Posted by
Michael Heimlich on Tuesday, June 09, 2009 12:08:13 AM
The current administration is unfavorable towards dino fuels like gasoline due to perceived harm as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. It is favorable towards electric power for automobiles.
This is well and good. My question is, where will the energy come from to charge 10 million electric vehicles?
Currently, the only answers are the existing coal and natural gas power plants that are already belching their carbon emissions and are near peak production.
The difference is that the energy transfer will go from being directly coupled between the engine and transmission to traveling tens or hundreds of miles along power lines that lose much of that energy to heat. It would be much worse for the environment to convert to electric cars using the current energy infrastructure because we'd be using energy less efficiently.
There is only one power source that is capable of providing enough clean, cheap electricity to power the millions of electric cars that we would want - NUCLEAR!
It is safe enough for France and our administration says it is strategic enough for Iran, so why isn't it good enough for us?
Nuclear power is the only way to divest ourselves from foreign oil and remain economically competitive.
The administration has increased oil and gas exploration costs, rig counts are down 25 - 50% from last year, virtually all the large oil fields are in decline and our government won't allow us to drill offshore, in ANWAR or use the western oil shale. This will guarantee $200 / barrel oil by 2010, if not sooner. We've already gone from $30 to $70 in 7 months - and that is without any increase in economic activity.
The economy is already hurting, even with low energy costs. Just wait until the energy costs spike higher than last year.