Jeff Rubin's Blog

The idea that we're going to somehow replace 300 million gas vehicles in US alone is outright insane. Supply-side lithium/ zinc and power generation is going to see immense strain, and none of these processes are entirely green.

Truth is, our cities are going to have to become far more compact whether we like it or not. While it is true that affluent people throughout the first world are living far closer to work, far poorer ( often welfare dependent) working class citizens living in the suburbs are not going to be driving a "green" suburbia revolution.

I cant vouch for the power supply situation in the US, but here in Ontario we presently have a major oversupply of power. Baseload generation capacity (nuclear and hydro) alone accounts for about 14,000 MW. Peak in power is at about 17000-19000MW whereas installed capacity is easily over 27,000 MW.
Also, the author is very wrong about the cause of 2003 blackout. The blackout in 2003 did not occur due to over demand situation, but because of line failures (short circuit) in Ohio which caused a cascading effect all across the interconnected north eastern US & Ontario grid.

Many people forget electric cars of today waste a lot of batteries...toxic batteries that we need to throw out more often than gas cars so it's not that enviromental.

Electric powered cars are not only convenient. It is also good for our environment because it emits no harmful gas emissions that only contribute to climate change.

It would seem to me that considering the average commute is less than 30 miles a day the concept of the electric car needs to be looked at from a different angle, downsized to what amounts to a cyclecar al la "Morgan"
http://image.europeancarweb.com/f/9330912/0210_...
electric powered with a small fuel powered generator onboard for charging/ running when the charge is low.

An even bigger problem I would imagine would be to see where the electricety is coming from. Today and on average in the world dirty coal is used to generate some 50% off all elecricity. In france they have nuclear capacity and thus most of theior elecricety comes from that source. In the scandinavian countries the are fortunate as a large part of all the elecricity comes from renuabele water power. China however get more than 70% of all its elecricity from coal.

As we're now facing not only p...

hmmm electric cars is somewhat convenient...

what is call about electric cars for me? is that they dont sound at all...

I would like to contact Jeff Rubin by e-mail I am at cmross@shaw.ca I would like to share an idea with him. Thanks.

...not to mention the fact that lithium itself is in limited supply in the world. I've been involved with the electric bike movement for years. When it comes to electric vehicles of any kind in North America, the biggest hurdle is culture. It's gotta work EXACTLY like a combustion engine or people will reject it outright. That means no compromise on convenience, distance or price.