Electric Cars Dead Batteries Nickel Hydridelithium Ioncarbon Footprint
OK everybody - time to don our "thinking caps." We shall attempt to solve the classic chicken vs. the egg problem - here goes: If every car went electric tomorrow, where would we plug them all in? How would all that juice be produced? Would you be willing to pay the equivalent of $15 dollars for a gallon of gas (to fund the cost of solar cells, plus wind towers and all the electric infrastructure) to keep them all charged? No? Well then, why all this stupid talk about ELECTRIC CARS? Who's crazy idea is this anyway?
Of course, it's the liberals! Led by that great Whitehouse chieftain of green, Barack el-Bama! But where is his electric-powered, custom-designed, presidential stretch limo? Last time we checked, el-Presidente was seen being ferried about DC in one that still relied on the infernal-combustion, pollution-spewing, earth-warming GASOLINE engine! Horrors! Such hypocrisy!
And while were on the subject, let's pose yet another spellbinding enigma: what would we do with all the infernal, electric car batteries, once they WEAR OUT? Sell 'em on eBay? Donate them to the St. Vincent De Paul Society?Face it: ANY worn-out battery poses a waste problem: it's the ECOLOGY stupid! Old batteies - no matter their size (or type) - eventually leach their high-toxicity content somewhere. This begs the obvious question - WHERE do we dispose 'em all? Yucca Mountain? The Dead Sea? Lake Okachobee? Should not all the green-energy, anti-oil environmentalists be concerned? A battery is a battery!
Be it nickel-hydride, lithium-ion, or lead-acid, it's still the same basic electro-chemical reaction, that produces a positive-negative ionic charge - originally dicovered by Alessandro Volta, the Italian Physicist, back in 1799. That's correct; today's modern electric cars are no greater than the 18th century technology that lies under the hood (or the seats). Quality control poses yet another enormous problem for electric-car manufacturers: dozens of interlaced, standard car batteries, comprised of hundreds of cells - each the size of a cigarette pack - must charge and discharge with exact precision. A battery works only as well as its worst cell - which means, of course, electric car batteries quickly go dead, and MUST be discarded.
Are you paying attention, Mr. O'Bomba? Superfund clean-up, anyone?The President makes it all sound so easy: Build electric cars, plug 'em in and go! Sure: if only it were that simple.On a national scale, we are decades away before the electric car is practical - or of really making a dent in our "carbon footprint."
Yes, it would all be so wonderful except for those darn ol' infrastructure problems, before electric car civilization becomes reality:
1) Utility-scale solar power plants
2) Secondary distribution grids to get power from sunny areas onto the national grid
3) nation-wide charging system.
Until the above happens, electric cars are little more than a pollution-shifting technology.
Oh sure, they'll allow surburban liberals (with fat wallets) a way to feel good about themselves; but most others will have to be dragged (kicking & screaming) before abandoning their reliable, AFFORDABLE gasoline buggies.
Indeed; who really wants to be stuck with a car having little range, and the high-cost of electricity to keep it running?Electric cars pose the classic chicken/egg conundrum. Presently, there is nowhere to re-charge them. Hence, no charge points makes ownership impractical; while no electric cars makes it uneconomic to build charge points.Another conundrum: does it pay to create a market that's virtually non-existent (for electric vehicles), or do you wait for the demand, and THEN take on the engineering costs to develop them?Consider the Chevy Volt: when plugged into a 240-volt outlet, it uses about 3.3 kilowatts of power - similar to a dishwasher or air conditioner.Now let's say - a few years from now - everyone arrives home and plugs in their Chevy Volts between 5 or 6 pm, on a hot summer afternoon, at peak demand. Result? Brownouts, blackouts, and possible blowouts in our already overburdened national electric grid.And what about road trips if one needs to recharge the giant battery pack? What if you live in an apartment without a garage, with no electrical outlet?Not only are there questions about the availability of plugs, consider the source of electricity that come from them. Currently, 65% of the nation's supply is coal-generated -something the green lobby seeks to eliminate for wind and solar.So pause and take inventory:We're being urged to drive electric vehicles, to eliminate CO2 - which "harms" the environment - but requires electricity that comes from coal- a pollutant. Ergo, the zero sum game! Fossil fuel pollution diminishes - but offset by additional coal burned at power plants.
Knowing this, perhaps Mr. Obama should ask himself: "what's wrong with the cars we have now?"
The answer of course is nothing.Gasoline cars are completely recyclable - almost down to the honk in the horn. But there is a litany of things to be encountered driving one of the "green cars of the future."One is esthetics: there are structural reasons why electric cars are ugly: a huge compartment is needed to hold the giant array of batteries clustered together required to propel the hideous things.And just like all batteries- from that little 9-volt in your garage door opener, all the way up to the giant, 18 square foot battery pack in your electric car- they soon go dead.Electric cars won't do anything to save the environment- it will mean more coal burned, and poisonous, carcinogenic chemicals seeping from untold millions of useless battery packs; a sure-to-come future environmental nightmare.Obama's "damn the fossil fuels, save the environment" clean-energy policy will destroy the very thing he professes to save, as wastelands of non-recyclable, dead-battery discards create another monumental hazard to mankind, as any Chernobyl could ever do.Despite the spin by the green lobby, those wonderfully- quiet, smooth-running electric cars pose the greatest threat to the U.S. since Love Canal - an ecological nightmare just waiting to happen. Happy motoring everyone!
