Put solar on those suckers!

My next car will be electric!

"thought" to be causing climate change? Is this a Sen. James Inhofe guest post? jk.

The electricity supply and grid infrastructure is sized to provide a one-time max demand. This happens in the summer at about 3:00 pm when everybody has the AC on. Consumption drops a huge amount overnight while everybody is sleeping so it only makes sense to charge your hybrid during that time and smooth out the demand curves...

Sort of. You have to remember that those peaking plants [throatable/daytime demand] are mostly Nat-Gas and running the 24/7 will cause electricity prices to skyrocket.

Where I live, peak demand isn't an issue yet, but I read that there may actually be two peaks during the day: once in the afternoon, and once during "primetime" when residents return home.

Since PHEVs are not readily available for the public, this piece of news will do little to change anyone's mind. Pro-PHEV camp should feel boosted that current capacity can support millions of PHEVs. Anti-PHEV crowd will probably emphasize the 5% CO2 reduction as futile, and paint the EV-supporters as the fringe.

Five percent does seem low for such an effort. I guess that is 5% of total climate change?

Jilted-

5% now. As we get more renewables on the grid that number will only go up. Plus, if the US has that many PHEVs, other countries are going to do the same.

While this is great news I must admit I am a little disappointed that the CO2 emissions would only be reduced by 5% if 84% of the vehicles were PHEV. I'll have to read the report to get more details. I love this site and all your information. Thank you so much.

By my calculations, 5% is pretty good. I'd be willing to bet that this estimate assumes the current mix of electrical production, which is overwhelmingly dirty power. The nice thing about electrics is that they don't care where you get the electricity from. Current cars need gas, whether we like it or not. Think about the options standardizing the 'format' of our energy sources gives us in the future....

Read the book Big Coal by Jeff Goodell and you may change your mind on electric cars. Most of the U.S. power is coal powered, smaller percentages are made up of renewable and nuclear sources. We really need to focus on efficiency versus where the power for our cars comes from. Both our power plants and are cars are not very efficient. The only plus about electric cars is that the energy supply to run them would not be in as much jeoporady by terrorism. But then again coal = more sulfur and CO2 than gasoline. The efficiency difference between geting the electricity to the car and the gas burned in a car isn't than much of a difference. I don't have the exact numbers but I remember from a college class that the difference is less than 10%. Should also consider the bad things about our main electricty source (coal) mountain top removal, acid leaching into our water sources and acid rain. With everything there are tradeoffs.

The study estimates that if 84 percent of the nation's 220 million vehicles relied primarily on electricity, emissions of carbon dioxide thought to be accelerating climate change would be cut by as much as 5 percent.

5% now? It says if 84% of the 220 million cars are mostly electric, then 5%. That's a lot of hybrids and plugins.

"The added electricity would come from a combination of coal-fired and natural gas-fired plants"
this is why CO2 emissions will drop by only 5%
As said, if more of the electricity is generated by green plants, the number will go up.

5% CO2 reductions may be a reasonable estimate if we continue the traditional US electricity source model, where over 85% of our energy is from fossil fuel usage, excluding nuclear power.
We should remember that while transportation is the single greatest source of CO2 emissions in the US, it is not the only source. Industry, farming, etc. do their fair share too.
A switch to electric is a smart one, because electric cars actually INCREASE the size of the grid. Batteries on the grid can be drawn from during these peak hours (hot summer afternoons), and with the advent of PV paints on homes and possibly even automobiles, we're talking about a larger, more user-driven grid.
Also, we can reduce our Greenhouse Gas emissions by simply composting more instead of dumping in landfills. Industrial compost facilities produce harvestable, cleanable methane which otherwise would be released into the atmosphere as a VERY potent greenhouse gas. You can either clean the methane and use it for energy production, or if money is tight you can flare it on site to heat homes. Either way you increase power capacity, reduce stress on landfills, and reduce our dependence on petrol for inorganic fertilizers.

I am missing something. What is wrong with CO2? isn't that what plants use to grow? Isn't carbon monoxide the killer. I know people who grow weed indoors add CO2 to the growrooms to increase the yealds. In Colorado, the tailpipe emmissions test will fail you for hydrocarbon and CO levels, but nut CO2, but CO2 is listed on the emmissions report. Just trying to learn. Thanks

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editor note: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There are many sources to learn about global warming, but a good introduction is An Inconvenient Truth, either the book or movie.