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Plug Me In

By Lisa Stiles
Back in April, Eric McErlain posted Making the Transition to the Hydrogen Economy in which I first read about hybrid vehicles being modified to further improve fuel efficiency.

Today, CNN's Web site is carrying an interesting story about these "plug-in" hybrid vehicles. These cars, often created by individuals with their own standard hybrids by adding rechargeable batteries, have been shown to get up to 250 mpg.

Dang, I wish someone told me about these when I was commuting 60 miles each way to work (and so I don't lose my credentials as an environmentalist, I'd like to state that I carpooled all seven of those years!).

In any case, the issue of energy sources to power the rechargeable batteries is raised near the end of the article:
Backers of plug-in hybrids acknowledge that the electricity to boost their cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, but they say that process still produces far less pollution than oil. They also note that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power.
While I won't touch the "less pollution than oil" comment with a 12-foot fuel assembly, I will say that perhaps we nuclear advocates should be reaching out to these tech-savvy hybrid-tinkering environmentalists. Many of them are impatient with our country's efforts to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources. Some even malign the push for a hydrogen economy because the benefits will be realized too far into the future. The article states
Instead, Frank said, automakers promise hydrogen-powered vehicles hailed by President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though hydrogen's backers acknowledge the cars won't be widely available for years and would require a vast infrastructure of new fueling stations.

"They'd rather work on something that won't be in their lifetime, and that's this hydrogen economy stuff," Frank said. "They pick this kind of target to get the public off their back, essentially."
With all due respect to these environmentalists who truly put their money and efforts where their mouths are, they have been woefully misled if they believe that solar energy, which currently accounts for less than 1% of the energy needs of this country, will provide a signicant chunk of their inventions' power anytime soon. If they truly want to power their vehicles via clean sources and they want to do it sooner rather than later, nuclear, which currently provides 76% of the nation's emission-free electricity, must play a large part.

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