Greenspan: electric cars, the best solution to high gas prices
Former fed chair Alan Greenspan says the electric car is the best solution to high gas prices and we need to find ways to make more of them. Speaking at Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA)'s CERAWeek 2008, Greenspan said we must "find a way to move cars to electric" because using electric cars "will have a large impact on world petroleum demand." Who's gonna argue with Alan Greenspan?Related:
- Greenspan on ethanol: it'll play a limited role
- Greenspan says (basically) that with higher MPG cars, Iraq war could have been avoided
- High-gas prices not significant yet, states Greenspan
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mort 10:26AM (2/18/2008)
I hate to be cynical, but I feel that Greedscam is just trying to protect his legacy, the same way Bush is in his last year in office. They rape and plunder, but then want to be liked by environmentally concerned people. Sorry, I don't buy it. The green movement needs true allies, not charlatans and profiteers.
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David Wright 11:22AM (2/18/2008)
Trucks too, Alan. Don't forget trucks. On our side of the pond (I live in the UK), companies like Smith EV http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com and Modec http://www.modec.co.uk already have hundreds of all-electric trucks and vans delivering goods in UK cities. Not jokey little 3-wheelers, but proper 3.5ton, 5ton, 7.5ton and 9ton.
Smith EV (part of the Tanfield Group) are now commencing production of a 12 ton US-specification truck at their factory in Fresno, California, where they look like making around 800-900 this year - and are building a new 300,000 sq.ft US factory to produce 10,000 vehicles a year by 2010. That's in addition to 5000 a year for Europe by the same date.
Alan might not know it, but it's already happening - whether American-owned companies join in or not.
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Whopper 12:40PM (2/18/2008)
Mr. G may be a financial wizard, but when it comes to manufacturing of any kind "bean counters" are not to be trusted. More successful manufacturing companies have fallen prey to the "death by green eyeshade" disease. Example: Robert McNamara (aka Whiz Kid) nearly killed Ford Motor Co. and then screwed up the US Army.
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meme 12:37PM (2/18/2008)
I have my gripes with Greenspan, but let's not kid ourselves -- the man still is very influential. And if his words merely convince a single congressperson or two to support EV incentives of some kind or another, that's good news in my book. And they'll probably have more of an effect than just that.
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rgseidl 12:47PM (2/18/2008)
Alan Greenspan is the man who maintained extremely low interest rates for a number of years for the sake of short-term growth. The resulting large influx of cheap fresh money into the economy led US banks to prioritize market share over creditworthiness for consumer loans, incl. mortgages and car loans. The Bush tax cuts exacerbated this asset bubble because far too many US consumers took on more debt than they could reliably service.
Repackaging the entirely predictable glut of subprime loans and selling some of the resulting financial toxic waste to gullible overseas banks worked once - more or less. Many US banks have taken severe hits against their balance sheets and millions of consumers have had to accept foreclosure and/or repossession.
Mr. Bernanke's recent aggressive rate cuts are supposed to encourage banks to ease the credit crunch but you know what they say: once bitten, twice shy.
If the US does now go into recession, oil and fuel prices will drop sharply - as will consumer interest in fuel-efficient vehicles incl. xEVs. Then who will have killed the electric car?
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meme 1:13PM (2/18/2008)
"If the US does now go into recession, oil and fuel prices will drop sharply - as will consumer interest in fuel-efficient vehicles incl. xEVs."
If the US goes into a recession, demand for *all* vehicles will drop.
Even if the US goes into a recession, and even if that hurts the world economy, China is going to keep growing, and so will its demand for oil. The situation with the Awakenings militias in Iraq is pretty precarious right now. Not sure how Nigeria and Colombia are going to go, but that's always up in the air. The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to have 50% higher activity than normal. US will probably stop filling its strategic reserves, so that may lower the pressure on the markets somewhat. Then again, who knows what will happen with Iran. Or Venezuela, for that matter.
I wouldn't bet on particularly low oil prices next year.
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jcwinnie 3:48PM (2/18/2008)
Over at another green transportation blog there is a graph with a prominent arrow in the background encouraging the Society of Automotive Engineers in attendance to move away from grid-able vehicles. Ostensibly, Menahem Anderman argues that it is for environmental and societal benefits, yet the gist of the argument is economic. As one commentator observed, the graph is way too short.
Now in Column B, we have a leading economist, someone this nation trusted with monetary policy analysis for many, many years arguing the converse.
(Dons Wehrmacht helmet)
Hmm, very interesting.
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GreyFlcn 1:53PM (2/18/2008)
Yeah, but the other half of that statement he says that they should be powered by "cheap" Nuclear energy.
Nuclear isn't cheap.
Nuclear is just subsidized more than the entire rest of the electric industry combined.
http://greyfalcon.net/h2nuke
And it STILL costs too much.
http://greyfalcon.net/costlynuclear
http://greyfalcon.net/nuclearvideo
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Mike Z 2:47PM (2/18/2008)
Arguing that Nuclear costs too much really is a straw man argument. We have NO idea how much new reactor designs like the AP-1000 will cost because we have not built any yet.
Its just pointless to rule nuclear out as being too expensive, when there exist no case study baselines in the last 20 years to reference to.
The only bases on determining nuclear cost we have is France, were electrical rates are slightly lower than in the US, and carbon emissions per kWh generated are %400 less.
