Thanks for your reply to my EV letter, Melissa [Oglesbee] [“Are Electric Vehicles the Answer?” Feb. 12, Xpress]. My complaint was about the tax on innovation by the state, seemingly trying to inhibit an industry in its infancy. True, electricity powers the car, but the public EV stations on Charlotte Street and UNC Asheville both have grid-tied photovoltaic systems!
An electric vehicle has the potential to be powered purely by solar or wind or some sort of renewable energy. Let’s look at some numbers. An average EV gets the equivalent of 3.7 miles per kwh (kilowatt hour) of electricity. One gallon of unleaded gasoline has the equivalent energy of about 33.7 kwh of electricity. A little conversion yields the equivalent miles per gallon for an EV of about 124 mpg! The average gasoline car consumes from 25 to 35 mpg. At 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon of gasoline consumed, an EV, even in the worst-case nasty coal-burning scenario, will emit four to five times less CO2 than its gas counter part! That’s hardly more damaging to the environment. Plus, the price tag on many EVs is markedly less than the equivalent gas-powered vehicle. (No, Nissan did not hire me.)
I agree: Walk more, use public transportation, don’t eat meat, etc. But mass transit options and real bicycle lanes in these rural areas are decades away. And, it seems, people would prefer to die than give up their carnivorous diets! Sadly, the automobile is here to stay, but not necessarily the internal combustion engine! No, EVs are not the answer to reducing pollution, but they do offer the potential to reduce emissions to almost zero, while saving you at the pump and transporting you from point A to point B as needed. Seems like a win-win situation to me!
— Rudy Beharrysingh
Asheville
The manufacture of the batteries and the generated power are not even remotely emissions free. However, as long as the wheels are turning, all is good. It’s when the juice runs low that things get dicey.
Has anyone else ever seen the 1992 TV movie
“The Water Engine”? It paints a disturbing picture of violent suppression of alternative energy sources. Obviously EV drivers aren’t being herded into death camps, but it does make one think about the resistance that alternative energy sources will face in the upcoming years.
I find it funny that poo-pooers of EV cars and the like will point out that it does take energy to create them (true), but they often seem to ignore the element of technologies that don’t reduce our atmosphere to a Bejing like existence. It’s not all about economics folks- you can’t breathe money.
One comment from the original letter made me cringe, however. Yes, eating meat in one’s diet is a caloric nightmare in terms of the environment, but for the record:
Carnivore=eats meat only
Herbivore=eats vegetative matter only
Omnivore=eats both omni=Latin for ‘all’
?ovore= eats deep fried anything at the state fair
Therefore, if I cook a burger on the grill and consume it on a bun with lettuce, tomato, and maybe eat a side of slaw, salad or pasta, that would make me an omnivore, not a carnivore.