Electric Cars INCREASE Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Here comes that law of unintended consequences again. Global Warming Moonbats believe that electric cars are one of the major solutions to the problem of man made CO2 emissions causing the snow caps to melt, animals to die and blockbuster video to run out of your favorite videos.  New research show electric cars are not the answer.

The Environmental Transport Association in the UK, believes that electric cars could increase the rate of climate change, depending on how the electricity is created. In many countries when people plug in their electric car they would be plugging into a lump of coal.
The Natural Resources Defense Council in the UK reported last year that electric cars will add to CO2 levels especially if coal remains a major source of electricity. "sales of electric cars are likely to result in higher overall CO2 emissions and oil consumption." The Environmental Transport Association's bottom line for the report: if you're using coal to make electricity, then standard hybrids are better than plug-ins:

The 'dirty' electric cars that can actually increase CO2

By Ray Massey

Electric cars may not reduce carbon dioxide emissions - and could even increase them, a green lobby group warned yesterday.

The Environmental Transport Association said generating electricity - by burning coal and oil - to charge the so-called 'clean' cars could cancel out the benefit of abandoning fossil fuel vehicles.

Its report said hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius could be the 'greenest' as they do not rely on mains power to charge batteries.

Not so green machine: Electric cars that need their batteries charged from the mains may not be as environmentally friendly as first thought

It added that if electric cars become widely used, they would need a meter on the dashboard to charge motorists as they drive.

The report represents a potential blow to Gordon Brown's stated dream of making Britain 'the electric car capital of Europe'.

It also said there is potential for improvement in performance and reduction of costs in the medium term, but not enough to suggest electric cars could compete head-on with conventional vehicles within the next two decades.

Even if the National Grid has the capacity and infrastructure to meet the needs of electric cars, demand could lead to greater use of coal and nuclear power.

The report warned that European officials have assumed that electric cars are 'zero-emission', and failed to take into account the electricity they use.

But it said that once the effect of burning fossil fuels is taken into account, they actually emit more CO2 than a hybrid car.

It calculates that an electric car has emissions of 106 grams of CO2 for each kilometre used, compared with 172 grams for an average petrol car. By comparison the latest Toyota Prius hybrid car has official emissions of 89g/km.

ETA director Andrew Davis said the report was not meant to dampen enthusiasm for electric cars but 'their introduction should not be viewed as a panacea'.

 Thanks to our President, it looks like GM is switching to cars that no one wants to buy and will not even help the environment.