Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another.
It's a beautiful theory highways full of electric cars emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants after being plugged into an outlet in our garages overnight. The problem, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, is that the effort may only shift the problem somewhere else.
"If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."
The GAO report says a plug-in compact car, if recharged at an outlet drawing its power from coal, provides a carbon dioxide savings of only 4% to 5%. If the feeling of saving the environment from driving an electric car causes people to drive more, that small amount of savings vanishes entirely.
It's much the same effect we saw when the Corporate Fuel Economy Standards were passed in the '70s. Aside from forcing us into less-safe downsized vehicles that increased highway fatalities, the promise of more miles per gallon caused people to drive more miles. The promised energy independence never materialized as we imported more foreign oil than ever before.
Okay, so how about a zero-emission source of electricity nuclear power? The administration has done little to promote it beyond lip service. The administration recently killed the safest place on the planet to store what is erroneously called nuclear waste at the nuclear repository that was being built at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
This "waste" is in the form of spent fuel rods the French and others have safely stored and reprocessed. These rods still contain most of their original energy and reprocessing them makes nuclear power renewable as well as pollution-free. The French get 80% of their electricity from nukes, and nobody in Paris glows in the dark.
They will have a place to plug in their electric cars, but right now we don't. The government is promoting solar and wind, which is fine if the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Both have their own environmental drawbacks.
Both require huge amounts of land. Wind turbines tend to slice and dice birds, including endangered species. Solar panels of the size that might be competitive require huge amounts of water to clean. Water is a rare commodity in the areas the sun shines most the arid land of the West and Southwest.
There are the hazards of the cars themselves. We don't yet fully comprehend the hazards to drivers, passengers and first responders after, say, a collision between an electric clown car and an 18-wheeler. Then there's a whole new problem of disposing of a new generation of batteries using lithium.
As for the lithium, Bolivia, under the thumb of its leftist leader Evo Morales, has about half the world's proven reserves. "The United States has supplies of lithium, but if demand for lithium exceeded domestic supplies," warns the GAO, "the U.S. could substitute reliance on one foreign source (oil) for another (lithium)."
Then there are environmental consequences. Just as coal and oil must be extracted from the earth, so must lithium. "Extracting lithium from locations where it is abundant, such as South America, could pose environmental challenges that would damage the ecosystem in this area."
While advertised as "zero emission," electric cars have their own set of issues. As physicist Amory Lovins once put it, "Zero-emission vehicles are actually 'elsewhere-emission' vehicles."
Democrats are in such a hurry to turn this Nation into a third world country. Unfortunately most Americans, educated in the public school system, do not follow what is going on and will not know what has happened until all their right are gone.
DJ
It has been almost 30 years that I have been involved in alternative energy.
For MANY years now any well versed professional in agri-energy will tell you that it takes MORE energy in oil and oil byproducts (read fertilizer, water etc.) to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy one obtains through the efficient conversion of as such alcohol to fuel energy. (Please read that it is worse to mandate 10% ethanol than to burn pure oil based gasoline.)
Likewise studies have been performed as to the fuel based efficiency of batteries used in electric or dual fueled cars. Because of the mining and manufacturing and delivery locations as well as the energy it takes to mine such metals as lithium etc. it actually costs MORE in oil based fuels to produce and deliver the batteries for the vehicle than they deliver in service miles.
In other words YOU are ALL being lied to and in essence screwed by every group on the planet, especially the "green" idealists. They say they are delivering something, worthy and wonderful for the planet, but instead only deliver their own "brand" of expense and planetary cost. They are the frauds of the WORST kind because they prey on fear and kindheartedness at the same time while using fraud an deception as well as unfounded "theory" and unverified "science" to supposedly "create" answers to otherwise non-existent problems. IF we have no real true answer then there is no problem, we must make what we have as efficient as possible and go on. We have no choice.
Offering a false or fraudulent choice is actually worse as an answer because it masks the problem with a sense of accomplishment that is fake.
Lastly, please note that in every case it takes RARE EARTH metals to make photo-electric power generation. There is a reason they are called "rare earth metals". Simply put there is very little of it available.It takes at least two rare earth metals in every photovoltaic panel. This means that the more panels we make the more expensive they become.
This brings me to the most simple solution and the least costly. Regardless of latitude the sun can warm water extremely efficiently. In fact so efficiently that there is NO need for a water heater even in Chicago! The heating of water averages 1/3 of the monthly cost of every household in the US. So why aren't new homes and remodels required to have solar water heat? Why aren't architects required to face roof structures for maximization of solar heat for water?
It is because we are controlled by the oil companies and by the auto companies as well. (read that Germany is now at 75MPG average design engineering for ALL cars and uses diesel fuel in design (read peanut oil)).
Please remember that it is illegal to import a 75mpg , German engineered vehicle to the US.
Ok, I have said it . Now you can really get angry like you should have years ago.
Daniel
What would you have instead?
Electric cars are an "enabler technology" because they can absorb energy produced through various means. No combustion engine can work on such a wide variety of energy sources with such a high efficiency.
It's insane to demonize them because we use fossil fuels to produce our electricity, because we are trying to phase that out anyways.
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