Go electric-3

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IT'S ALL VERY CRUDE...
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If you think that crude is the only 'crude' part of the crude business, well you could be just plain naive. It is a multi-trillion dollar business, with megacorporates jostling for space at the top. The high-voltage game has, as we all know, great Indian players too. And when the stakes are big, can they be blamed if they want to 'protect their turf' ??

All that the layman needs to do is take one look at the largest corporates in the world and count how many are in the 'crude' business. Enough and more to tell you where the 'big money' is. Digging for crude is not child's play, though the word 'oil well' might make us think that it is somewhat similar to digging one that we are all familiar with in our backyards. The investment is mind-boggling, the sheer size and capabilities of the machinery awesome, and the stakes skyhigh. It sure is a game played in a mammoth scale. The locales? Desert wastelands, faraway oceans and other inaccessible places. With that sort of billion dollar investments 'sunk into the earth', nobody is going to sit idle when their bottom lines are threatened by some 'crazy' ideas like electric cars. If half the owners were to switch to batteries and solar and wind, then who will 'drink up' all the crude that is being dug up? This world is too full of examples where powerful corporates have lobbied and scuttled many good schemes. The latest in this series of (dis-)'information' is the (no doubt sponsored!) 'study' by 'experts' that establishes beyond doubt that the adoption of electric cars is NOT going to affect the 'carbon footprint', and so strongly advocates the maintenance of 'status quo'. As the wise saying goes, "...there are lies, damn lies and then statistics...". We will postpone analyzing the 'expert findings' to a later date--it would take the best part of another long post. Instead let us get on with our thread of thoughts for now.

So all that investment presupposes that the profits should keep flowing in till kingdom come. And the crude guys are not going to let anybody 'rock the boat' until the last drop of crude is pumped out of the earth, and the last dollar tinkles into their till. Who dug up the Arabian desert wastes for oil? Not the Arabs or the Africans or Indians. It was chiefly the Americans and the Europeans who were looking for ways to fuel their mindless quest for four-wheeled 'luxury'. The wells gushed 'the other stuff' too that could oil the wheels of pretty much anything--money. And, of course, like in the days of the East India Company, it was good 'business' to dig for crude. If we think the corporates are greedy for 'crude' profits, look at the saintly governments who make a lot of money from the pricing of crude and related products. Does anybody remember the 'Gulf war surcharge' put on petro products by the Government of India back when the Gulf war started? The war is over (or maybe it is not for them in the oil ministry!), but the surcharge has been 'absorbed' permanently into the price! Looking at that and many like ploys would take another entire post, or even two! It would be great if somebody does an analysis of the 'value addition' that occurs as crude is transformed into the fuel that is dispensed to us by companies and governments, and also look at where all that money is going.

Western science was advanced enough at the time to know that burning of such vast quantities of fossil fuels will degrade the atmosphere and cause all sorts of upheavals in the ecosystem. But everybody turned a blind eye to it all until urban smog and pollution began to really hurt.  But nothing much happened and quietly they went on digging their wells in far off oceans. God alone knows what damage is being done there as there is nobody to 'police' what is going on there. Only when recently the BP offshore oil-well catastrophe threatened their own shores has the American government 'woken up' to the dangers of offshore drilling and the ever-present threat to the ecosystem. Who has contributed the vast quantities of 'greenhouse gases' in our atmosphere and augured in climate change? All that we know is it was not us. And we don’t want to in the future. Any guilty parties there? Does anybody want to put their signatures to the Kyoto protocol? Thanks to many studies, the average person in the street is now more aware of the situation and of his/her own increasing environmental responsibilities.

After polluting their own countries to an extreme level, why are all the auto majors now making a beeline for India and other developing countries? Not because of an altruistic love for us, not because they want to give us the fruits of their research and make a difference to our lives. Yes, ultimately it IS going to make a difference to our lives, but not in a way that we would welcome or want. It is money, and they care two hoots about how our air and water will be poisoned by the products they sell to us through 'want-making' ads. Their environmental concern is limited to a couple of slogans in their ads and maybe a few bumper stickers! I say this because if they were truly concerned about the environment and the quality of life of their customers and of the state of the Planet, and if they had really learnt a bitter lesson from their mistakes of the past, they ought to have cried halt to the present campaign and chosen to pump in money for research into viable alternatives--NOW.

