Goin' Green

“I wish people would stop hyping up Green Technology. It’s too expensive for anyone to afford!” This is often the complaint I hear against Green Technology, mostly against electric cars.

I often think, “Yup. That’s precisely why the automobile failed. It was too expensive to own and there wasn’t enough places in the country to get gasoline for it. That is why we still use horses for transportation.”

It’s called innovation. Things aren’t always the best at first. We need time to continue to develop and improve a technology so it will work better and become cheaper. I remember finding a newspaper used for padding in a box at work. It was from the week I was born (April 25, 1988). Reagan was President, the Soviet Union existed, and some ship hit an Iranian naval mine. In the paper, microwaves cost around $300, the cheapest going for $150. That would be about $540 and $270 respectively today. I can find 35 different microwaves for under $100 on Wal-Mart’s website, the lowest for $55. Yes, there are some going for ~$500, but those are ultra high-end microwaves. 

The point is, prices have gone down as making them has become cheaper through competition and mass production of parts. You can look at anything else and see how products have become better and cheaper. Televisions, Computers, Cell Phones, Game Systems, you name it. Over the last 50, 20, or even 10 years, these products have seen groundbreaking improvements and falling prices. Yes, there are shortcomings to the electric car. But we need to keep innovating and improve what we have. Electric Cars and organic food/clothing prices will come down over the next few years as we continue to make more and make them more efficiently.

(Forgot to mention, there should be no excuse for a lack of places to charge an electric car. We have thousands of gas stations all over the country that can be easily refitted for electric cars. Think about it, there were no gas stations in 1900. The earliest gas stations were General Stores that made their own fuel from waste products and sold it.)

This Ambulance held President McKinley after he was shot in 1901. It was electric.

But why is it that the most pro-free market people scoff at green technology and write it off? (Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal companies receive billions in subsidies every year and yet subsidies for green technology distorts the free market.) In high school when I would advocate electric cars, solar and wind power, fuel efficiency standards, and pollution controls I was told to “hug a f*cking tree” and that “it was too hard”. Is this what our country has come to? “Too hard”? Since when was something not worth doing because it was too hard? Let me ask Kennedy:

 Thank You, JFK.

There is another side to the automobile’s story of progress. The Model T got 25 mpg. The modern automobile gets 17.2 mpg. If you only look back 40 years, we have progressed from 11.3 mpg. Now to be honest, the lowest fuel efficiency of a Model T could be 13 mpg.

During the 1970s when we had a shortage of fuel, we started to impose fuel efficiency standards so we can use less fuel. We instituted some more in the last decade. Of course here is the Conservative viewpoint:

It changes nothing with regard to the statistical record that government fuel efficiency standards have, since their imposition in 1975 and subsequent escalations, increased the safety hazards of the American automobile fleet:  “...the National Research Council concluded in 2002 that 1,300 to 2,600 additional crash deaths occurred in 1993 because of vehicle weight reductions to comply with federal standards...”

For complex reasons, including safety and comfort and necessity, Americans have, by and large, an almost instinctual dependence on larger vehicles, despite decades of government pressure to make other choices.

Of course, the government is to blame. They force us to do something sensible; therefore it is an infringement on our rights. It is our right to drive cars that use fuel we don’t have and pollute the air we breathe. Oh, and read this again:

…2,600 additional crash deaths occurred in 1993 because of vehicle weight reductions to comply with federal standards...

This is something the writer of the article failed to mention. Instead of developing better engines to increase fuel efficiency, the auto companies willingly made cars less safe to meet the requirements and save money. The auto companies willingly made their cars less safe! That is not the government’s fault, it’s the auto company’s! Also, GM spent lots of their money trying to personally discredit Ralph Nader and his accurate claims about their unsafe cars and paid almost $300,000 in a settlement for invasion of privacy. It was that or spend their money on improving their cars. It made sense to them.

Oh, and I love this,

There is no natural shortage of fossil fuel; there is a shortage of fossil fuel production.

Uh, yes there is a natural shortage of fossil fuel. The more scientific based studies have stated we have about 40 years of oil left, 65 years of natural gas, and 100 years of coal. Now there is some disagreement about just exactly how much oil is in the ground, but we do know for a fact that it is LIMITED! We do need to develop technology that does not rely on oil, gas, or coal before it is too late.

What about Nuclear Power?

A liberal President and a liberal Congress obviously have no intention of allowing any reasonable increase in [oil] production, nor of allowing the reasonable expansion of nuclear power, the fastest, safest, most efficient, most reliable source of  usable energy that is currently feasible on a real-world large scale.

First, what happens when we try to increase our production of oil haphazardly in areas that we have never been before without decent regulations? (the article was written in 2009)

And Second, how safe is Nuclear Power?

 I'll let you search for "physical deformities" on your own

To be honest, The Washington Post had an article about small mini reactors and the idea fits into my theme of progression; smaller, cheaper, and more efficient. I guess these plants are powered on depleted Uranium that can be used to power a reactor for 60 years (although the article never mentioned what would happen if there was a meltdown…).

My point is this; if you truly believe in a capitalist free market society, then you shouldn’t bash green technology and prevent it from progressing. We are going to need it.

 Couldn't find a place for this but I thought it was funny!