This talk of electric cars is also a bit silly. Electrifying transport means RAIL. Don't open the issue with electric cars. Electric cars will probably only ever be good as short commuters due to the physics of battery energy storage density. That's just a small piece of the transportation challenge. Might as well just get people to drive much smaller, more efficient cars, and more mopeds and motorcycles; that's just as good a solution. There will probably never be electric trucks. There will never be electric passenger planes. As indicated above, our capability to substitute electricity watts for our current gasoline watts is not nearly as certain as he seems to assume. Rail is far more efficient and lessens this risk. The proposition of sinking massive amounts of capital into new experimental infrastructure for mass use of electric cars just as we're taking trillion dollar write-downs on gasoline and car related infrastructure is a also bit far fetched. There are no ifs or buts about rail. It's a simple, known quantity.
Anyone talking about electric cars and not rail deserves to be hit in the face with toy train.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_public...
Electric cars are suitable to replace at least two-thirds of those vehicles, yielding a savings of 6 million barrels/day. I say this because the commute for 68% of people is under 30 miles round trip:
http://www.bts.gov/publications/omnistats/volume_03_issue_04...
Even if trains were the only use for diesel fuel and you converted every single one to pure-electric, that is less than 3 million barrels per day (the transportation section of the "distillates" column).
YOU can convert your car today. See http://www.evdl.org and http://www.evalbum.com for help and examples.
However, I would love to have high-speed electric trains for cross-country travel instead of flight.
EDIT-I've heard it alleged rails are not electrified because the property tax increases, see
1 - There is always a conversion cost in energy so whatever you had, if it was oil or natural gas, had more energy you could have used before you converted it. Transmission costs are lower, so maybe that partially counters this.
2 - Electrication, if we relate it to a software design principle, is like loose coupling. You can change the underlying code as long as the output (interface) is electricity, the implementation details are hidden from the rest of the system.
How refreshing is to to get a perspective from a former CEO of an enormous corporation. He writes for a large audience, beyond the easy geeks and enthusiasts.
He brought 'global warming', an issue that not everyone agrees with, out of the picture, and more into the 'free benfit' category, a necessary move for a national (i.e. midwestern) debate. He challenged the current and previous leaders of our free world as to why they have not even come close to upholding the degree of nixon. Brilliant.
We have a problem people should want to solve. This is a good step in letting people know exactly what will help their kids to be truly free.
(I'm sorry for saying the word 'crap' up above but seriously, only 1/4 of the posts here have to do with innovation, hacking, and making something from nothing. I really don't care about twitter's issue of the day. Let's do a weekly summary.)
ok. out of my system.
geekworld ignite!!
What an impressive, thoughtful analysis of a huge problem.
ps - I recommend reading his bio (Swimming Across: A Memoir.).
Now we just need a battery company to start making car-battery-sized Li-Ion's and sell them for a reasonable price. When that happens, I think you'll see some serious action.
We gotta get off the fossil fuel bandwagon and start using things that can be produced at home. Andy explains how to do that.
Great post.
