Lydia+E+-+POSITION+PAPER

= = ** Where will we get the energy to move seven billion people? ** == **In the future we will have to use electricity instead of oil as our energy source for transportation.** More cars, more car miles and increasing gas prices - that is today’s reality. But does it really have to be like this? Gasoline prices are about $3.50 to $4.00 per gallon and therefore a lot higher than before. In 2008 “the world oil price […] crept per barrel, more than doubling in one year (Rasizade).” More people start to drive. They want bigger and faster cars. Therefore the world oil demand will rise. Since “ transportation accounts for almost 70 percent of American oil consumption (Stempel)” the question arises where will we get the energy to move seven billion people in the future? Adding to that “growing population, rapid urbanization, rising incomes, and changing consumption preferences (Winiwarter)” in previously poor countries leads to a higher number of cars and higher demand. Especially in countries with a high population growth, like China, the oil demand will grow at a really high rate. With this high and steadily increasing demand for gasoline and supply. Which tends to go down, prices increase until we eventually run out of oil. That’s why in the future we will have to use electricity instead of oil as our energy source for transportation.

The overall problem is a “growing gap between China’s domestic supply of natural gas and rising demand (Staas),” leading to increased gas prices in the last years. Dan Milmo stated that this grow of energy demand will hold on and gas “costs will rise by up to 27% by the beginning of the next decade (Milmo).” This is because of raising demand of gasoline and more car miles. Because of “economic and social development (Zhou)” more person drives cars and more gasoline is needed according to Nana Zhou. Especially in China, increasing transportation if needed because of its rapidly “growing urban population [which] will grow from about […] 926 million in 2025 [to] more than one billion in 2030 (Lee).” Of course this if good for car companies, which sell a lot more cars than they used to, but gas demand increases by a lot. Because of a higher gasoline demand, but no greater offer, gasoline prices increase in the whole world. More people start to drive and the demand for gasoline goes up. People, especially subsequently developed countries, like China, get richer. More private cars are used, instead of traveling by bicycles or public transportation. Henry Lee states that “China has resorted extreme measures in its largest cities, who the rising middle class’ demand for private vehicles if becoming untended (Lee).” The number of poverty decreases, which leads to a higher demand of ‘luxury’ items. It gets normal to have a car and to use it a lot.

Gasoline actually wasn’t always our primary energy source for cars. In the first decades of the 20th century, electric cars “far more popular than […] gasoline-powered cousins (Sramcik).” The reason for that was that they were cleaner, quieter, and didn’t need a crank starter. But then people wanted to travel further and therefore preferred gasoline as energy source for cars. This was holding on during the 1950s, when the economic and the demand for consumer good grew. Technology advances led to increasing agricultural products. The increasingly large and “more affluent population demanded more and better […] goods […] as well as increasing the demand for energy for their growing mobility (Theilmann).” After the baby boom in the 1950s even more natural resources were needed. The number of cars increased a lot, which increased the gasoline demand. Manufactures also added to an increasing oil demand. Because of this huge oil need, America started to turn to oil import from the Middle East. But then in the 1970s an oil issues came up because of the dependence on oil. There was a conflict in which the United States supported Israel. The result was an “oil embargo [, which] was imposed in October, 1973, […] resulting increases in oil prices (Trescoll), “ because of low supply. As a solution the United States wanted to build more efficient cars. They tried to force manufactures to design new cars. This plan didn’t work, because “automobile manufactures fought the legislation, [and wasn’t necessary after only a short time, because] shortly, the gasoline supply and prices returned to normal (Hamilton).” After the supply went back to normal efficiency wasn’t important any more.

In the 1950s there were a lot of conflicts in China, which weakened the country. Because of this situation the population was stable and didn’t grow a lot. After the peace returned “ morality began to fall rapidly and […] fertility remained for many years at about an average of six children per woman (Bergaglio).” The population grew rapidly and very fast. In the late 1970s China’s leaders helped farmers by “relaxing production targets, raising prices and increasing the autonomy of farming collective (Rosen),” leading farmers to have a lot more money and choosing how to spend it. Most of the money was invested, which lead to a huge economic growth. Also industry improved energy intensity of Chinese growth. Because of this richer society, and its fast growth, China had and still has “an increasingly mobile labor force (Lee).” This leads to a still increasing oil demand.

China already tried to solve the problem. Since the problem is the “developed [transportation] without reference to the saturation (Zhou),” they tried to limit number of cars. “Beijing is strictly limiting the number of license plates (Lee).” But people in today’s society are so depended on cars and will protest about limitations like that. Other than that this solutions doesn’t help against the fact, that people drive a lot, instead of “improving energy efficiency (Qi)”. It only leads to more miles on one car instead of on different cars. It also leads to a decreasing automobile market. Because of that especially automobile manufactures don’t like that. This solution wasn’t very efficient and not liked.

In the future we will need a different energy source for transportation, because our demand increases while our supply doesn’t. If we keep using oil to run cars it will get more expensive until we don’t have enough oil to cover all our needs any more. That’s why we need to “reduce dependence on coal and other fossil fuels (Qi).” To do that there is only one solution, which is to “lead the world in electric vehicle deployment (Lee).” Electric energy as a source for cars would be a lot better, because “electric vehicles are far more efficient than conventional cars (Moore).” Electricity is a steady energy source and should be generated by renewable energy sources. We wouldn’t depend on the Middle East for oil any more and could generate our own energy a lot cheaper and environment friendlier.

But electric vehicles have a lot of other benefit. They are a lot better for our environment that gasoline-powered cars. The energy used is renewable and therefore environment friendly. “Electric vehicles, which are truly “zero emission” vehicles, could reduce significantly emission from the transportation sector. These vehicles produce no tailpipe emission and generate insignificant emissions resulting from operating (such as emission from braking) ( Space and Technology Committee qtd. in Worsnop).” Their lack of emission improves environment. That’s why in the first decades of the 20th century electric cars were more popular than gasoline cars. They “produced far less vibration, and they didn’t required a manual transmission or a crank starter (Sramcik)”. Because of the low or missing motor vibration electric vehicles are a lot smoother to drive. The disadvantage of electric cars was the limited range and long charging times. After a time people preferred gasoline-powered cars because it was easier to travel further. But now there is a solution for the problem of not long lasting batteries. One discovery was “a solar-powered car, called the //Sunraycer//, crossed Australia at an average of 42 miles an hour for almost 2000 miles without ever fully discharging its batteries (Stempel).” There are a lot other discoveries, which decrease charging times and increase the range of electric vehicles and therefore make electric cars more interesting for consumers.

Safety is an important part of cars. More cars are on the streets; people drive faster, text while driving and the driving age goes down. That’s why consumers really care about the safety of cars. Buyers are concerned about the safety of electric cars, because in the last time “fires [broke] out in the battery after collisions (Elsworth)” in a crash test. The batteries of electric vehicles get a lot hotter than the motor of a gasoline-powered car. Therefore they are more likely to catch on fire. Other than that electric cars are more expensive, because of the big amount of batteries needed. Nobody is willing to buy a more expensive car with less safety.

It is true that batteries get hot. But we don’t have to worry about our safety. These fires broke out a few days after the crash and “only […] because post-crash procedures weren’t followed (Plumer).” And there have been made changes to not let that happen again. The batteries are isolated enough not to be dangerous for drivers. It is true, that right now electric cars cost more than gasoline–powered cars. But people are too focused on the buy price. You should also think about the money you have to pay for your car after you bought it: gasoline, reparations and oil changes. This cost is a lot lower for electric cars. “The per-mile cost of electricity used for recharging is roughly one-fifth the cost of gasoline,” wrote Mark Fischetti in Smithsonian. “Maintenance is much less -- there's no oil to change, no need for tune-ups, no muffler to fix. Over the average life of a car ... an electric vehicle will cost about $5,000 less to run (qtd. In Worsnop).” This low operating price would compensate the higher purchase price. Over the years, electric cars will also get less expensive because of further development of research. This shows that there are no disadvantages in electric cars compared to conventional cars. They are safe, too and you even safe money over the years.

Experts say that electric cars actually aren’t better for our environment and still need oil. Most people think electric cars are a lot cleaner than conventional cars. But you have to look at the full picture and also consider the way electricity is produced. “Studies have shown that the trade-offs with economics and convenience are not matched by emission reduction, since most of the electricity is generated by fossil fuels (Bradley).” Right now, electricity is generated with oil. These productions are really dirty and have a lot of waste gases. This means that the way we produce electricity balances the advantage of electric vehicles. Other than that switching to electric cars wouldn’t reduce our dependence on oil. So there is no advantage of electric vehicles.

This way to produce electricity needs a lot of oil. That’s why we need to change the way we generate electricity. The solution for that problem is to use renewable energy, energy from solar, wind, geothermal and sustainable biomass, as sources to generate electricity. Our government already tends to go in this direction. Experts agree “that renewable energy can play an important role in reducing energy consumption and possibly energy cost (Chi).” We wouldn’t need oil to generate electricity any more. This means that the part of electricity, which produces a lot of emission and needs oil, the production, would be different and therefore electric cars would be a lot cleaner than conventional cars. Other than that we wouldn’t depend on the Middle East for oil import any more and go a step further to not depend on other countries. Because electricity produced by renewable sources is about 97% cleaner than gasoline and doesn’t need oil, this is the best plan for the future.

Another really important topic is the range of electric cars. Consumers just “won’t [buy] a vehicle that doesn’t go far […] and runs out of juice as soon as you turn on the air conditioner (Wente).” Electric vehicles can’t go far distances and there are no fueling stations. Therefore long trips with electric cars have to be good planed or are not possible. The charging time for electric cars is also very long. Gas stations on the other hand are found a lot and the time to fill up your tank with gasoline takes only about 5 minutes. Why would anyone buy an electric car if there are no infrastructures, you can’t travel far distances and the charging times are really long?

Of course, with no infrastructure, long charging times and small batteries nobody wants to buy electric vehicles. But the research about electric cars is far more developed than a lot of people know. “Electrosource is now working on an improved lead-acid battery that it says will have double the capacity and useful life of a conventional lead-acid model, take only one-fourth as much time to recharge -- and cost less besides (Worsnop).” The infrastructures also get better. “EV charging stations are popping up throughout the country to assist with opportunity charging (Hackleman).” And with further development of electric vehicles, more and more infrastructures will be built.

When traveling only short distances, electric cars are handier. You don’t have to go to fueling or gas stations at all. You can just plug your car in at home, at work or at parking lots. Store parking lots will get charging stations so that for a daily base use you don’t have to take time to go to fueling stations at all. You just plug it in wherever you are.

More cars, more car miles and increasing gas prices; that is our daily life. But it doesn’t have to be like this in the future. It is our choice to change it with only a little bit of effort. Right now our transportation depends on import of oil from foreign countries.Previously poor countries get richer, leading to more people having cars. People use cars instead of bicycles and want bigger and luxuriously cars. Therefore the demand for oil rises, but the supply doesn’t, leading to rising oil prices. Our oil supply will be gone by the middle of the decade because of these rising consumption numbers. Right now, driving is expensive, it is loud, dirty and harms out environment. This all can change with electric cars using renewable energy. Electric vehicles have, as many people didn’t expect, no disadvantages compared to gasoline-powered vehicles, but advantages like they don’t need oil, which reduces our dependence on imports. They are cheaper, maybe the buy price not yet, but the price to operate, cleaner, if they use renewable energy sources, quieter. The only reason, we still use oil as our energy source is because that’s what we did in the last decades. So be flexible, save money by buying an electric car, help our environment and cut our oil demand and therefore help your own country. “We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.” //Kurt Vonnegut.//


 * ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY **

Bergaglio, Maristella. "Population Growth in China : The Basic Characteristics in China's Demographic Transition." //globalgeografia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. This article is a secondary source written by Maristella Bergaglio, an Assistant professor is a Mendeley member in Social Sciences from Milano, Italy. Her article focuses on the population growth in China since the 1950s. This source has been used to support china's growing demand of oil.

Bradley, Robert L, Jr. "Electric and fuel-cell vehicles are a mirage." //USA Today//. eLibrary, 1 Mar. 2000. Web. 24 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Robert Bradley, the president of the Institute for energy research in Houston, Texas. His article shows how electric vehicles fool people. This source was used to show opposite position.

Chi, Keon S. "Renewable Energy Policy." //Spectrum: the journal of state government//. eLibrary, 1 July 2004. Web. 23 Apr. 2012. <[]>. “Renewable Energy Policy” is a secondary source written by Keon Chi, a long-time staffer for the Council of State Governments and editor in chief of the Book of the States. His article explains advantages of renewable energy. This source was used to support electricity generated by renewable sources.

Elsworth, Peter CT. "Supporters get charged up over plug-in vehicles; automobiles." //Providence Journal//. eLibrary, 22 Mar. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Peter Elsworth, a writer at Providence Journal. His article talks about electric cars and consumers concerns. This source has been used to show consumers concerns about the safety of electric vehicles.

Hackleman, Michael. "Clean, green electric machines." //Mother Earth News//. eLibrary, 1 Oct. 2002. Web. 10 May 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Michael Hackleman, who has built 20 EVs, half conversions and half prototypes and is now working on electric propulsion systems for ultralight rail vehicles and airships. His article describes environmental benefits, and further development of electricity as energy source for cars. This source has been use to support the built of more infrastructures for electric vehicles.

Hamilton, Glenn S. "Transportation." //The Seventies in America//. Salem History, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Glenn Hamilton, who was recently promoted from Assistant Vice President of Operations to Vice President of Operations. This article explains the history of Transportation and past energy problems. This source was used to describe the history of today’s energy problem.

