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Hi all,

Got a question from a friend interested in hybrids, possibly a future prius II/III owner. :D The question was regarding PHEV - if the electricity for the plug-in comes from coal or another "dirty" source, is it still cleaner re: emissions than running on gasoline at SULEV? SULEV-2? Where is the break-even point? Any hard data would be most appreciated. :flag:

Hi Jered:

___Because a PHEV is at least 3X’s more efficient then a gasoline based anything and NOx/PM/HC controls at a Coal plant are controlled as good as a million catalytic converters including our SULEV-2’s, power from the grid is much cleaner overall. Sherry Boshert’s (sorry if I butchered her name?) book as well as any number of studies from ARB (CA. Air Resources Board), ANL (Argonne National Labs), NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) have done the well/coal seam to wheel studies proving it again and again. If you want to find a good source for links, I believe Calcars.org (http://www.calcars.org/) has a number of them to drill down to individual studies. Googling your question will lead you to many of the same.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

From http://featured.matter-mag.com/2007/2/plug-hybrids-will-power-grid.cfm:
Even if the electricity used to charge plug-in hybrids is produced primarily from fossil fuels, burning that fuel at the power plant, rather than in a car's engine, is more efficient: The "well to wheel" efficiency of vehicles powered by electricity generated from natural gas and coal is superior to that of petroleum vehicles (31 and 22 percent versus 13 percent respectively), according to data from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

And like Wayne just said, searching the Net for this topic will provide you with hours of reading.