It is a fact of life that whenever government “fixes” problems, they create new problems. An example that I wrote about in the old blog is now being “fixed again” by the House today.
The pressure to increase gasoline economy and electric vehicles has created a new danger – the lack of sound. The House is using the blind as the “victim” [my father was blind], but the problem will affect everyone. Hybrids and especially electric cars make very little noise. You don’t hear them coming, and drivers aren’t totally aware of the danger.
So the fix is cars will have to create artificial noises so people will notice the car approaching.
Down the road about five years will be the Aha! Realization that electric plugin cars will not be paying gasoline taxes and we won’t have money to build and repair roads. Tax electricity for road construction?
It’s the old addage, If it’s not broken don’t fix it ! The government cannot leave anything alone. My dad was legally blind (due to an old injury playing semi-pro football.) Living in San Francisco the buses were electric trolly, he could see them but could not judge distance, with the advent of electric cars he would be in big trouble today if he were still alive.
You can never make the Libs happy!
Now that they have green cars (I call my hybrid an extended mileage car), and they don’t make noise, we have another “crisis”!
What about the finely tuned luxury cars that make hardly any noise? I have hearing problems, so they are a danger to me! And let’s make another distinction: hybrids have a gas engine and make a little noise, but they do make noise. But I’m sure that when Big Govt. gets involved to regulate this new “crisis” they will lump hybrids in with completely silent electric cars. (And whatever happened to the “old” crisis of a decade ago of “noise pollution”?)
Finally, let’s be honest about electric vehicles. Where is the electricity coming from? In the Midwest the primary energy source is coal. So they shouldn’t be called electric vehicles but coal vehicles. And this Administration wants to limit coal usage in the future.
So, extrapolating these facts out to their logical end the Administration wants to limit electric vehicles.
There is a lot of “buzz” lately about large new deposits of natural gas coming on line due to the innovation called “Fracking” (which the greenies want to stop). It isn’t really on the table yet, but I’m warming up to the idea of powering limited range cars like the Volt with natural gas or electric power generated in the garage from natural gas. Much of the natural gas fracking is occuring close to the NorthEast, so it wouldn’t require building more capacity from Houston up to the NorthEast. The infrastructure for natural gas is already present in most of the country. I think it’s likely this would be easier to pull off than to build new electric generation and transmission capacity. Longer term, compressed natural gas could replace some of the gasoline used. Unlike batteries, a “charge” of natural gas woldn’t take any more than filling a tank with gasoline – and the distribution system is already in place.
Yeah, but natural gas is such a clean useful fuel compared to oil or coal that using it for mundane things such as base load electricity generation or transportation would be like about as stupid as using corn to make gasoline…
Coal is perfect for stationary electric power plants because, like uranium, it’s not useful for much else. Ditto for oil- not good for much except transportation and plastics.
Using natural gas in vehicles avoids transmission loss inherent with electricity and is easily stored. But more important, it doesn’t have a 10 year lead time to get online. Hopefully after we exhaust our 100+ year domestic supply, we’ll be weaned off carbon based fuels.
I heard the latest figures are closer to 300 years of natural gass in the US alone.
Was this a Boone Pickens lie?
The transmission losses are still there for natural gas. With electricity we make a big deal about “transmission losses” because the average person (even Boone Pickens apparently) doesn’t understand what causes voltage drop over long distances. The same thing happens with natural gas pipelines but no one talks about it much because unlike a brownout the lights don’t dim. It’s called “pressure drop” or “pumping losses”. A gas pipeline extending hundreds of miles requires compressor stations to keep the gas moving along at reasonably constant pressures within the pipe design safety factor. The higher the gas flow/consumption, the higher the pumping power requirement will be. As ICCDude correctly points out, the natural gas infrastructure is no more ready to take on transportation loads than the electrical infrastructure is.
One point in the original post was these fracking reserves are very close to the point of use for much of the U.S. population lives, mitigating the transmission loss. Up until now, the natural gas did have to travel generally from Houston Northward (or Canada Southward). Not that it’s relevant, but there is a 16″ natural gas pipeline about 150 feet from where I sleep if I disappear in a puff of smoke.
The inbetween possiblity in the interim is to build natural gas power plants at the site of the natural gas fields – meaning no gas pipelines at all.
For the life of me, I don’t undesrtand why people in New England still burn oil for heat. I suspect it is a lot of people live on big lots that are full of bedrock and it’s too hard to run in a gas line…. either that or the oil and gas suppliers have something interfering with price competition.
“..But more important, it doesn’t have a 10 year lead time to get online.”
Agreed, and if America had been building power plants during the past 30 years instead of crying about how the sky is falling we wouldn’t be facing this crisis today. China is building plants at a rate that will bring 20 new nuclear power plants online every year for the next 20 years. We can’t even manage to construct ONE plant in 30 years.
Looked into Nat gas here in Memphis before buying the hybrid.
The distribution infrastructure isn’t in place yet. Ironically, the only “depots” per se are in place for govt. vehicles, but the public isn’t allowed to fill up there.
Seems like we need this as much as roads. So the govt. won’t allow the infrastucture to be built to insure our continuing prosperity.
I wonder why?
Oh yeah – it’s not solar.
These wackos out here in Colorado just decided to convert the coal fired powerplants to gas. What’s wrong with that picture? Oh, and the customers have to pay extra rates for this sterling example of shortsightedness.