A recent TV ad run by reeling, multi-national automaker General Motors contained a clip read by a young woman saying “ I want a car I can plug in” People should be careful what they wish for. Let's look at what that would mean.
First of all, let's take trip to the Okanagan. Considering today's electric car technology, we'd make it there but not back (500km round trip) so we'll need a place to “plug it in” . How long will it take to charge and where will we charge it? Even a Tesla currently takes 3.5 hours to charge. And that's the very best currently available electric car
And this assumes that we have a place to fully trickle charge the battery before we leave. “Just plug it in at home” you say.
A recent analysis of parking places for cars in the USA showed that there are only 54 million garages for the 247 million registered cars in the US, and the rest were on the street or elsewhere. In San Francisco, only 16% of cars are parked in garages.
“But herein lies the conspiracy" the theorists shout! "What about having electric charging stations on street corners like gas stations?"
This site explains the massive amount of power required to charge a car battery quickly, meaning ten or fifteen minutes. In short, the amount of electricity that the average entire office building consumes would be needed for just four fueling lines.
Can you imagine how much power it would take to replace even a tiny fraction of the gas stations that currently form our infrastructure? And, where would that power come from?
First of all, if a customer waiting to charge his battery had a couple of cars in front of him, he could easily find himself spending thirty to sixty minutes getting his car charged. And that would only take him about a hundred kilometers or so and he'd be back in line.
All this is assuming that only SOME of the necessary power would be available.
Well it might be inconvenient in terms of range and fueling hassles, but we'd be "green" at least wouldn't we?...Not so fast my tree hugging friend. It's true that in certain locales some of the cars on the road could be charged with hydro electricity but in most locations, the over whelming majority of the power IS and WOULD BE supplied by thermal electric power stations burning natural gas, oil, coal and by nuclear power generating stations.
What about wind. What about solar energy. These systems are great for HELPING our current energy needs. And todays windmills are better than the picturesque ones we see on Dutch post cards aren't they? Yes they are but not nearly better enough to charge all our cars. And solar panels are great too when the sun shines and when we have countless millions of them. And we should have them. But I don't think we'll be charging our cars with solar panels any time soon.
In Germany where oil is as scarce as hen's teeth, massive amounts of public money has been spent to reduce that country's overall dependency on oil. Not only has this government subsidized program spawned an entire alternative energy industry, but it has actually been successful in exceeding the oil use reduction targets originally set out.
In Denmark massive wind farms help keep the lights on and in France, nuclear power takes the chill off the winter to the tune of much of France's power needs. But none of these systems are running nor could they run all the cars on the road.
This not about doom and gloom, this is about debunking myths!
Hey, in the distant future, when we actually have run out of oil worldwide, if mankind survives, we'll likely be thrilled with our solar power and other systems. But I don't agree with those who think an electric car is a reasonable alternative to a Honda Civic or a diesel Jetta or a Freightliner truck that currently moves most of our consumer goods.
The thing about batteries is that they always need charging. That might be alright for a suburban homeowner with a garage charger wanting to bump over to the grocery store once in a while, but a family, a commuter, a business person, and a host of other drivers that utilize our current fossil fuel burning cars' infrastructure would find the the electric car to be very limiting by comparison.
And making and recycling batteries IS NOT A “GREEN INDUSTRY”.
Dead batteries litter the landfills world wide. A recent CBC Marketplace production of a community “battery drive” showed how easy it was to get a FULL SIZED PICKUP TRUCK FULL of dead batteries in just a few days in a small Ontario town. Rechargeable or not, they die. I've purchased tool batteries, car batteries, solar power system batteries, mobile phone batteries, computer batteries, watch batteries, flashlight batteries and the list goes on and so has everyone else no doubt.
NEWS FLASH! It takes a lot of oil to make electric cars and to keep them running.
The current gas burning cars on the road are highly evolved, ergonomic, fuel frugal machines that are not going to be displaced by small, complicated, expensive, range limited, hard to fuel electric cars any time soon and I say hooray for that.
This doesn't mean that I'm not “green” my faithful reader. Yes I drive a diesel car, yes I ride a bicycle to work, yes I recycle my beer cans.....hey I'm so damn green I'm glowing green and it's not a recent fad, this is how I live.
Hybrid electric cars have proven themselves helpful in reducing fuel consumption. Modern diesels are also very good. And despite these success stories these excellent vehicles comprise only a minuscule fraction of overall auto sales.
Who Killed the Electric Car? The movie isn't "truth" even though certain things did actually occur. And Al Gore and his “An Inconvenient Truth” scenario, as entertaining as it is, isn't truth either.
The future is uncertain and predicting it is fun and sometimes useful, but it is, at best, an inexact science. Doom and gloom sells but I'm not buyin' … I'm not drinking the Koolaid. Nothing is what it seems. Things are complex. The point is that the electric car is not a reasonable alternative to a regular car except in specific applications as an "alternative" vehicle even though it's a popular idea.
One of the best conspiracy theories being thrown around is the idea that evil, multi-national oil companies in concert with the devil incarnate auto makers have scuttled the electric car and its panacea technology to maintain current sales and to keep us addicted to the black gold.
Look every major car company in the world is working to produce all electric or plug-in hybrids and they'll form part of our transportation needs in the future... it's all part of the green shaft and this is a fun area of R&D as well
Well I suppose anything's possible. And a one of the things that makes a great conspiracy theory great is that it can't ultimately be totally dis-proven. The grassy knoll and recent Elvis sightings being cases in point.
JulianOnePlanet Publications copyright 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment