Apparently the President's Assistant thinks that electrical outlets are powered by pixies and fairy dust.

When I saw that the White House had a new blog/RSS feed, I signed up to see what little tidbits the Obama administration would be touting. Imagine my surprise when Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, indicated that she really thinks wall-socket power is emission free. In discussing the benefits of electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt, she says:

Because nearly 80% of Americans commute 40 miles or less a day, this car could potentially provide 80% of Americans with a zero-emissions option for their commute.

Now unless 100% of the power in the US is now nuclear-, wind-, water-, and solar-generated (something I've not been informed of), most of the power coming to our houses is generated by fossil fuels. The last I checked, gas, oil, and coal were not zero-emission. I will certainly posit that generating electrical power writ large and sending it over transmission lines is almost certainly more efficient and cleaner than generating it car-by-car, but no one can claim a Chevy Volt is zero-emission just because it doesn't generate carbon monoxide when it's moving.