by Frank Mancuso

Created on: January 18, 2009

KILL THE ELECTRIC CAR Do we really want to fuel our cars from our mountain tops? Do we want to plug our cars into a coal fired inefficient polluting power plant for six hours so we can drive it twenty miles? With the auto bail out came the promise of the cars of the future. The Chevy Volt for one. Unfortunately in our desire to end global warming and free ourselves from foreign oil we may be causing more harm then good. Appalachia is being decimated, our "Old Smokey's" are being severed, riped off to fuel the never ending appetites of the old smoking coal fired power plants. Tennessee just experienced the results of a mountain of coal ash flushing down upon the nearby rivers and towns. Seems to me we are being sold a bill of goods. Coal powered power plants are at best about 18% efficient. That means for every 100 lbs. of coal burned only 18lbs. is converted to electricity the rest is wasted. Your every day ordinary car is already about 33% efficient that means that for every gallon of fuel burned 1/3 of the energy is used to move the car the other 2/3's is cast off as wasted heat. So our cars already are about 15% more efficient then what is promised for the future cars. Electric cars are not anything like the cars we now drive. The heaters and air conditioning will take a big toll on the batteries, the batteries alone add a great amount of extra weight. What will become of all the dead batteries after their three year live expectancy? Will we trade our mountains of grandeur to mountains of batteries? Today as I look out my window it's 9 degrees out and my driveway is covered in ice and snow and I need a four wheel drive to get up it. Suppose you were to arrive from a few miles away batteries almost depleted form driving here with the heat on suddenly your car is stuck tiers spinning on the ice, you exhaust what energy is left in your batteries and the car dies. Luckily I have a long extension cord and can plug you in for six hours. But suppose you got stuck in a snow bank on the way, suppose it was evening and you had to have your lights on, heat on, defroster on. Cell phone dead and plugged in to your cigarette lighter outlet also dead. OK,OK, I know but there is an old saying, "what can happen will happen." My point is real science sometimes must trump opinion and even policy when both are wrong. Our future, global warming and energy needs can only be resolved by the truth and real science. a car battery has about as much energy over its entire life as about 1/2 cup of gas. Batteries are good for cell phones not cars. Cars and planes rely on liquid fuel, it's portable and efficient. We need to prolong the length of time before we run out of oil by using it wisely. "Clean Diesel" vehicles already can go 600 miles on 10 gallons of oil from a hole in the ground, while driving, heating and cooling exactly as the cars we now drive. Eventually we will run out of oil, coal, even uranium, and electricity will be the number one source of energy available. Electricity is clean, efficient , can be delivered but it's not portable like oil, or coal. Personal and air transportation will eventually get cost prohibitive. But 100 years ago we lived without oil we can do it again. If we rely on true science not opinion. How you say? Electricity is generated by rubbing magnets near each other. If we do it with wind, geothermal, or tides we can produce enough CLEAN energy to live comfortably. We can heat our homes, ride in trains, trolleys, watch TV. and type on our laptops. We would be much better served if our mountaintops supported wind turbines then if they were used as fuel for some golf carts.

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