Jack Yetiv

The Current State of the Solar Energy Sector

To Catcher N The Rye (catchy name!):

You are correct that today, there is little connection between crude oil use and electric use in the US, but many believe that in two decades from now, that will be much changed. I believe that electric cars (actually, some version of plug-in hybrids, PIH's) will be the most common type of car sold in 2025--if not in 2020. Those cars WILL SUBSTITUTE electricity for oil products. Indeed, Israel is expecting to achieve the above goal within 10 years.

This is why many of us see solarly-generated electric as (at least in the future) a substitute for oil. The beauty of this substitution is that there is enough sun resource in the US to produce all the electricity we need for our homes, offices, AND cars/trucks/semi-tract... etc, decreasing the need (and hopefully eliminating it) for us to important oil from countries that don't like us (to put it mildly). Because we have such a large installed base of gasoline/diesel-powere... vehicles (about 250 million of them) in the US, this goal will take decades to realize, but there is little question in my mind that this is where we are going to go.

Electricity is the only realistic substitute for oil in our transportation network.

Although it will take a long time to populate this country with PIH's, you won't have to wait too long to see the beggining of that road. I predict that in 2010--just two years from now--we will be able to buy a plug-in hybrid that will get hundreds of miles to the gallon if its daily commute is less than the normal 30-35 miles per day.

Jack Yetiv