Originally Posted by
aerospacepilot
First thing I look at when reading an article is who wrote it:
Central Connecticut State University
They are not even the biggest university in Connecticut!
Ok, I will be sure to take this article with a grain of salt. I would trust it a little more if it were put out by Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc...
Next comment is on the environmental damage caused by electric cars. First off, the Toyota Prius IS NOT an electric car. The Toyota Prius is a gas car that stores excess energy in a battery to help power the car at slower speeds. An electric car would not have a Nickel battery, it would probably have a Lithium Ion battery (like the one in your laptop). Would you rather have a Lithium Ion battery (in an electric car), or a lead-acid battery (in virtually every gas powered car). You don't need to be an engineer to know which one is better for the environment.
Batteries are not the best thing for the environment, and we know that. But how about a hydrogen fuel cell car. Water is not damaging to the environment. How do you get H2 on earth?? You use electricity. This is why we need an alternative source of electricity. How we store the energy is the second part of the equation.
But yeah, Central Connecticut State University... yeah
Yes I’m aware the Prius is not a full blown "electric car". I think most folks call em hybrids or something. I just find it ironic that people are so ignorant and think that their Prius is saving the environment. (not implying you are) And I agree we need to find new sources for generating electricity, but unless that happens soon, the ignorant folks will be driving their "electric cars" using electricity generated from coal stripped mined and shipped half way across the country, calling themselves green.
For now Cal, AZ, Utah, and a few other states have CNG stations for public use, and it is an easy transition; from compressed natural gas to hydrogen. Brazil has a huge percentage of its vehicles running on natural gas as well as many other small countries. Utah passes along the federal tax credit for cng, currently it’s 63 cents a gge (gasoline gallon equivalent) state wide. I flew with a guy who has a Honda civic, and it cost him just under 4 dollars to fill his tank up. I think his range is just over 210 miles.