Scott Benson

Natural Gas & Wind Power - The Pickens Plan

In the 1990s, we already tried the natural gas vehicles (my organization had CNG pickups and vans that I helped manage). They didn't work for a number of reasons. And the wind, while it will play a role in electricity supply, doesn't work if it isn't windy, and you end up keeping all the coal-fired plants on-line (and hot) anyway for when the sun isn't shining and it isn't windy. The plan is fine on paper. In the real world, I don't see this coming together. But we are gonna need to electrify transportation, one way or the other. Nukes probably.

Electric Cars for 2010: Shift from Foreign Oil to Riding on Local Renewable Energy

I'm of the mind that electric cars are simply "process of elimination," where nothing else (especially gasoline-powered) is going to be affordable. However, with electricity, we need to keep in mind:

The U.S. uses one terawatt of electricity now per year. Imagine natural gas becoming unaffordable for winter heating. So now you need two terawatts (can't burn the tree in the backyard forever). Add in millions of electric vehicles that used to run on gasoline (night charging may help for awhile) that have to be powered. Now you have THREE terawatts that you need. The whole world generates four terawatts per year. We are expecting this 1960s electric grid which is hanging by a thread even now to supply all this power?