Should people switch to electric cars for the environment?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should people switch to electric cars for the environment?
Position‹2 of 2: No, people should not switch to electric cars
Argument1 of 2›: Electricity requires fossil fuels

Fossil fuels are the biggest sources of fuel in the world. They power vehicles, which are needed for transportation. They also power electricity.

The argument

The argument accepts that electric cars burn no fuel themselves and locates the emissions one step back in the chain. Although electric cars don't directly consume fossil fuels, they consume them indirectly. The electricity that moves the car has to be generated somewhere, and it comes from the processing of fossil fuels in power plants. Moving the combustion from the vehicle to the generating station changes where the fuel is burned, not whether it is burned. What looks like a clean vehicle at the kerbside is a vehicle whose emissions are produced out of sight. The consequence is that adoption increases rather than decreases the demand on that system. Each car added to the fleet is a new continuous draw on the grid, so having electric cars will increase the need for electricity, and meeting that increased need means more fossil fuels will be burned at the plants supplying it. In the United Kingdom it's estimated that in 15 years, one electric car will increase the need for electricity by 3%. That figure is what makes the scale of the problem visible. The environmental case for switching depends on the substitution being a net improvement, but if each vehicle enlarges electricity demand while that electricity is still generated by burning fossil fuels, the gain at the tailpipe is offset by an increase at the power station. The emissions have been relocated rather than eliminated. Until the generating system itself no longer depends on fossil fuels, proponents argue, the premise of the switch does not hold. Since there's fossil fuels still being used to produce the electricity, electric cars shouldn't replace regular cars.

Premises

[P1]Electric cars don't burn fossil fuels directly but consume them indirectly, since their electricity is generated by processing fossil fuels in power plants. [P2] More electric cars means more demand for electricity—an estimated 3% rise in the UK within 15 years from a single car's worth—so more fossil fuels would be burned. [C] Therefore, because electricity still requires fossil fuels, people should not switch to electric cars.

Counter-arguments

Although electricity is made by the burning of fossil fuels, moving the concentration of fossil fuels will fix a part of the problem. If electric cars don’t produce carbon emissions, then scientists can focus on how to replace fossil fuel burning plants. It’s best to just eliminate fossil fuel burning cars as soon as possible.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P4] Electricity could be instead sourced from eco-friendly sources, rather than fossil fuel.