You are on target with many of your points: we need to conserve, we need to carpool or use mass transit.

The main issue I take with your comments is something that is commonly confused: there is a difference between decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and improving the environment. Electric cars based on coal-fired or nuclear (ick!) or solar/wind/etc electricity use home-grown natural resources, not imported oil (or decrease the amount of oil use dramtically, depending on the design). If most people only drive 20 miles a day, they can get by with present batteries and a boost from fuel when climbing or passing, etc. (I mean passing other cars, not passing away.)

Yes the night recharging argument doesn’t seem to work for CA in the summer, but it might if people had solar cells charging up batteries during the day to supplement the grid at night (my brother already uses solar to suppelment electricity in CA). Other than these rough summer months in CA, we are set to make use of low peak electricity levels at night across the country, year round.

No, this doesn’t fix the air or greenhouse problems in those cases where coal is being burned. But it does stabilize the political situation in some ways, at least one hopes it does.

Also, buring hydrogen for electricity will give water rather than CO2, so this is well worth all the work going into fuel cells etc.

So, just for a moment, imagine electric-powered mass transit and people only driving to the metro stations or bus stations. It would make a big impact if we would invest in transportation infrastruture (other than roads). Imagine what we could do with the money used to destroy things in Iraq. If that is “national interest”, surely freeing us of foreign oil needs without killing people deserves some serious expenditure.

Just my opinions. Thanks for the review! From of “friend of thin red line” Jim