OT: Tesla Model 3

At the moment, renewables yield a very small fraction of the power generated in the US.  Personally, the world of nuclear power has not stood still and ultimately, I believe that modern nuclear may be the way to go. TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima were examples of very old and poorly engineered nuclear power.

Bill Gates thinks this way also.  Here is a link to a company called Terrapower which is developing travelling wave reactors that can be fueled with nuclear waste and don't create secondary products usable in weapons:

http://terrapower.com/

Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and burning it creates CO2 and NOx.

1. Don't assume electric cars have a lower footprint regardless of power plant.  Here's an interesting article showing where you should go electric vs gas down to the county level:

https://www.citylab.com/environment/2015/06/where-electric-vehicles-act…

2. I think long term, yes, you'll see a shift to EVs being better and maybe it's worth the investment now... idk.  I do believe solar will be the winner here, especially if Musk's solar roof is as advertised.  If you can't tell what is a solar panel and what is regular building material and it's not much more expenseive then I think you'll see a huge shift to solar.  But, solar can't make plastics so don't think petroleum is going away anytime soon.  Only about 45% of oil usage in the US is for cars.

Why are they shutting down? Didn't they get the threats? That's too bad, I was thinking about pushing my kid towards it, as everything I've been told was that it was making a resurgence. I guess we'll have to go back to the drawing board.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-speed

Dozens of think tanks and scientific organizations have ventured conclusions about the environmental friendliness of electric vehicles. Most are supportive, but a few are critical. For instance, Richard Pike of the Royal Society of Chemistry provocatively determined that electric cars, if widely adopted, stood to lower Britain’s carbon dioxide emissions by just 2 percent, given the U.K.’s electricity sources. Last year, a U.S. Congressional Budget Office study found that electric car subsidies “will result in little or no reduction in the total gasoline use and greenhouse-gas emissions of the nation’s vehicle fleet over the next several years.”

Electric-car makers like to point out, for instance, that their vehicles can be charged from renewable sources, such as solar energy. Even if that were possible to do on a large scale, manufacturing the vast number of photovoltaic cells required would have venomous side effects. Solar cells contain heavy metals, and their manufacturing releases greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexafluoride, which has 23 000 times as much global warming potential as CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What’s more, fossil fuels are burned in the extraction of the raw materials needed to make solar cells and wind turbines—and for their fabrication, assembly, and maintenance. The same is true for the redundant backup power plants they require. And even more fossil fuel is burned when all this equipment is decommissioned. Electric-car proponents eagerly embrace renewable energy as a scheme to power their machines, but they conveniently ignore the associated environmental repercussions.

Finally, most electric-car assessments analyze only the charging of the car. This is an important factor indeed. But a more rigorous analysis would consider the environmental impacts over the vehicle’s entire life cycle, from its construction through its operation and on to its eventual retirement at the junkyard.

Alas, these carrots can’t overcome the reality that the prices of electric cars are still very high—a reflection of the substantial material and fossil-fuel costs that accrue to the companies constructing them. And some taxpayers understandably feel cheated that these subsidies tend to go to the very rich. Amid all the hype and hyperbole, it’s time to look behind the curtain. Are electric cars really so green?

Dr. Steven Greer's "Disclosure" book. You might believe that the military/industrial complex already has the means to take humans completely off the fossil fuel dependence. Its a fascinating read. Keep an open mind and consider all of the accomplished individuals who contributed to the work.

But what about the pollution footprint of all these batteries? I don't have a lot of stats on this admittedly but the mining for rare metals is a nasty business, especially in China and other parts of the world where there is little regulation. And then the batteries die and get tossed and the batteries are leaching into the ground. My guess is what Tesla is doing are just baby steps toward what will ultimately be a solution that cuts down costs and pollution.

 Lithium batteries is a dirty business that nobody in the electric car business likes to talk about.  

So you are tell me that Sparty's football team can power my car?

Oh I'm certainly not saying it can't, just making the point that the source of battery power is relevant.