Plug-in electric car
During an hour of Midday last week, David Sandalow, the Brookings Institution fellow and author of Freedom From Oil, was bullish on plug-in electric vehicles as a key element of the nation's energy future. Imagine infinite mpg -- no gasoline at all -- for most of your near-home driving. There's been a lot of hype about the Chevrolet Volt, an electric plug-in with long-range power. (It can go 40 miles before a recharge; the vast majority of American commutes are less than that. The Volt will switch to gas or E85 after 40 miles, allowing the lithium-ion battery to recharge.) Earlier this month, GM's board reportedly approved a mass-production rollout of the Volt in 2010. It would be revolutionary if we could get this right -- and make it affordable to the masses. John McCain's $300 million to the techie who comes up with a long-long-range battery for cars was about the smartest thing he's done or said in a while.
Comments
I would disagree - the smartest thing McCain has said was that nuclear energy makes sense as the only means of averting global warming. Environmentalists who blocked nuclear power for the past 40 years have sent us from a nation with 50% carbon free power to one with less than 30%. Wind and solar are unreliable (despite 16 hour storage,
the sun doesn't shine 30 days a year even in the desert. In Florida there are
over 25% cloudy days). The wind NEVER blows when power is needed and even then requires a million acres to produce trivial amounts of power. Environmentalists are trying to shift blame away from themselves by
pointing the finger to those technologies that were created in the absence of nuclear power. The chickens have come home to roost, but the biased media won't tell the public the truth.
Posted by: kerry Bradshaw | June 29, 2008 2:23 PM
A plug-in car sounds great if you have a driveway or a garage. For many of us city dwellers with neither, where to plug in the car would be a real problem.
Posted by: Hal Laurent, VoR, NST | June 29, 2008 3:01 PM
I disagree that the "smartest thing" John McCain has done is promise $300 million for the inventor of this long-range battery. Why? Because whoever invents this battery is going to make billions--yes, with B--and a $300 million prize would be much better spent on promising research for this battery, or bringing a lab version of this battery to market.
Plug-in electrics hold a lot of promise. But as anyone who pays a BGE bill can tell you, electricity isn't free. Plus, our electric grid cannot handle such a massive increase in demand without a corresponding increase in supply. Which, of course, means that if you think electric prices are high now, you probably haven't seen anything yet.
Posted by: Mitch | June 29, 2008 5:41 PM
All I wish to point out is that, unless the power in your house or wherever you charge the car comes from nuclear power, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, etc. sources, this car doesn't help us "go green. Odds are great that the power going into the car came from "non-green" coal or oil; in that case, all you've done is shift the tailpipe of your car to a smokestack.....
Posted by: Alexander | June 30, 2008 7:08 AM