I’ve tried preaching the part of getting people out of their cars. And I actually PRACTICE what I preach, and it still doesn’t work. And it makes me wonder – how may of the people here who are frustated with support of cleaner vehicles over the support of non-vehicle use are actually practicing what they preach? Do you drive a car of any type? At all? I’m so tired of seeing giant single-driver SUVs at “No War for Oil” rallies. If you are serious about change, be that change.

I ride my bicycle for the vast majority of my tansportation, to the tune of over 500 miles/month on average. If I must go farther or faster, I drive my solar-fueled EV. If I need to go farther than 100 miles, I take a Prius. This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

I don’t mention my transportation stuff to be smug (as I’m so often accused) I mention it to demonstrate that I’m a non-vehicle advocate who advocates EVs. To my thinking, an EV is the easiest way to give people the transportation freedom that they still think they need now, while leaving the smallest footprint. While we’re doing this, we need to also be working on ways to reduce private automobile use, of course.

People here have asked where all this “clean” electricity comes from. While others have answered that quite well, I’ll add that electricity is the MOST versatile flex-fuel we have. We can make it out of just about anything. We can make it at home where we use it. I maintain an EV site, and on my Rav4EV owner’s page (http://evnut.com/rav_owner_gallery.htm) We see that the majority of the owners who bothered to send me picture and information have SOLAR POWER. This is no scientific study, but I think it is still very telling. EV drivers are heros if only because they’ve proven that we still can have our high-speed mobility without feeding the oil machine.

- Darell, the EVnut.
Disclosure: I’m a bicycle riding, EV driving Prius owner.

On how effective bicycle/pedestrian/transit advocates can be I would set the possibilities much higher – in San Francisco the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition helped raise bicycle trips by over 100% in 10 years (from roughly 1% of all trips to work to 2%) – Mayor Newson recently set a goal for 10% of all trips to be by bike by 2010 – this may be a ambitious, but look at European cities who have made the investment in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure where some cities boast 30-50% of all trips by bike. Yet, in this country we continue to invest roughly $47 BLIION a year on highways that continue to divide communities, severe ecosystems and reinforce the destructive car culture. Also, when you calculate the GHG emissions saved by non-car drivers, note that there is a negative correlation between levels of biking, walking, and transit and car-ownership (see US Census data). Considering the reduced demand for cars would make your figure much greater (figuring all the lbs of CO2 saved by NOT MAKING NEW CARS in the first place)

full disclosure: I don’t own a car, I do ride a bike, walk and take transit – and I work for wwww.thunderheadalliance.org the national coalition of bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations

The reason fossil fuel use is so problematic is because the numbers are so staggering large and unlike many pollutants, greenhouse gases last a long time (CO2 remains in the atmosphere 200-1000 years), so each year we add enormously to what we have done in the last 100 years. In 2005 the U.S. drove 2.8 trillion vehicle miles at 19.8 MPG (4.5 trillion passenger miles). The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were about 1.2 pounds/mi, or 1.7 billion tons total. Thus a relatively static (though large) vehicle infrastructure produces an enormous yearly *addition* to the previous ecology damaging base.

Now imagine there are 1,000 activists willing to work 15 years on the “car problem”. They can (1) do nothing; (2) try to get people to walk/bicycle, or (3) try to make the energy use of cars more efficient (e.g. plug-in hybrids).
In scenario (1), vehicle miles traveled increases to 3.9 trillion and stays at 1.2 pounds per mile, so 2022 GHG emissions are 2.4 billion tons. In (2), VMT only increases to 3.8 trillion miles as the result of activism (100 billion miles saved), and GHG intensity stays at 1.2 pounds per mile, so 2022 GHG emissions are 2.3 billon tons. In (3), GHG intensity reduces to 0.9 pounds per mile, so 2022 GHG emissions are 1.8 billion tons. Scenario 3 saves half a billion tons of GHG emissions over scenario 2. Now you might quibble with my numbers, but I don’t think you can come up with a way to make activism have greater impact than working on efficiency.

The problem with energy and cars is not that there is a big oil addiction, but more so that there is a big personal automobile addiction, mainly in cities and their suburbs. And, like I said, it goes way beyond energy, too.

But, IF electricification of cars is a good way to save energy for mobility, than the best thing to do – in addition to electrifying our transit vehicles – is to apply this technology to shared cars, while at the same we – as quickly as possible – transition away from cities in which people feel they need any kind of cars, to ones which are inherently car-unnecessary AND car-unpleasurable. (In regards to transit vehicles, sometimes liquid fuel or gas from waste is a good alternative to electrification).

