[lbo-talk] The War on the Car

[Gar Lipow]

On 11/15/05, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> > I guess refuting the mistaken belief that electric cars
> > require additional infrastructure ...
>
> I really don't get what you think "infrastructure" is or why, with all
> the good things about alternative energy use out there you're harping
> on this particular point -- that switching to electric cars wouldn't
> "require new infrastructure" -- but at least here in California, if you
> switched a significant number of gas cars to electric ones, you'd
> immediately see the need for "new infrastructure" in the guise of
> electric plants, because we're already on the hairy edge of not having
> enough.
>
> Unless less what you mean is "electric filling stations" which
> completely ignores all of the "infrastructure" required to make an
> additional amount available and the "infrastructure" required to make
> things like time-of-day pricing available to consumers.

I mean electric fillign stations and new electric plants - which was
the objection WC was talking about.

Electric cars with batteries that could travel around 250 miles would
not need new infrastructure.

California is not in fact short of electric capacity but of peak
capacity (which in all fairness is what is usually meant by being
short). Electric cars with decent  battery capacitiy could be charged
at night, during off peak hours. Thus your existing electric
infrastrucure, that is electricl plants would handle it. They would
burn more fuel of course, but that  would be made up for by the much
greater amount of fuel the cars were not burning. Time of day pricing
is not a difficult switch - lots of electric  companies have used it.

Ultimately we need to switch electricty production to renewable source
as well - but that is a whole new thread, if you decide to persue it,
please change the thread title.


>
> And of course there's that nasty little problem of utility companies
> who have refused to provide power on uneconomic terms: what will PG&E
> do when a significant number of consumers change their energy
> consumption patterns?  No one knows.

Which moves the problem back to the realm of politics, which is my
main point. Continuing to burn  fossil fuels is not due to technical
barriers to change. It is a political and social problem. Deregulation
is a much bigger obstacle to a transition to renewables than any
technical barrier - though by no means the biggest economic or
political barrier.
>
> You present your case as though only an idiot would have anything to
> say about your slam-dunk proposal.  Well, color me an idiot then.

What I objected to was the smug dismissal of the  case as though only
an idiot could make it. I'm glad my reply stung; it is exactly what
you do the other people.
>
> ---
>
> And I"m not even going to say anything about what kind of
> "infrastructure" would be required to provide "better than Euro-quality
> mass transit nationwide" . . .

quite extensive, quite expensive:  http://www.cybertran.com/

but worth the trouble, and worth the cost, and able to pay for itself.


>
> /jordan
>