Electric cars in downtown Portland, Oregon - Photo by Todd Mecklem
“There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance.” - Buckminster Fuller, American inventor and early advocate of renewable energy.
Imagine a world filled with electric cars and solar powered parking lot charging stations. The change is already starting to happen. Electric charging stations are starting to pop up in cities across America. China announced during the Olympics that it is implementing a network of electric vehicle charging stations. According to an article in EcoGeek, China hopes to bring in 10,000 fuel cell, electric and hybrid cars as well as infrastructure to power the vehicles in 10 chosen cities around the country within two years, according to the ministry of science and technology. I admire China’s push for developing the infrastructure and I can’t wait for the day when the U.S. follows in their lead. Imagine every parking lot in American covered in solar panels, used to power the electric vehicles beneath them. We need this infrastructure in place if we expect to be an energy independent nation. In closing, I’ll leave you with this quote that my colleague, Siobhan, has on her BEF business card:
“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” - Thomas Edison, 1931
September 26, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I have to say this is possibly the wave of the middle distance future. But the costs and the time involved in getting there are enormous. The incentive is there only in totalitarian regimes and when petroleum supplies are limited. It is sort of like the alternative research that started under Carter, which fizzled as prices dropped; and the push for ethanol, which has critically reduced food supplies.
But there is another option that offers a quick and economical alternative. Natural Gas powered vehicles provides an immediate answer, and buys time to get to the long term solutions. We need to go with nuclear power generation and develop every potential oil/gas field before we head off too quickly for such a costly idea as this. I have written about the Energy Crisis at http://blog.orangemarmtrading.com.
September 27, 2008 at 8:54 am
i respectfully disagree with you. natural gas, nuclear, and oil are not “clean” sources of energy. they are a “costly” idea if you factor in the impacts on our environment.