Atlas Will Shrug

Between an anonymous antagonist and an article I was reading just recently, I couldn't help but go back to battery power once again. My antagonist tells me that anybody in support of battery power as a primary "fuel" source is foolish and doesn't know what a car is supposed to do. He/she tells me that batteries are way too much of a hassle. I mean, of COURSE a car should continue to burn away precious and limited resources.

As I replied to my antagonist, of course an electric vehicle couldn't possibly do everything that we can do with a combustion engine. But, who really needs the same amount of horsepower it takes to tow our boats and trailers on a day-to-day basis? Many of these diesel truck owners already rely on more fuel efficient cars for everyday business, however, and that's where the electric system comes it.

As for his/her remark about "who really likes using batteries?" or something to that extent, who wouldn't favor batteries in light of how much money they save? If there's one reliable fact in society right now, it's that the general population likes money. Who can blame 'em?

This bizarre hostility to the whole "green solutions" ideal is everywhere. A lot of people lose interest when I start going off on a Green tangent. They usually either don't care or are openly against it, though when I try to find out why, I get "I just don't know enough about it." Since when is this an excuse? I also get this response, interestingly though completely unrelated, when I talk about voting for Ron Paul ;)

I've been reading a book lately that, as far as I've gotten, discusses this attitude people have. It's called "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. Brief explanation of the 1/5 or so I've read:

Taggart Transcontinental is the leading railroad system in the nation. It's officially run by James Taggart, though all the real work and planning is usually accomplished by his sister and Vice President Dagny Taggart. Their most important line is suffering and must be fixed in less than a year, and the necessary rebuild is not happening with James in charge. He's relying on an "old friend" for steel, and this old friend is not delivering. So, Dagny bets it all on an up-and-coming revolutionary in the steel industry, Henry Rearden, who's invented a metal much stronger and much lighter than conventional steel.

So far, this story mirrors the current energy situation. There's a very clear problem: oil is limited and we need to find a way to break away from it now before we just run clean out and the world's economy crashes. There are actually several "Rearden metals" out there right now. Just pick up any recent issue of Popular Science and I'm sure you'll see at least one new proposal for an energy source of some kind. Many of them promise to be much more efficient than oil and at a fraction the cost.

How did the people react to Rearden metal in the story? With hostility. Rearden's accomplishment was seen as nothing more than greed and corruption. They started making and relying on false claims about his metal. They said that it would fail. The bridges would collapse and the rails wouldn't hold. They based these opinions on no actual scientific research. So, as my antagonist tries to tear apart my beloved dream of an electric society, I'd like to counter with only a small amount of research that shows that no invention is perfect the first time. Sure, the original EV-1 only drove 30 or so miles. What was the first combustion engine capable of? The later electric cars were starting to show potential 300 mile limits with lithium-ion batteries. So, let those few who want to put their faith in the car do so. There was already a greater demand than there was a supply for electric cars. In the face of such demand, innovations and improvements are sure to take place. Thankfully, other technologies (such as laptop computers) give us reason to continue to improve battery life so hopefully one day soon the electric car will come back.

The research I mentioned led me to an article about a group from Stanford who have increased the capacity of lithium-ion batteries tenfold. How about that? Could you stand a car that was only capable of driving 3,000 miles on a charge? I believe I've already mentioned Toshiba's SCiB batteries that charge 90% of the way in just 5 minutes as well, haven't I? If not, now you know.

People fight alternatives to the lifestyle they're used to living all the time, but why? Is this ridiculous fear of change really worth relying on a limited resource until it runs out and not having a back-up plan ready? The biggest problem is that people don't know what's going on around them. That, and they're afraid to put their hopes into one particular solution. They just think, "Sure, electric cars are a great dream, but the combustion engine already works. Why change it?" Sometimes it's absolutely necessary to practice other ideas. Times like now. Why are people content to wait for the oil to actually run out to solve the problem? It will be WAY too late by then. Our society will face a devastation that nobody could possibly imagine or predict. You can't just bring the world to a screeching halt and expect everything to be okay anyway.

Follow-Up to My Electric Car Post

I'd also like to note that beyond the horrible actions of General Motors to prevent the electric car from ever having a chance, certain California legislations also allowed it to happen. I've just stumbled upon an outlook on how the federal government should handle the protection of the environment and thus encourage the production of such cars, taken straight from Ron Paul's web page Ron Paul on The Environment:

"In a free market, no one is allowed to pollute his neighbor's land, air, or water. If your property is being damaged, you have every right to sue the polluter, and government should protect that right. After paying damages, the polluter's production and sale costs rise, making it unprofitable to continue doing business the same way. Currently, preemptive regulations and pay-to-pollute schemes favor those wealthy enough to perform the regulatory tap dance, while those who own the polluted land rarely receive a quick or just resolution to their problems."

The California legislation that first led to the development of a pretty good variety of electric cars from several different manufacturers stated that if a manufacturer wished to continue selling cars in California X% of their cars must be zero-emission vehicles. That "X" value was meant to steadily climb over the years and would've been incredibly helpful in changing the way society drives and breaking us of oil if California hadn't caved to the car-makers and taken down the law.

What if it were suddenly in the hands of the people, as it should be? If you could make the case that this manufacturer or that was polluting your land and impeding on your ability to function outside the confines of your own home, you could sue them. Fear of this might just have the power to bring back the electric car. I'm not typically in support of the ridiculous law suits we have today, but to bring an end to people fighting and dying for a waning resource, I'd say it's worth it. If the Federal Government was able to sue California for the zero-emission laws, we too should be given the power and government aid to sue those responsible for smog alert days that keep us trapped indoors.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

I highly recommend that everybody watch the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?" The fact that anybody can be as corrupt as those responsible for the destruction of the EV1 and other electric cars is sickening. We had in the EV1 and electric car that, if given the best batteries of it's time (NiMH), could've made up to 140 miles per charge. If this model had not been obliterated and were given the lithium ion batteries of today, as demonstrated by Alan Cocconi in the T-zero, it could have made 300 miles per charge.

The following rant has a few "spoilers" as far as information contained in the documentary, so if you don't want to watch it but want the gist of it, read on. If you're going to watch it, then just go do it now. If you have digital cable it's On Demand as of my writing this under Premium Channels, then Encore.

To everyone out there: boycott General Motors, and don't put all your faith in this hope of hydrogen fuel cells. They're not going to be all they're cracked up to be. Once the trillion or so known barrels worth of oil out there in the world are gone, gas companies will then become providers of all the hydrogen we would fill our cars with, and then what? prices would be just as bad as gasoline. The costs of building the fueling infrastructure would be insane. As for the electric car, it would be next to nothing in comparison. Your work-place could provide a simple plug-in in the parking lot, and various charging station/parking lots would spring up allowing even further mileage per charge. Many of these could be powered by all the wind and solar power, and even those that were still powered by coal power plants and others would be better than the oil we depend on now.

People die every day for this oil that's just going to run out anyway. Why, when we already have an alternative that would satisfy most needs of everybody? let's even suppose you DO need to go beyond the range of your electric car, if we had a few models of hybrids out there, we'd probably have plenty of domestic oil to meet those needs for quite some time until further developments of battery technology and solar panels allow the car to run as long as you can.

Why did this car disappear you ask? Think of all the components present in your combustion engine right now. Car manufacturers would no longer profit from installing each and every one of those components. Then, think of how many of those components will be replaced throughout the life of the car. The electric car requires only a tire rotation and wiper fluid every 5000 miles. Nothing more.