It seems like the world has run out of gas lately - doesn’t it? The supply, in the form of coal, nuclear, oil, and gas, all seems just not to be enough to satisfy our demands for energy. Although prices are fluxuating, the price of oil having dropped significantly lately, the reality is the long term crunch for oil will continue. While Congress and the candidates for President bicker about the drilling, not drilling, etc., the reality is that no one is talking about a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the United States has the energy it needs to grow and thrive. The reality, however, is this - the United States faces a challenge in providing for a long-term stabe supply of energy as severe as the national security threats posed by China, Iran, or international terrorism. Moreover, our current strategy destabilizes our world by transferring our hard-earned wealth to unstable dictatorships with policies anthetical to the United States.

I have decided to do a series of articles on the challenges the United States faces in this issue. I am by no means an energy expert. I am however, deeply concerned about this issue - and I am tired of hearing the rhetoric and the nonsense from people about how to solve our energy problems. The next couple of postings in this area will focus on a specific issue, finally, I will bring it all together in a conclusion post in which I point out what I think will be the key energy issues that need to be addressed by the next President.

Today’s topic - the myth of cheap electric cars.

I was watching Vice President Al Gore on Meet the Press this weekend. I find it hard to take him seriously - in part because I think of “Al Gore” in South Park (”I’m super cereal”). While I find Mr. Gore sincere in what he believes, I cannot help but wonder if he isn’t truly an idiot. The science of “Global Warming” is far from certain, and is reminiscent in many ways of “flat earth” and “sun centric” science. There are strong political reasons for Democrats to believe in falsehoods of Global Warming science - the political system that flows from it leads to a dominant political position for Democrat ideals and programs. However, that was not what caught my attention in listening to Mr. Gore. Instead, he compared his challenge to essentially end carbon emissions from the US in a decade to the challenge of President Kennedy to land a man on the moon and return him safely. This comparison is utterly ridiculous - the moon challenge was considerably easier (and less costly). Going to the moon cost about 200 billion dollars in today’s dollars - and was a discrete goal that did not impact the daily lives of 300 million Americans. While there were immense technological challenges - the moon missions did not require a reworking of the fabric of daily society. Understanding this fact makes it easy to understand the immense challenge the entire world (and the United States) is facing in developing sustainable energy.

First of all, everyone talks about electric this, and electric that. Electric cars. Electric buses. Electric. Electric. Electric. Tesla, for example, is building a very highly demanded electric car. Celebrities are falling over themselves to buy one so they can prove how “green” they are - because now the Prius is passe. In the movies, future science always depicts cars - either flying around - or on the ground. The depicted future is extremely energy intensive - and everything is run on some sort of electric power.  Tesla, for example, boasts that it’s electric car gets some ridiculous figure of gas milage at like 240 miles per gallon - equating I presume average energy cost of electricity with a similar cost of gasoline. Reality is - if everyone switches to electric cars - gasoline would be cheap - and electricity would be expensive.

Electricity prices are driven by supply and demand. At the moment, the power grid is configured to provide about 330 Terrawatt Hours of electricity per month. This grid is under significant strain at times in areas like the mid-atlantic and Los Angeles/Las Vegas corridor. When the temperatures soar in the south - electrical power is put under strain. When temperatures soared in the west - blackouts, brownouts, and energy disruptions were common. So common, in fact, as you will recall it cost Grey Davis his job. The reality is - it is a tenuous system at best at the moment to provide for our daily power needs. Electrical power plant production is significantly lagging behind our demands for energy. Our grid is antiquated.

However, awhile back there was a report by DOE that said up to 180 million cars could be “refueled” using the grid. The assumption was that these cars would be refueled at night (off-peak). This assumes that that the grid can operate at 70-80% capacity 24 hour a day, 7 days a week… the reality is, it can’t. Our grid is under severe strain. It’s old. It’s poorly designed in many places. And running it at full tilt all the time would be like driving your car 24/7 - it will need its maintenance more frequently, or it will break down. As the US has not demonstrated a commitment to maintaining the grid beyond immediate levels, increased demand will lead to greater unreliability in the future (potentially).

In order to switch from gasoline to electric to drive our cars, we will need to invest billions if not potentially trillions of dollars over the next 5-15 years in order to build the transmission lines, power plants, and improve the overall electricity grid to make it possible to increase our usage of electricity. In addition, we will need to burn coal, utilize wind and solar, and expand our use of nuclear power, in order to generate via “clean” ways (if that is truly a quesiton), enough energy for the expanded use. Batteries will need to improve in their capability and distance, and gas stations will liklely go the way of the dodo. Parking lots will need to equip themselves with quick and easy electric connectivity access (which will mean standardization of the recharging capability).

In short - it isn’t just going to be as as easy as hooking up your car and whammo - you’re flying around like the Jetson’s. Just for electric cars alone - going to the moon is going to appear easy… by comparison.

That doesn’t mean - mind you - we should not do it. We made similar infrastructure improvements for gasoline vehichles. It is just that the infrastructure will have to be developed considerably more quickly and we’ll need to find a way to transition from fossil fueled cars to electric.

Tomorrow’s post - Why in the interim - we need to drill for oil.