I don't find the negatives expressed about electric vehicles to be credible.
First, we have plenty of excess generation capacity going to waste at off peak hours. Utilities would love to sell juice at 4am to anybody who can use It. Secondly, given the likely development of electric sources like solar cells and Stirling engines, we may not have to burn more coal. The problem with this development has been how to use the electricity for transportation, which is the biggest issue in regard to trade deficits and terrorists. Third, any new technology is expensive until the manufacturing equipment brings the cost down. I can recall outright disbelief that VCRs would ever cost less than $200 each because it cost so much to make the heads. History has proved otherwise. As I understand it, the per mile costs of a EV car ( not hybrid) can be very low - downright cheap. The whole problem is the battery. Fix that and the whole world changes. -----Original Message----- From: John Steck [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 5:14 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Another Plug-In Article I think Mr. Rothwell should do his own fact checking. In short, All electric vehicles will not reduce pollution, just shift it out of urban areas to more harmful types. Not sure why everyone thinks that is better. The additional electric demand burden of replacing 20% of passenger vehicles would put a substantial demand on current electric generation plants. Alternatives, renewables, and atomics will not fill the gap in time (if ever), leaving our friend Mr. Coal to pick up the slack by processing an estimated 38 million extra tons per year. http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/DOE/DOE_reports/pb83/pb83_126094/pb83_126 094_ sec07.pdf EV cars are not less expensive to buy or operate. The cars cost more up front, the parts cost more when they break or when in accidents, insurance cost more, and complex electromechanical systems require specialized technicians who cost more per hour. As a car class, their resale value is yet to be benchmarked, their true service life unknown. MPG savings will not offset cost of ownership. EV's are a green choice, not a financial one. http://www.edmunds.com/advice/specialreports/articles/103708/article.htm l BTW, since Yucca Mountain doesn't look like it's going to be done for a while and you seem to have a preference to live next door to a uranium plant, mind if we store a few thousand harmless spent rods in your back yard? We only have over 54,000 metric tones of it now in the US.... Nah, didn't think so. http://www.ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/04dec/RS22001.pdf -john -----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 12:52 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Another Plug-In Article John Steck wrote: >Ok, am I the only one that sees this? > >Plug-in only shifts us to more pollution and hazardous by-product >creating power generation... specifically coal and atomic. That is incorrect for several reasons, mainly: 1. About a third of our electric power comes from clean sources such as hydroelectricity, wind power and renewable biofuel. (I have often ranted about how bad ethanol is. It should be noted that the direct use of biofuel to generate electricity is far more efficient, and it often reduces pollution.) 2. Electric cars are two or three times more efficient than gasoline ICE-only, and with a modern electric power generator they are more efficient than hybrid cars. 3. Power plant pollution is easier to control because power plants produce "point source" pollution, and they are the responsibility of one corporation with one phone number. Automobiles which are spread out all of the map and owned by millions of individuals. Also it should be noted that despite the problems with uranium, many people including me would much prefer to live next to uranium plant than a coal burning plant. There is no question that the widespread use of uranium fission would reduce the threat of global warming. Coal burning plants kill at least 20,000 people in the US alone, whereas during the last 60 years U.S. civilian fission plants have killed only a few thousand people, if you count people killed by pollution from uranium mining. This pollution has been greatly reduced. >Cleaner at the duplex outlet end but much much dirtier at the source. Much cleaner at the source. >Hybrids are just baby steps into the future >(until the US consumer starts realizing the maintenance & repair costs >to keep those complex systems running outweigh the fuel savings). The maintenance and repair costs for production line hybrid cars is not significantly higher than for regular cars. I know this for a fact, because as it happens, at Ed Storm's recommendation I recently purchased a Prius hybrid. Before I did that, I asked both the dealer and my car insurance agent about maintenance and repair costs. Toyota offers the same warranty coverage for the Prius as for their other cars. For $2,000 they offer an extended maintenance contract that covers virtually everything for 10 years or 100,000 miles. Insurance companies charge only a little more for accident coverage. If these cars cost far more to maintain and repair, Toyota and Allstate would already be losing their shirts, since there are hundreds of thousands of these cars in use worldwide. I think Mr. Steck should fact check his statement little more carefully. - Jed
