Toyota has announced it will add a plug-in hybrid to its U.S. lineup by 2010, and that’s great news for Americans.
Why? Because the energy it runs on has to come from somewhere – and if it is plugged in, odds are good that the electricity charging it is coal generated. By relying more on domestic coal and less on imported oil, we’re greatly increasing America’s energy security.
Plus… if the plug-in hybrid’s electricity can be produced utilizing CCT and carbon sequestration, we can also greatly reduce the greenhouse gases that are currently being released into the atmosphere by every car on the highway without increasing emissions in the utilities sector.
As I’ve said before, it’s going to take all of our resources and all of our ingenuity to solve the climate and energy puzzle, but announcements like this prove that we’re making strides in the right direction.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is committed to the idea that America can have the affordable, reliable electricity we need, with the clean environment we want. ACCCE’s Behind the Plug blog is the place for up-to-date news and analysis on clean coal technology developments and energy policy progress.
Japan has just come out with a car that runs for an hour on a liter of water. Perfect!
Dagny
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Why don’t you include a picture of mountain top mining along with an estimate of how long the damage lasts. Most people don’t see these images. It’s a good thing because it’s gut wrenching.
-John
This term is a misnomer since it is not a matter of blowing the tops off mountains. It involves removing the “overburden” to expose a coal seam on a hill, mining that coal, and then putting that land either back to its original contour or to some agreed-upon beneficial use. There are new regulations that carefully outline what can and cannot be done.
I heard Steve Gates on Bud Hedinger Live (WFLA Orlando) and agree that coal is America’s only near term route to Energy Independence. But I was surprised that he made no mention of coal gasefication technologies. In the early 1980′s (due to Jimmy Carter’s Synthetic Fuels Program)pilot plants in S. Carolina were producing liquid fuel from coal for less than $40 a barrel, after which OPEC drove crude oil prices down from $38 to $22 effectively killing the US inititative. Also Hitler converted Germany to coal gasefication within a few years as the Allies choked off oil supplies, and recently Jet Blue’s CEO David Neelman has been trying to start his own coal-to-liquid plant to provide Jet Blue’s fuel needs, but has been thwarted so far by WHO, the Federal government!!!
Electrifying our Transportation sector will take too long to save us from economic disaster as oil prices rise, so I believe that alternate sources of liquid fuel must be our Number #1 priority (with Electric Vehicles a STRONG #2), and I would encourage you to add this to ACCCE’s list of priorities as well.