Is green U.S. mass transit a big myth?

Is the question raised by Brad Templeton in an article using data from the US Departments of Energy and Transportation. The answer- depending on where you are, of course- is sometimes yes!

He is not arguing against using existing mass transit systems, but for considering the numbers for future construction. In many instances, it may be better to encourage responsible personal transportation. I have long thought this, and my recent trips to Europe confirmed it- the problem is not whether one drives, but what and how.
CC's SmartCar would be at least a mid-size car in many European cities. In Italy I saw many, many vehicles I would call a "crossover" type; not a cross between a car and an SUV, as we would use the word here, but rather a cross between a faired scooter and a single seat car- like this one Some of them even had cute little pickup beds for delivery duties. Most all of them got northwards of 50 MPG, often quite a ways north; 60-80 MPG for some. None of them would be legal here.

Why? Because it's claimed they aren't safe- and yet, the accident injury and death rates are no higher there than here. Why? Because these are town cars; they are driven where geography and traffic conditions are such that you aren't going fast enough to have a high-impact accident. They don't have to be able to survive a 60 MPH accident with a Cadillac because the average accident would be 20 MPH with a pedestrian or another scooter- and even those accidents are less likely because such lightweight vehicles stop faster and maneuver better.

We have special licenses for Ultralight and Sports airplanes, as long as they don't try to mix it up at the big boy airports. We have special licenses for scooters and mopeds, as long as you don't try to take them on the highways. But we have no such provisions to allow micro-cars. Here in Indiana one town passed an ordinance permitting people to take their electric golf carts on city streets to the corner store, and the State Police swooped in and busted everybody, saying that only the State and Feds could make laws about cars. An appeal is pending, but there is little chance of them prevailing. In today's environment, this makes no sense.

We need a national law to provide for micro-sized town cars. For millions of Americans, a four-wheeled scooter would do us for getting to work and the store- 90% of our travel. This would also make electric vehicles practical overnight; without carrying those 5MPH bumpers, airbags, steel I beams, etc., they would be light enough for existing technologies to be competitive- as in the golf carts mentioned above. Downtown parking? I saw Italians comfortably parking three of them sideways in a single standard parking place, or one "regular" small car and one micro-car . For that odd long distance trip, you can rent a larger car- you'll still come out way ahead in the long run. Would Americans buy such cars? Notice that during the muscle-car years before the gas crisis, the Volkswagen Beetle was a best seller.

The $300 million challenge

proposed by Senator McCain for the development of a better battery for electric cars would be a waste of tax dollars, because the battery is not the limiting factor for electric cars.

What do I mean? Suppose there were a battery that was the size of a pack of cigarettes, held enough power for a family of four to travel 500 miles, was non-flammable, non-toxic, biodegradable, and cost $0.29 to manufacture- it still wouldn’t make the electric car viable. Why? Because the battery has to be recharged- and we simply don’t have the electrical capacity to do it.

Look- a gallon of gas is equal to 36.6 kw/hrs. We go through 400 million gallons of gas a day. That equals 14.6 gigawatt/hrs/day. We generate 4 million gigawatt/hrs per year... divided by 365, that makes 11 gigawatt/hrs/day. If we did nothing but recharge our cars every day, we’d still have only 2/3 the electrical capacity needed. Even if you assume vast improvements in efficiency for the electric car, we still can’t generate even a fraction of the electricity needed for electric cars. Heck, we can’t even generate enough electricity to avoid rolling brownouts on really hot days as is.

McCain was on a better track when he proposed building 45 nuclear power plants by 2030- the only thing wrong with that was its timidity. We need 400 more nuclear power plants, not 45. France gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear- we only get 20%. If we got 80% of our power from nuclear, we’d cut our carbon footprint far, far below Kyoto standards... if we doubled that we could then have our electric cars as well, and not only be independent of foreign oil, but take our carbon emissions back to 1890 levels, not 1990.

If anyone can tell me why it wouldn’t work, I’d love to hear it.