Chris
Paine Tells Hollywood Greens Who Killed the Electric Car
(Continued)
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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Maybe today, but what about tomorrow?
Ultimately, the key to hydrogen is not thinking of it as
an automobile fuel for fuel cell cars, but rather as a
part of the larger energy grid, especially since hydrogen
can be used to power both electric cars and fuel cell
cars. Moreover, as solar technology becomes more advanced,
hydrogen enables solar power to become a more robust fuel.
For example, today excess solar energy can be sent back to
the grid. Still, if that excess energy isn't needed at the
time, then it is ultimately being wasted. Sadly, the
energy cannot be efficiently stored for later use. In
fact, the electric grid is one of the biggest obstacles to
the cheapest possible solar power. Even as solar
technology becomes more powerful, it's potential will
forever be limited because the grid is horrible at storing
excess energy.
Solar powered hydrogen could be the perfect solution to
this problem.
Yet, what possibly bugged me most about this whole session
was Chris's solution, the government. Government
regulation, according to Chris, was key.
Well, isn't the government already the problem? If the
government didn't hide the real cost of gasoline wouldn't
automobiles be far more efficient today? Yet, when an
audience member tried to a bring up a gas tax, he was told
that this wasn't the forum for a policy discussion.
Not the forum? The real electric car blocker - cheap
gasoline - wasn't a suitable question for this forum? Sad,
how the moderator allowed Chris to talk about policy but
attendees were denied the ability to ask questions about
policy solutions.
In the end, however, as critical as I am of Chris, I
applaud his efforts. He is having an impact, creating a
discussion, and supporting vehicles like the Chevy
Volt. He's also keeping pressure on automakers to
accelerate these efforts. More important, however, Chris
is tapping into the perception of consumers.
"Resistance to change" will eventually be an
important part of this story, and filmmakers, such as
Chris, are playing an extremely important role in breaking
down this resistance and changing perception.
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