NY Post: The Chevy Volt Could Lead to Blackouts

You know the story the other day that the Chevrolet Volt is going to get something like 230 miles to the gallon?

Adam Victor in the New York Post:

“Sorry, the new Chevrolet Volt does not promise a ‘green’ revolution — indeed, the car could trigger a whole new wave of blackouts…

“Chevrolet notes that the key to high-mileage performance to the tune of 230 miles per gallon ‘is for a Volt driver to plug into the electric grid at least once each day’ to get ’40 miles of electric-only, petroleum-free driving.'”

Forty miles on the battery, but you plug it in every day to do that in order to get up to 230 miles per gallon.

“But that won’t be ‘petroleum-free’ in much of the country — because so many utilities use heavy fuel oil to generate that electricity,”

not to mention coal.

“At current electricity-production levels, these plants emit as much as hundreds of thousands of cars on the road each day. If a few thousand well-meaning dupes plug a few thousand new Chevy Volts into electrical outlets (especially in urban centers), you could actually add millions of pounds of dangerous, dirty, unregulated pollution and carbon into the air,”

and you could cause the grid to black out with the added demand for electricity. If the electricity grid can’t handle the added load, then look out.  And, of course, this only stands to reason.  Okay, we got an electric car.

“Yeah, no gasoline! No petroleum! Less pollution!  Plug it in.”  What powers the plug?  What powers the socket?

Dupes is the right word.