As so often happens, our real problems
frequently turn out to be very different than what we had originally thought
them to be. We typically make assumptions and have false beliefs that color
our thinking and result in illogical and unfortunate decisions. Predictably,
our current difficulties with the automobile and the internal combustion
gasoline powered engine are no exception.
Many of us have a lot invested in the current technology, in
one way or another. The consequence of this is that all our thinking focuses
on solutions that will keep things the way they have always been only,
somehow, better. In the magic solution it is a car which uses exactly
the same fuel it always used and operates the same way it always did, except
that it gets some arbitrarily increased improvement in efficiency.
That would, if fact, be a good thing but not as good as everyone thinks.
What good is it going to do us as a species to create a hundred
mile to the gallon internal combustion, gasoline burning engine, if we
also put another billion of them on the road? A situation not at
all unlikely to occur it might be added. What good it is going to
do to create a highly efficient gasoline powered engine if we continue
to get fuel for it from the very people who are sworn to be our mortal enemies
in a process involving endless wars which have already killed thousands of our
soldiers and millions of others?
The sad truth is that a
perfectly practical electric car could have been developed at any time using
1930's technology. Moreover, this never required the super batteries the
media merchants and people whose minds are firmly stuck in yesterday have lead
us to believe that it did.
What
was required was for government to set standards for the size, shape, and weight
of existing battery packs so that they could be changed out at battery stations
in exactly the same manner that welders exchange their empty welding cylinders.
Welders do not recharge or maintain their gas cylinders. They exchange them for
full ones.
So,
you would drive into a changing station like people now
drive into a car wash and the the battery packs would be switched out with
batteries which were recharged the previous night when electric rates were low
by hydraulic systems with no more trouble than getting a tank of gas, though it
is to be admitted that it would have to be done more frequently if we were still
using lead acid batteries.
Or, such cars could also take power from rails or overhead lines like electric
buses and trains always did. There were many alternatives to endless
warfare and the destruction of the ecosystem.
Additionally cars should
never have been run on gasoline anyway. In fact most of the early cars didn’t
because gasoline was expensive and hard to get. In many cases early engine users
would start the engine with a volatile fuel and quickly switch over to something
cheaper like kerosene. But, this was expensive and complicated with the
result that many of the early cars and stationary engines began using alcohol
because alcohol was cheap, easy to make and an engine using it could be started
without using a different starting fluid.
Unfortunately for America,
the Rockefeller oil monopoly had already been hard hit at that point in time by
the invention of the electric light bulb by Thomas Edison. The electric light
bulb eliminated the need for the kerosene used in oil lamps which had been the
oil companies primary source of revenue. Most homes in 19th century
America were lighted with kerosene oil lamps. Before that, they had used whale
oil. So, the oil monopoly saw to it that we got prohibition and the income tax
instead of a sustainable low pollution fuel source. A choice which also led this
country into endless wars that would otherwise never have occurred.
It may be hard to believe
but until the end of the 19th century 75% of the federal budget was
provided by the tax on alcohol. So, the Robber Barons could not simply outlaw
alcohol by saddling us with prohibition to save their oil monopoly, it was also
necessary to replace the lost revenue by passing the bill on to those least able
to afford it, and so we got the income tax too.
Also, it is important to
realize that alcohol is a far more versatile fuel than gasoline. Your existing
automobile would run on it right now if the computer were adjusted to make it do
so but, additionally, and far more importantly, alcohol, unlike gasoline, can
also operate fuel cells to directly produce electricity which can be used
to operate electric motors instead of a much heavier and far less efficient
internal combustion engine.
But that was never
the problem. The problem is that an electric motor is hundreds of times more
reliable than an internal combustion engine, much longer-lived, requires very
little servicing and the automobile industry doesn't want us to have them. A
large part of their revenue comes from servicing their badly designed vehicles
and, more importantly, they still haven't figured out what business they are in!
The
bottom line pinheads in Detroit still think they are in the car-selling
business! But if they can get it through their heads that they are now in the
transportation business before the next bailout, the family car will change in a
hurry.
Suddenly,
cars will be electric because they are cheaper to build and maintain and you
won't be buying them anymore. You will get a lease and switch platforms freely
depending on where you are going and what you happen to be doing at that moment
in time. One day you'll drive a sports car and on another a van or a truck.
You'll punch up an order on the computer and the car will drive itself to your
front door like you now call a taxi.
Some of these cars could
use batteries exclusively, some could draw power from overhead lines or other
sources and some could be hybrids using alcohol and fuel cells. Instead of
buying gasoline for those hybrids at the service and recharging station you
would buy alcohol. Moreover, any of those choices would have freed this country
from its dependence upon foreign oil, monumentally improved air quality and
saved the lives of millions of people who have died to make the world safe for
oil companies.
