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Comment by eddieh | Hacker News Reader

Flagstaff, AZ gets electricity from the Cholla Power Plant in Northern Arizona. The plant burns coal and is considered one of the dirtiest power stations in the nation.

Just consider that owning a Tesla or any plug-in electric in Flagstaff is completely backwards.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but quick calculation indicates that Tesla using only energy from Cholla (one of the dirtiest plants in the US) would produce about the same amount of CO2 (13.6kg per 100km) as 5L/100km car (Ford Fiesta) would produce (12kg per 100km).

As you can probably improve your electricity mix quite easily, it sounds like that from fuel CO2 emission perspective, electric car is always at least as good choice as gasoline car.

Once you factor in the environmental cost associated with production, I'm not sure it's as clear cut. Batteries are nasty.

They can also be recycled almost indefinitely.

I'm not aware that lithium batteries can be recycled at all?

Lithium ion batteries have been recyclable for a while now-- Best Buy has receptacles for used ones. It's been slow to get off the ground because virgin production is still rather cheap.

Hm. This article seems to say that no process is available yet. Perhaps they're not being 'recycled' but re-used? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214993714...

There is no process for recycling /automotive/ lithium ion batteries, but that's because their use is so recent--the first commercially available lithium ion EV (Tesla Roadster) wasn't released until 2008. However, EV batteries are essentially the same as commodity lithium ion batteries (e.g. stacks of 18650 cells that you can buy on Amazon), and those have been recycled for a while.

From a city pollution point of view, it is not, as you have no exhaust. And you are only a power plant upgrade away to have all cars automatically "switch".

Actually, from a city pollution point of view, cars registered in Flagstaff do not even have to pass smog. Flagstaff does not suffer from pollution like much larger metropolitan areas. The local environment is completely beside the point anyway.

We're not replacing coal power stations. It isn't an "upgrade" away. Our energy demand is increasing so any new stations supplement rather than replace existing power stations. The stakeholder wouldn't shutdown a power station before its lifetime anyway. They need to recoup their investment. The current operational units at the station will not be shutdown until 2025 and they'll probably add more to extend the lifetime of the station.

And furthermore, if the plant was to be supplemented with solar, where do you think the energy will come from at night when the car is plugged in?

> And furthermore, if the plant was to be supplemented with solar, where do you think the energy will come from at night when the car is plugged in?

Eventually, stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage

Why do you think Tesla is getting in the battery business as well? Energy storage will become extremely important as we move away from fossil fuel energies.

> We're not replacing coal power stations. It isn't an "upgrade" away. Our energy demand is increasing so any new stations supplement rather than replace existing power stations.

Ontario, Canada (where I live) shut down its last coal plant in 2014 and our nighttime electricity costs US$0.0669 per kWh.

We did it by not being irrational wimps about Nuclear.

http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/en/ontarios-electricity-system/c...

https://www.cns-snc.ca/media/ontarioelectricity/ontarioelect...

> We're not replacing coal power stations. It isn't an "upgrade" away. Our energy demand is increasing so any new stations supplement rather than replace existing power stations.

That's simply wrong. Cheap natural gas has been choking off coal all over the country. Plants have been closing as a result and every year since we have generated less electricity from coal than the year prior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_State...

> In the first quarter of 2012, the use of coal for electricity generation declined substantially more, 21% from 2011 levels.

That's true, you're right. Overall coal use is declining, but it has be well established that at night when electric cars are charging you're probably getting power from even cheaper coal that could come from several states away, even if you don't happen to have coal plants in your state.

It's still much more efficient than if all of the cars had been running gasoline engines.

Are you also in Flagstaff? I've been surprised by the number of Tesla's I see given that one likely has several hours of charging to look forward to to get to Phoenix and back.

Went to school in Flagstaff.

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