The Future Is Here

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The technology for a 150 miles per gallon plug-in hybrid is here now and a prototype has been built and demonstrated across the country. It is called the AFS Trinity. If that car was available now I would definitely want to get one.

I have solar panels on my roof already so I wouldn't even have to pay anything for charging it, though I might have a 220-volt outlet installed so I could recharge the batteries in 1/3 the time as a 110-volt outlet. Charging times could be dropped to 10 minutes if our gas stations provided for customers the high-powered fast-charging systems that are already in every gas station.

AFS Trinity is offering the U.S. auto industry its product and the industry doesn’t seem to be interested. Why not? This company has solved the battery problem and at a reasonable price. The auto industry should be jumping all over this. I wonder how many shares of stock big oil has in the U.S. auto industry?

The technology is already here for renewable energy too. There are going to be solar energy plants in the near future where there are a series of mirrors concentrated to a single point to heat water, and the steam produced will turn traditional steam turbines to produce electricity. This electricity will be added to our national grid, and it is felt that a series of these plants installed in our sunshine states, as a start, has the potential to produce 20% of our national electricity supply.

If you add this to getting most of our homes fitted with solar panels, installing more wind turbines in those areas with abundant wind, and tapping into our existing geothermal sources, which are barely being used, we could quickly become energy-independent and not have to import any more oil. It does require a government who is very aggressive in implementing and improving the technology to do so.

If our government can give $13 billion dollars in tax breaks to big oil each year, they should give bigger tax breaks to renewable energy. The major difference is that the tax breaks for renewable energy go to the consumers who install panels on their roofs, and to companies who produce energy from renewable sources, whereas the tax breaks for big oil go to big oil. They don't need a tax break with the money they're making. Their tax break should be rescinded and added to the tax breaks for renewable energy.

This would have the added benefit of putting hundreds of thousands of our own citizens to work in the renewable energy business by manufacturing, installing, and maintaining this new technology. These new workers will be making money here in the U.S. and spending their money here in the U.S. Local businesses will also grow and prosper because of the new prosperity of all these new workers with new money to buy their products and services. What's not to like?

We need elected representatives who will put effort into using renewable energy and promoting plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. That includes our trucking industry and transportation systems. Santa Barbara has a proven and successful all-electric bus fleet, used in our downtown business district. And they have just added large long-range hybrid buses to their fleet as well.

Like I said, the technology is already here, with new technology arriving every day. We just have to get a government willing to make a big push in this direction. It certainly isn't coming from our current administration.

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