Al Gore's group pushes for plug in vehicles in new Repower America ad
Click above and scroll down to watch the video
A Prius or three, a Tesla Roadster, and at least two RAV4 EVs. Those are the cars starring in a new commercial from Al Gore's "Re-power America" campaign (a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection). This ad, totally pro plug-in vehicle and renewable energy, started running on TV stations nationwide during President Obama's inauguration yesterday. Plug In America's Paul and Zan Scott are the proud owners of the RAV4 EV that the actor/mechanic plugs a charging cable into at the end of the clip (and seen above). Former AutoblogGreen blogger Marc Geller has his own blog called, appropriately enough, Plugs And Cars and he has a post about the new commercial and notes that The Alliance has, "the budget to really move the national conversation about the future of cars away from the well-funded distractions of hydrogen, fuel cells, natural gas and ethanol." You can watch the video after the jump.
[Source: Plug In America, Plugs And Cars]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Carney 3:32PM (1/21/2009)
Strange that Al Gore, crusading foe of coal, would champion a method of pushing cars around that involves sending the energy into the car from the electric grid,
HALF OF WHICH IS POWERED BY COAL.
Compared to that, the status quo of gasoline is superior, at least from an environmental perspective.
From a national security and economic perspective, of course, our transportation fuel being controlled by OPEC is a nightmare.
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meme 3:51PM (1/21/2009)
You must be new here. No, it's not. Study after study after study has shown that because of the greater efficiency of power plants in comparison to ICEs, even when half of your power comes from coal, it's still a far better solution. For example, the PNL/DOE study found that 84% of Americans could switch to PHEVs on our *current* grid, and the net result would be a ~30% decrease in CO2, a 1/3 increase in particulate matter, SOx would stay the same, NOx would slightly decrease, and CO and VOCs would be nearly eliminated. Furthermore, the emissions that did occur would be more displaced from the population and thus affect health significantly less.
Secondly, which is easier: cleaning up a few hundred power plants or a few hundred million individual tailpipes? This one is obvious ;)
Chris M 4:49PM (1/21/2009)
In California, less than 40% of electric power comes from coal, and the percentage is dropping as the amount of solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal is increasing. The result is that EVs here just keep getting cleaner and greener.
Fossil fueled power plants can take advantage of several efficiency boosting techniques that are too large and heavy to use on automobiles, so they have much higher efficiency than IC engines in vehicles. The distribution grid and batteries and electric motors are also highly efficient, the result is the overall efficiency of EVs is much higher than IC engines, even when powered by fossil fuel sources. That means lower CO2 emissions as well.
As for other pollutants, it is much easier to clean up a single large stationary smokestack than to clean up thousands of tailpipes.
Carney 8:42AM (1/22/2009)
Good points, thanks, meme.
In my opinion, despite the displacement that a tall and hopefully remote smokestack offers, a 30% increase in particulate matter is unacceptable.
I recall when doing something about smog and conventional air pollution was a central, driving concern of the environmental movement. To all but abandon it, and even accept substantially worsening it, in favor of lowering CO2 emissions is a surprising turnaround.
I would note that switching to alcohol fuels constitutes a much easier path forward than electric, with the added benefit of not only substantial reductions in CO2, but also of particulate matter as well (alcohols emit none of the latter when burned).
Stan Wellaway 4:22PM (1/21/2009)
Even with coalfired electricity, and even after distant grid transmiussion losses, it STILL works out cleaner and greener than drilling and shipping and processing oil and burning it in an engine that thows so much of it away as heat and fumes.
We can progressively improve our electricity generation sources, which make it even better to drive EVs. But don't use delayed progress at one end of the chain for denying all progress at the other end of it. We can work on both.
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Matt Lenart 5:57PM (1/21/2009)
exciting stuff. awareness is key, and once enough ppl demand it, it will become an option.
as for the whole coal argument... the existing grid wouldn't be taxed w/ scheduled off-peak EV charging since its cheaper to keep the plants running instead of shutting them down overnight and restarting them in the morning. when a smart grid becomes reality in the future, then your argument will make more sense.
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DanY 9:52PM (1/21/2009)
Like its been proven many times, even using "dirty" electricity to move from A to B makes a lot of sense. Using energy efficient EV, like a scooter or bike brings pollution to amounts we havent seen for a century or two. I calculated my e-bike uses about 3 cents worth of electrons to go 20 miles. The future is electric no matter what the lobbyists would like ppl to believe. For all those who have said here electric cars work on coal, try switching the source, e.g.:
http://www.bullfrogpower.com/
I'm sure it exists in States as well and the first green minded EV adopters wont likely have a problem making their ride entirely pollution free.
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occ 10:55PM (1/21/2009)
Carney,
Now that you are aware you're making false and misleading comments about oil/gas cars being environmentally cleaner than EVs, even with 50% coal generated electricity. please educate yourself more on why that is so...the facts are all over the internet.
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bill 10:04AM (1/22/2009)
Yes, I am also confused about this push for plug in cars while, at the same time, we are pushing to reduce our available energy. Apparently a person does not have to be grounded in reality to be green.
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david burgdorff 5:08PM (1/22/2009)
I agree that plug-in hybrids would be better for the environment than gasoline. However given that the price of these cars will mean that only perhaps a million will be on the roads in ten years, isn't the natural gas car much better for the environment? If the govenment gets behind these cars we can have several million CNG cars on the roads in the same period of time resulting in less foreign oil, cleaner air, and less CO2. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, but in my case, I can't imagine spending $38,000 on a car with no possible payback. I'm hoping that Obama gets better advice than that given by Al Gore.
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