Replies

I'm not "against" the electric car. I think that when the public can weigh all the facts, it will decide that electric cars *at the present time* will be far more costly than advocates pretend they are.

I welcome advances in technology. I would welcome an economically viable electric car. But consider the following:

Buring a gallon of gasoline releases about 114,000 btus. A vehicle that gets 20 mpg and travels 60 mph consumes 3 gallons in an hour. Converting this to the same amount of electricity means 100 kilowatt-hours. 100 KWH!

Now, I know this a simple comparison. On the I/C side, we have to account for the efficiency of the engine and so on. But if we want to deliver 100 KWH of energy to a wall-outlet for purposes of recharging a vehicle, we have to have about 300 KWH of heat at the power plant to generate the steam.

It is a simple fact of physics: moving a vehicle at highway speeds consumes an enormous amount of energy. Today, we get that energy buy burning a liquid hydrocarbon fuel on-site, that is inside the vehicle engine. One demand, as needed.

An electric car shifts where that energy is created. And when it is shifted, it is almost always to a power plant far away, and it must be carried to the point of recharging over an infrastructure that is only one half or one third the size necessary to handle it should the public make a wholesale conversion.

As a matter of energy comparison, I live in the midwest where the temperatures have been in the upper 90s and low 100s for the last several weeks. I have a modest, energy-efficient, home. I have central air conditioning. I don't use electricity for cooking or hot water. My most recent electric bill was for 1836 KWH.

1836KWH is the amount of energy that my wife's car used in month of commuting to her job. It is about 18 hours of highway driving.

If her vehicle was electric, and our electricity comes from burning coal, the demand we placed on the utility would have forced them to burn roughly *twice* as much coal on our behalf as they presently do.

Do I want twice the number of coal-fired power plants? At present, I cannot advocate the "concept of the usable electric car" without also advocating building a lot more power plants that burn a lot more coal!

Advocates of nuclear have their points, but it takes almost 10 years to build a nuclear power plant from start to first kilowatt. Nuke projects suck the capital out of the markets. We talk about sequestering carbon. A nuke plant sequesters capital, which means there is a lot less to plow into ventures hoping to advance efficient alternatives.

I would love to see fuel cell powered vehicles. But the darling fuel at present is hydrogen. Where on earth are we going to get that much hydrogen? And how will it be distributed? Well, it turns out that advocates of this fuel must look to nuclear power as well. Their solution is decades away and hundreds of billions of dollars in cost.

Every nuclear reactor is a big security risk and a big blackmail target for our enemies' weapons.

Am I "really against" electric cars. Not at all. It is just that I am not in favor of all the things that electric cars will require us, the consumer and taxpayer, to cough up the money for. So far, the market seems to agree with me.

Happily, there are suddenly a number of coal-to-liquid conversion projects on the fast track, as well as other alternatives that are viable with $50/bbl oil. The market has far more clarity on this subject than the techno-dreamers do.

The only other way to make it happen involves the destruction of liberty because we will get armed government agents involved in a sugar-coated scheme that is really coercion.

Whatever. -- Needless to say, I believe our transition to electric autos only needs some technology that works. -- The market would then take care of the details, regardless of 'gov't agents'..

Am I "really against" electric cars. Not at all. It is just that I am not in favor of all the things that electric cars will require us, the consumer and taxpayer, to cough up the money for. So far, the market seems to agree with me.

Why would 'the market' agree on requiring us, as taxpayers, to cough up money?
-- If electric cars became technically feasible, people would use them & the power market would adjust.. You seem determined that the gov't would control this issue. -- Why?