Additionally, our entire
transportation network needs to be re-engineered and upgraded to integrate the
rail system with personal transport, be that the family car or even the bicycle.
Most people do not realize it but most of the so called advanced
technology they are talking about incorporating into modern automobiles has
been around for a very long time.
For example, the first modern submarine was built in the 19th century
not that long after General Custer made his last stand at the Little Big
Horn. It was an all electric boat called the Peral constructed in Spain
in the year 1888. The so called hybrid technology now being employed by
a number of automobile manufactures was well understood and extensively
employed in both U-boats and Allied submarines prior to the first world war
over a hundred years ago and suddenly this is a big problem for automobile
manufacturers today.
The first known electric locomotive was built in the year 1837 by the
chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen. However it was not until 3 years after
General Custers last stand in 1879 that practical electric trains began to
show up. The first of these was demonstrated by Verner von Siemens in Berlin.
Very shortly after that commercial electric locomotives and rail systems
began turning up all over Europe and in the United States where the first
electrification of a main line occurred on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road
on the Baltimore belt in the year 1895.
The electric train was the carrier of choice from the very beginning
for subway systems owing to their use of tunnels and the infeasibility of running
coal fired trains through them. Electric Trains were also mandated by law
in most major cities because of the emissions generated by the coal powered
steam engines of the period.
In fact, electric trains are the carrier of choice all over Europe to this very
day. They are inherently far more efficient than coal or diesel powered systems
and much cheaper to maintain. Unfortunately they have not fared so well in
the United States as they have in Europe and a number of other countries.
The reasons they have not will tell us a lot about why our transportation system
developed in the manner that it has. Moreover, it will enable us to understand
why Adam Smith's invisible hand that is supposed to always guide free
enterprise to a favorable outcomes without any outside intervention screwed up.
None of this makes any
sense unless one realizes that electric locomotives have more power, speed
and higher efficiency than their steam or diesel counterparts. They are also
far kinder to the environment. Consequently, one would be disposed to wonder
they have been virtually eliminated in this country.
The chief disadvantage
of electrification is the cost for the infrastructure including overhead power lines
or an electrified third rail, substations, control systems etc. This, by
itself, would not be an obstacle because in the long run this investment
always pays for itself, everywhere except here in the United States, where
there is another problem.
Public policy here in
the United States interferes with electrification of rail roads. In the
first place, regulations on diesel emissions in this country are very weak.
Secondly, the taxes on electrified systems are much higher than the taxes on
non-electrified systems. Together these limitations make it more practical to
run a non-electric system than an electrified system for reasons which have
absolutely nothing to do with the efficiency, economics or desirability of the
electrified railroad.
In this country, every
single jurisdiction, every last peckerwood school board in every dinky
township is allowed to tax the property of a railroad and it is simply a
matter of fact that an electrified system is going to have more of it than a
non-electrified system. In the absence of strict emission controls, the
difference in taxation alone would spell the doom of the electrified system.
Moreover, this problem is exacerbated by state governments which mandate local
expenses, education being the biggest, and then do not pay for it. Hence
part of the solution to our transportation woes (and many others) would be to
require any jurisdiction requiring an expense at the local level to pay for it
themselves.
In Europe all the railroads
are owned by the government and consequently they do not suffer from
artificially high taxation because they are not taxed.
This outcome does not,
of itself, support the view that railroads had ought to be owned by the
government. It does, however, provide us with a clear unbiased picture of the
relative merits of the electrified vs. the non-electrified system when taxes
are removed from the equation. In the absence of unfair taxation the electric
systems win, hands down.
Furthermore, exactly the
same thing would happen if electrified passenger cars were compared honestly
with their non-electric counterparts. Unfortunately, they are not being
compared honestly and they are being expected to run on antiquated roadways
using an infrastructure that is simply not suitable for use in the 21st century.
So, the real bottom line is
that electric cars will have batteries. But, they do not have to be 300 mile
batteries at all. Moreover, it is obvious that what we really need during
the 21st century is going to be an electrified road and transportation system
supporting a number of vehicle types which do not even currently exist. In
short, we need to combine and otherwise integrate our railroads and our
highways in ways that neither Detroit or Adam Smith's invisible hand is going
to facilitate.
About all your batteries
should have to have to do in a modern transportation system is to get you from
your garage or parking space to the nearest electrified roadway or rail
connection where you can connect with a high speed tractor that will take your
car, truck, van, or bicycle at 300 miles an hour to distant places. Not only will this provide far more reliable, safer and cheaper transportation than
has ever existed before, it will also stench the flow of trillions of dollars in
cash out of this country, which is going directly into the hands of people who
are hostile to us and our way of life. It is also hurting and killing ordinary people
who live in those countries.