Living Like Ed - (Page 65) All that public transportation use reduces emissions dramatically. When you compare it per-passenger mile against private vehicles, public transportation produces 95 percent less carbon monoxide (CO), 90 percent less volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and about half as much carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Those savings really add up. Electric Cars There are times when I just need more flexibility than public transportation can offer, and on those occasions, I turn to my electric car. Some places are hard to reach via bus, light rail, or subway, and of course, I’m at the mercy of their schedules. Driving the electric car is also much more convenient when I need to transport a lot of stuff or heavy items. Let me be clear here: By electric car, I mean a vehicle powered exclusively by an on-board battery pack. That’s different from a hybrid vehicle, which has both an electric motor and a gasoline-powered internalcombustion engine. When I say electric car, I mean 100 percent electric. And here’s one of my favorite things about the electric car. As I’ve mentioned, I have Drive an Electric Car solar panels on the roof of my COST: from about house. The rooftop is a perfect $6,800 for a low-speed place to gather energy, and “neighborhood” that energy then gets stored in vehicle a battery system in my garage. If you charge your electric car using any kind of green power—by using solar panels like I have on my roof, or by buying green power from your utility company (more on that in Chapter 4, “Energy”)—then your electric car can be a true, 100 percent zero-emissions vehicle. Now technically, by definition, a zero-emissions vehicle creates zero pollution while it’s in use. (As in all things, there’s still pollution created in building the vehicle and in transporting it to the dealership, and so on.) But a zero-emissions vehicle, or ZEV, creates zero pollution while you own and drive it because it produces 65 2: transportation can’t make gasoline on the roof of your house, but you can make electricity on the roof of your
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