I can see the merits of plug-in electric vehicles. Large power plants can produce energy much more efficiently than the engines in our gas or diesel vehicles, and batteries have become pretty good at storing this energy. This makes for an electric car that is much cheaper to operate than its gas counterpart, but what happens in the event of a disaster (natural or otherwise) where we have a widespread loss of electricity? Or what if it is just a short term power outage, but it is during the time when you can usually recharge your battery?

Lets say you own a plug-in electric vehicle with a range of 50 miles. You live 30 miles from your work so on a normal day you drive to work and arrive with plenty of battery power left. You then plug in your car to charge while you work and by the time you are ready to leave you have a fully charged car. Now what happens if due to construction or a thunderstorm your work is out of power and as soon as you get there they tell you to go home. You are now 30 miles from home with 20 miles left in your battery and no place to charge your car.

I do think plug-in electric vehicles will, and should, become more popular in the future, but sometimes it is more reliable to carry your power source along with you (like in your gas tank).

Americas budget for 2007 puts aside $148 million for research on solar energy, and $44 million for wind energy. Together that is a $70 million increase from 2006 so you might think we are on the right track. I don’t think so. The war in Iraq is costing us about $250 million PER DAY. I would much rather see that money going to researchers in the United States.

It has been estimated that the United States could get 20% of its electricity from wind power, but as of 2006 only .06% of the electricity we used was from wind. Denmark gets 19% of the electricity it consumes from wind power, so the United States definitely has some room for improvement.

Someone please tell me, why are we spending so little money on alternative energy?

This is my first post of hopefully many. Check out the about page for my goals for this blog. In short, I want to post at least once a day for a year. Right now I am taking a break from setting up the site to post this because I cant ftp right now. According to dreamhost, my web host, it is normal for a new account. Not really a nightmare but annoying nonetheless. Apparently they offer a nice bonus to anyone who refers a new account but I cant figure that out either.

Oh well, at least they are a green host - whatever that means.

I read somewhere that the average google query (that means every time you search for “lolcats”) consumes as much energy as a 60 watt light bulb for 8 minutes so I guess a few trees are planted each time you visit my site.