Plug-In Hybrids - The Dark Side
2010 is going to be the year tons of plug-in hybrids hit the market in the United States. This sounds great at first glance, but there are some serious issues that need to be considered.
A plug-in hybrid is exactly what it sounds like. You just plug it in to an electric outlet and let the batteries recharge. The idea is to go without gasoline, although many of the cars will maintain the traditional gasoline system just to make sure you don’t get stranded. Regardless, the idea of an all or mostly electric car has many people excited.
The Dark Side
There is a dark side that most people don’t discuss with these new hybrids. The power doesn’t just come magically out of the electric outlet. It has to be produced. In the vast majority of cases, this means it is coming from a coal power plant. Burning coal is hardly environmentally friendly and would seem to refute the very idea offered by the hybrid, to wit, that it is a clean technology. Admittedly, the amount of coal burned to produce the needed electricity is small, but it is still an issue.
There is a second major issue that also is rarely discussed. It has to do with infrastructure. The electrical system in the United States runs on what is known as a grid. The grid is ancient and falling apart. Various parts of the country regularly suffer from wide spread outages during peak hours such as during blazing hot summer months. Adding new demand in the form of power sucking hybrids is not going to make things better in the short term.
In the long term, however, it might be good for us. Why? It may spur the government to spend the money to build a new updated system. The running joke with electrical engineers is we live in a first world country, but on a third world power grid. Yes, it is that bad. The problem is the cost to fix and update it will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. As you’ve probably noticed, we have a massive debt problem and power is not exactly high on the list of concerns with consumers. It should be, but we are a country that really doesn’t get motivated till there is a crisis. Perhaps plug-in hybrids will push the grid over the edge and create that crisis.
Plug-in hybrids are a good idea for the most part. That being said, just realize there is a dark side to these cars.