Sarah, is it really fair to compare the heroism of electric vehicle drivers to that of cyclists and transit riders? I don’t think so, because I think any kind of personal cars – and everything connected with them – are not a sustainable model both for Americans and the whole world.

Americans use so much energy that just reducing a car’s energy use is not nearly enough to reduce their carbon emissions so they can say they are “carbon heroes” or whatever. They need to go way beyond (below) this.

We can go on about what we can expect typical American people to do, but we cannot accept this. We need to push and push and push them to do much better. They need to be Global Heroes, not just American ones.

Partial disclosure: I have a small consultancy called Green Idea Factory which is a member of World Carfree Network.

Lave also cites battery disposal as an issue. According to Wikipedia, lead acid battery recycling rates are 97%. I would expect relatively more valuable nickel and lithium in advanced batteries should eventually be recycled at even higher rates. Lead mining has been falling since the 1970s even as total use has increased, which is again an indication of the success of recycling.

Kristen suggests buying a used car instead of a hybrid. Given that a Honda Civic generates 1.4 times its own weight (1.3 tons) in excess CO2 each year (6.3 tons minus 4.4 tons = 1.9 tons), compared to a Honda Civic Hybrid, I think this is a horrible idea for the planet’s climate. If the Honda Civic hybrid were a plug-in, the CO2 produced would be even less.

Before I ever got involved with the EV movement, I was, and am still, a population activist. That is the forum for the important questions of sprawl and lack of workable mass transit, etc. All of the world’s big problems stem from overpopulation.

I live in Santa Monica, and before that I lived in Eugene. To get any appreciable percentage of the drivers in either community to take mass transit or ride bikes is close to impossible, at least until we fully internalize all the costs of using oil in the price at the pump. That day is approaching, but given the selfishness of Americans and their unwillingness to allow a carbon tax, it’s still a ways off.

For the 230 million vehicle drivers in the U.S. driving on petroleum, we have to offer an alternative to this horribly polluting energy source. Electricity does just that.

As for those who still claim that coal will drive the EVs, please take the time to read the NRDC/EPRI report and get educated. First of all, if you have a problem with dirty coal electricity, and you should, then why are you using that same dirty electricity to run you house? You should immediately sign up for renewable power from your utility, or buy a solar PV system for your house. Once the energy that runs your house is renewable, then your car will run on the same clean energy.

But that aside, the NRDC report clearly shows that a worst case scenario for electricity is still cleaner than the best case scenario for gas cars. In terms of the environmental effect, EVs are vastly superior to gas.

But there are many other reasons to go electric that are equally as important.

Once you go electric, you no longer give money to the oil companies. The billions they make in profit will no longer contain YOUR dollars. You will no longer enable them to use your money to lobby government to benefit them at your expense. Multiply yourself by millions of others and you begin to get a sense of why the economic consequences of going electric are so important.

No longer will you be giving money to the Saudis who are using some of the oil money to buy bullets that kill our soldiers. We are sending hundreds of billions out of our country every year to buy foriegn oil. All of our electricity is local or regional. Buying kWh to run your car is equivalent to paying well under a dollar a gallon for gas.

Let’s keep this discussion on the right track. If you want to talk about overpopulation, there are plenty of good forums for that.

Driving on electricity also makes one much more aware of energy efficiency and emissions. I know that from first-hand experience, and I’ve seen it in other electric vehicle (EV) drivers. I’ve also noticed that EV drivers are much more likely than others to have solar panels on their homes.

I bike, walk, and take transit (electric!) for 98% of my transportation. My partner and I also share an electric car. We haven’t been to a gas station in 5 years. Solar panels on our home offset the energy needs of our home and car.

When plug-in hybrids become available, they don’t necessarily have to use fossil fuels as the backup to the electric drive. It could be biodiesel.

It’s true that today’s U.S. electrical grid is 52% dirty, nasty coal. Dozens of studies have shown, however, that even on that grid, it’s cleaner to drive on electricity than to drive on gasoline. See summaries of 30-some studies on the FAQ page of my website, http://www.sherryboschert.com. I’m about to add the NRDC study and a dozen or so others that support these findings.

This is not an either-or battle (support biking and transit, or support electrifying cars). We need ALL these solutions to deal with global warming at the speed it demands. That’s one of the themes of my book.

Full disclosure: I’m on the steering committee of Plug In America, I’m president of the San Francisco Electric Vehicle Association, and I’m author of the book Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars That Will Recharge America.