Saturday, October 31, 2015

Coal burners

I wish people would stop labelling electric cars as 'coal burners'. Yes, we are quite aware that some jurisdictions get their electricity from coal. But our dryers, air conditioners, fans, ovens, stoves, TVs, and computers are all coal burners in this context as well. Nobody is decrying the use of coal burning computers or big screen televisions.

Also, I would venture that there is a much smaller environmental footprint burning coal with scrubbers than extracting oil out of the ground, or worse, mining it in the case of oil sands, or fracking it by injecting who knows what into the ground. Never mind moving the oil by rail or pipeline to a refinery and turning it into gasoline, which then needs to be delivered everywhere, while all along risking spills and other environmental disasters like leaking underground gasoline storage tanks. I have yet to read about any electricity spills en route to my house.

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