You Are Not Alone. America Hates Electric Cars [Updated]
But today, right now, in the middle of a terrible recession and a miasmatic material hangover from decades of unchecked consumption, I can't look someone in the eye who's about to buy their first car and say, "Look, buy this electric vehicle. It's not very fun. It's not what you want. You can't really haul anything. It's very likely not any better for the environment. But it is very, very quiet. Especially for the hours and hours it takes to charge."
India's climate change choices - Times Of India
The greatest problem facing India is global warming. War, internal subversion and a global economic meltdown are all very serious threats, but they can be stopped or contained. Global warming, on the other hand, seems unstoppable and uncontainable. The outcome of the Durban summit on climate change suggests it is already too late to prevent the two degrees Celsius temperature increase that scientists say is the maximum tolerable.
Indians have scarcely understood the magnitude of the problem. With global warming, sea levels will rise, submerging habitations, small and big. Fertile areas will become deserts. Rivers and underground water will dry up. Rainfall patterns will change and glaciers will melt, at first causing floods, later causing rivers to die. The rising heat and lack of water will cause an agricultural catastrophe.
Doomed: Every Solar Job In Germany Costs €250,000
Every job in Germany in the solar sector costs 250,000 euros to electricity consumers, meaning they are doomed.
Future climate uncertain, grapegrowers focus on here and now
Gregory Jones, a research climatologist at Southern Oregon University, has studied temperature’s impact on wine quality, and found that a 2-degree rise in a wine region’s average growing season temperatures corresponds to a 10-point jump in a bottle’s Wine Spectator rating — and will more than double its price.
Indians in the Kashmir Valley are cut off and freezing, and 15,000 Austrian tourists were trapped as winter gripped parts of Europe and south Asia, the BBC reported.
In Asia, the Times of India said thousands in the Kashmir Valley are without power since Friday as crews work to repair damaged wires. Hundreds of thousands are without power, Internet or mobile phone service as the temperature dropped.
"Both the major transmission lines used to import power into the valley from the country's northern grid ... have snapped across the Pir Panjal mountains due to heavy snowfall. We are trying to restore our system on a war footing," a source, who declined to give his name, told the TOI.
The capital of Pakistan is also digging out, MSN India reported. Islamabad and rural areas of Pakistan are facing rain, fog and the first snowfall in eight years for some.
In Austria, about four feet of the white stuff has fallen from the sky in areas most affected, closing sections of highway and isolating some towns since Thursday.
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1 comment:
Here's my comment to Jalopnic's rant against Electric cars: “A solution to a problem we don’t have?”
Wow, what planet do you live on? If you don’t think spending $50 billion a year of tax payer money propping up big oil interests by protecting shipping lanes with our military to get the tankers here is a big problem then what about the $1.3 billion a day we are sending to middle eastern countries for their oil, countries that don’t like us very much… surely some of that money goes directly to supporting terrorism. Maybe you don’t think the cost of gasoline is getting out of hand either?
“Long commutes are not what an electric car is for, I'm told. But why not?”
I’ve put 10,000 miles on the Nissan Leaf in about 6 months for less than $300 in renewably sourced electricity… the only type of car I know of that stands to pay for itself in gas savings over it’s life. I have done a 150 mile trip with just over an hour recharge using a DC quick charger. The new breed of Li-ion batteries can take a charge very fast, 80% in 30 minutes, generating very little heat and the car’s battery comes with a 100,000 mile warranty! We are set to have 70 of these chargers in the Metro area in a matter of months. The Leaf will continue to be most practical for a two car household for some time to come, but that’s 60 million households in the US! This year a luxury electric is set to come out with a 300 mile range and in time, economy of scale will bring the price down to make such range within reach of the average consumer in more affordable models.
“You can abstract almost every discussion of energy down to raw power. And you should.”
Nearly all of our electricity comes from Hydro, Wind, Solar, Bio-gas and Geothermal here in the North West. If you ignore the cost, from well to wheels, for a gallon of gas, your argument sounds good, but in reality it takes a huge amount of energy to extract, ship, refine and transport gasoline to our gas stations. Most electric car charging happens at night when there is lots of off peak excess. Calculations by the DOE suggest we already have the capacity to generate enough electricity to get off of foreign oil. Estimates suggest that simply being able to store the off peak waste will give us enough electricity to charge tens of millions of electric cars without burning any more coal or splitting any more atoms. The current electric system is very wasteful for lack of decent battery storage capacity, electric cars stand to provide many real world solutions to real everyday problems.
Your article is designed to spread misinformation. Shame on you for such poor journalism.
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