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Barack Obama Plugs the Plug-In
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Instapundit has quite a round-up, based largely on emails he has received. Here's one:
Great. Just great. Where the heck is he going to get all the electricity from? No new nukes. No new coal-fired plants. Certainly no new oil-fired plants. I'm pretty sure we're not all going to drive to West Texas each night and plug into Boone Pickens' windmills. I'm near Detroit. Maybe a 1500 mile-long cord from my place to West Texas?
And another:
One million pluggable hybrids is nothing. It is less than 10% of cars sold per year. It should happen in a few years naturally without government intervention. As you note, the grid can easily absorb it. In fact, plugging hybrids (and their large batteries) into the grid might actually help stabilize our creaky old grid if the charging is managed by the utility.
...Obama's energy plan is lame for other reasons. At best, it mandates and subsidizes things the market is already doing on its own. At worst, it will become yet another pork vehicle that crowds out true innovation. The best thing the government can do is remove barriers to permitting nukes (and maybe also to selling retrofit kits for older vehicles so they can become PHEVs) and otherwise get out of the way. Clever, greedy people will take care of the rest. Obama can then vilify and tax them.
Here's the Jalopnik website:
We're as wary of campaign promises as the next guys, but some of the elements of Obama's proposal make sense. While a plug-in White House fleet is just a nice PR move, significant tax credits that encourage people to take a chance on new technology is good for both consumers and automakers. Additionally, while we don't think any US automaker bailouts are a good idea, providing loan guarantees and retooling tax credits for domestic manufacturers will provide them with needed breathing room as they realign their product mix.
AlterNet comments:
Obama's plan has real depth and breath....An accelerated transition to plug-in hybrids and electric cars -- a core climate solution-- must be the cornerstone of any serious effort to dramatically reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Plug-in vehicles will likely require powerful lithium ion batteries, which a number of companies are developing.
One of the American leaders is Johnson Controls, which - together with Saft Advanced Power Solutions of France - has launched what is apparently the world's first factory dedicated to producing lithium ion batteries for vehicles. Its first customer is likely to be Daimler AG, which will use the batteries in a new S400 luxury hybrid which is planned from 2010.
Valence Technology has developed a lithium phosphate battery that is used in the Segway personal transporter and has been used, in a trial, in a Toyota Prius. The company is developing lithium ion technology.
August 6th, 2008
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