Frugal and Energy Efficient Living

emits driving an average amount over the car's lifetime. So if you can figure out how to do without a car, that would be a big deal for the environment (though if you use taxis or Ubers one has to figure that the car use per trip in miles is as much as double what it would be if you had a car -- because the Uber driver has to drive to your place, and then when done with you, drive to its next pickup point, and I read that about 1/2 of an Uber driver's mileage is other than carrying a customer. Or was it 60%?

On most U.S. electric grids, an E.V. is not much cleaner as far as GHG emissions than an ICE car, given the low 30-40% efficiency of the electric power plants, and that the load-following plants on an electric power system are mostly fossil fueled. But that will change with time, but right now EV's are not that much cleaner when all that -- and transmission line losses from the power plant to where you charge your car -- are considered.

But if you charge mostly overnight, and are on a grid with a sizable amount of wind energy, I think the picture is much improved because a lot of wind is dumped during low-load nighttime hours by utilities -- and by charging at night, that's that much less wind energy that is dumped. An environmental freebie.

During higher-load daytime hours, the wind energy is used to the maximum of its capacity, likewise solar; and any increment of the utility's system load (such as caused by charging a car) will come from fossil-fueled plants. (I worked in the planning and the system operations departments of an electric utility).