For some reason, many people think that the alternator is there anyway, so why not use all that free electricity to power things like waterpumps and fans. They forget that the alternator draws more power from the engine when the load increases and that even more power is required because the conversion process is far from 100% efficient. There would be no fewer belts, just one less pulley, unless you were going to run a total-loss electrical system and charge the battery between runs.
