Because I REALLY want to drive something that looks like THAT...

Oops – the law of unintended consequences at work – again. What they mean, of course, is that electric cars may cause more emissions of harmless carbon dioxide, which may (or may not) have a significant and/or dangerous effect on the climate. Either way, it’s hilarious, because governments are pushing electric cars as yet another panacea for saving the planet, but just like wind farms, it turns out to be an illusion:

Electric cars are not a silver bullet solution for global warming, but could they actually be part of the problem?  In some developing countries, the answer is likely “yes,” according to the results of a modeling exercise conducted by Oxford University’s Reed Doucette and Malcolm McCullocha.

The results, which appeared in a paper published in Energy Policy last Fall, found that for countries with dirty power supplies – like India and China – widespread adoption of electric vehicles could lead to more – not less – CO2 emissions compared to widespread adoption of gasoline based vehicles, unless dramatically less CO2 intensive.

“Given the state of their power generation mixes in 2010, the case for widespread adoption of [electric vehicles] in both China and India solely on the basis of potential CO2 emissions reductions is not too compelling, especially when the generally higher capital cost of [electric vehicles] relative to [gasoline]-based vehicles is considered,” Doucette and Malcolm McCulloch concluded. (source)

It’s isn’t compelling anywhere else, either…

(h/t Climate Change Dispatch)

No conflict of interest there, clearly

Feathering Your Own Nest Alert: A new report claims that only electric cars, using power generated from renewable sources or fossil fuels with carbon capture, can achieve a 60% emissions cut in Australia by 2050.

So who produced the report? Only one of the largest manufacturers of electric motors on the planet, Siemens.

Read it here.