Foreign Policy Blogs

A Little Automotive Fun – Plus Some Serious Business

I touched on hydrogen vehicles in my post from April 30. I noted a comparison in the “NY Times” of several approaches. Here’s a video. Well, I was at the Tribeca Film Festival’s concluding street fair on Saturday and GM had some vehicles on display. I talked a bit with Raj Choudhury, a project manager for GM. Here’s a link to their website’s discussion of advanced technologies, including electric and hybrid vehicles.

These technologies are pretty critical. I heard Jim Gordon, president of the Cape Wind project, say at the RPA conference last week (see post immediately below) that, after you supplied the needs for household and commercial electricity, with the excess from wind, you could power most of the surface transportation on Cape Cod and the islands if you were using plug-in hybrids. I’ve been dreaming about just that sort of thing for 30 years. Sweet.

Meanwhile, I’m a nut for windmills so I couldn’t resist having this picture taken. It’s not as cool as the one of Stavros Dimas from my recent post on Carbon Expo, but it’s fun.

gm-windmill-450.jpg

The big news from GM this week was that they joined the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, the tremendously influential group of major American companies that have been driving for action on climate change. They’re the first automaker to join and that’s, as Bernie Sanders might say, “Yoog.” See this story from Reuters and the press release from GM. I noted a while back that Congressman John Dingell, chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, was on board for tough legislation. He’s been Detroit’s most important champion in Congress for many years and if GM and Dingell are on board, then that’s good news for those pushing for effective federal legislation. I wrote about Dingell and his critical role here on March 30.

 

Author

Bill Hewitt

Bill Hewitt has been an environmental activist and professional for nearly 25 years. He was deeply involved in the battle to curtail acid rain, and was also a Sierra Club leader in New York City. He spent 11 years in public affairs for the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation, and worked on environmental issues for two NYC mayoral campaigns and a presidential campaign. He is a writer and editor and is the principal of Hewitt Communications. He has an M.S. in international affairs, has taught political science at Pace University, and has graduate and continuing education classes on climate change, sustainability, and energy and the environment at The Center for Global Affairs at NYU. His book, "A Newer World - Politics, Money, Technology, and What’s Really Being Done to Solve the Climate Crisis," will be out from the University Press of New England in December.



Areas of Focus:
the policy, politics, science and economics of environmental protection, sustainability, energy and climate change

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