Unhooking the world from fossil fuels is, and will continue to be, an enormously complex project. The reason is simple—if you own a car that requires 89 octane gasoline to run, you must have that exact fuel or your car is merely an overpriced piece of conceptual art. When you buy a piece of technology that requires energy to operate, you are also buying into the infrastructure that supplies that energy—whether you know it or not. It turns out that electric vehicles (EVs) are comparatively easy to build—especially compared to those powered by gasoline. Electric cars do not need 7-speed transmissions or stainless-steel exhaust systems. Service requirements are minimal. Etc. But manufacturing simplicity does not sell EVs. The problem comes when the potential customer asks, and where do I get the power for my car? Its a question the folks selling gasoline-powered cars simply do not need to answer. Logically, one would expect the electric car techies to address the power problems in order to expend their market beyond the technology innovators. And so it happens that EV manufacturers and dealers are doing just that. In Iceland, a country with more renewable energy than they know what to do with, they are setting up recharging stations (bought at a debt auction from Israel) that will cover the country and will recharge EVs for free. In a land where gasoline runs over $8 a gallon, free will look especially attractive. Elon Musks contribution to the power problem comes in the form of a deal he just signed with Panasonic to build powerful batteries cheap enough so he can manufacture his proposed middle-class car. Keep chipping away at the power problems and suddenly electric vehicles will become the obvious choice. Of course, it still remains to be seen if we will chose to end our reliance on fire to generate electricity. But that problem also has realistic solutions. We have certainly not reached the stage where EVs are the only sane choice, but you can begin to smell it. I keep harping that only the makers and doers can save us from the problems of climate change / peak oil. Well, this is how it will be done—the philosophy of continuous improvement tends to solve problems that no other organization or philosophy can. And like Peirces pragmatism, continuous improvement is a core philosophy of these people, and right now, they are the only ones who really understand either idea. You can bet that the predatory speculators neither understand nor care. The fact that they can skim the fat off the market without really contributing to the common welfare is a structural problem, another topic I keep harping on.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:05:21 +0000
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