Why the Future is Electric

When gas hit $4.25 a gallon last summer, I started researching alternatives. 

Readers will recall that I was always a big fan of hybrid and electric cars and motorcycles.  Well they are finally coming into their own. 

It's not just the Tesla roadster and competitors that are paving the way for electric vehicles. At the Detroit Auto Show this week the basement is set up as a test track for electric cars and almost every company has an electric vehicle on the display. Chevy has the Volt. Chrysler seems to be staking its whole future on EV dreams.  Ford has plans to have battery electric and plug in hybrid electric cars in every category in a few years and is pushing for government policy changes to help make that happen. (check out Autobloggreen for the best coverage)

A few years ago, battery folks were stone-agers while everyone touted the hydrogen economy. However, hydrogen fuel cells are just a fancy -- and expensive battery. Once that was revealed, the infrastructure costs of hydrogen distribution seemed daunting. Things moved slow.

Meanwhile, batteries kept getting better.

I argued that hybrids were the way to go in the interim because no matter what the power source, the electric drive train was going to be what moved wheels on the road. With electric motors at or in the wheels -- anything could provide the electricity -- hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen ICE, batteries of any kind. Electric motors are flexible in a way that other drive trains are not. They don't care where the electrons come from -- so any source -- even multiple sources can be used.

For example: say I build a electric car with batteries. If I use Lithium batteries it will be expensive, but get good range per charge. For my commuting needs I can just plug it in. If I need more flexibility on range, I can have a range-extending generator on board. This generator could run on hydrogen, gasoline, diesel, biodiesel, natural gas, ethanol, methanol, coal fired steam, kerosene. Heck if it is a sterling engine -- you can run it on multiple fuels.  So long as something charges the batteries, the batteries and the motors don't care -- the driving experience stays the same.

Let's say I add a small gas generator to my electric car to extend the range -- but gas suddenly goes up to $10 a gallon. I can pull out that generator and put in a natural gas generator and bypass the gas stations. The batteries and the electric motors don't care.

Moreover, let's say I build my car with lead acid batteries because they are cheap. 

However a year later, NiCad or Lithium polymer batteries come on the market much cheaper. I can switch out batteries and leave the drive train unchanged.

Today when I plug in my car I charge it up with hydropower and wind power. If I lived on the East Coast it would be coal and nukes. 

It's not just cars. The future is electric in the home as well. A few years ago I wanted to supplement my wood fired heading in my home (stove and pellet). I looked into oil and natural gas and decided on a solid ceramic electric heater instead. These Econo-Heat heaters draw about the same power as a light bulb use convection to heat a room. They work great, have no moving parts and are easy to install.  Best of all, however, is their flexibility. If electricity gets more expensive in the Northwest, I can supplement by adding wind and solar here at the house. The heating system -- the drive train -- doesn't need to change.  

In short, the future is electric because electric devices, drive trains and heating systems aren't picky about where they get their juice. That allows flexibility as we make advances in how we power our world in the year to come. There likely won't be one magic bullet to replace the carbon monster. Electric power allows all options and a mix of options to keep the lights on, the home warm and the wheels on the pavement.

Evangalizing!

Okay there are some things that I've discovered that I'm always telling folks about. I'm kind of an evangalist for the cheap and interesting secret stuff of the world. 

Cheap Eyeglasses 

I discovered these when my daughter Lindsay had to get glasses and I couldn't bare to spend $200 on glasses for a seven year old who would likely lose or destroy them. I'm bought most of my glasses for $8 or $9 a pair -- total for prescription and frames. Most have come from Zennioptical.com but I just bought a pair for Lindsay from Eyebuydirect.com. But follow the links from fellow blogger Glassyeyes to get discounts on even cheaper glasses. When I got an updated perscription recently, the store said it would cost $240 even with insurance! I got the same glasses for $25. How can they be so cheap on-line. Slate Magazine did a great article on the subject.

Buying Used Tech

I've been a Mac person since my first computer -- a pre-Mac Apple IIe. We had Macs in my middle school classes and I leaned to program BASIC on them in 6th grade. I bought a Mac 512 after college for $25 and used it for years of writing newspaper articles and novels at home. I'm now writing on a G3 Ibook that I bought off Ebay last year for $60. It came with a wireless card and all the latest software including Microsoft Office for Mac. I bought two ibooks for my daughters for $25 each on ebay. Batteries were dead but with wireless I can still plug in anyplace in the house to surf the web, blog etc. 

I bought my Palm 650 for $50 from some guy who was upgrading to a iphone. That's the trick, people are upgrading to the latest tech all the time. I like to swoop in an take advantage of these early adopters as they get rid of their "old" tech.

I stick with brands I know -- Mac, Palm etc, and sell on-line when I want to upgrade. I think PCs age faster and have a harder time upgrading so I avoid them. LowEndMac.com is invaluable for know where to find the best deals as well as the capabilities of older machines. 