What is the reality? After decades of civic pressure, governments enact some stringent norms for emissions etc. The corporates 'shilly and shally' for as many years as they can and then come up with the minimum technological changes necessary, and the game goes on as usual. In the meantime they are manipulating all of us and the law makers--and denying doing that too. It is just like our 'abkari' (liquor) situation. Everybody agrees liquor is bad for health and happiness at home. So what does the government do? They put a warning sticker on the bottle as a 'timely' reminder for the drunks (small print which even a non-drunk can't read!) and auction away the rights to sell any poison to the public. The result? A little money goes into the government coffers and a lot of money goes into various pockets. Keeps everybody happy.... Well, oil could be as 'intoxicating', if not more, as alcohol is and its various inventive combos.

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WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?
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What happened to the electric car that was the pace-setter and the leading technology --not to speak of the sheer numbers and their public acceptance--back in the 1900s? And what happened to the electric car redux that took place in the mid-20th C in America as a result of increasing civic pressure and legislation?

It is an education to watch the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" by Chris Paine. You will be shocked by the revelations of how the US car majors and the oil barons conspired to kill and bury (forever?) the promising alternative, the electric car. You will be dismayed to watch how an oil company bought the rights to a revolutionary battery and slowly snuffed it out. You will watch how General Motors released its first electric cars with defective batteries, probably calculated to exasperate the users so they would never again think electric. Many of the 'behind the scenes' things are downright unbelievable. So, before anything, take time out to watch the documentary online at:

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/who-killed-the-electric-car/
or at
http://freedocumentaries.org/int.php?filmID=336

It will change the way you think. And that means you will be acting different tomorrow--which is critical when you consider the fine balance of our lives on this Planet Earth.
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Here is also a worthwhile quote (emphases mine):
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"--- Peter Oppewall (http://EVtransPortal.org)
21 Jun, 2010 09:32 PM

There are technological solutions available now to overcome the range problem with batteries including hybrids, battery swapping, and inductive charging of the roadway at various points --->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnePffoZs_k
The real problem here is not a lack of technological solutions but a lack of political and social will needed to make the changes necessary to transition more rapidly away from fossil fuels, fuels which we already know are not sustainable.
As long as we continue to allow corporations to privatize the profits of oil, and pass on to consumers the true costs of oil in the form of catastrophic oil spills, carbon emissions, health costs from pollution, climate changes, and military interventions motivated by competition for oil to name a few, we will not see consumers willing or able to switch to cleaner transportation technology. ---"
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Like I said earlier, cars are meant to transport us from A to B. Why should the car makers be mulish and think that it is only the oil-engined ones that will sell? If they can make a good electric (or even atomic powered car!) and can offer a choice to the buying public, they will still be in a profitable business for decades to come. If they are sincere about the ecology, they should go further than shedding a few crocodile tears and, for a change, put their money where it will do the most good overall, and not where it will bring in the maximum profit.

Let us tell the big auto giants one thing. Nobody is going to believe them if they go on saying they can't come up with a good alternative, or that the technology is not yet 'ripe' etc. Let us tell them we will NOT buy their products-- unless they make it our way. And our way is an eco-friendly one. I dare say you dont have to be a 'rocket scientist'  to 'spec out' a good, practical electric car that could be built now with currently existing and proven technology. Let us do that NOW!

Yes, in our coming posts we will give the auto boys a sure-fire formula for putting together a practical electric car. A formula followed by hundreds of ordinary folk with success and satisfaction. Let the auto majors remember that to fail where these ordinary folk have succeeded will be their funeral. And nobody will be bringing any flowers either!
Maruti, Hyundai ( I am not forgetting their concept electric), Ford, Chevrolet, VW, Nissan, Toyota, Honda....the whole lot... Are you listening??
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(more to follow)