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Comment by vel0city | Hacker News Reader

About 30% of the energy that goes to power my car comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Another 10% comes from nuclear. A little over 40% comes from mostly combined cycle natural gas plants. Slightly less than 20% comes from coal.

On top of that, because of the efficiency of my car and the plants running, I get the equivalent energy usage of about 100MPG for an ICE.

The break even emissions on my car including manufacturing given this kind of mix is within a few years. If I drive the car for 5+ years (most likely), it'll be way lower emissions than my ICE driving for 5+ years. Meanwhile in the next 5+ years, chances are the mix of renewables will increase. Maybe even nuclear. Chances are the coal plants will close soon though.

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So...couple things.

1) I am jealous you live somewhere where nuclear is an option. In most states in the US, nuclear power is decreasing.

2) Natural gas isn't any better than coal.

3) Coal won't go away as long as conservatives are in power in the house - they love coal.

4) I think ICE vs Electric greatly depends on how much you use your car. I drive maybe once or twice a week, only city - I am going to be constantly having to charge my car since the battery will go dead if you leave it unplugged in cold weather (Michigan). A tank of gas lasts me for like 3 months. There is no way EV would be better for the environment.

> 3) Coal won't go away as long as conservatives are in power in the house - they love coal.

Doesn't matter what politicians think. As long as they don't start giving coal away or pure subsidies for it, if coal keeps being more expensive than natural gas, its share will keep going down. The force of the market decides.

And the more natural gas, the more methane that is leaked into the atmosphere, which is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Coal will continue to decline if its unprofitable to run the coal plants, which it often is. If open to market forces, which in my state it probably is too open to market forces but that's another story, things like coal will die out compared to renewables and natural gas.

And, yes, natural gas while it has its issues is still better than coal. Even with the leakages, which theoretically could be fixed. Coal causes a bigger nuclear issue than nuclear power plants. There's so many ways in which natural gas is better than coal, but I do agree natural gas still has climate change impacts and is ultimately non-renewable and not sustainable for much longer timescales.

As for your car, you may not drive it many miles. But you're going to sell it eventually I'd imagine. And then that person is going to probably drive an average usage on it. So that car is probably still going to end up hitting its break even point unless you only end up driving it 10,000mi and then crush it after you're done with it.

Just FYI I drive my EV that much in an urban area (with the occasional longer drive for outdoor activities, trips, or buying used things far away) and there's no way the battery will discharge in that time. My previous 25 year old ICE car was always in danger of the battery discharging because I didn't drive long enough to charge it from the engine.

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