[Marxism] Greg Nowell on the electric car

[dwalters@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Electric cars. A company [Telsa Motors] funded by the Google founders have come
out with some fancy, high speed, long range electric cars. They do NOT use
lead-acid batteries, but lithium-ion batteries*. 0 to 60 is 4 seconds, 200
miles range, etc. expensive, but not THAT expensive. And, they take good ol'
American 60hz 3 phase AC power, that is, one can plug it into *any* socket.
Very nice. (all the past electric vehicles were a pain because they were DC
power and one had to use the electric car producer's own house-rigged
transfomers to charge the battery)

What does this do? It means that instead of burning refined petroleum, it uses
and stores electricity made from...natural gas, coal, nuclear and...refined
petroleum products. Like hyrdrogen, these cars use energy that is generated
*someplace else*, just not at the engine, so the pollution is transferred to
big power plants and not out of one's tail-pipe.

But...this is being unfair. In point of fact, the electricity generated at big
power plants, even coal fired plants, is, horse-power to horse-power, far more
efficient than power generated in little combustion engines that burn gasoline.
There is a savings this way, that the the total amount of fuel is lower and ,
there is a gratifying feeling that you are really NOT buring oil. If we all
switched to 100% electric cars, the US would cease importating any oil from
overseas. Other problems might arise, but this would be a consequence.

The silicon valley electric vehicle I mention above is made possible by huge
advances in battery technology. This is a definite worthwhile investment for
any society to make.

David
* for more in lithium-ion batteries see:
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17250&ch=biztech


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