Quite OT: NYTimes.com Article: TV Ads Say S.U.V. Owners Support Terrorists

[nealtovsen@yahoo.com (Neal)]

> The making of and disposal of the current batteries and other electronic
> equipment used in these is very hard on the environment.  Even though the
> pollution has been moved from the car to the factory doesn't make it any
> better, yet many greeners are ignorant of this form of pollution.  An
> electric engine is much more environmentally unfriendly to make than a
> combustion engine.
>
> Of course fuel cells and hydrogen based engines will be a lot
> better for the
> enviro than current batteries.

What you say is true, but one key thing is that it is MUCH easier to control
pollution at a few large power plants than it is to control in 50 million
vehicles running around America's highways. As technology improves,
powerplants and factories can be retrofitted quickly and have almost
instantaneous positive environmental impact. However, even if they started
selling only 0-emission cars tomorrow, it'd take 20+ years to get 95% of the
gas cars off the road.

Neal