Want a Better Way to Power Cars? It's a Breeze
Wind energy is a better option to power our cars than natural gas.
Sept. 2, 2008
By Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is half right. We do need to harness this country's wind resources for a homegrown source of electricity, as he has been urging this summer in expensive television ads. And we do need to reduce the $700 billion we may soon be paying annually for imported oil. But part two of Pickens's plan — to move natural gas out of electricity production and use it to fuel cars instead — just doesn't make sense.
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Why not use the wind-generated electricity to power cars directly? Natural gas is still a fossil fuel that emits climate-changing gases when burned. Let's cut the natural-gas middleman.
Plug-in hybrid cars are here, nearly ready to market. We just need to put wind in the driver's seat. Several major automakers, including GM, Ford, Toyota and Nissan, are working on plug-in hybrids. Both Toyota and GM are committed to marketing plug-in hybrids in 2010. Toyota might even try to deliver a plug-in version of its Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, the bestseller which outnumbers all other hybrids combined in sales, next year.
Some Prius owners aren't even waiting for Toyota. They've converted their hybrids to plug-in hybrids by adding a second storage battery, which increases the distance you can drive between recharges, and an extension cord that you can plug into any wall socket to recharge the batteries from the electrical grid. This lets them push the car's already exceptional gas mileage (about 46 miles per gallon) to more than 100 mpg.
GM is very much in the game with its Chevrolet Volt. This plug-in car is essentially an electric car with an auxiliary gasoline engine that generates electricity to recharge the batteries when needed. It boasts an all-electric range of 40 miles, more than adequate for most daily driving. GM reports that under typical driving conditions, the Volt should average 151 mpg.
This car technology is developing alongside wind turbine technology, setting the stage for an vehicles powered largely by cheap wind energy. The U.S. Energy Department notes that North Dakota, Kansas and Texas alone have enough wind energy potential to easily satisfy the electricity needs of the entire nation. To actually put wind power on the road, of course, we would have to tap the wind resources in nearly all the states, plus off-shore wind resources, which the DOE says can meet 70 percent of national electricity needs.
Texas, this country's leading oil producer for the last century, is now our leading generator of electricity from wind, having eclipsed California two years ago. With more than 5,500 megawatts of wind-generating capacity now in operation and two vast wind-farm complexes under development, the state will have more than 20,000 megawatts of wind-generating capacity (think 20 coal-fired power plants). Pickens, with his own 4,000-megawatt wind farm under development in the Texas Panhandle, is one of the largest investors. These wind farms could satisfy the residential electricity needs of nearly half the state's 24 million people.
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