Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

CHP is a very cost-effectively for on-site generation, and it makes sense to continue to deploy systems that can eventually run on hydrogen.

Cost-effective long-term storage is a big deal, so I'm following that.

As for how you can buy renewable energy, if you're in a deregulated state https://www.electricchoice.com/map-deregulated-energy-markets/ (though it's not completely accurate*) for electricity, there are many different energy suppliers, many of which offer renewable energy.... Alternatively, if you're in California, many municipalities now have Community Choice Aggregations (these also exist in IL, OH, NJ, NY, MA, and RI but are not as successful there because those states are deregulated), which can offer electricity at cheaper rates and with a greater percentage of renewables. More info on those here: https://leanenergyus.org/ and this site is California-specific https://cal-cca.org/.

Other states are considering legislation to permit CCAs, as well, including regulated states like Arizona, Colorado, and Michigan*. I think I mentioned earlier that Ann Arbor is trying to create their own CCA if the state allows it.

*Michigan is a weird situation where it is partly deregulated but the number of customers that can buy their energy from an energy supplier has been maxed out.

Unfortunately, the Southeast and other Western states are still highly regulated and the utilities there control the whole system.

I've mentioned before that I think Texas has the best model with full deregulation such that the utilities have no customers and don't directly own any generation. There's a market on the generation side, which has accelerated their transition to wind and solar, and energy suppliers have to compete on low prices so electricity is more affordable. I don't see other states going that direction any time soon, though, so the CCA model is the best alternative that I've seen.

My point is you cannot tell electricity generate from wind from electricity generated from coal.

That's true, but that's why renewable energy certificates (RECs) exist. They support the construction of future wind and solar projects. That's what you're paying for by buying renewable energy.

I'll just buy electricity as provided.  If wind and solar are cheaper than anything else, it will all get converted anyway without my help.

I don't believe I'd really be getting electrons specially generated by a wind turbine that somehow offer me any value.

You mean you don't have a sophisticated enough palate to tell the difference in your electrons? 

Bad electrons can really dirty up an integrated circuit. They're actually responsible for most computer viruses. 

Efficient != ability to scale.

That's my biggest concern about BEV. How many lithium batteries can we produce per year? Assuming it's possible to mine that much lithium every year [and the various other metals], is it cost effective for the mining companies to expand production that heavily or will it result in them being unable to do it economically? 

I bring it up often here, but I see this daily in the difference between HDD and SSD. On almost every technical measure, SSD is far advantageous to HDD. And "they" say that as soon as we bring the costs down, SSD will completely displace HDD. Problem is that is the NAND industry can't scale to produce that much NAND, and they can't do it at a price which is competitive with HDD without going bankrupt. These aren't opinions--that's economic fact. 

As I've said, I don't know enough about the mining industry to know whether they can economically scale to support the production. Because if they can't, we have to hope for amazing breakthroughs in battery technology to find a better, cost-effective, able to scale technology for storing the energy to power these cars.

Lithium mining has already been scaled up because of electronics. The issue has been cost and that's being resolved.

Can you elaborate? 

I can do some google searching, which offers a lot of mixed analysis, but not knowing some of these players I don't know all their biases... Except for "energyskeptic.com", which I'm pretty sure isn't a fair source lol...

But even then, the discussions are more about "do enough resources exist" to supply the market, and the question of "is it economically feasible to do it" gets lost. 

The material need for electrification of the transportation sector blows the doors off anything needed for cellphones and laptops. Completely different order of magnitude. And you say that cost is an issue "and that's being resolved"... I'm wondering how that gets resolved in a way which gives lithium mining companies enough profit to justify mining while also bringing down battery costs enough to mainstream the BEV?

Lithium is one of the most commonly available metals there are. There are others, but here's one article about how there's no supply issue, even domestically: https://cleantechnica.com/2020/05/27/lithium-supply-fears-loom-over-electric-vehicle-happy-talk-or-not-as-the-case-may-be/. This article also addresses how the batteries can be recycled / reused.

As with anything else, economies of scale is what's causing the costs to decline.

The WSJ had an article today about how the COVID crisis has cut CO2 emissions globally and how we would need this level of cuts annually, and then some, to reach the 2030 goals.  I fully expect 2030 to come and having not come anywhere near these "goals", folks will still be holding meetings and making political hay and setting goals for 2040, which also will not be achieved.

Realism is seldom popular of course, but it often gives the most correct expectation.