THINKING OUT LOUD
THE REAL ENERGY PROBLEM
There’s a lot of debate going on about the practicality of switching the world over to electric vehicles.
Of course, a lot of this is coming from the right, where the vested interest in preserving the status quo mainly lies.
Their basic argument is that the amount of mining to find and process the mineral elements needed to make the batteries that power electric vehicles is 5 or 6 times more damaging to the environment than sucking oil out of the ground and refining it to make gas for internal combustion engines. And that all that process is currently powered by machinery that all run on fossil fuels.
And that’s actually a good point if you want to ignore the massive amounts of carbon that fossil fuel powered vehicles produce.
But nowhere in all this heavy duty back and forth is there any conversation about why carmakers and oil companies are doing virtually nothing to create engines that use less fuel and fuels that burn cleaner than they do now.
They very much seem to getting a free ride here, when it’s their technologies that are at the root of the environmental crisis the world is experiencing.
This is because they have pretty much bought off all the politicians needed to put any serious pressure on their industries to start, you know, being innovative. And why bother when you can keep on making barrels of money (pardon the pun) by doing absolutely nothing, other then supporting the politicians who are greedy enough to make sure you never have to actually do anything that will affect your bottom lines, like research and development into more efficient engines or new refining processes that burn fuel cleaner.
This is the world we have created, where Bob Dylan had it right way back in the day.
“All the criminals
In their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis
And watch the sun rise.”
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