Electric Vehicle Sales Are Up–The Dawning of a New Day?
As my colleague Jon LeSage reports in the April edition of his Green Auto Digest, EV sales are approaching 1% of all vehicle sales in the U.S. But is this cause for celebration or sadness?
Personally, I choose the former. Everything seems to be coming into alignment as far as the migration away from oil in the transportation sector is concerned: longer range, lower prices, better charging infrastructure, and the slow but sure elimination of coal from the electric grid-mix.
Frequent commenter “BreathOnTheWind” asks: Could someone “remind” me why Nuclear Energy is essential as a “new model” for an era without fossil fuels?
We often talk about the imperative to bring electrification to the rural parts of the developing world. Energy is a gateway to education, and education is a gateway to prosperity, environmental conservation, as well as stronger and smaller families. This is an extremely important thing here in the 21st century, as our population is in the process of quintupling from two billion in 1950 to ten billion in 2050. 
This could be huge. My colleague Brian McGowan sent me this 
Caption: 
Sustainable technology is changing the global business landscape, making it a lot greener. One does not need to be committed to saving the planet in order to reap the benefits. Reducing the energy consumption in the warehouse allows you to save money, on top of making your business more environment-friendly. Therefore, one has to grasp the energy loads and how they affect the operations, budget and the environment. Gained knowledge is empowering business resource which is used to take the operations to the next level. 
My colleague Bob Zannelli writes: It should be kept in mind that all the other candidates including Hillary are getting lots of fossil fuel money, the center of global warming Denialism. If Bernie comes out as pro nuke Hillary would jump on it. She’s not really so much anti-nuke as pro fossil fuel, but she will argue that Indian Point should be shut down if it gets her primary votes. I don’t know if Bernie can be brought around to supporting nuclear, but of all the candidates he is the only one not in the fossil fuel industry’s pocket……We need a carbon tax, something opposed by all the candidates except Bernie.
I was talking last night with a close friend about how much I despise Volkswagen for the crime it committed vis-à-vis the environment, and he pointed out, kindly but firmly: Wow, that’s a lot of hate you’re carrying around, and it sounds so weird coming from you, especially. You might want to consider throwing it away. 
Greenpeace is well known for its aggressive posture vis-a-vis environmental justice, and, in particular, for its demand that our civilization phase out fossil fuels in favor of conservation, efficiency solutions, and renewable energy. Among other things, that means putting a moratorium on the aggressive fracking and mining of oil, coal, and natural gas, especially in environmentally fragile places like the Alaskan Arctic. 
