Think gets grassroots, some new electric cars should be ready in January
Click above for a gallery of the Th!nk City
Just a quick update to Saturday's post about Th!nk's ever-increasing rescue potential. We wrote that Google translated the Norwegian of the original article as, "There will be no cars on the market in January." Our friend Leif wrote in to note that "the real translation should be 'There will be some cars on the market in January.'" So, that's positive. Leif has more information over at Electric A!d (he posts there as Leif Richard), where he and other are part of "Operation Th!nk," a grassroots effort to collect money for Th!nk. The idea is to use the donations to support "the only EV-Manufacturer in the world who has an electric car that is commercial[ly] available today." Sure, there is an asterisk to note that the rich can buy a Tesla, but I'm not sure how GEM and Miles and all the others feel about being left out. The Th!nk City has more oomph than those NEVs, but they are indeed EV that are available today.
Gallery: Th!nk City
[Source: Electric A!d]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Carney 2:15PM (1/05/2009)
It's too soon for widespread adoption of electric cars.
A big reason of course is that the sweet spot of affordability, power, and range, has yet to be reached, meaning that you have to sacrifice at least one or probably two of the three to get your vehicle.
But even if that were solved, the grid is too close to capacity, too ramshackle, and overly dependent on dirty sources.
The latter problem has contributed to the first, as environmental opposition, as well as old fashioned NIMBYism, retards if not halts new power plant construction (at least in wealthy democracies), causing brownouts in ecologically minded California. The grid is straining to meet the demand now; adding the crushing burden of a substantial portion of our surface transportation fleet to what the grid already is carries is a collapse-inducer.
Solar and wind are too weak, expensive, and fickle despite billions of private and government funds poured in for decades. Tidal, geothermal are too limited and localized. Hydro-electric causes its own environmental problems - namely flooded land and parched downstream ecoysystems. Fission produces nuclear waste which causes NIMBY hysteria - see the battle over Yucca Mountain.
Only fusion power can resolve these dilemmas; with no emissions, no waste, and abundant cheap power. However we've starved our fusion research just when we hit breakeven, and have been mired in a "cooperative" effort with Europe, Russia, and Japan that has bogged down progress with bureaucracy and dickering after decades of competition-fueled advances.
We should restart the US only program and fund it generously. But until practical cheap abundant fusion power arrives, the power grid can't and shouldn't be asked to shoulder the burden of our automobiles.
Until then, the interim, short and mid term solution is flex fuel. A $100 per car modification allowing any gasoline vehicle to burn alcohol fuel whenever it can find it. Mandating this capacity will create the critical mass of alcohol capable vehicles that will spur widespread availability of alcohol at fuel stations, because alcohol is cheaper.
Most importantly for readers of this forum, it's far better for the environment, being non carcinogenic and non mutagenic; burning cleanly with no smoke, soot, or particulate matter; biodegrading readily into safe components when spilled or leaked, and ethanol and plant methanol are carbon neutral when burned and help cool the planet as their plant sources are cultivated.
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Chris M 6:23PM (1/05/2009)
The brownouts in California were caused by Enron manipulating a deregulated electrical supply to drive up prices and rip off consumers. Once Enron went bankrupt (due to embezzlement) and the electrical supply was re-regulated, the brownouts ceased in California.
Technically speaking, there is enough sunlight striking our rooftops and parking lots to provide all of our energy needs, even considering conversion losses and storage needs. The only problem is the cost per watt is still high. Wind is cost effective in areas where wind energy is abundant, that is why it is a rapidly growing business.
We still haven't reached "breakeven" on fusion power, it still takes more energy to run those test reactors than those reactors can produce. Every step closer to breakeven means ever larger and more expensive reactors, it is likely a reactor big enough to exceed breakeven and produce useful amounts of power will be far too expensive to be economically competitive. Continue fusion research for the scientific knowledge we can gain, but don't count on it to solve our energy problems. I much prefer to use the reliable old self-sustaining fusion reactor sitting 93 million miles away.
There is a role for biofuels, but there just isn't enough farmland available to power all our transportation needs. Photovoltaics are considerably more efficient at capturing and converting sunlight, and don't need farmland - any roof will do.
nads 10:33PM (1/05/2009)
"It's too soon for widespread adoption of electric cars.
A big reason of course is that the sweet spot of affordability, power, and range, has yet to be reached,"
If electric cars did achieve widespread adoption, what would happen? Would your head explode because the "3 Laws of Why Electrics Must not Be Widely Adopted" were broken?
"But until practical cheap abundant fusion power arrives."
This confirms it. I saw you were spamming EV related articles here, but this is the icing on the cake. All along I thought lack of widespread fast-recharging stations were stalling EV adoption, but with Better Place positioning itself to fill that gap it looks like the trolls have a new song....so now we need to master FUSION POWER before EVs should be allowed on the road?!!!?!
How about this, why don't you NOT buy an EV, and whenever EVs start passing you by on the road (give it a couple years) you can scowl your face and pepper the streets with your pamphlets warning of the about the dangers of adopting EVs without first mastering Fusion power.
