[bkanber]

> Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

As of two years ago the only country where that was the case was India. Right before that, South Africa and China both became clean enough for EVs to be an environmental net positive.

Power produced in the US is some of the cleanest in the world, and getting cleaner every day as coal plants are decommissioned. We are well above the environmental net benefit line.

> Driving electric cars instead of hybrids in areas where the electricity is primarily derived from unclean sources is not better than hybrids for the environment.

There are no longer significant areas where this is the case. Even most coal markets in the US are clean enough (not sure what will happen with new de-regulations). The US, on average, is by far clean enough.

Source: I'm a hybrid vehicle powertrain engineer

[kriro]

The entire clean energy argument depends on your classification of nuclear energy. Long term storage issues put it squarely in the unclean category for me so I'd argue that US energy is by and large pretty unclean. I'm also pricing in the expected value of meltdowns in my unclean rating. It's hard to quantify exactly but the black swan events have pretty catastrophic consequences for the environment. Since I've witnessed two very severe ones in my lifetime, one in what many people would call a technically very advanced country I don't think it's unreasonable. If you think that's tinfoilhat-crazy, fell free to talk to an insurance or reinsurance company about insuring nuclear plants fur a fon conversation.

[bkanber]

Nuclear power is only 20% of US energy production.

Nuclear waste is a political problem, not a scientific or engineering one. We're not allowed to recycle it the way we want. Blame President Carter.

Coal power puts more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear does.

You have no idea how to "price" the cost of meltdowns into your "unclean" rating. TMI's incident did not have any effect on public safety.

I don't think it's tinfoil-hat-crazy, I just think it's uninformed.

[kriro]

Just to clarify. the two incidents I was referring to were Chernobyl and Fukushima (as they are INES 7). The Three Mile you mention was "only" INES 5. I'd argue it's still pretty bad but INES 7 is what I'd consider the black swan events.