there were not enough gas stations? They build more.
We have enough energy sources. All we need is a better distribution network and I'll wager it would be less difficult than trucking all that oil to refineries and then the fossil fuel to all the gas stations.
As I said elsewhere, problem with electricity is that we don't have good cheap way to store it. We have cheap way to satisfy base load demand, but we need to run coal power plants on idle to be able to satisfy peak demand (or risk network brownout nad collapse). Charging EVs is making this problem worse, not better.
I think what is at stake is our personal health and the survivability of the planet. Not to mention that a cleaner world would just be a nicer place to live.
Ron, I agree with you, but like when solving most engineering problems, when you hear "can we just", you know there are some missing assumptions.
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Funny fact: yes, we need our military (look at Ukraine who decided to dismantle their army, they thought it was waste of resources, Russians would never start the war, right? Or Chinese?) but we don't need to bomb people living in feodalism into stone age.
As military experts say: First task of army is to PREVENT conflict; second is, if they failed at first task, is to win it.
Those 4 trillions (including future benefits of veterans, which they earned and shold not be cut in any way) which we wasted on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq (bombing ruins to dust) would be enough to:
- convert whole country to electricity, replace all gas home appliances with electric;
- rebuild power transmission network (build 80-60 years ago with expected 50 years lifespan, designed to handle substantially lower load, and now falling apart, see yearly fires in the West);
- build decentralized electricity storage facilities and smart usage (turn off A/C for few minutes, stop dryer) to smooth/handle peak demand.
Also, this electrification program would create many thousands of jobs impossible to outsource abroad.
Thomas Jefferson stated this assumption frequently: “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” “An informed citizenry is at the heart of a dynamic democracy.”
https://connections.ca6.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/announcements/Civics Who Will Teach Them June 2023 Final.pdf
Yes, democracy solves such challenges by voting. It is easy to have opinion, everybody has a right to have opinion, but is is much harder to have *informed* opinion.
BTW, I also have opinions, possibly wrong, and I reserve the right to change them as I learn new facts.