[Flakbadger]

Know what really grinds my gears?

That people read a headline about getting rid of internal combustion engines and immediately jump to “Current battery technology isn’t up to the task.”

The thing is, that is correct. Current battery or other “green” technology, and manufacturing levels cannot currently take up the mantle of gasoline/other fossil fuel technology. Everyone knows that replacing fossil fuels entirely is going to be an incredibly complex, difficult, and expensive task.

But here’s the rub.

Just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

There’s also this argument that new technologies with gasoline-powered vehicles can somehow improve the situation, and that is true on the surface. My wife’s Honda Fit has a 1.5 liter, 100ish horsepower gasoline engine that gets 40+ miles per gallon, versus let’s say the Model T, which according to Wikipedia had a 2.9L 4cyl engine, 20HP, top speed of 45 mph and MPG of ~13-21. Turns out that 100 years of innovation can improve a product greatly.

Thing is, that car is still burning fossil fuel, which is
-Finite
-A source of atmospheric pollution
-The cause of several C A T A S T RO P H I C spills. See the Gulf of Mexico or the Exxon Valdez if you want just two examples.

I also acknowledge that current battery manufacturing in China is one of the worst current environmental catastrophes to take place in the modern world.

But these problems can be overcome, and gasoline will not E V E R be sustainable or infinite.

Finding alternatives is inevitable, and it is time to start finding them; and lots and lots of leading scientists, engineers and various experts will tell you that replacing fossil fuel will be incredibly expensive and resource-intensive.

Thing is, there isn’t an alternative.