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Read other letters about this article
you wrote:
"Or did you forget that there is no such thing as an electric car, only cars that run on oil, coal, or nuclear power? And before you bring up solar, remember that there is not enough real estate on the planet to support enough solar panels to meet our needs"
No, I didn't forget this. Using fossil-fuel energy as stored electricity is still far more efficient than burning it up in individual ICEs at a less-than-50% energy-conversion rate.
Wide use of electric cars would cut waste heat, would eliminate greenhouse gas emission from tailpipes, and would provide more reliable transportation in the medium term.
We'll be using fossil-fuels for the foreseeable future, but the economies of scale that result from using that fuel as electricity in individual vehicles are far more efficient, and beneficial, than the way we use that fuel now. Just do the research, it's all out there in black and white.
And, while gasoline-supplies are subject to all manner of risks, with those risks growing daily, our electricity supplies, while hardly guaranteed, are more stable than our gasoline supplies in the medium term.
Look, in the long-term, most of us will die of starvation and disease as the lights go out. But if we can delay the day long enough, maybe not so many need die, and maybe the situation need not become apocalyptic. One way to delay the day is electric transportation.
A better way would be draconian limits on fuel consumption, including rationing. While we save the oil and gas in the ground. An even better way would be a police-state that controls the use of fuel at the point of a gun. Oh, and the most rigid possible immigration and population control.
The reason we're IN this mess in the first place is because cheap and easy fossil fuels--the most dense energy source on the planet, by FAR--allowed our world population to simply run out of control. We're now in overshoot, and we'll pay for that, sooner or later. How much we pay...that's the question.
Check world population growth against fossil-fuel use. They track precisely.
Because of our population overshoot, our future as a species is probably very grim... But, for now, more electric cars would be a relatively benign way to delay the inevitable day or reckoning..
