Melvin Ladousier: Embracing electric cars is foolishness

Re “Age of the all-electric Valley upon us” (Our View, Jan. 2): “This time we need to get on board early” is ill conceived foolishness. Consider how we make electricity. We have run the nuclear power industry out of this state. Environmentalist have thwarted both hydroelectric and wind generation. PG&E and other power monopolies are conspiring to limit or eliminate private investment in solar. Coal- and oil-fired power plants are the main source of our electricity. Natural gas-powered plants provide only a small share of our electricity. Therefore using electricity as the sole power source for passenger vehicles, increasing the demand for electricity, will only create more pollution than it will save because each conversion from potential energy to kinetic energy entails a loss.

Ask any physicist, chemist, or mechanical engineer. Fuel to generate electricity equals one loss. Electricity to charge a battery equals a second loss. Converting battery power to rotating wheels to move the automobile equals a third loss. The lost energy is given off as heat in each conversion. If you use anything but non-polluting energy sources to produce electricity, you exacerbate the existing pollution problem and create another by adding disposition of hazardous waste, the worn out batteries. Consider the entire system and proceed with caution.

This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Melvin Ladousier: Embracing electric cars is foolishness."