“I do care that electric cars are thought of as ‘more environmentally conscious’ because they don’t use gasoline when the electricity that powers these cars comes (mostly) from burning coal or natural gas!” —Personal Responsibility
Natural gas is actually really clean compared to coal, and coal only makes up 39%. This means that around 60% comes from pretty clean sources.
From http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3
In 2013, energy sources and percent share of total electricity generation were
Coal 39%
Natural Gas 27%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 6% (Wind 4.13%, Biomass 1.48%, Geothermal 0.41%, Solar 0.23%)
Petroleum 1%
Other Gases < 1%
Combustion of natural gas still produces carbon dioxide. The global warming hoaxers don’t like carbon dioxide.
“Cleaner” is not the same as “clean”. The inference drawn by those who think electric cars are “green” is that since there’s no gas, it’s totally clean, no harm done to the environment (if you accept the argument that burning fossil fuels damages the environment in the first place). That is not the case, as your stats just showed.