I often find myself defending the idea that we can fuel electric vehicles with solar power. Obviously, I’m convinced we can drive on sunshine otherwise I never would have co-founded Brightfield™ Responsible Transportation Solutions (RTS). My optimism makes me an easy target for those who doubt that electric vehicles are viable, or that solar power is anything more than boutique energy.
“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that electric vehicles are going to claim a share of the market. But powering the vehicles on sunshine? I can’t see that happening,” he said.
“Why not? The sun delivers more power to the earth every day than man has generated throughout the entire industrial revolution,” I said.
“The sun delivering power and us harnessing it are two different things. It’s a pipedream,” he said.
“But isn’t it fueling America’s automobiles with clean renewable sunshine a pipedream worth dreaming?” I said. “Look, if we were having this conversation circa 1860 and I was telling you that I had a great idea for powering America that involved digging hundreds of millions of years into the ground to pump up oil and process it into energy to fuel a technologically advanced global economy what would you say?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And if I told you that my vision would require an annual military budget around $100 billion to secure and defend oil reserves on 6 continents, what would you say?”
“That you were nuts,” he said.
“So then how come you don’t see our dependency on oil as nuts?” I said.
“Because it works. I put gas in my car and off I go. Simple.”
“Simple until you look at all the external costs,” I said. You got the military costs plus the costs resulting from the environmental damage from the over 6000 barrels of oil spilled each year and the great unknown long-term costs of global warming.”
“Fine. It’s not so simple, but it still works,” he said
“And so does generating electricity from solar panels and using that energy to fuel electric vehicles. Fossil fuels are nothing more than ancient solar energy. Why go through all the effort and strife to access old solar energy when the sun going to deliver more than we need tomorrow and the next day?” I said.
“I don’t know. It just seems far-fetched. Our economy is based on fossil fuels,” he said.
“I’m just talking about replacing the oil we use in our cars,” I said.
“Still seems like a big leap for America to take,” he said.
“It is. That’s the beauty of it,” I said. “We have the opportunity to take a big leap that will create jobs, eliminate our dependency on foreign oil, provide secure locally sourced fuel, reinvigorate American ingenuity, and significantly reduce our contribution to the global warming crisis. What’s to loose?”
Take the leap.