Thursday, June 02, 2011

Electric Cars: Cool Idea, Bad Reality

Doubling down on electric cars?

And where do we get the electricity to charge millions of vehicles? We're already having problems with the electric grid, a point that seems to come up a lot in political campaigns but not much in actual governance. Instead of deriving energy through gasoline through internal combustion, car owners will have to pay electric companies to provide the juice. Those providers will have to build new production plants to supply it. What sources will those plants use to generate electricity for the millions of new vehicles that will need a charge? Right now, the only resources that could supply that massive level of need would be coal, natural gas, and possibly nuclear power, none of which environmentalists want used for electricity now.
You can't force technology. It may be a good idea some day and if it is it will naturally develop in that direction and as it develops it will be in an environment where the support is developing along with it. That is not now. Burning the bridge before we've crossed it is not going to get us across faster.

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