Will The Leaf Save Hawaii From Oil Dependency? Ho Brah ... Smokin' Da Kine?
Equal time: While Prez. Obama test-sat the Volt’s European sibling, the Ampera, in Lisbon, Nissan had its own celebrity test driver for the Leaf EV. “John Roos, U.S. ambassador to Japan, test-drove Nissan’s “Leaf” electric vehicle in Yokohama one afternoon in mid-November, just before the APEC summit got under way,” reports The Nikkei [sub]. Then the Ambassador deeply inserted his foot in his mouth. He said he was particularly intrigued by the way the Leaf was able to charge its battery with solar power, a feat he saw at a “smart-city” exhibition sponsored by the Yokohama city government. Roos then asked officials running the demonstration whether the technology could help reduce oil dependence in Hawaii. Oops, wrong question.
If there is one place where an EV makes the least amount of sense in terms of reducing the use of crude, then it’s Hawaii. According to Newsweek, the island state draws “about 90 percent of its energy from imported crude.” Sure, they want to wean themselves from the oil habit, but there is only so much you can do with sunshine and scenic waterfalls. And range anxiety? I wouldn’t want to brave the road to Hana in a Leaf,
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Hawaii, being geologically unstable, isn't prime real estate for nuclear power plants.
Quickly checking, Hawaii has 1.5 million people. 150,000 of them are on Big Island, which I am assuming -- perhaps incorrectly -- is the most populous. 1.5 million homes is about the size for a nuclear plant. There are a few people per household, Hawaii probably has bigger electricity requirements with AC. That's under traditional electric use, however. Electric cars can use as much as an entire house while recharging. Big Island is 93 miles across in its longest dimension. A Leaf could get from anywhere to anywhere, as the crow flies. Again, AC usage is high and would reduce range, but lower speed limits would make up some of that loss. I don't think it's entirely nuts for Hawaii to build a nuclear plant on one island and try to use that to run an EV car system. But there's far too much Big Engineering involved for me that I would try and convince them of it. I also don't know how they would bootstrap it. Advise: let Israel do it first. They have the nukes, they the engineering expertise, and they really really don't like the people they have to buy the oil from. I was thinking solar would be great because of the equitorial region, but the solar insolence maps I look up show that they get a little less than Arizona. Maybe it's all the rain?
You've gotta love the naive optimism of a man who thinks we're going to drive cars powered by solar energy. Can anybody calculate the area of solar panels needed to charge a Leaf in under a year's time? Huge. And the cost? I bet that would far exceed the already expensive Leaf itself.
I'd like to see some competitive fuels hit the market. Specifically alcohol. Perhaps even mandate kits on all vehicles to allow the cars to run on alcohol. Produce the alcohol locally from plants. Sell it right next to super unleaded. All it would take is a lower price at the pump to become popular and could in turn get us "transportation fuel" independent. Then we would just have to work on the electricity generation. The thought of HECO powering all the cars in the state isn't appealing.