Our Opinion: Shortsighted view of aiding environment

Are environmentally conscious motorists being shortsighted?

A new study suggests the owners of all-electric cars are oblivious to the source of their mobility.

According to an Associated Press story in Wednesday's News Tribune, if the electricity "comes from coal, the electric cars produce 3.6 times more soot and smog deaths than gas, because of the pollution made in generating the electricity, according to a study published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

The study also found those vehicles "significantly worse at heat-trapping carbon dioxide that worsens global warming."

We have no particular disdain for electric or hybrid vehicles.

But just as the Division of Motor Vehicles requires nearsighted or farsighted motorists to wear corrective lenses, so car buyers should have a clear vision of whether their ostensibly "green" vehicle is, in reality, environmentally friendly.

"Unfortunately," said Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institute for Science, "when a wire is connected to an electric vehicle at one end and a coal-fired power plant at the other end, the environmental consequences are worse than driving a gasoline-powered car."

Julian Marshall, an engineering professor at the University of Minnesota and a co-author of the study, said: "A lot of technologies that we think of as being clean ... are not better than gasoline."

Environmentalists likely will answer that the solution is to replace the coal-fired power plants with renewable energy sources, including wind, solar and hydroelectric.

We don't disagree, but the merits and economics of that argument are a topic for another time.

The point of the study is the all-electric car doesn't come in green if it taps electricity created by coal.