From: Mark Walker (mark@permanentend.org)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 09:37:32 MDT
Emlyn:
<<Decent electric cars would do the job. Then we could use any generation
method that we could dream up.
Emlyn>>
Mitch wrote:
"We can't make our cars run on dreams. After more then 100 years, we have no
all-electric vehicles that can compare in utility, and performance, then
vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine. Comming up wih "decent
electric
cars" is like saying 'if we can come up with a decent fusion reaction
system.." Making an all-electric vehicle, and setting up fast re-charing
stations, is
more difficult then it seems. I realize that it is 'anti-intuitive' that
this
should be so, but it is how the world is. (sigh!) "
I'm inclined to think that your analogy here is a bit strained: for one
thing partially electric cars could solve some of the problems whereas it is
a little difficult to doing anything with a partial decent fusion reaction
system. For example, estimates from
http://www.e2i.org/docs/Plug-in_Hybrid.pdf suggest that a "plug-in" hybrid
vehicle would help reduce dependence on oil. The idea is that the batteries
would get you about 40 miles before they need to be recharged, so if you
need to go further than 40 miles the gasoline engine kicks in. Otherwise you
plug the car in and recharge the batteries. Most people take short trips
most of the time. Of course you still need to generate electricity somehow,
but the point is that it could be done by any number of generating
techniques, as Emlyn rightly points out. (Some European countries are now up
in the 20% range of electricity generated from wind.) I'm no engineer (as I
am about to prove) but I'm not sure why you couldn't make an electric
vehicle where at least some of the batteries pop out and are replaced by
charged batteries. Suppose for example when you bought your car you leased
your batteries from some company, say Exxon. (Gotta have something for the
poor multinational to do). A decent electric vehicle will get about 100
miles on a charge. Suppose on those occasions where you need to travel more
than 100 miles you could pull into an Exxon station and a little robot would
pull out your spent batteries and replace them with charged ones. Even if
only half the batteries could be pulled out in this manner this would still
give you an additional 50 miles. Since you are leasing the batteries from
Exxon they will be pleased to switch out the batteries and recharge them for
the next customer. Of course they will charge you extra for this service.
Obviously this would be inconvenient for long road trips--stopping every 50
miles for a battery change. In this case I suppose one would rent a trailer
that runs on fossil fuels and turns an electric generator to power the car.
In these rare times that I travel more than 100 miles in one shot this would
definitely not be as convenient. But this is at most maybe 6 times a year.
As it is now, I've got to make a weekly stop at the gas station, so this
setup would definitely be more convenient. I'd love to come home and simply
plug-in.
Mark
Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214 Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Aug 26 2003 - 09:47:27 MDT