From an Iraq veteran: Electric cars a matter of ntn'l securi

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transport ... l-security
From an Iraq veteran: Electric cars are a matter of national security
Three tours of duty in the Middle East convinced Air Force veteran Tim Goodrich to buy a Nissan Leaf. He loves it — and he thinks cars like it can help reverse our misguided foreign policy priorities.
Wed, May 25 2011

Goodrich enlisted when he was just 18, and went into Afghanistan as an avionics technician servicing the AWACs planes that guide fighters and bombers. He was part of the response to 9/11, and also helped maintain Iraq’s no-fly zones. Today he’s a Sierra Club member, a graduate student at the University of Southern California, and a guy who's restless about our foreign policy priorities.

“Our foreign policy needs to evolve in order to provide smarter national security here at home," says Goodrich (on the right in this photo with his Leaf and Paul Scott). “After all, how much sense does it make to spend $400 per gallon getting gas to our service members in remote regions of Afghanistan? How much sense does it make to send money to countries that don't like us, don't share our values, and sometimes find ways to get that money into the hands of terrorist organizations?”

An irony, of course, is that the military is investigating alternatives to that $400-a-gallon gasoline, because fuel convoys are great terrorist targets, and because EVs don’t have heat signatures that can be easily tracked. Battery power is one alternative, but so are hydrogen fuel cells, which offer greater range. Goodrich told me, “The military is making a big push for green energy, not only because it makes sense for the security of our troops on the ground, but also because it’s the right thing to do.

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-08-wh ... s-iraq-vet

For those of you who...are immune to all but the most crude economic logic, Goodrich has you covered, too.

"Every year, we send at least $250 billion to overseas countries because the cars we drive have an insatiable thirst for oil," Goodrich wrote in a recent commentary. "In other words, about half of our trade deficit is due to imported crude petroleum." […] "The whole world is positioning itself to secure energy reserves," Goodrich notes, "including what China is doing in Africa."

neptunechimney wrote: Unless we build a lot of nuc plants it will take fossil fuels to generate the electricity to power the cars.

Not necessarily:
* Solar panels on top of homes, eventually in windows too, means each consumer can generate some, or all, of what they need for their car and/or home
* Ramp up wind and geothermal power production, along with a more efficient power grid that is able to redirect power where it's needed from where it's not...
* And carbon capture and sequestration at the coal plants will be more cost-effective, and efficient, to remove CO2 addition to the atmosphere, rather than trying to reduce emissions from each individual vehicle (although, even that needs to end sooner rather than later, possibly before CCS can be implemented).
* Or, if there are enough electric cars plugged into the grid, they can be a source of power, rather than a drain...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/ ... ctric_cars
Horsepower v cash cows
May 17th 2011, 18:30

At present, in order to meet sudden surges in demand, power companies have to bring additional generators online at a moment's notice, a procedure that is both expensive and inefficient. If there were enough electric vehicles around, though, a fair number would be bound to be plugged in and recharging at any given time. Why not rig this idle fleet so that, when demand for electricity spikes, they stop drawing current from the grid and instead start pumping it back?

Wily Fox aka Angela wrote: IMO, until the problem of battery storage at reasonable size and cost are overcome, electric cars are a pipe dream.

Yes, they certainly do need to come down in price, but the ranges they get are good enough for over 80% of drivers most of the time. I see new advancements reported all the time, it's just a matter of time before they translate to commercial availability and cost benefits for consumers.
http://www.marcgunther.com/2011/04/19/w ... ctric-car/
http://moneyland.time.com/2010/10/18/el ... -a-gallon/

Is 20 your favorite number neptune?!

Research Project!!!! Okay everyone, we're going to come up with a comprehensive energy policy on our own! (How hard can it be?) Start with listing what needs to be done, at what cost per unit, total # units estimated to be needed to cover the country's entire projected energy needs for the next, oh, 20 years, and what cost savings can be added in to offset final cost. Ready, set... :thumbsup: