that said, i’ve been car-less for about 8 years, love it, and can’t imagine switching back. bikes, feet, transit, and trains are all nicer in most cases, imho. once in awhile, when i think i ‘need’ one, i rent a car.

Wood and other biomass is carbon neutral. Much of what is burned is waste that would have to be disposed of somehow, this puts it to work as it cycles back into the system. We have three biomass generation plants here that burn lumber mill waste.

It’s not clear that the government is all that much ‘in the way’. Solar in the US is reaching grid parity in the US, has reached parity in some parts. We do need some tweaks to the permitting process as currently it unnecessarily adds time and cost.

I’m aware of where Amsterdam is located.

Are electric scooters quieter than bikes? Possibly. If it’s really a problem it would be a minor tweak to add a bit of noise.

Only a puny 3% (23% of the 13% of “renewable” ) comes from wind, and solar on the grid is barely measurable.

I agree that wind and solar make a lot of sense, but I worry that waiting for individuals to make the private decision to install still very costly infrastructure will take far too long. Government and/or corporate initiative seems more viable to me, and that’s where the entrenched interests are still a huge obstacle.

The Netherlands, which, in case you missed it, is where Amsterdam is located, is still a bit behind Denmark, Germany and Spain, but we’re blanketing the country with wind farms in order to reach our CO₂ reduction targets. At the moment, we’re still buying a lot of our green electricity from other countries, and this will increase with their capacity to provide it. We’re not there yet, but as a matter of public policy, we’re headed in the right direction, despite Royal Dutch Shell.

Meanwhile, I hadn’t until now realized that, according to some reports, the total carbon produced to charge an all-electric vehicle is much less than what a petroleum powered vehicle produces on its own. So I’m willing to accept EVs as a parallel path to reducing carbon emissions. As long as they replace gasoline and diesle powered vehicles, and are not just additional vehicles on the road adding to the CO₂ cloud. Now if someone will just figure out what to do with those spent nuclear fuel rods we keep burying.

Back to the point of the article, I’m still not convinced that putting more electric scooters on the streets of Amsterdam is necessary or desirable. As a replacement for the number of regular scooters on the road, perhaps—though as I mentioned, they are extremely dangerous to the rest of us, as they are nearly silent, and they share the same road space as the cyclists, not the regular roadway.

The author, who claims to have been frightened when driven through our “narrow and twisty streets” (from within a 4-wheeled vehicle) just isn’t credible. The two photographs she showed as examples are pedestrian-only zones (in one case allowing trams). Government policy has rightly made driving a car inconvenient and expensive. This has ensured that most people rely on their bikes (nearly carbon neutral after the bike is produced), walk, or make use of the excellent public transportation service which is mostly electric already. Even regular taxis are under-utilized here, which makes them more expensive to use than in many other cities.

The whole Hopper scooter taxi scheme just strikes me as impractical, annoying, and the work of investment chancers looking for “green PR” to make their fortunes.

“How can a country have a world empire when it can’t finance its domestic budget? It’s not possible.”—Paul Craig Roberts

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“Had the $650 billions+ spent on
Iraq, been spent on conventional Solar/Thermal development of South
Western U.S.A. – Today, Americans would receive a huge ROI (
“Return On Investment”) in cheap electricity, in place of
horrendous tax rates to service unpayable war debt to China.
Americans would be gainfully working, using this renewable,
perpetual, eternal, clean, radiation free, radioactive waste free,
domestic, electricity source – to compete in world markets with
well priced products, to irrigate dry lands, to heat and cool homes,
and much less foreign oil would have be imported, fewer “Parasite
Nations” supported. This is the lost “opportunity cost” for
having Saddam’s scrotum on the Bushes mantlepiece? Shiite eh!”

P.S., (Oil, gas, wells do go dry, not
really sourced from an eternal pipe up &Allah’s-ass, as some
believe – But, the Sun never stops shining, Wind blows forever)

“Had the $650 billions+ spent on
Iraq, been spent on conventional Solar/Thermal development of South
Western U.S.A. – Today, Americans would receive a huge ROI (
“Return On Investment”) in cheap electricity, in place of
horrendous tax rates to service unpayable war debt to China.
Americans would be gainfully working, using this renewable,
perpetual, eternal, clean, radiation free, radioactive waste free,
domestic, electricity source – to compete in world markets with
well priced products, to irrigate dry lands, to heat and cool homes,
and much less foreign oil would have be imported, fewer “Parasite
Nations” supported. This is the lost “opportunity cost” for
having Saddam’s scrotum on the Bushes mantlepiece? Shiite eh!”

P.S., (Oil, gas, wells do go dry, not
really sourced from an eternal pipe up &Allah’s-ass, as some
believe – But, the Sun never stops shining, Wind blows forever)

I don’t know what conditions are in Amsterdam, but here in the US we have sufficient generation to charge over 140 million EVs right now. Our grid is less than 40% coal so charging off the grid puts less CO2 into the atmosphere than burning gasoline or diesel.

EVs work really well with wind generation. Few places really don’t need extra late night which means that there is not much profit to be made from a turbine spinning at night. If the power can be used to charge EVs then it makes sense to install more wind and that will bring more cheap power to peak hours.

Rooftop solar makes a lot of sense. The panels are right where the power is going to be used, that eliminates transmission lines and decreases grid loss. Furthermore, by spreading the panels over a wider area the effect of passing clouds is minimized.

Wind turbines need to go where the wind blows. Our best wind resources are offshore and we’re just starting to develop coastal wind.

Unfamiliar as I am with Oz the Absurd, I only meant that until we’re off of carbon and nuclear (or until we are moving in that direction) it seems like a mistake to cheer the arrival of electric vehicles as any kind of solution—especially in the simplistic terms used in the article, and especially where they’re not needed, like in Amsterdam.

It’s just that, whenever I think of those big, empty, sunny southern states, bound either to the military or the oil industry, I wonder whether they couldn’t benefit by hosting massive energy farms, just as the Saudis benefitted from their oil boom. They could power the world, couldn’t they? And surely it would be simpler and faster to implement than retrofitting every rooftop in America.

Meanwhile, I’ll pedal my bike, ride the train or bus when I have to, and keep looking over my shoulder for those ‘silent killers’.

The amount of land needed for wind and solar is insignificant. Solar we can pretty much do just using existing rooftop and parking lot space.

Plug-in hybrids like the Volt can be a good stepping stone from 100% fossil fuel powered cars to 100% renewable energy powdered cars.

GM is developing a pure electric car, a battery powered version of their Spark. It should come to market in 2013.

GM is working with Envia, a battery developer which has a very promising battery. Envia batteries, in a 100 mile range EV, would make a 300 mile range car. Envia has the capacity and that has been confirmed by an independent lab. They are working to get longer cycle life for their battery. Based on their most recent testing announcement a 200 mile EV would get 90,000 miles before the batteries fell to 80% capacity. Ideally batteries should last as long as the car.