.

The electricity has to come from somewhere, and there isn't enough hydroelectric or nuclear-electric power available. There are very few rivers left in North America that can be dammed for cost-effective HE power, and the people opposed to more pipelines are also opposed to more NE plants. Wind power is as reliable as the wind, and solar power is very expensive - so we'd be moving to a smaller number of larger emissions from gas-fired, coal-fired, and oil-fired plants.

This is actually better in the long run.  Point-source pollution such as the sort from cars is very difficult to manage - this is why cities like LA always have such a horrible smog problem.  However, if a good percentage of cars in a major metro got their power from a powerplant, that pollution can be much more easily managed, especially if it's a newer one.  And the Eagle Ford Shale Discovery here in Texas has made powerplants fired with natural gas a very attractive option lately.  It won't last forever, but it will be a good stop-gap until we figure out something better.