One of my favourite holiday traditions is watching the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Of course, the film is pretty darned depressing right up until the end, but the whole “friends are the point” message usually cements the holiday cheer and makes everyone feel better about the presents they didn’t get.
I found myself thinking about that movie the other day and realising that, by golly, we’re in the process of living it out RIGHT NOW here in the United States, and I don’t know quite how I feel about it.
I’ve had my eye on the state of affairs with the energy supply for years now. I don’t align myself with the Peak Oil crowd, because they often remind me of the Y2K/Killer Bees/Bird Flu fearmongers, and I dislike being driven to decisions based on speculative fears. (Sorry, Mack, that’s just how I see it. I mean no offence.) I do, however, believe that the time is overdue to find better, more efficient alternative power sources. In the meantime, we live with the house at 77 degrees in the summer, 69 in the winter. We turn off all the lights and only ever own one vehicle at a time. But enough about how holier than thou I think I am.
In researching the current state of gas prices and alternative fuel development it has come to my attention that various banks have been speculating in oil futures for awhile now and are beginning to hoard oil in order to sell it back to the public once the price is high enough.
Call those folks Mr. Potter.
On the other hand, there is a rising tide of alternative-energy investors building wind turbines to convert the wind blowing across our vast plains states into electricity. A recent Department of Energy report forcast that it is possible to have 20% of our power needs met by wind turbine power by the year 2030.
Call those folks George Bailey.
Both groups are in it to make money by producing a product. Being as I rather like money insofar as it makes my life easier I generally enjoy it when people make money and make it possible for others to make money. But I have to say in this particular race, I’m much more inspired by those who plan to make their money by creating opportunity instead of denying needs and creating desperation.
I’m rooting for the Wind.
Well, the important thing is that we agree the time is now to invest money and talent in the search for alternatives. Some people need to be “scared.” Speculation, in my opinion, is one small component of a much larger problem. There are few scientists among us that think we have an endless supply of oil left. I wrote about a U.S. Army report released recently that essentially said resources are becoming scarce worldwide, and they will have to adapt or be ineffective. So will we.
Drilling all over the world, by conservative estimates, extends our oil supply by 20-40 years, tops. That means our grandchildren will need affordable ways to travel, heat and cool their homes, and commute.
“Potter’s not selling. He’s buying!”
I think of that scene often as I watch people panicking.
Just remember, though – until they perfect the electric car (I’d say we’re about 3 or 4 years away), the price of oil, and how we gather electricity are two unrelated issues. The only exception is in the northeast, where homes are heated with oil.
But, the plug-in car is almost a reality. Nissan is will have a triple hybrid (gas/current hybrid batteries/plug-in) on the market in a couple of years.
I am not very far away from installing solar panels on my roof. It would not have been cost-effective a few years ago, but the fire that destroyed our home a few years back also destroyed about 10 trees that surrounded the house. Now, my roof gets direct sunlight almost the entire day.
We might even generate enough electricity to sell some back to NES.
Then, in a few years I’ll get a plug in car. No gasoline bill, no electric bill. That’s motivation enough – I don’t do fear. Fearful people always do unwise things they regret later.
Now, if the US can just do the wind turbine thing, combined with increasing our percantage of nuclear power to that of the French, we’ll be getting somewhere.
My daughter and I are also working on designing an entirely new mass transit system based on Disney’s People Mover concept (with modern computer/gps updates). Each “car” will be independent and programmable. It will revolutionise the world. Trillian will have one heck of a science project next year!
until they perfect the electric car (I’d say we’re about 3 or 4 years away)
Nonsense. The electric car has long been “perfected.” They were actually fairly popular in CA in the early 90s before the problems with the power grid out there (remember rolling brownouts?) made them fall out of favor. Now, anything can be continually improved but the technology to make all-electric cars of the same quality as gas-power vehicles has long been available.
The major obstacles of switching to all-electric are the cost or retro-fitting automobile manufacturing facilities to produce them, and insuring that our electricity infrastructure could handle the increase in load if every American family was suddenly plugging in an all-electric car (or two or even three). Then it’s just a matter of people buying them.
Theres another problem, Dolphin. I love the idea of electric cars, and i agree that they are damned near perfected. That said, the other HUGE problem is the, what?, ancillary businesses. (I hope thats the word I’m searching for)
In our current car driven market, there is the manufacturer, the retailer, the parts maker, the parts retailer, the repair shops, etc. The electric would have very few moving parts. No filters, no need for seals, oil, or most other replaceable parts. What happens to all those workers that depend on this process?
Personally, i go back to my statement that this necessary change will bring much hardship, but that our grandchildren will thank us for making sacrifices now.
Good point, Mack.
Slarti, there’s actually a documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car,” out on the electric car you might be interested in.
Forgive me for asking an obtuse question, but why are electric cars the solution?
I’m serious. Sure, they don’t use internal combustion engines, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t consume energy. They just get it from a different source. And what’s that source? The nation’s existing electrical grid. And how do most of the country’s (or the world’s) electric generation plants produce that electricity? By burning fossil fuels. Typically, coal, oil or gas.
So if I buy an electric car that ultimately depends on the consumption of the same dead dinosaurs that my current car runs on, what net gain have I created? That is, other than creating some false sense of superiority by removing myself one step further from the unpleasant reality of fossil fuel dependence.
Casual, getting small groups of people back and forth is a terrible use of fossil fuels. Moving a train full of food or supplies is much better. Heating our homes is better. The idea is to utilize energy more efficiently. Solar panels will one day charge our cars. Solar and wind will one day provide most of the electricity our homes use. We can’t go “cold turkey” on fossil fuels, but we can use them more wisely while we perfect other sources of energy. Nothing falsely superior about that. It is superior.
That reminds me. On my recent fossil-fuel guzzling road trip, seeing all those semis running on extremely expensive diesel gave me an idea:
Here you have these wonderful, flat surfaces on top of the trailers. Why not devise a system that uses solar panels on top of the trailer to supplement the diesel power? Certainly such a large area of solar panels could generate enough electricity to *help* drive the vehicle? (I’m under no illusions that they could generate enough power to haul a fully loaded trailer & cab, but certainly they cut cut fuel costs considerably, engineered correctly). Yes, solar panels are expensive, but, have you tried to fill up one of those big boys with fuel lately?
Being brain-ambidextrous, I’ve been concentratig on my artistic side lately, but this energy crunch has got my engineer juices flowing. I love brainstorming about stuff like this.
[...] 10, 2008 by Katherine Coble In the comments of a post below, Mack talks about the number of jobs that will theoretically be lost as the internal combustion engine is replaced by [...]
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Mack commented on the long term reasons electric cars are a better option; that more and more of our electricity is being generated by alternative sources and there will come a day in which it all will be. Electric cars will seamless bridge that transition as it doesn’t really matter where the electricity comes from.
But even in the short term, the process by which fossil fuels create electricity at a power plant is significantly more efficient than the process used in your gas-powered car. It’s not exactly a fair comparison since your home is more likely powered by coal, but you can still get an idea of this by comparing your electric bill to the amount you spend monthly on putting gas in your car. Now think how much more energy your house uses in a month than does your car. The difference is astonishing. Multiply that difference by the number of cars in America and you’ll find that a switch to electric cars would have a huge impact in fossil fuel consumption without even changing where that electricity comes from. (Though I still have my concerns about whether our current electrical infrastructure could handle a nationwide switch to electric vehicles)