I already talked about the ambiguity surrounding the Chevy Volt, but I saw something interesting in CNN Money today, concerning T. Boon Pickens’ ideals of a wind powered nation. In case you’re unfamiliar with the framework of his plan, here is a very brief synopsis, via CNN’s summary:
T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oilman, has been hitting the airwaves, pitching a plan to use wind to replace all the natural gas that’s used to produce electricity, then using that saved natural gas to fuel cars.
While that’s interesting, it isn’t what caught my eye:
While automakers are betting on electric cars as the vehicle of the future, those electric cars will still need backup engines to recharge the battery on long trips, at least for the foreseeable future.
Those backup engines could run on natural gas, said Julius Pretterebner, a vehicles and alternative-fuels expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
Pretterebner also pointed to a host of other reasons why natural gas in cars is a good idea: It’s about half as expensive as gasoline and 30% cleaner; the infrastructure to get it to service stations already exists; it’s relatively cheap to convert existing cars ($500 to $2,000 per car, he said); and natural gas can be carbon neutral, if it’s made from plants, a process he said requires no new technology.
That sounds pretty cool to me…the only problem I have is one which stems from lack of understanding (I’m not exactly a bio-chemistry whiz, so I’ll have to leave the dynamics of this study to the engineers back at Lehigh to explain to me). His thoughts are clear, but I find it peculiar that we haven’t heard this concession before…Did this guy just figure out that the infrastructure for natural gas has been available for use to the general public throughout oil’s 70% ascent year to date?
Other than that, the article highlights the short-term difficulty of converting to wind power, because the applicable tax credits expire every 2 years.
Regardless of the oil industry’s apologetic laws, like this tax credit policy, I think that with the right government, this issue gets straightened out. Look at what was accomplished when our backs were against the wall under this regime of bad government? Hank Paulson pulled that bail out plan together pretty fast…
