Plug-in vehicles most efficent even with use of fossil-generated power...

[diane in sf]

Cars should plug-in to a new future:

New analysis from WWF shows that the alternative to a 95 per cent reliance on polluting, climate damaging and insecure liquid fuels is already here

Gland, Switzerland / Brussels, Belgium: Dramatically expanded use of plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles would be a way to a transport future that doesn't risk climate catastrophe, a major new WWF analysis has found.

Such a move would also reduce the risk of conflict over less oil more and more concentrated in relatively unstable areas of the world.

Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age considers the future of a transport sector now 95 per cent dependent on liquid hydrocarbon fuels and examines the impacts and practicalities of electric, coal-to-liquid, gas-to-liquid, natural gas and hydrogen powered transport for the future

It finds that vehicles running solely or partly on grid-connected electricity are more efficient and less greenhouse gas intensive than all alternatives, even with most power now being generated using fossil fuels.

...

plus links to the complete World Wildlife Fund pdf reports:

http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=129321

[diane in sf]

1. Now we need to turn all our best engineers loose on the battery issues!

Some nerds say, the technology of batteries is around 20 years behind that of microprocessors...

[tinrobot]

2. I think laptops and cell phones turned them loose...

Thanks to demand for mobile devices and computing, there has been more battery development in the past 10 years than in the previous 100.

But yes, there's still a long way to go.

[gateley]

11. Biden introduced (and it was passed) legislation to for research into

lithium ion batteries -- I hope more funding is on the way.

(I have a sneaking suspicion he was wowed by the Tesla Roadster, but I could be wrong :7)

[kristopher]

13. Biden is a Senator from Kempton's (V2G) state.

I think that had more to do with it.

The batteries are already being deployed. They need some work on the rate of recharge, but the biggest obstacle is investment in manufacturing so that economy of scale can make some dramatic reductions in the price. Power tool makers are just shifting to the LIon, so that should help, but it is going to take a couple of years before we see enough manufacturing capacity to exceed demand and push prices down.

[kestrel91316]

3. I drive less than 15 miles a day 99% of the time. I want an

ECONOMICAL plug-in right now.

If I need to go on a driving trip, Enterprise Rental is just down the street and I can probably rent a Prius for long-distance.

[phantom power]

4. Bike?

[kestrel91316]

6. Down Ventura Blvd??????

Uh, I tried that a few times and got tired of smartasses swerving to TRY to hit me. And throwing stuff. And yes, I am a responsible, civic-minded cyclist.

No thanks. I value my life.

[phantom power]

7. I know the feeling.

I tend to bike on the sidewalk, on those occasions I use a bike. I know I'm supposed to be a "vehicle," but really, fuck that. In my view, a biker is much more like a pedestrian than like an automobile. Particularly in this age of car-centric civic development.

[tinrobot]

10. Use Moorpark or Riverside

Or the Chandler bike corridor.

http://www.metro.net/riding_metro/maps/la_bike_map.pdf

I live and bike in LA, so I understand your fear. But there are ways of getting across town without killing yourself, and they usually involve side streets or a bike path (when available).

[Nay]

9. I'm only 9 miles from work and I would NEVER bike. The roads

and drivers here are utterly atrocious. I would be killed or maimed the very first day.

[NNadir]

5. One almost always finds the set of car culture/fossil fuel apologists

have a close correspondence with the members of the anti-nuke faith.

The rational choice is not to pretend that fossil fuels are just a little OK, any more than a "few beers" are a little OK for alcoholics. Dangerous fossil fuels are not "a little OK." They are extremely toxic substances.

Dangerous fossil fuels must be banned, and the banning is an ethical imperative that is the responsibility of this generation to the next generation.

Note that 2050 talk - the staple of the "renewables will save us" clique - is not the acceptance of responsibility so much as it is a deliberate decision to abuse our grandchildren.

In any case, with the possible exception of the richest few percent of human beings, the car culture is terminally ill. It cannot be saved.

The question is whether it will drag all of humanity with it. Given several decades of self-delusion, this is increasingly certain.

[DCKit]

8. "They are extremely toxic substances."

Hmmmm, what ELSE is toxic? How about toxic AND radioactive?

And here I was missing your sage observations.

[hunter]

12. Something even better!

http://www.streetcar.org/mim/streetcars/fleet/antique/578s/index.html

San Francisco also has electric busses.

The private automobile is the root cause of many environmental problems, and it probably doesn't matter what powers it so much as it exists.

We ought to be doing everything we can to get rid of cars. A parking lot for electric cars is still a parking lot. A mountain blasted away to build and fuel electric cars is still a mountain blasted away. It hurts just as bad to get run over by a plug in Prius as it does to be run over by some smokey old Chevy compact.

[diane in sf]

14. I personally drive less than 6000 miles a year because of that great transit system.

But most people aren't lucky enough to live in the middle of SF or NYC. If I lose my current flat than I'll have to move an hour out of town to afford a decent amount of space in a place where I won't have to acquire a pit bull and an ouzi--which means I'll want my plug-in pretty badly. The upside of moving would be to have a fabulous garden and become a cat lady.

When I have to see certain clients without taking half a day for one meeting, go out of town to the beach, or haul lots of stuff, public transit is not so good.

[hunter]

15. We must create a future where people don't need or want to own cars.

Need to drive somewhere? Blech. Fortunately you can pick up a rental in the grocery store parking lot.

Our current automobile culture is a culture of death. Just like smoking, cars kill. They are actually much worse than smoking because they have directly caused the destruction of so much of the earth's environment, and caused a great deal of human suffering around the world in places where oil company profits are held in higher regard than human life.

For most people living in places like Iraq, or Nigeria, etc., exploitive oil development is the root cause of much suffering... so we can drive cars...

One of the best things San Francisco ever did was to tear down the Embarcadaro freeway. Now imagine a big crowded U.S. city with no privately owned automobiles, and just a few quiet electric taxis and delivery vehicles zipping about... Wouldn't that be sweet?

[Wilms]

16. Sometimes the World Widlife Fund gets distracted.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=World_Wildlife_Fund

Just sayin'.