Bay Foundation Touts Coal Fired Automobile

Sales of Electric Cars Multiply, Leaving Clean Water in Wake

Tom Pelton of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation actually wrote this little piece of "car porn"

“Alright. So let’s start up the engine,” I said to the salswoman.

“Now the car’s on,” she replied.

“So it’s on?” I said, baffled. “ I didn’t hear anything.”

Saleswoman: “There is nothing. When you’re ready we can shift down into drive and pull out of the spot.”

Anybody with any experience with a Prius is also familiar with this phenomenon.  I seriously doubt that anyone as environmentally conscious as Pelton could have avoided a ride in a Prius for the last 10 years.

The Tesla is a high-tech, luxury ride worthy of James Bond. The electric motor of a Model S is not only quiet. It is also incredibly powerful, with acceleration so intense, I felt like someone was pressing on my chest.

Oooooh, aaaah....

But to be fair he also dealt somewhat with the fact that, at least in the Chesapeake Bay Region, a significant amount of the electricity used to charge electric cars is produced by coal burning:

Alexis Georgeson, the Tesla spokeswoman, also answered a nagging question I had about electric cars: How green are they, really, if they run on electricity that comes in part from coal-fired power plants, which spew air pollution?

Georgeson said that an increasing amount of America’s electricity is coming from natural gas and wind, which are cleaner than coal.

The majority of the natural gas becoming available now it due to fracking, and it wouldn't do to remind anyone of the Bay Foundation's position on fracking, would it?

Hey, you know what makes electricty in large amounts without producing pollution?  Nuclear. Why doesn't the Foundation support nuclear energy?

“We also recommend that our owners put a couple of solar panels on their home,” Georgeson said. “Then drivers can be entirely off the grid, and they can charge their Model S for free, and have absolutely no emissions.”

And who would charge their cars during the day, when the sun shines, and drive to work and do shopping and other errands after dark?

So much fluff, so little time.