From Our Founder May 19, 2009 By Bob Wichlinski Viewing Life Through Green Glasses I encountered an interesting Regionite at a conference I attended last week.  At first, he seemed surprised that I neither recognized him or his name.  He explained that he chauffeured the “keynote” speaker to the event.  He then directed my attention out the room window to his vehicle which was parked curbside adjacent to the path to the front door of the building.  He’d propped the hood open – like they do at car shows.  You couldn’t miss it - which apparently was the desired effect.    He explained that his vehicle was entirely electric.  He explained that his investment in the vehicle was inspired by a movie he saw.  I sensed he was disappointed that I’d neither heard of, nor seen the movie.  I’m supposed to be a champion for “state-of-the-art” technology but in this case I was shamefully unenlightened.  He ranted about Detroit’s conspiracy to deny Americans the electric vehicles our environment needs and we deserve.  Ordinarily, I’m disquieted by zealotry; however I was impressed by this guy’s passion and self-confidence.  He was a walking “wikipedia” when it came to electric vehicles.  He rifled off names, phrases, and factoids I could not remember, let alone verify.  Obviously, it wasn’t this electric cowboy’s first time to the rodeo.   The conference was called to order.  I wished my new acquaintance every success acknowledging his commitment to environmental stewardship and energy independence.  He beamed with pride and confidently claimed his seat near the keynote speaker.  As I took my seat all I could think about was batteries.  Though he had propped open the hood of his vehicle to showcase the motor, the “business end” of an electric vehicle is actually located in the rear of the vehicle under the pop-up chassis where the battery bank is located.  Did I hear him right?  Did he say there were 20 lead acid batteries powering his vehicle?  Replacing every single-passenger vehicle in the U.S. with one like his would therefore require more than 5 BILLION batteries.  Increased vehicle cost aside, what would it be like to have to replace and responsibly dispose of 5 billion batteries in 251 million vehicles? If each vehicle required a minimum of one complete battery swap during its useful life does the actual number of batteries increase to 10 billion or more?  Then I remembered him impressing upon me that his vehicle’s batteries were recharged using a standard electrical cord plugged into a household electrical circuit.  92% of the electrical power in the U.S. is generated by burning some form of fossil fuel or through a controlled nuclear reaction. Hmm…I wondered, “Did this guy consider the financial and environmental exchange quotients associated with his investment?”  I’m betting Detroit did.   Detroit’s decisions are no more predicated upon profit motive and greed than Hollywood’s.  Given this guy’s aspirations to be a model Regionite, I wondered what Hollywood would inspire him to do next. As always, I can be reached via e-mail at b@219.com Notice to Reader: The following are comments from readers. In no way do they represent the views of editor of the article or 219.com. We will not edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to not post or to remove comments that violate our code of conduct. No comment may contain potentially libelous statements; obscene, explicit or racist language; personal attacks, insults or threats