DaveinOlyWA said:
one poster does not like "zero emission?" what if i told you that all the emissions from every car that ever burned a fuel does not compare to the environmental damaged cause to dig, drill or pump that fuel out of the ground?
Coal, uranium, and natural gas, and lithium are mined/fracked as well. Not to mention damming up rivers has also caused land slides, and caused environmental damage as well. Nothing in this world is zero sum except solar and wind power. Until the grid is 100% renewable or everyone with 1 of these cars has solar panels on their roof the "Zero Emission" stuff is a sales pitch. I am not saying this cars are worse, by far I do not think they are. Driving my Volt on electric cuts my emissions over gasoline in half with 38% nuclear and the rest coal in my area). Saying that they are zero emission just cause they do not have a tail pipe though in my mind is defeating the purpose. We definately need to be smart about what we tell people however. Telling them these cars are zero emissions, and putting this stuff all over the car turns the average person off. While they may not understand completely how the process works they know we use a lot of coal power, and that coal is dirty. I like referring to the energy used by these cars in BTU's as it gives me a point to go off of, and relate that back to emissions of these vehicles. Not to mention comparing BTU's used by electrics vs a gas car really shows just how inefficient the ICE vehicles really are. When every gallon of gasoline contains 115,000BTU's of potential energy, and the average car only goes about 25-30 miles. Then you tell them an electric car goes 3.5-4.5 miles on 3400BTU's (1kwh) and that when scaled up the electric will travel over 110 miles on the same energy.
Now people don't have to like what I say, but I am a firm believer that when people ask me questions about these cars that I tell them the truth. A lot of times you would be amazed about how when you tell them the truth instead of trying to sell the line of "these cars don't emit anything because they don't have tail pipes" actually gets more people on board. Not to mention getting ourselves off of foreign oil slowly, and keeping more energy dollars in our economy can only do more good. Obviously solar and nuclear power is the ultimate goal, but that is still a long ways off. It is just about giving people good, and honest information to bring them to a reasonable decision. That is why the badges will be coming off of my Leaf.
As far as the BP spill goes again that is pollution which is extremely bad. I personally would like to see more light shed on what really happened, and what the REAL damage is. I read reports about there being sludge on the sea floor still, and underwater oil pockets floating in the Gulf. It is certaintly a shame. Coal burning plants while bad, are still easier to control than 200 million tail pipes. In the near future until we move toward alternatives it is just something we will need to deal with. Uranium production is on a down slope, so at best it will be a stop gap to whatever technology takes over from coal/oil/nuclear. In my mind solar seems to be the only way to go, but need some type of power source to carry through night time. I have read the average Japanese person only uses 10-12kwh of electricity a day. I know in my house we use about 34kwh a day, and we are on the low side. I think most in the country use over 50-60kwh/day. So whatever we go to next is going to have to follow along with conservation efforts as well. People want EV's that will go 300+ miles, but in the future energy will not be as cheap, or readily available as it is now. People do not want to change their lifestyles but at some point they will not have a choice. Especially if it hits the fan in the Middle East, we hit peak oil, or demand in China/India goes through the roof (although China did lower its growth forecast for the year, but they are still growing about triple the rate of the US market). We shall see what the future holds though.