Kliesch, James. "WHY ELECTRIC CARS ARE CLEANER." //Mother Earth News//. eLibrary, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. <[]>. The article //Why Electric Cars Are Cleaner// is a secondary source written by James Kliesch, an engineer with expertise in clean and efficient vehicle technologies at UCS. His article explains electric cars and their efficiency and their positive impact on our environment compared to the impact of gasoline-powered cars. This source has been used to back up the better impact of electric cars than gasoline cars.

Lee, Henry. "The Future of Transport." //China Energy & Environment Conference//. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Henry Lee, the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. His article talks about the background of the problems in China’s transportation. This source has been used to support china's growth of oil demand because of transportation.

Milmo, Dan. "Gas prices will rise due to increased distribution costs, networks warn." //Business//. The Guardian, n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Dan Milmo, who is the Guardian's industrial editor. In his article he describes increasing gas and distribution costs. In his article he also had some concrete numbers, which was very helpful to back up increasing gas prices.

Moore, Bill. "Driven an EV and Never Buy Gas Again." //Mother Earth News//. eLibrary, 1 Apr. 2006. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. <[]>. //Driven an EV and Never Buy Gas Again// is a secondary source written by Bill Moore, the publisher and editor in chief of EV World, a weekly online publication focusing on electric vehicles and related news. His article is about electric cars and their advantages. This source has been used to show the efficiency of electric cars.

Plumer, Brad. "Automakers still see electricity as their future." //The Washington Post//. eLibrary, 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 26 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Brad Plumer, a reporter at the Washington Post writing about domestic policy, particularly energy and environmental issues. His article focuses on the future, safety ad efficient of electric cars. This source has been used to support the thesis statement.

Qi, Liu. "Background: Solution." //Energy Efficience Alliance//. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a primary source written by Liu Qi, the deputy head of China’s National Energy Administration. This article describes China's energy problem, the background, why it matters and a solution made up by Liu Qi for China's energy problem. This article has been used to support the switch of our energy source for transportation.

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Rosen, Daniel H. "China Energy: A Guide for the Perplexed." //Peterson Institute for International Economics//. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. n. pag. PDF file The article “China Energy A Guide for the Perplexed” is a secondary source written by Daniel Rosen, who is a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, where he was in residence from 1993 to 1998. It talks about China’s energy supply system, its history and its global impacts. This source has been used to explain the history of our oil problem.

Sramcik, Tim. "Fueling aroung." //Aftermarket Business//. eLibrary, 1 Nov. 2004. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <[]>. The article //Fueling around// is a secondary source written by Tim Sramcik, who has produced numerous news and technical and feature articles covering virtually every aspect of the collision repair market and got two awards for his work in 2004. His article is about the need of electric cars and the improvements made with electric cars over the years. This source has been used to support the need of electric cars.

Staas, Peter. "Shale Oil and Gas in China, Part 1." //InvestingDaily//. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Peter Staas, managing editor of MLP Profits and The Energy Strategist and co-author of a textbook about real estate valuation models that's used by federal bank examiners. In his article, he talks about shale oil and gas problems in China. This source has been used because of a good description of the crises about the lack of gas in China.

Stempel, Robert. "Electric Vehicles and the Automotive Industry: The Implications of Emission Mandates." //Columbia International AffairsOnline//. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2012. <[]>. This is a secondary source written by Robert Stempel, who was the executive director of Energy Conversion Devices. His article describes the emission of electric vehicles. This source has been used to describe one way to solve range problems of electric cars.

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Trescoll, Paul B. "Business and the economy in the United States." //The Seventies in America//. Salem History, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.<[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Paul Trescoll, an experienced author for Salem Histroy. His article talks about America’s economy and business, including energy consumption. This source was used to describe previous energy circumstances.

Wente, Margaret. "The shocking truth about electric cars." //Globe and Mail//. real clear energy, n.d. Web. 1 May 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Margaret Wente, one of Canada’s leading columnists and a winner of the National Newspaper Award for column writing. In her article she describes disadvantages of electric cars and reasons against them. This source was used to show opponents opinion.

Winiwarter, W. "Implications of population growth and urbanization on agricultural risks in China." //Population & Environment//. EBSCOhost, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Prof. Winiwarter, who is Vice Head of the Research Group Data Analytic and Computing at the University of Vienna and who received an MS degree in 1990, an MA degree in 1992, and a PhD degree in 1995. In his article //Implications of population growth and urbanization on agricultural risks in China// he explains the problem in China about natural resources and its environmental impacts. This source is used to support the problem, especially in China.

Worsnop, Richard L. "Electric cars." //CQ Researcher Online//. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2012. <[]>. This article is a secondary source written by Richard L. Worsnop, an associate editor for the CQ Researcher, a weekly report on public policy issues. His article describes electric cars, their background, benefit and development. This source has been used to support the low operating cost of electric cars.

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