Clean Green Breeze in Santa Monica
Editor’s Note: This is the first post from Nevres Cefo, author of Two Cents Per Mile: Will President Obama Make it Happen with the Stroke of a Pen? For more information, please visit his website.
I am thrilled, not just about all of the current green action, activism, and blogging…but also the real life examples of people living clean and green.
I was in Santa Monica and L.A. while researching for my book and I was overjoyed at the innovation and enthusiasm of all the 100% Electric Vehicle owners and users I met. The city has solar powered carports for all-electric cars, charging garages for government fleets, photovoltaic charging stations, free charging stations in prime parking locations at shopping malls, and the cleanest garages I have ever seen…no oil stains, no smell, no sound while cars are pulling out!
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The enthusiasm of 100% electric car owners was plentiful, and why not? I would feel the same way if I had lived the past 10 years proving to America that we can live with a zero emission powerful electric vehicle - no internal combustion engine, no liquid fuel, no maintenance, quiet, safe, and normal size, including SUVs. Living conveniently and happily, using low cost off-peak electricity at night to charge your batteries, and even selling back electricity to the power company if you have solar panel or wind generated electricity.
We should all get to live that freely - without the terrible grip of oil and the internal combustion engine.
I am yearning for the day I too can have such a quiet, clean, convenient, comfortable, affordable and fun mode of transportation. Right here, on the East Coast. I wonder what my City Mayor (Frederick, Maryland) thinks about an electric car friendly infrastructure. Actually, I will ask him next time I see him.
We have proven technology, we have people who want to drive electric cars, we have the best engineers and manufacturing capabilities in the world, and we have the American entrepreneurial spirit.
That is why it baffles me that we are still driving cars with 80% energy loss using the internal combustion engine.
It is time to flip the page.
If there were reasonably priced, decent looking electric cars available to buy here I would buy one immediately.
Beautiful Picture. Unfortunately we are still trying to develop an electric energy storage device that has the capacity needed, is low in weight per unit energy, inexpensive, and can exchange energy quickly in both charge and discharge modes.
Mr. Nevres Cefo has also mentioned our manufacturing capability, but this also requires energy and so far that energy is most efficiently obtained from carbon based sources. Then there is his comment about 2 cents per mile. That is above what my 17 mpg ‘56 Chevrolet V-8 which turned the quarter mile in 14 seconds cost me. That’s right. gasoline cost less than 34 cents per gallon way back then.
Then there is the problem of Mr. Obama doing this with the stroke of a pen. Any attempt to do this by the federal government would be a violation of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Because it is not enumerated as a power of the federal government, this power is reserved to the states and the people. A careful analysis of this reveals that it is the best way to do this. It will promote multiple attempts in several states to develop the best way for the region. The system that is best for one application may not be the best for another.
Then we ma also hav another problem should we succeed in terminating all man made “carbon pollution”. The UN body that reports on world temperatures ahs revealed that for the last two years the earth has been cooling despite the increasing levels of carbon in the air. if we eliminate all carbon, we just might find ourselves in a new ice age.
The quiet smooth electric cars would surely be nice though if they can be made economical to purchase and operate.
Rather an air head article!
Electric cars are very over priced at present as previously noted. Am I going to spend a fortune in getting rid of my present car without any direct benefit to my pocket? No The electric cost per mile does not count - it is the overall cost per mile to look at.
To switch many cars to electric the overall electric supply has to be enhanced - replace the petrol stations in fact.
For rapid charging many cars you would bring down the entire electric distribution system - it is not designed for that.
ChuckL -
“if we eliminate all carbon, we just might find ourselves in a new ice age.”
Not impossible, or that unlikely. NASA’s stopped short of calling the current sunspot cycle a Maunder minimum - but solar output’s down a bit, and we may be in for a ‘little ice age’ scenario for the next century or two. Ruddiman’s paper on anthropogenic global warming had ice core research showing we’re really on the backside of a warming curve that peaked about 10,000 years ago, and his theory is that without methane from agriculture for the last 8k years, we’d be neck-deep in a solid ice age at this point.
That said - I want an electric flying car. Or, failing that, an electric car I can drive 300 miles with the AC on full, then charge in ten minutes for a further 300 miles. (I’d even accept the idea of swappable battery packs…) But as you point out, the storage ain’t there yet.
I like the internal combustion engine and electric combo (plug in hybrid) . the internal combustion engine can be much more efficient if combine with external heat engine run of the waste heat.