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The “cash for clunkers” proposal is yet another dud policy and should be subject to an immediate recall notice

Electric Cars are Not Green



Electric cars are nifty, quiet and trendy, and don’t add hot gases to city air, but a forced conversion will neither save energy nor reduce the production of carbon dioxide.

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Electric motors, compressed air motors and hydrogen “fuel” are promoted as clean and green, but none of them are sources of energy. All of them need conventional electric power to provide their stored energy. Electric cars must fill their batteries from an electric power point. Compressed air cars must fill their tanks from a compressor which probably uses electricity. And a hydrogen car, if one ever appears, must fill its tank from a refinery using heaps of electricity to produce hydrogen from water or hydrocarbons. And where will the electricity come from? In Australia right now 93% of electricity comes from combustion of hydrocarbons such as coal, gas and oil. That will not change dramatically or quickly without putting the lights out. And a dramatic switch to “green” cars plus bans and taxes on hydrocarbon energy increases the chance of that. The market is the best judge whether diesel, hybrid, electric, petrol or compressed air cars are used. The answer will vary from family to family and from city to country. For too long governments have been throwing subsidies at foreign car companies and “green” car buyers. Now they are pushing low cost cars out of the market with their “big bucks for old bombs” giveaway. When you add up the energy costs of collecting old cars, scrapping them and producing the metal and batteries for the fancy new cars, there will be zero energy saving and zero reduction in the production of carbon dioxide (as if that matters anyway). The “cash for clunkers” proposal is yet another dud policy and should be subject to an immediate recall notice.


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Viv Forbes -- Bio and Archives

Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.

Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.


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