So in part 1 of this article, I wrote about several car companies that were making the leap into the Plug-In Hybrid business with cars and SUV’s. In Part 2, I want to discuss the eventual results of these technological enhancements and how they may affect the world at large.

First, we’ll start by saying that the current infrastructure we have in the United States will not be enough to support future growth of the automotive sector.

Automobiles that require a plug-in jack will require electricity from power plants, and the added drain on the current power grid would most likely not leave enough electricity for everyone. Even today, many parts of the country have difficulty keeping up with demand for electricity, and the added strain on the system would most likely cause brown outs in many parts of the United States.

Ultimately, this means we need more power plants, and that electricity will become more expensive as demand increases. Coal and nuclear power are the two most likely utilities to be affected by this change, and it wouldn’t surprise to see a change in the pricing of these utilities even within the next few years.

The positive side of moving from gas power automobiles to coal and nuclear power plants is the resulting drop in carbon emissions. Air quality across much of the US will increase. Pollution caused by the power plants themselves will rise, but will only affect localized areas.

As paraphrased in an article by one author:

One criticism of plug-ins is that, by shifting fuel consumption from cars to electric utilities, they potentially concentrate particulates and other nasty emissions in certain geographical areas. The study mostly allays these concerns. A small number of areas do see an increase in pollutants, but the large majority of the U.S. will experience a meaningful improvement in air quality.

One final result of moving from a traditional gas engine to electric hybrid is the ability to build these vehicles with the idea of using non-traditional fuels such as ethanol blend or biodiesel, both of which are renewable resources and burn cleaner than traditional fuels.

As stated in the study above, adopting plug-in technology could result in about 10% of the carbon exhaust reductions we need to stabilize the climate.