A dime of benefit? Here’s a quick comparison between ethanol and gasoline:

Gasoline is necessarily riddled with carcinogens and mutagens (the aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and xylene) . Ethanol does not need them and is neither carcinogenic nor mutagenic.

When burned, ethanol emits significantly less NOx than gasoline, which reacts to fuel vapor in the atmosphere to make ozone smog. As for fuel in vapor form, which gets into the air via tailpipes (from imperfect combustion) or through leaks from the refueling process, NOx reacts to vapor ethanol in the air at less than a tenth of the rate that it does to vapor gasoline. Finally vapor ethanol washes out of the air easily in the rain, unlike gasoline which is stubbornly persistent. End result of a switch to ethanol: far less ozone smog.

When burned, ethanol emits NO sulfur, the source of acid rain.

When burned, ethanol emits NO smoke, soot, or particulate matter (SSPM), the source of smog, which blankets the air of car-centric Los Angeles and Houston, and causes 40,000 deaths a year according to EPA. Firemen accustomed to billowing black smoke from gasoline fires have had to be re-trained because ethanol fires emit no smoke at all. In fact, the Indy 500 switched from gasoline to methanol (another alcohol fuel with closely similar traits) in the 1960s after smoke from a burning wreck blinded other drivers and caused more fatal crashes (they have since switched again to ethanol). Tired of seeing a coating of gray-black film on cars and trucks, or “wash me” written with a fingertip (other than on pollen in springtime)? Tired of black roadside snow in winter? Interested in slashing lung cancer deaths? Ethanol sits, waiting, as an ignored solution. By the way, air quality over Brazilian cities has improved dramatically since that nation went for ethanol in a big way.

As any bartender will tell you, ethanol dissolves readily in water, helping make delicious drinks. This water solubility is a key difference with oil, which remains concentrated and localized until human intervention removes it. If the Exxon Valdez had been carrying ethanol, the entire contents would have melted away into the vast hydrosphere within days if not hours, and would have been consumed by naturally occurring bacteria (did I mention ethanol is biodegradable?), leaving no trace. Back in our unnecessarily oil-dependent world, the Valdez is still killing wildlife as sea otters eat contaminated shellfish. Leaks from cars and oil stations leave foul, rainbow colored oil slicks at roadside puddles, and such pollution is rife in waterways frequented by recreational watercraft. Meanwhile millions of gallons of methanol (the main ingredient in windshield wiper fluid) is dumped into the environment each year, without a peep from environmentalists, because it is physically impossible for alcohol to cause water pollution.

The carbon dioxide emitted by burning ethanol comes from plants. It is part of the carbon cycle, already in the biosphere, and would have returned to the atmosphere anyway – it is no net gain in greenhouse gas. By contrast the carbon dioxide from gasoline was once, in effect, sequestered far underground, and would have, if undisturbed by man, have remained out of the atmosphere forever (in human terms) – each molecule is new, additional net CO2.

Even if you are a man-made global warming skeptic, the above examples should show that there is a LOT more than a dime’s worth of benefit from ethanol.

And of course there is far more than just the environment at stake. Any conservative, especially not one hog-tied to rigid dogma, should leap at the opportunity to de-fund OPEC by endorsing an affordable and viable alternate fuel source.

For more information, read former NASA rocket scientist and nuclear engineer Robert Zubrin’s book “Energy Victory” or see EnergyVictory.net

You’re shifting the goal posts again.  The issue isn’t when renewables will beat coal (nuclear is a lot closer, and is also carbon-free), it’s whether adding electric vehicles to the grid is the environmental disaster you claim it is.  I notice that your claim is very poorly supported, and you engage in a lot of evasions when questioned on the specifics.  If this is how you write when submitting for peer review, I’m amazed you get anything published.

Since electricity is fungible, we can look at the sources of generation which are expanding and matched to the characteristics of EVs.  Wind stands out on this list.  In recent years, the USA has been adding enough wind power every year to power something like 40% of the new vehicle fleet (a figure which is much higher of late).  US wind capacity has been doubling roughly every 2 years; even if the installation rate levels off soon, it’s obvious that it will remain far ahead of PHEV production.  EVs put energy into storage rather than feeding an immediate load, so they are very well suited to soak up energy from an unschedulable source like wind (or solar); so long as the batteries are charged when the vehicle is needed next, the minute-by-minute charge rate is not important.

Last, we don’t need to worry about zeroing out the carbon emissions from vehicles right away.  All we need to do is establish a falling trend, or the basis for it.  Again, the per-mile carbon emissions of electric vehicles can be changed after the fact by changing the grid mix, which is more or less impossible with any other type of vehicle.  The EV can even be made carbon-negative by burning biomass to make electricity and sequestering the carbon.

Austin is a neat town.  I lived there for about a year.

sinz54:  Go back to the Chevy Volt again.  One car, runs on electricity when you have it and gas when you don’t.  Gets 50 MPG once it switches over to liquid fuel.  Your trip to your girlfriend’s would burn about 0.2 gallon over the final 10 miles, for an average fuel economy of 250 MPG.  What part of your life would be left unserved by such a vehicle?

You assert that NYC isn’t Regina (or Saskatoon).  That’s true (though NYC could benefit IMO if it were more like Regina), but I don’t see how that’s relevant.  NYC has electricity and other infrastructure.  Billing systems made to serve public parking will handle city streets as easily as shopping malls.  About the only thing I can see NYC needing more than others is armored cables and locking connectors to defeat vandalism and tampering, but it is in no way a special case even there.

The cost of electricity is equivalent to gasoline at about 75¢/gallon.  Wiring costs money, but at near-future costs of $3/gallon even a cost of $1000 per space would be paid back with about 2 years of fuel savings.  Where else can you get 50%/year return on investment?

And pardon this, but I have to test the allowed HTML here.
Italic blockquote
List oneTwo.

You live only 15 miles from your place of work. You might as well bicycle, and save even more energy. Or buy a motorcycle.

In California, many folks live 50-60 miles from where they work.

In Massachusetts, I lived roughly 50 miles from my girlfriend.

Suburban sprawl makes a car with a 70 mile cruising range useless.

And nobody is going to buy two cars–one for long trips, one for short trips–if they only drive one car at a time. Except the affluent.

That’s all an electric car is–a toy for those who want to show off their environmental consciousness. I can see the bumper stickers on it now: “My Other Car Is A Prius.”

The issue isn’t slowing the consumption of oil. If that were the issue, we would switch to ethanol or propane or natural gas. The issue is global warming. Those alternatives produce somewhat less greenhouse gases than gasoline, but not enough to satisfy environmentalists, so that takes care of that.

Of course, they’re novelties for tourists to toodle around downtown Austin.

But the Segway has problem. It had to create its own need. If you gave Segways away, you probably still wouldn’t see that many in use.

Electric cars? If someone gave me one, I’d use it. The better ones tend to have a 70 mile range – I live about 15 miles from work. I’d rely on it for 80% of my weekly transportation, while still keeping the Ford Freestyle for camping trips or driving down to visit family in SA or whatever. And an awful lot of suburbanites would do the same.

Thisi isn’t about wholly swapping out one fleet for another. It’s about alternatives, and slowing the consumption of oil, which is a non-renewable resource that has its uses we can’t replace (I’m not expecting to see an electric, or even fuel cell, jet airliner anytime soon).

A well-accepted study by the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defense Council concludes:
– the rampup of EV charging will be slow enough that it won’t lead to power shortages; and
– 1 mile driven on grid power from ANY generating source is lower in carbon than 1 mile driven on gasoline in a 25-mpg car

For more detail, see here:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-grid/how-green-is-my-plugin