# Dirty Electric Cars Powered By Dirty Coal



## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

_Another one of my annoying myth-busting articles. _

One of the most common questions electric vehicle proponents are asked is, “Aren’t you just moving the pollution from the tailpipe to the smokestack?”, when it comes to using electricity generated from burning coal.
Most people are aware that coal is a dirty way to produce electricity, but
More...


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

Hey Gav, 
It is interesting, to me, to go to the rest of the story and then see all of the smoke stacks in the top picture.

Except that there are only 2 smoke stack looking towers.

The rest are the wide tapered COOLING TOWERS that emit only water vapor!!!!

We have 2 of them at our Byron Nuke plant and when they are cooling the water they emit water vapor and some people even around here think is is SMOKE!!!!!!!

This country has not seen coal pollution as bad as it was when all of the steam locomotives ran. Also most every home back in the early '40s burned coal around here in the midwest.

You couldn't even hang out your wash, to dry back then, on certain days.

Coal can be burned clean.


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## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

Coley said:


> Hey Gav,
> It is interesting, to me, to go to the rest of the story and then see all of the smoke stacks in the top picture.
> 
> Except that there are only 2 smoke stack looking towers.
> ...


Very true. The cooling towers simply release steam. The image used was playing into the notion about coal being dirty for EVs, before explaining further down the story.

You're also right about cleanliness. Apart from Co2 there are new efficient coal power plants able to capture almost all the particulate matter released during operation by using filters.
Interestingly, China are building a new power plant almost weekly, though most of these are reported to be the new cleaner coal plants with particulate filtration.


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