Like at the beginning of the 19th century; politics, economics and environmentalism are all coming together to say that like horse powered carriages, petroleum as the source of our transportation needs is on its last legs. Politically petroleum has too many drawbacks including its support of terrorism. Economically whether due to the falling dollar or the political question, petroleum is pricing itself out of the equation. And finally environmentally as one of the major causes of green house gases and climate change, petroleum is no longer sustainable. Not to mention the finite nature of its availability.
Putting their proverbial toe in the water, the automotive industry has given us a couple of hybrid petroleum gas and electric options including the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight. Government ethanol subsidies have allowed massive redeployment of corn, soy and other food sources to be diverted towards the production of bio-fuels that can be used in must improved diesel technology vehicles. Countries such as Argentina have started switching their government and private fleets to natural gas powered vehicles.
But even more options are coming down the road. Coal based electric powered vehicles until recently no better environmentally then their petroleum powered counterparts are now seeing electricity from renewable sources such as wind power and solar power. Bio-diesel or bio-fuels as they are now being called are also evolving. India is becoming a power house in jatropha bio-diesel fuel. Jatropha, a native of Central America and Mexico, doesn't compete with food sources for soil or mouths. In addition, there are exciting new developments in algae based bio-fuels originally studied at the University of New Hampshire back in the 1970's. Just recently Honda announced the phase 1 lease test of the Honda FCX Clarity a hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle. Although not quite yet ready to go mainstream, hydrogen does not emit green-house gases, has a greater range than electric power and can be refueled faster than a battery can be charged.
So which technology am I betting on. The reality is that we will probably see a patchwork of solutions evolving as the market is truly big enough to support several of them concurrently. In addition as different political, environmental and economic pressures make themselves felt, the feasibility of some of this options will increase or decrease. So better than asking which am I betting on I would focus more on which would I like to see take off. From all standpoints, what makes me saddest is the trend to stay with the same current system of centralized production facilities with the necessary distribution network to bring it out to the user. In a petroleum based system, I understand that given that petroleum is only found in certain regions of the world, the system had to be a system of centralized production and refinery with a distribution network to get the product out to the final user. I would hope that the solutions that evolve take into consideration the amount of energy it takes for this whole distribution network. So I would prefer to see solutions such as the Honda Home Energy station which although still powered by natural gas do much of the work right in the home. The real goal should be a algae, solar or other renewable powered home energy station that charges your car battery or produces bio-fuel right in your home without a need to have a third party to swap out and/or recharge your battery. But there are still many issues to be solved in particular for renewable electricity the storage aspect. But nonetheless that is what I would like us to be aiming for.
So which technology do you think will win this race? Electric, solar, bio-diesel, natural gas, hydrogen? Which technology would you like to win this race?
Tania Sole - Ms. Sole has been an environmentalist and travel enthusiast since she was a young girl growing up in Europe, the Middle East and Central America. For over ten years, she has worked at Greenslip Inc. To learn more or vote on your favorite technology solution visit our website at http://www.greenslip.com
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