Whole Body Donation

A patient in the Emergency Room told me about this one. Instead of having your body rot in the ground with no benefit to anyone -- I've decided to donate mine to medical research. My inspiration was the great book Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach -- which tells all about the things we do with bodies after we die. I was lucky enough to benefit by studying a human cadaver when I was in nursing school. I want to pass on the same benefit to future generations.  I'm signed up with MedCure whole body donation -- which donates your body to medical research projects at no cost to you or your loved ones.  I'm also an organ donor or course. 

After the Flood

Note- This was originally written for the Chinook Observer after the 1996 flood. The most recent flooding rivaled that event and reminded me of this. This and other essays are in my book Content.

        Standing in the water in my basement, I couldn’t help but realize how blessed my life has been.
         Four inches of water downstairs was nothing compared to what other folks were going through. Houses sliding down banks, roads stranding people far from their homes and families; water wiping out all that some people had with no warning and no insurance. As I stacked waterlogged boxes on folding chairs up out of the water, I couldn’t help but smile at how lucky we were.
         It shouldn’t take suffering of others to remind me.

By Friday, the sun shone like August in a cloudless sky and I looked at the world with new eyes.
We cleaned out the basement, trashing most of the dozen or so boxes I had pack ratted away from various stages of my life. There was a scrapbook from high school with blank pages; several pounds of assorted papers we saved for some future use that will never come. There were tapes of lonely songs and angry nights that have sat unplayed for years as well as souvenirs of wanderings I made alone. Why did I save these wounds and scars of my life before Amy?
It didn’t take long to pile the truck down and haul the whole load to the dump.
It is some small neurosis I possess, this inability to throw anything away without a major event to press me into action. I can’t even bring myself to throw away the scraps of paper, receipts and cough drop wrappers I squirrel away in my back pocket. They collect upon the flat surfaces around the house -- every place but the garbage where they belong.
In that way, for me this flooding was a blessed event. A cleansing moment like the biblical flood that washed away the apathetic and unholy. It was an imperative to clean out the accumulated garbage of 20 some-odd years. Some of the garbage anyway. At least it will be a start.
Perhaps even more so, it was an opportunity to look at the blue sky last week and see the contrast between dark winter and perfect clear blue of tomorrow. I love living in the land of so much rain. It makes me appreciate the sun so much more than I would otherwise. When I lived East of the mountains -- where no clouds appeared between April and October -- I had no appreciation of the sun.
When times are good, you don’t appreciate the good times.
Yet, give me a natural disaster and I suddenly remember how to count my blessings. Last week was too kind on that account. Too many reminders were waiting to slap me in the head.
I could turn in the middle of my world and see how my life is now. In the bright light of a false spring, there was Amy planting sweetpeas in the garden. The dogs played in the mud, and the water slowly receded back to the banks of the river, leaving patterned shoals of silt behind. Great logs were left in the fields for us to cut up into firewood. Gifts brought by the high waters. I could look at these things and see all that is too easily forgotten when days are not so bright.
Our minds are muscles of habit. We are beings of assumptions, generalizations and programmed reactions only occasionally awakened from our automation trances to view the world as it really is. We seek order so we fail to appreciate it-- call it boredom, demand more.
I grew up thinking that contentment was a state of stagnation. Those who grow content in their lives fail to improve their world. To some extent that is true. Too often however, I think we use this as an excuse to create disasters for ourselves in hopes that we may escape the soft arms of contentment and the guilt we feel in their embrace.
We need to embrace the good things in our lives while striving to change that which still can be improved.
I awoke early on Monday, my 27th birthday. My back and legs sore from hauling truckloads of manure fro a the new life growing beneath the surface of our garden.
Sore as well from hauling the dead things away. Empty boxes and water logged memories are heavier than one can imagine. The work in the clean fresh air had felt wonderful, the soreness serves as a reminder of the good work accomplished. I pulled on my jeans and struggled to button the top button. Getting fat I guess -- a reminder of work still needing to be done.
On Tuesday, Amy and I celebrated Valentine’s Day with candies, root beers and cards, as well as the quiet realization that we don’t need to set a date on the calendar to say that we love each other.
How blessed we are, we who have our health, our loving family and a roof over our heads. How sad it is that we need to be reminded by the suffering of others.
How joyous and thankful we should let our hearts be when those reminders to come.

The Return of ebbTIDE!!! by Ed Hunt

In 1997 I helped create the Tidepool.org (now sightline) news service. It was a great resource for covering the Pacific Northwest. We had a thin budget and some creative minds but we were making it all up as we went along. One afternoon, I created a weekly column linking to the best news articles and putting them into context for the Tidepool readership. It was a combination recommended reading list as news analysis.  In short -- I created a blog ... before there was a name for such a thing.

Things change, I've gone on to a new career as a registered nurse but I still have the itch to read and write about the world on a regular basis. ebbTIDE is going to be that forum. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.