Even though gas prices have come back down to earth, the price spike and the rising green movement has us all thinking about alternative energy. Miles Per Gallon is now forever a factor in car sales, and electric motors are getting held up as the Holy Grail. But how pollutant is that good old gas burner in your driveway? And how perfect is this dream of an electric future?

If you’ve heard of the Chevy Volt, the Tesla Roadster, or the Fisker Karma then you know how much electrics have reached public consciousness. And while those cars want to seem normal in spite of their powerplant, cars like the Mitsubishi “iMiev” are coming which would have seemed impossible on US roads in days past.

And I can’t help but think this is all great marketing and nothing more. Electric cars are presented as the end of pollution and the best way for man to reduce our “global carbon footprint”. Combustion Cars have been raised to the highest level of scape-goat. But in truth, they are not even close to the biggest culprit, only the most visible.

Heavy Industry, specifically coal-fired plants, are the biggest creators of CO2 and “particular matter” which man spews into the atmosphere. Take all our cars, park them, and we’ll still be killing the planet by running our lights and microwaves, dishwashers, TVs, and PS3s. We don’t see how all that power gets created, but over 40% of US electrical power comes from coal-burning plants. And elsewhere in the world, demand for coal-fired plants is increasing.

So if the whole world went to electric cars we haven’t solved the problem at all. We’ve just shifted the blame.

If you’re climate conscious, it’s easy to glance at the car in your driveway and think “I need to do my part”. Yet, we never think of turning off lights or investigating the source of our electricity to bring about climate change. If we all plugged our cars in at night it would require more electricity than we’re using now! Those Coal-burning plants would keep cranking away in some other county, state, or country and creating the pollutants we think we’ve stopped.

It’s the Prius-factor all over again. People believing that the choice they can see makes a bigger difference than the consequence they don’t see.

The Environment News Service keeps track of all the powerplants across the U.S. and their pollutant output. In a year, powerplants create about 2.5 Billion tons of CO2. That’s billion. With a “b”. Meaning 12 zeros. Car output is a thimble in the ocean by comparison.  In fact, all transportation combined makes up less than 16% of man made CO2.

Now we aren’t saying down with the electric car. We aren’t even saying gasoline is the only way. New technologies are exciting and worthwhile. I find the Tesla roadster riveting, and I can’t wait to drive the Volt and Karma. But if the goal is for us to pollute less, then lets worry about the things which cause the biggest problems.

Electricity doesn’t just appear at your outlet. And Coal isn’t clean, no matter how many billboards and commercials tell us otherwise. Electric cars aren’t our savior, any more than gasoline cars are our villain.

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