1 post tagged “nuclear”

Ahhh…electric cars.  Clean.  Safe.   Eco-friendly.  These babies don’t produce the noxious gasses that their gasoline driven brethren create.   Global warming will abate as the CO₂ levels drop with the ever decreasing population of gasoline-driven automobiles.  The consumer will not be beholden to the gas company and their ever-fluctuating prices.   National security will improve as we reduce the dependence our nation has on foreign oil imports.  It will simply make the Earth a better place.  Right?

As Detroit and Japan push forward on the release of new electric plug-in vehicles, we need to reexamine our condemnation of the auto industry as the chief party responsible for global warming.  Plug-in vehicles sound great to most Americans because we simply plug them in and “POOF” – no more combustion engine pollution.   The problem with electric cars is the myth that they are the solution to our problems.

Americans and the rest of the world face a bigger problem than our vehicles and that is our energy industry.  Beyond the obvious stranglehold that oil producing nations have over the world we have big problems.  Oil is the BIGGEST energy producer on the planet (not to mention a primary source for plastics).  In the US, nearly 40% of ALL energy produced in the country is created by oil and most of that energy produced is done by vehicles. 

So what happens when we take all of the power producing vehicles offline and put the burden on our aging power grid?   What happens we have to nearly double the capacity of our aging grid?  We have to build more power plants.  

New power plants will probably result in new coal plants and an increase in the ever-growing demand for coal.  Currently, 51% of our electricity comes from coal and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.  People seem to be on a “clean coal” kick to include top Democrats like Obama.  Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “clean coal”.  No matter how much you scrub the gasses or trap them in underground storage facilities, there is still a host of environmental issues involved like the destruction of mountains, rivers and streams through mountaintop removal mining techniques.

Sadly, renewable energy sources are expensive to install (although the prices are dropping) and the profits are minimal compared to those the energy industry is used to seeing.  That means they aren’t truly motivated to implement the cleaner energy sources.  Also, the large scale national grids that are plagued by transmission losses and health risks make the sale of energy more profitable; this eliminates their interest in more sustainable, secure and eco-friendly microgrids.

We have attacked our environmental problems in reverse.   Rather than addressing the need to double the capacity of electric power production FIRST, we have pushed for the production of vehicles that will drain an already overtaxed system.  This will most assuredly result in haphazard regulations and lenient rules that will allow the power industry to expand its production capabilities with cheap, dirty energy.  

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