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

Most of us understand burning fossil fuels is a bad thing, causing a wide range of bad effects. While we understand there’s a problem, it’s even better to understand what the problems are, because that’s often the first step to it’s solution. The problems with fossil fuel use are so huge we desperately need solutions.

(longtailpipe.com) Crude oil itself is a mixture of many different kinds of organic compounds, many of which are highly toxic and cancer causing (carcinogenic). Exposure to crude oil is known to be lethal to a wide variety of fish, birds and other wildlife. Benzene, for example, is in both crude oil and gasoline, and is known to cause leukemia, to lower the white blood cell count weakening the immune system, and other ill effects.

Typically crude oil is not released directly into the environment unless, of course, there’s an “oil spill”. Instead the petroleum industry splits crude oil into a zillion various petroleum products. However, the result does mean every molecule of crude oil is distributed to various places around the planet. The most common petroleum product are fuels like gasoline, kerosene or diesel.

Incomplete combustion means there’s more released into the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Most of the political hoo-haa is over whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant, but of course that misses all the other constituents of fossil fuel exhaust.

  • Sulfur Oxides – Coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, and their combustion generates sulfur dioxide
  • Volatile organic compounds – These include methane, benzene, toluene and xylene. Some VOC’s are highly carcinogenic, while others are highly potent greenhouse gases.
  • Particulates – Soot comes in particles of various sizes, and are known to cause cardiovascular problems or act as a greenhouse gas.
  • Persistent free radicals connected to airborne fine particles are linked to cardiopulmonary disease
  • Toxic metals, such as lead and mercury, especially their compounds.

Remember Acid Rain? That’s still a problem despite not having had much attention since the 1980’s. Acid rain is caused by emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which react with the water molecules in the atmosphere to produce acids. Both those substances are part of gasoline or diesel exhaust.

Climate change is already occurring, and it’s a looming threat that should make for a bleak future. Burning fossil fuels adds CO2 and other carbon compounds into the atmosphere. Increases in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is a leading contributor to greenhouse gases and therefore climate change.

Humans are fallible, as are all the machines and processes created by humans, and therefore failures are commonplace. Failures like oil spills. Of course untreated crude oil is released during oil spills, exposing wildlife and humans alike to the toxic chemicals.

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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