Carney 8:43AM (1/06/2009)
Again, Chris M., there's MORE than enough farmland around.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/in-defense-of-biofuels
I'm not saying that US corn farmers can supply all our ethanol, but a glance at this graph
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/imgLib/20080520_DefenseofBiofuelsTableL.gif
should show that the "danger" of running out of farmland to grow corn on is nonexistent.
It's a big world out there beyond our borders as well, with lots of poor people eager to grow cash crops and make a little money.
Finally, methanol should also be part of the picture, and it can be made from any biomass without exception, including crop residues (such as the rest of any crop grown for ethanol, food, or fiber), trash, sewage, weeds (including those which clog waterways and must be removed anyway), etc.
Chris M 1:43AM (1/07/2009)
After reading the article you posted, and doing a few quick calculations using his figures, there is barely enough currently unused farmland to grow enough corn for ethanol to replace our current gasoline use - but gasoline is only a portion of our transportation fuel, it doesn't include diesel for trucks and trains and ships, or aviation jet fuel. While there are biofuel replacements for petro-diesel and petro-jet fuel, add in the cropland needed for those biofuels and we run short.
So, it is just as I said. Biofuels will have a role to play, but there isn't enough land for biofuels to provide all our transportation needs.
Carney 10:38AM (1/07/2009)
Chris M., there's plenty of arable land that isn't currently used as farmland. Furthermore, as Zubrin says:
"and the state of Iowa alone today produces more corn than the entire nation did in the 1940s. Applied globally, such improved techniques can multiply world agricultural yields many times. In fact, they have risen by a factor of six since 1930—which is why, even though the world’s population has tripled since that time, there is a lot more food for everyone today."
Finally, you again overlook methanol. Methanol allows the alcohol fuel yield for ethanol crops to be dramatically increased by using the crop residues, the non-sugary or -starchy portions of the plant. Furthermore it can be made from an unlimited resource base - trash, sewage, weeds, you name it. A lot of natural gas just gets flared off rather than captured - turning that into methanol is also global warming neutral.
Carney 10:41AM (1/07/2009)
I accidentally omitted a part of the quote in my post above; the quoted portion should have started with: "[A]gricultural technology is constantly advancing. U.S. corn yields per acre have risen 17 percent since 2002"
Have I mentioned how I hate this lame, primitive Blogsmith comment system that doesn't permit edits of prior posts?
gorr 4:32PM (1/05/2009)
Don't believe these bush's cartel friends a single instant. They are vulgar, criminals. They are against biology including the humans race. They speak with jesus since 11 sept 2001 while they were thinking that their 2 eyes will fry if they meet him for real. It was predicted by nostradamus because nostradamus was speaking to ' lost souls' for them to find their way out of biology and theses chaps were interferrings with nostradamus and the 'lost souls' with coward treats because it was them that kill 5 planets since a long long time ago with the realease of toxic gas like the ones experimented in iraq.
This carny only deal in painful , tax, state laws, toxicity, food-fuel and starvation.
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Carney 8:50AM (1/06/2009)
I'm not sure there's any purpose in responding to your nonsense, but a few quick points.
A quick glance at Flex Fuel advocates such as Robert Zubrin at www.energyvictory.net, the Set America Free coalition http://setamericafree.org/, and others, should disabuse anyone of the notion that FFVers are "Bush's cartel friends."
Zubrin has harshly criticized the OPEC cartel and the Bush Administration specifically for pushing a fake solution, hydrogen, to the energy crisis. And by the way his former Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham, that did this pushing is now a paid lobbyist for the Saudi government.
Flex fuel advocates want a positive and growing human future rather than a cramped and restricted one defined by painful retrenchment, limited and diminishing resources, and increasing conflict.
On taxation, I generally favor keeping them as low as possible, and specifically favor eliminating our tariff (a tax) on imported ethanol.
And as for starvation, an alcohol economy that redirects the world's massive fuel expenditures away from petro-tyrannies and toward Third World farmers will do wonders for development, and with drastically lower fuel and fertilizer costs, many fewer people will face starvation.
torfred 11:18PM (1/06/2009)
Carney and gorr making comments on the same thread, its going to make my head explode.
Seriously no one cares about your views on hydrogen or evil governments gorr and no one wants to hear about your grand flex fuel plans carney.
If you want to write an article make a blog or something, the comments are meant to be relevant to the article in question, this is not a place to spam your propaganda.
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Carney 10:54AM (1/07/2009)
At least I'm not incoherent like gorr; I don't appreciate being lumped in with him.
And, look, torfred, I'm sorry if I seem tiresome or a Johnny One Note. I do have a wide variety of interests and ideas. But I don't get into them here precisely because I'm -not- a spammer.
This is a blog about green cars. If I favor one type of green car over another, where other than the comments portion of a blog about green cars should such a discussion happen? If I have specific criticisms about a specific KIND of green car, where other than in an article about that kind of green car should I bring it up?
You haven't addressed an iota of the substance of the issues I talked about, just complained that I offered my opinion, claiming that "no one" is interested. That's not a very effective or credible claim.
I welcome any substantive response you might have.