Bob,
I'm well aware of what it takes to stop a battleship having been on some sea trials on them, and yes, it takes lots of time. My point is that the longer we wait to get started, the more radical the change becomes that's needed.
I believe that we need govt. based incentives to make it happen, but the U.S. alone can't do it, but we can lead the development and hopefully others will follow. Their is no doubt in my mind that the Chinese are fully aware how bad their use of coal fired generators is, but they're stuck until they transition to other forms, or find a way to truly have clean coal. Clean coal technology has been discussed for decades, but we've failed to achieve it, at least at a price that can be afforded.
As for green technology, I believe the day will come where everything from the windows, siding, roofing, etc. in our homes or commercial buildings will become solar collectors. They may not be as efficient as the solar cells today, but even on a cloudy day they'll generate more power than we consume. Because such construction will be mandated, the cost won't actually be that much higher as with mass production costs can be lowered. Certainly it will probably be 25 years or more before such massive change is possible, but we should be starting to work in that direction now.
The U.S. should be the leader in developing new product that look appealing, yet gather solar energy. We should work on turning our garbage into useful products, rather than polluting land fill. Certainly as you suggested, we need to dramatically improve on batteries, or some other forms of storing, and recapturing energy. Cost of such innovation is often high, but I'll contend that once you determine how to make that better battery, etc. finding ways to mass produce it can bring the cost into line with the products of today.
A few years ago MIT announced the development of a battery suitable for electric cars that could be fully recharged in 5 minutes, the problem is cost. I've got to believe that if that battery became the standard for all electric vehicles, the cost could be brought in line with current products. If cell size were something all manufacturers could agree on, producing the cells by the millions could be priced reasonably. The cells could be packaged into all sorts of configurations, and should a cell go bad, it could be individually replaced. This is something I understand can now be done with vehicles like my Prius, but I'm not certain that's true. If in fact full recharging was available in 5 minutes, or even 10, and a vehicle could get 200 miles or more between charges, I think it would be fully competitive with petroleum powered cars.
It's my understanding that Tesla charging stations are solar powered. A friend who has one has used nothing but the Tesla stations, not even plugging his car in at home. He either goes shopping while it's charging, or works on the internet, while he spends between half and hour and a couple hours if he's fully discharged. By the way, he also let the car drive itself over a few different freeways just using the turn signal to move to the appropriate lane for changing freeways. He never needed to touch the steering wheel, accelerator, or brake as the car did all the work. I don't know that charging will always be free for Tesla, or any others, once most if not all cars are electric, but if we can build a huge network of solar charging stations, the cost of charging should be far less than using gas. Of course, with solar power in our homes, charging the car at home will be free. The Tesla's of today certainly aren't economy cars, but the new model, and others that bring down the cost and extend the range to a few hundred miles will be, especially if they have batteries that can recharge in 10 minutes, or less.
We need to move in the direction of the Tesla, one drive will convince anyone they're not sacrificing anything on performance. The petroleum industry will be kicking and screaming, but ultimately we ought to need far less of what they're selling.
Tesla has proved it can be done, now many car makers are doing it, but not yet with the range of the Tesla, but not at the cost either. The key will be getting the range and rapid recharging, do that and the gas powered car will be as obsolete as the horse powered carriage.
Gary |
