Electric Vehicles will end Climate Change

By DANIEL ESCUREL OCCENO, danielocceno@ymail.com
December 23, 2009

From the early articles about the conference in Copenhagen on Climate Change, I read that the main focus was to market electric cars because with the explosion of China, India, and even Brazil now developing an automobile industry of more than 2 billion consumers wanting self-owned automobiles so imagine in just 5 years if the working class in those three countries bought regular gasoline or diesel engines for their private use to go to work every day or shopping on weekends.

Introduction of unleaded gasoline (In the United States from January 1, 1996; the Clean Air Act banned the sale of leaded fuel for use in on-road vehicles) and the catalytic converter – a device used to reduce the toxicity of emissions from an internal combustion engine reduced air pollution, but according to the conference it is not enough to prevent Global Warming destruction.

The need to market electric vehicles cannot be mandated with legislation. It would destroy the world economy. Private industries must take the initiative to provide price-competitive models for consumers wanting transportation that would save the planet.

The Philippines with the Electric Jeepneys on the road is on the right path, but more entrepreneurs are needed for the self-owned transportation markets like electric automobiles and electric motorcycles.

Take those really small electric cars and remove the roof and you can have an electric TRIROTA, an electric motorcycle with three wheels, Trirota Motors. With our typhoon seasons, I would want the roof.

You Filipino college kids graduating in April or May, the AYALA GROUP are building communities where you can go to school and work and live and shop and recreate without the need for cars or motorcycles.

It was called the University of Missouri college campus when I was eighteen, but dormitories instead of high rise condominiums with a Catholic Church, school, and shopping malls. But today I would need airline tickets to go to the Texas Bowl to watch Mizzou against Navy instead of walking for thirty minutes to Tiger Stadium to recreate with fifty-yard-line tickets so I believe it is possible.

There was even a McDonalds on campus for breakfast before taking a test: a sausage McMuffin, hash brown, and ice tea with no ice. I use to dream that, but the dormitory cafeteria food was already paid for.

The Ayala Group developments might be in various parts of the country, and you can save the money from your first full-time job by walking and using public transportation, ELECTRIC JEEPNEYS (Bacolod, Cebu, and Metro Manila). Micro-financing jobs! Investing probably.

Mass production of electric cars flooding the markets will reduce carbon emissions ALL OVER THE WORLD, but it will also increase consumption of electricity once traveling the roads, streets, and highways.

Developing Countries cannot meet the current output for demand for electric power now causing power outages with over usage. Many towns and villages of poor nations do not have electricity for every household, schools, and business buildings. But the major cities of developing nations and the majority of the developed nations accused of Climate Change can adequately provide electricity for dwellers and would likely meet the increase demand consumed by electric automobiles.

For areas in the Philippines far away from the metropolises, I prefer Solar Energy. The argument against Solar Power is that the city drinking water will be depleted to provide electricity for millions of users.

A supplemental source for individual buildings with solar technology would at least provide electricity throughout the country, individually. The rooftops of buildings can collect rainwater needed to use to create the electricity providing an outdoor solar generator with power to provide electricity for a house.

Taipei 101 (Taipei Financial Center) in Taiwan has plans on being "the world's tallest green building" with solar power technology with a rooftop rainwater collection to provide the building with electricity so surely a one story cement molded Spanish-designed three-bedroom house for retirement in the Philippines can also have electricity from the sun.

Picture the entire concrete land of former gasoline stations covered with a roof of solar panels or solar technology to charge generators that will recharge electric vehicles. You have a warehouse with solar technology on the rooftop providing a recharge station for electric motorcycles, electric buggy cabs (electric golf carts with motorcycle wheels), electric automobiles, electric jeepneys, and electric commercial busses providing mass transportation for people that do not want an automobile running on fossil fuel.

Rice farmers can continue living using candles for light at night, coconut shell charcoal to cook with, and an electric buggy for the wife to shop at the nearest municipality after taking her children to school.

All that is needed is for an entrepreneur to sell the electric engines to turn four wheels and recharge technology safe during monsoon rain because the mechanics that handcraft our tricycle cabs can easily outfit a buggy around that electric engine. Total cost with labor around 80,000 Philippine Pesos and the locals here in Gubat would not miss fossil fuel.

Daniel Escurel Occeno is a writer for children in the Philippines. www.gubatnet.blog.com