Last Update: July 25, 2015

  1. Electric Car Ownership Economics
    1. Electric cars aren’t too expensive – you can own one for free
    2. Electric vehicle tax credits encourage adoption, help governments reach climate goals
    3. Electric cars drive cheaper, electricity is a cheaper fuel, calculating the cost of any fuel
    4. Electric cars are cheaper to maintain, no oil to change, no gaskets to replace, etc
    5. Saving on refueling time and other time costs associated with the cars
    6. How to calculate electric car cost per mile of range – which EV is more valuable
    7. Calculating effective trip speed – Fast charging cars more valuable
    8. Leasing insulates you against electric car price fluctuations
    9. Driving an electric cars is serenity, what’s “peace of mind” worth to you?
    10. Externalized car ownership costs that tilt the playing field towards gasoline cars
    11. Understanding car cost of ownership – gasoline, diesel, electric, etc
    12. Car cost of ownership models
  2. Altruism – Saving the World at What Cost?
    1. What’s the Cost of Inaction? Fossil fuels keep causing climate change
    2. Jeremy Jackson – Ocean Apocalypse – Naval War College Lecture
    3. Recognizing the future costs of climate change and resource wars
    4. What is it worth to avoid future climate change and environmental catastrophes?
    5. Peak Oil the long-term gasoline price (hint: UP) and electricity price (hint: STABLE)
    6. What’s your share of the cost of the global oil war?
  3. Don’t electric cars freeze up in Winter and become useless?
  4. Freedom from Fossil Fuels
    1. Biofuels – carbon neutral? sustainable?
    2. Environmental benefits of biofuels
    3. Will we get freedom from oil through fuel efficient cars and trucks?
    4. Environmental impact of Fossil Fuels and the Petroleum Industry
  5. Electric cars are safer than gasoline cars
    1. Chevy Volt battery pack fire in 2011
    2. Nissan Leaf car fires
    3. Tesla Model S car fires in 2013 and 2014
    4. Other electric car fires
    5. Lithium battery Flammability

Environmental benefit of biofuels is overestimated, new study says June 8, 2012 (phys.org) http://phys.org/news/2012-06-environmental-benefit-biofuels-overestimated-reveals.html

Two scientists are challenging the currently accepted norms of biofuel production. A commentary published today in GCB Bioenergy reveals that calculations of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions from bioenergy production are neglecting crucial information that has led to the overestimation of the benefits of biofuels compared to fossil fuels.

The paper suggests that CO2 emissions from biofuels should be counted as CO2 emissions, when most say biofuel CO2 emissions should not be counted. The paper argues that ignoring biofuels CO2 emissions “double counts the carbon absorbed by plants when the bioenergy crops are grown on land already used for crop production or already growing other plants because the bioenergy does not necessarily result in additional carbon absorption.” They suggest instead that “Biofuels can only reduce greenhouse gases if they result in additional plant growth, or if they in effect generate additional useable biomass by capturing waste material that would otherwise decompose anyway.”

Hence the scientists are looking at plants as a source of carbon sequestration, whereas biofuels production takes plant material, converts that plant material into a fuel, burning the fuel, and re-releasing it into the atmosphere.

About the Author(s)

David Herron : David Herron is a writer and software engineer focusing on the wise use of technology. He is especially interested in clean energy technologies like solar power, wind power, and electric cars. David worked for nearly 30 years in Silicon Valley on software ranging from electronic mail systems, to video streaming, to the Java programming language, and has published several books on Node.js programming and electric vehicles.
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