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Posted on 01/01/2007 10:44:24 AM PST by Uncledave
An oil and security task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recently opined that "the voices that espouse 'energy independence' are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future." Others have also said, essentially, that other nations will control our transportation fuel--get used to it. Yet House Democrats have announced a push for "energy independence in 10 years," and in November General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. Who's right--those who drive toward independence or those who shrug?
Bet on major progress toward independence, spurred by market forces and a portfolio of rapidly developing oil-replacing technologies.
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All this is likely to change decisively, because electricity is about to become a major partner with alternative liquid fuels in replacing oil.
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Utilities are rapidly becoming quite interested in plug-ins because of the substantial benefit to them of being able to sell off-peak power at night. Because off-peak nighttime charging uses unutilized capacity, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that adopting plug-ins will not create a need for new base load electricity generation plants until plug-ins constitute over 84% of the country's 220 million passenger vehicles.
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Once plug-ins start appearing in showrooms it is not only consumers and utility shareholders who will be smiling. If cheap off-peak electricity supplies a portion of our transportation needs, this will help insulate alternative liquid fuels from OPEC market manipulation designed to cripple oil's competitors.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
Pssst!
Don't let the bigwigs at Nascar see this.. Lots of Pit stops add so much to a race. :-)
And before plug-in critics mention they wouldn't want a vehicle that took hours to "refuel", remember that a great deal of households have two or more vehicles. I imagine for a majority of those households having one plug-in for local trips and short commutes would fit in with their lifestyle.
You are correct - and as soon as somebody invents a battery that works, I will happily buy one.
How about person who is living alone? Does he need to purchase two plug in vehicles?
I'm sure the first generation of products won't be for everyone, as with any new technology.
just remove the resrictor plates is all i want and with out pits stops how wood jeff gordon brush his hair and teeth
One word; Horses.
And will a huge electric bill, like several hundred dollars, be a great path. Is there a breakdown on a cost comparison, on a cents per mile basis, for electric from the grid vs gasoline?
Oh, and make it work at 40 below too please.
Shhhhhhhh... Do not mention this fact about the extremely high electrical bill if we use electric cars.
LOL
Depends on what the cost of that power would be. A large overnight demand would drastically change the economics of power generation.
Furthermore, millions of plug-in vehicles is in essence a huge distributed storage system: one big national battery. In this scenario wind power would be, by a significant margin, cheaper than coal and nat-gas electricity.
Maybe. It could at least be another niche development. The question is, how much will these batteries cost, and how often will they need to be replaced? And will my local power company agree to charge substantially less at night?
It's still unlikely that the car could be used for more than short trips, so it would effectively be an extra for most people. How much would states charge for registering a third car for two car families? How much will insurance companies charge to insure a third car?
How can the Trial Lawyer's Association be prevented from bringing on the usual gigantic lawsuits the first time someone in one of these little cars dies in a head-on collision with a normal car?
No doubt all this can be worked out, but it wouldn't be economical unless everyone was willing to cooperate. And I wonder if even the environmentalists could persuade Democrats to cross their close friends the trial lawyers?
And have some longevity in a desert climate....there's nothing you can do about your garaged car (a "five year" battery generally only lasts 2 out here), but I learned the hardway to NOT store my Makita batteries out there. I've made room in the sock drawer.
Heat kills batteries, fershur.
You must not be from Texas.
An electric car wouldn't mean a few hundred dollar electric bill, but at least a $1000 one during the summer (Since A/C alone was $600/month last summer).
I'm all for electric cars and will probably build one myself when my son gets older, but saying stuff like wind energy is stronger at night and 500 mpg throws up huge red flags for me, too.
That's is the kind of hype marketeers spew and not the engineers that actually have to make it work.
Like you said, there's much to work out. But we should welcome this new technology. It's funny how quickly so many people take easy pot-shots at it.
It takes baby steps to get where we'd like to be. I'm sitting here typing on a small Macbook with more computing power than acres of mainframes from 50 years ago.
Yes...Your Gas Bill for cars will be zero, but Batterys will be $7,000 every 8 years and your PG&E will be $800 a Month.
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