Is Electrification the Answer?
I’m known as a propane autogas or compressed natural gas guy, which is fine with me.
Recently I met with the CEO of a major electric company, who surprised me because he started our conversation by saying, “Please tell me you are developing an alternative energy technology that isn’t electric based.”
Oh, right. He must be the smart-alecky sort. After all, his product is electricity.
Nope. He then said, “I don’t know who’s pushing electric vehicles because it sure isn’t the electric companies. We are within 3 to 5 percent of being maxed out nearly everywhere. In fact, I have this one neighborhood — if two households purchased Chevy Volts and ran them for 10,000 miles a year, it would literally shut down my grid.”
Two electric vehicles? 10,000 miles a year?
Are you kidding me?
Is it possible that all the investment into electrification hasn’t taken into consideration that the energy demand has extremely small capacities left?
Is it possible that we fell in love with zero tailpipe emissions and forgot how dirty the electricity production process is?
Are we increasing our country’s deficit by investing in electric fuel technology only to produce dirtier cars that do not have an acceptable supply of fuel?
Perhaps this narrowly focused investment strategy isn’t our best bet. Apparently many in the electricity world don’t think so.
The answer is propane autogas. More than 13 million vehicles run on it worldwide with excellent results. It’s abundant, domestic, and easily adaptable to gasoline architecture. Propane autogas, a byproduct of natural gas and crude oil, burns cleaner than gasoline and has the best return on investment of all alternative fuels. Companies like ROUSH CleanTech are leading the way with reliable technology.
I’m just giving you fuel for thought.
