Are electric cars the future?

New York Times Green blog reports how in the next few decades there may be massive improvements in electric car batteries. As it is, it takes hours to replenish the energy, but if improvements are continually made recharging could take place in minutes. What caught my attention was this excerpt:

In the end, Mr. Wilcke said, breakthroughs in batteries and electric cars may happen elsewhere.
“What we do in the U.S. doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is what China does. The Chinese government has a goal that 50 percent of all new cars sold in China by 2020 will be battery-powered. That is what will change the game.”

One of the biggest players in pollution  is China, so it is obvious that if they change their energy habits, the environment would take a step forwards towards the better. In Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Tom Friedman talks about how China and India are now consuming more energy than ever.

That (combination of population growth and greater wealth) is what's new about the forces propelling the Energy-Climate Era: They are demand -driven, as so many more people suddenly are, can, or will be living a middle-class lifestyle.

As more and more people come from the rural areas in China searching for the middle-class life, it is important that energy efficient energy is pushed forward in time for any more population booms. If the new electric car batteries are developed sooner than later they will be just in time for upcoming generations.

Oil Embargo

There is a bounty of tension between what should be done about energy, namely nonrenewable energy such as gasoline and coal. Americans are in the deepest rut of this problem as a result of heavily relying on middle eastern countries for oil. This excerpt from Tom Friedman's book Hot, Flat, and Crowded beautifully depicts how far behind America is from being an energy independent country:

I can think of no better example of America's lack of sustained focus to take on a big challenge than the way we have dealt with our energy crises. In the wake of the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, the Europeans and Japanese responded by raising gasoline taxes and, in Japan's case particularly, by launching a huge drive towards energy efficiency. France invested especially heavily in nuclear energy as a state project, with the result that today France gets 78 percent of its energy from nuclear plants and much of the waste is reprocessed and turned into energy again. Even Brazil, a developing country, launched a national program to produce ethanol from sugarcane to make itself less dependent on imported oil. Today, between Brazil's domestic oil production and its ethanol industry, it doesn't need to import crude oil.

New York Times produced this article:

An explosion on April 20, 2010 aboard the Deepwater Horizon, a drilling rig working one mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, led to the accidental release of nearly five million barrels of oil, the world's largest spill by far. BP, the rig's operator, failed repeatedly to plug the leak but the catastrophe did not lead to widespread efforts to reduce oil use.
It did, however, lead to a wave of new regulation and legislation that promises to fundamentally remake an industry that has operated hand-in-glove with its government overseers for decades.  Some in the the industry feared that the BP accident would be a turning point for oil exploration the way the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident in 1979 contributed to a virtual 30-year moratorium on nuclear plant construction.

From these two articles it is easy to see how far behind we are in the world when it comes to independence from oil and abundance of clean energy. The recent BP oil spill is similar to the Three Mile Island incident thirty years ago. The nuclear accident caused anti-nuclear energy sentiment causing a ban on construction. Looking back, however, the idea of stopping the production of clean energy sounds, well, dumb. The relationship between the BP spill and the Three Mile Island breakdown could show some positive movement in the future. The best outcome would be to reduce our usage of oil and to start catching up to countries such as France and Brazil. Both countries' energy standards are something to look up to.

Spare The Air Day(s)

The fourth Spare the Air Day of the season was called for Thursday as hot, stagnant air remained in the Bay Area.

After going most of the summer without a Spare the Air day, the Bay Area is having its third in less than two weeks.
With ozone levels in the air expected to approach unhealthy levels today, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District declared a Spare the Air day for the region.
The agency encourages people on Spare the Air days to take bikes, public transit or carpools instead of driving solo, to cook indoors rather than barbecue, and to avoid using aerosol sprays and gas-powered gardening equipment.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/01/BA4A1F6ETS.DTL&type=science#ixzz0yKxo4lwW

 San Fransisco promotes another Spare the Air Day today. The aspirations of this tradition seems to be a great idea just before the traveling weekend coming up, especially as drivers start to ravage the roads. It is reported that this weekend traveling is going up 11% so people can head to cooler areas.

The travel organization projects that 3.5 million Californians will drive to their destinations over the three-day weekend. Roughly 315,000 will fly, and 170,000 will use a train, bus or boat.

 The negative aspects are inevitable this weekend, so it is fortunate that the Bay Area is promoting green thinking. As Thomas Friedman says in the introduction of Hot, Flat, and Crowded, it is becoming increasingly important to diminish the threat of global warming. Save the Air Day is one idea that will hopefully contribute to the end of our unhealthy reliance on energy.

Air Can?

Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded explains the necessity for a better environment. Friedman argues that the world has a problem and we need to make changes, fast. This Hong Kong infomercial about fresh air in a can demonstrates the need for improvement in the air.

The New York Times reported:

HONG KONG — ‘‘Do your feeble breathing skills let you down? Does standing up tire you out?’’ The answer: Buy a breath or two of ‘‘Fresh Air’’ — the ‘‘revolutionary new product’’ that lets you experience breathing ‘‘like the rest of the world does.’’

The product's main focus:

‘‘Fresh Air’’ is the new campaign tool of Hong Kong’s Clean Air Network, a nongovernmental group that promotes awareness of, you guessed it, the wretched air quality in this city of seven million.

Although this product might seem like a joke, it does raise awareness of the bad air quality of major cities and the need to reduce pollution. Tom Friedman stresses a move to Code Green, influencing innovation in energy efficiency and clean power. The world faces this problem, and this Hong Kong campaign is a force than can help propel improvement in the atmosphere.