[jd]

> It's always seemed crazy to me that just because electric cars are non-polluting, people forget that dangling on the other end of that charging cable is probably a coal-fired power station.

I don't think that's crazy at all. Think of it as "refactoring" the environmental burden. First you move the energy generation from individual cars to a central energy source. If the energy source (coal in this case) is terrible you won't immediately get a big benefit. However, you have separated the environmental impact of energy generation from combustion motors to a central power plant. So now when you build an infrastructure of clean sources of power: nuclear, geothermal, wind, solar all your cars get the benefit automatically. This is good design. Separation of concerns!

The fact that we're burning coal in this day and age is crazy, of course. Especially given that nuclear power plants are being shut down in favor of coal. Environmental policy isn't exactly rational, but highly politicized issues never are.

[gurkendoktor]

> This is good design. Separation of concerns!

I'm not convinced that this is necessarily true for environmental policy. Imagine, for example, how much people would care about their waste footprint if they had to keep all the trash that would otherwise go into an ocean.

Once we have no idea anymore where the power in our cars comes from, and no visible pollution in the street that we know is caused by cars, won't the search for a better power source slow down a lot?

"Not in my neighbourhood" etc... :)

[sopooneo]

We also have to consider how we move our "concerns" from one place to another. Tanker ships and trucks for petrol, metal wire for electricity. Neither is super efficient.