The debate continues on whether the US is on the edge of a recession, if we’re already in one, or if everything is fine and business continues as usual. I was interested to read Alan Greenspan’s views coming out of the Cambridge Energy Research Associate’s energy conference in Houston. The hook of his comments appears related to the chance of the US economy entering a recession this year, but then he gets to the interesting energy opinions.
I love that the energy industry appears to be embracing the movement towards electric cars. Oil companies might hate the idea, but it would be quite a boom for our electricity providers. While I don’t agree that nuclear is the best source of the required additional power, I can see the economic argument for large scale nuclear over coal, and I’m glad to see this sort of energy debate happening down in Houston:
Using electric cars - and cutting into the 11 million barrels of oil a day or so conventional vehicles use on U.S. roads - is one of the surest ways to reduce oil consumption and bring down oil prices, Greenspan said.
He was then asked where the electricity to power those cars should come from.
“Simple, they’re going to have to use nuclear,” the former central banker told Cambridge Energy chairman Daniel Yergin during an informal Q&A-style dinner discussion…
…While acknowledging global warming is real and needs to be dealt with, he said they type of reductions people are talking about “can only occur with much lower levels of economic activity.”
I confess again that I’m hopeful that business does not continue as usual, and a changing economic landscape forces more efficient and thus environmentally friendly business practices. We’ll see. At least global warming is being acknowledged within the energy conferences- and if the economy has to suffer for the changes to happen, well, maybe we’ll all have to drink one less frappucino and buy one less guest-room television. Tightening belts in 2008 doesn’t seem to mean the same thing that it meant 70 and 80 years ago- let’s take the economic impact, brush ourselves off and move on.
2 responses so far ↓
Paul Scott // Feb 17, 2008 at 5:12 am
You might like to know that a recent study by the Pacific Northwest Labs (part of the DOE) found that a full 73% of the American passenger vehicle fleet could be charged during off peak time without the addition of any new production. This would result in over 150 million internal combustion engines suddenly going quiet and emitting nothing.
Clearly, millions of EVs will not appear overnight, but we need to start asap with as many as possible.
Hundreds of Californians are still driving production EVs from the ZEV mandate of the 90’s. These vehicles are still running as though they were new. Over 20 million miles have been driven by these vehicles over the past 5-7 years. This is proof that the technology is mature enough for the change over.
And if you’re concerned about pollution, we took a survey of EV owners here in California and found that 48% of them used solar PV for the electricity in their houses and cars.
The early adopters will gravitate to renewable sources such as wind and solar in high percentages. As we internalize the costs of CO2 and criteria pollutants at the pump and on the grid, renewables will infiltrate deeper.
But, we have to have the cars first.
Jennifer Dearing // Feb 19, 2008 at 10:38 am
Thank you for the comment Paul! I’m not sure we’ll be able to convince the all of the early electric vehicle adopters to recharge in off-peak times- I’ve seen my few coworkers with these types of cars recharging them in the parking lot during the day in special parking areas. It seems that large increases in the usage of the electric vehicles and their required recharging will probably follow the same pattern of daily activity that created those energy peak times in the first place. But any direction this process needs to take is necessary (if we need to have access to more wind turbines, I’d like to argue for that support first!), and I really appreciate you adding your detailed knowledge and analysis!
Leave a Comment