Sustainable Individualism - the case for electric vehicles

We need to go fully electric.

Whenever I make that claim, especially when referring to vehicles, I will quickly be confronted with the argument, that electricity still is more often than not produced by burning fossil fuels and hence nothing would improve.

While, on a first look, this seems plausible, I just don't think so. Rather I'd like to show that, the argument is neither plausible nor valid.

When you look just at your home, how many devices and tools are there, which are powered electric?

Let's have a look, in no specific order at devices which, you already might use, usually powered by electricity:

- Alarm clock
- Radio
- TV set
- game console
- WiFi Access point / repeater
- Modem / Router
- PC / Laptop
- mobile phone
- Refrigerator
- Freezer
- Micro wave oven
- Oven
- coffe brewer
- electric water jug
- light bulbs
- halogen spotlight
- led lights
- ventilator
- air condition
- washing machine
- tumble dryer
- automatic garage door
- power drill
- steam cleaner
- (robotic) vacuum cleaner
- robotic lawnmower
- electric toothbrush
- hairdryer
- electric shaver
- kitchen aid, blender, mixer, bread slicing machine, etc.

Yes, I know, some might argue that, they do not use any of these and read by the light of a candle, and usually walk or go by bicycle or use public transport. Then I might ask you to spread the word about electric vehicles.

But there is more of these electric devices, you might use, but you might not be aware of them.

- hot-water boiler
- water pumps
- waste and grey water pumps
- elevator
- intercommunication system
- surveillance cameras
- motion sensors
- automatic lawn sprinkler
- alarm system
- smoke detectors
- land line phone

All of the above run on electricity.

And you knew that all along, as you pay a monthly power bill.

So, currently you are running all these devices, and tools essentially on coal, gas, or whatever fossil fuel, unless of course, you have your own electricity generated by wind turbine and / or solar cells.

But still, time by time, and, even if you have your very own energy storage device, you might need to tap into the grid and if you don't know for certain, you might still receive "dirty" electricity.

Now, in addition to this, we are big fans of individual transport, but that offers another choice for us as it opens up new possibilities on how to power these vehicles, as well as how to use or even share them.

Electric vehicles can be as 3 times as efficient as those with combustion engines. That means, even if you run a power plant on the gasoline, that the cars would have used instead, you can power three cars instead of one, or operate one at a third of the original consumption.

Plus, the electric car itself will not pollute the air nor directly put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

If you would want to filter the exhaust gases from combustion engines, you would have to equip each and every car with filters, catalysts and even a carbon dioxide retainer.

If you try to clean the exhaust of a "dirty" coal fired power plant, you might find a cheaper approach to remove particles and carbon dioxide. Same goes if you would fire it with gasoline.

However, the quality of "dirty" varies strongly, depending on where you live. India and, China already produce more than 15% or 20% respectively from renewable sources. Whilst that might seem little, please keep in mind, that we are talking about the two countries with the highest populations worldwide. In contrast to this, the high tech country USA produces just a little over 12% of its electricity from renewable sources, and that is mostly due to a surge in wind power stations and, recently also solar power plants.

There are still fossil burning power plants in the majority, who massively pollute the air and pump high amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Nuclear power plants are worldwide producing just 10% of our needs and, while they usually do not pollute the air and do not directly harm our atmosphere when in normal operation, they very often cause disasters, that leave wide areas of land and even cities radiated, as well as causing worldwide havoc on our oceans and, also on flora and fauna.

In general, we are left with mostly dirty energy, and there is not much we could do about it, except maybe to reduce our consumption and, hence reduce the need for dirty energy on one hand and, to increase the number of "clean" power plants.

So, even if we run electric cars on "dirty" power now, we can use already existing grids, and we reduce the pollution of our environment. If you then happen to even safe money, that would be a big win for both, you and the environment.