(Incidentally, In Germany, which is pushing renewables, electrical rates are 50% above the US and carbon emissions per kWh are only about %10 lower.)
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meme 3:01PM (2/18/2008)
That's a good point, Mike Z. When you look at tech from 20-30 years ago and how much it cost then vs. how much it costs today, there can be a big difference. In the oil industry, for example, almost nobody was producing from bitumen in the 70s, despite the embargo, because the tech wasn't there; it was just too expensive. Now it's quite affordable (although still very dirty).
My attitude toward nuclear power is that if they can pay their own way, then power to them. Or from them, or whatever :) I'm all for streamlining regulation related to nuclear power (for example, allowing a standardized design to get approved once and not have to be reapproved with each new plant built, and whatnot), so long as safety remains -- and that will help the industry. But as for the rest -- waste handling, financial risk, etc -- well, they need to pay their own way. We're not their bank, especially given that wind is approaching grid parity in many places, as is solar thermal, and CIGS cells are looking to blow away coal in terms of cheap power.
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Wildgoosechase73 4:39PM (2/18/2008)
What we have to remember is that while electric vehicles sound great they are actually coal and natural gas powered.
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ug 9:30PM (2/18/2008)
"What we have to remember is that while electric vehicles sound great they are actually coal and natural gas powered."
You want efficient transportation? Ride a bike.
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meme 5:35PM (2/18/2008)
Funny you should mention that, Wildgoosechase73 -- I just recently did a comparison on that very subject:
http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/greenwiki/Electric_vehicle#Aptera_Typ-1e:_An_emissions_case_study
Net result: In comparison to the very strict European standards, Aptera trounches on CO2, utterly crushes on CO and HC, is somewhere between "on par" and "several times better" with NOx emissions, is worse on SO2 emissions, and is better on particulate emissions. And this doesn't consider that it moves emissions out of densely populated areas or that it's easier to further clean up our electric grid than the nation's hundreds of millions of cars.
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Wise Golden 6:52PM (2/18/2008)
Nuclear is a factor of five cheaper than any other fuel source, followed by hydro, followed by coal, followed by oil, followed by natural gas, followed by wind and then way, way in the rear, solar.
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GreyFlcn 8:27PM (2/18/2008)
Put it this way
Combine electric and weapons programs for the DOE budget, and nearly $16 billion of it goes towards Nuclear.
By comparison, less than $0.25 billion goes towards Solar, Wind, Geothermal, and Hydropower combined. (!!)
And this is out of a $25 billion dollar total.
So 64% of the DOE budget for Nuclear
Less than 1% going to Solar+Wind+GeoThermal+Hydropower.
________
* Office of Nuclear Energy ($1.4 billion)
* National Nuclear Security Administration ($9.1 billion)
* Office of Environmental Management ($5.5 billion)
* Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management ($494.7 million)
* Office of Legacy Management ($186 million)
* Total that up, thats around $16.7 billion dollars.
* Call it an even $16B if you shrug off the other waste management projects.
http://www.energy.gov/news/5920.htm
By comparison, we're looking at:
$156 million : Solar
$52 million : Wind
$30 million : GeoThermal
$3 million : Hydropower
$242 million : TOTAL
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/5/162252/0067
Could get an even more detailed itemized list by going through these.
http://www.cfo.doe.gov/budget/09budget/Start.htm
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Mike Z. 9:54PM (2/18/2008)
GreyFlcn:
I'll admit that there are arguments for and against nuclear energy, but when you cite that funding for the 'National Nuclear Security Administration' is related nuclear power when a quick google search turns out that that agency only deals with maintaining our nuclear weapons stockpile. The ‘Office of Environmental Management’ is responsible for the waste from weapons production. The ‘Office of Legacy Management’ is responsible for clearing up government waste sites.
I discredited your sources with one minute on google.
I’m up for a debate, but if your citing agencies that have nothing to do with funding for nuclear energy and calling it a subsidy, it questions how much you are interested in finding solutions instead of reaffirming your existing notions regardless of truth.
The two agencies left total $1.9 Billion dollars. Nuclear power generated 807 Billion kWh of energy last year. That works out to $0.002 cents per kilowatt in subsides, in other words the that huge subsidy is in reality a rounding error.
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GreyFlcn 12:05AM (2/19/2008)
Well, I'll do some due dilligence reading through the play by play.
But lets say Nuclear is getting "only" $2 Billion dollars a year in federal subsidies.
That still dwarfs the funding for any individual renewable tech by hundreds if not thousands of times more funding.
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Curt 7:09AM (2/19/2008)
Is anyone building a hybrid/electric recreational vehicle (RV) these days ?
Most of them already have generators on board.
Just turn on the generator while at a rest stop to charge the batteries.
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Mike Z 10:58AM (2/19/2008)
"But lets say Nuclear is getting "only" $2 Billion dollars a year in federal subsidies."
I believe that Wind and Solar power gets a $0.015 per kWh tax credit? That is 750% more in federal subsidies than Nuclear gets on a per-kWh bases....
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L.Wood 11:01AM (2/19/2008)
Will Mr. Greenspan be co-signing my loan so I can buy an all electric car? I would like to have a Tesla. Can he get me a sub prime loan for something like 30 years?
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