Monday, March 12, 2007
Paean to the 'lectric cars
My letter to Salon.com, in response to someone complaining that a switch to electric cars would make us even more dependent on coal. My main point was that, if built properly, electric cars could act as grid storage devices, making wind power far more reliable as an alternative. But, as usual, I got all long-winded about it.
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I actually saw a program on the Discovery Channel on alternative fuels, that included a solution for the 'electric car uses too much coal' problem. Apparently there is a competition sponsored by the US department of energy where college students compete to make the most energy efficient homes that must have enough extra solar energy to power a electric car. As the program showed, these students did come up with homes that had enough left over solar energy to power small electric vehicles. Popular Mechanics also claimed running cars on veggie oil was impossible because we don't have enough land to make enough oil for the amount of gas Americans currently consume. However, if cars were to run on a bio-fuel they would be diesel and therefore extremely more efficient then the vehicles people are driving around right now. Even a 1970 diesel mercedes gets 35 mpg. So yeah, most of these so called experts don't know what they are talking about.
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