Essay on "Electric Vehicle"

Essay 4 pages (1301 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Electric Cars

I would like to speak to you today about the importance of considering alternative energy forms. One of the most important choices that we can make in that regard is the shift to the use of electric automobiles instead of continuing to use the fuel-dependent vehicles that we have been using for more than a century. The main reason that this is necessary is that the burning of fossil fuels produces hydrocarbons that we know are deadly to the ecology of this planet.

This topic is one that has great personal significance to me because in the city where I was born there was so much air pollution that many people who never even smoked died from lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses that were caused solely by their environmental exposure to man-made pollutants. One of the people who died this way was my grandmother; she also suffered horribly from disability caused by respiratory illnesses for a long time before she died. In her last years, she was dependent on a mechanical breathing apparatus just to breathe.

Body of Speech

Carbon monoxide and other forms of air pollution have already ruined the environment of many American cities much the way that the first generation of post-Industrial revolution-era factories deposited soot everywhere in industrial cities in the 19th and century (Kirsch). Before the Industrial Revolution, there was no such thing as major pollution of the atmosphere because of human activity. Once we discovered that burning coal could produce usable energy, pollution caused by human activity exploded (Kirsch).

The difference is today's damage to the environment is occurring on a global scale and has the very real capacity of destroying biological life on earth. Even now, as we consider the implications of global climate change in the West, China is rapidly undergoing the same type of industrialization in many regions that took place in the West a century ago. If the entire population of China embraces fossil-fuel burning automobiles the same way that we did in the West last century, the environmental damage will accelerate at a tremendous rate instead of decreasing. Precisely because of this risk, China is participating with the U.S. In funding the development of electric vehicles.

Ironically, electric cars were once more popular than gas-burning vehicles. Before Henry Ford perfected the internal combustion engine, electrically powered cars were actually preferred when automobiles first began replacing travel by horseback. In fact, the evolution of gasoline engines illustrates what will be necessary for electric cars to become more popular. Specifically, gasoline engines already existed at the turn of the century but there was no infrastructure of gas stations available to refill gasoline engines. However, as soon as that infrastructure developed, it immediately resulted in the widespread adoption of gasoline-powered vehicles.

That is exactly what is necessary today with respect to electrically-powered vehicles. The current unavailability of an infrastructure for recharging electric car batteries is a significant obstacle that must be overcome the same way that a national network of gasoline stations was built in the early 20th century. The other significant obstacles to the adoption of electric vehicles is the limitation in power and in total output of electric batteries. Current battery technology is limited and requires relatively long recharging times.

Scientists have already determined that the effects of burning fossil fuels for energy have caused global climate change that is already eroding the Arctic territories and causing the melting of massive glaciers that have remained frozen since the last ice age. Some of the consequences of this destruction threatens the very existence of natural species to that region, such as the Arctic Polar Bear which may become entirely extinct within the next fifty years because of the destruction of its natural habitat by human activity.

The other main reason that we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil is that is keeps us tied to… READ MORE

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