In spite of how it might appear sometimes (previous post), I’m not at all opposed to developing alternate energy sources. Yes I wrote a novel (“Backlash“) that follows a fictional Big Oil company executive who is the heroine (!) of the book. But that doesn’t mean I’m all-in for oil as the only fuel source for transportation.
Is the Chevy Volt already in our rearview mirror?
There’s also natural gas.
But beyond that, nothing has come to the fore as a PRACTICAL alternative to the gasoline-powered, internal combustion engine.
Yet.
At some point, an alternative to fossil fuel might emerge, but before it can be considered a practical alternative, it will have to prove that it can be reliable, cheap, and plentiful, since the energy needs of the world are expanding each and every day.
President Obama has made alternative fuels a centerpiece of his administration from day one, but there are wasted tax payer dollars and idled factories all over the landscape, because he, like most liberals, idealistically assume that people will embrace these technologies out of altruism, pocketing their doubts rather than consulting their checkbooks.
Solar-panel maker Solyndra was the first of several companies which took tax-payer money, then promptly folded. This week, General Motors announced it was “temporarily” suspending production on the plug-in hybrid Volt, which Obama had trumpeted as THE answer to energy independence.
But the car costs $40,000+ which even a $7,500 tax credit couldn’t make palatable enough for many people to buy them. GM had planned to build 60,000 this year, but that meant they needed to sell 5,000 per month. So far, they’ve sold less than 1,700. So they wisely pulled the plug.
But even worse is the Fisker Karma, another plug-in hybrid which got half a billion dollars in Federal money but promptly closed its American plant and is manufactured in Europe, which must really fry the United Auto Workers’ calamari. The Karma is a really cool looking car, which has a sticker price north of $100,000, so it’s just for “one percenters”, but it has had “mechanical” problems, including simply not starting on a Consumer Reports test track (DOHHH!). About 500 have sold.
Of course the point that the Obama Administration Energy Department, which made the loans to Solyndra, GM and Fisker, fails to emphasize is that 48% of electrical power is generated in coal plants, so a hybrid electric car is still at minimum 75% fossil-fuel powered.
Henry Ford didn’t get Federal loans or subsidies when he was pioneering the internal-combustion engine in this country, but he succeeded because he was able to produce a product that was better and cheaper. The automobile had its detractors in the beginning (“It’ll never last”). The Model T produced a mere 20 horsepower, but think of the problems of hitching 20 horses to a wagon (that’s a LOT of methane “exhaust”!). The “auto-mobile” was much more efficient.
So something more efficient and cheaper than the gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine will probably come along, and when it does it will be enthusiastically embraced, IF it is better, cheaper and more efficient.
The vaunted wind and solar power industries combined so far produce less than one percent of the electrical power required in the USA, so it’s probably a little early to be putting all our eggs in those baskets.
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