Shoulder High Production's Campaign #1: USEI&S - United States Energy Independence & Sustainability
SHP believes that America needs to immediately begin the process of drastically transforming the way we fuel our economy. Our current fossil fuel based economy has never shown its true cost and peril to the extent that we are witnessing today. Ironically, the convergence of these symptoms have given us an exciting opportunity. We should now be able to easily illustrate the economic, environmental, and political folly of continuing to rely so heavily upon oil and coal; from both national foreign sources. The time is ripe to bring to the nation's attention to all the innovative and necessary solutions. We believe there is no other single issue facing the modern world that, in its conquering, can promise a safer, more prosperous, and more sustainable world; or in the very least, provide us the time to continue to strive for these ideals. Shoulder High Productions has decided to follow the efforts and campaigns of those who are leading the charge trying to address these issues. From the big visions to the little steps, we are searching for those trying to answer the call.
Unless it wasn't completely obvious, we at SHP believe that America does in fact, need to immediately begin the process of drastically transforming the way we fuel our economy. Our current fossil fuel based economy has never shown its true cost and peril to the extent that we are witnessing today. The convergence of these symptoms, however, have given us an exciting opportunity. We should now be able to easily illustrate the economic, environmental, and political folly of continuing to rely so heavily upon oil and coal; national sources, as well as foreign. The time is ripe to bring to the nation's attention to all the innovative and necessary solutions. We believe there is no other single issue facing the modern world that, in its conquering, can promise a safer, more prosperous, and more sustainable world; or in the very least, provide us the time to continue to strive for these ideals. Shoulder High Productions has decided to follow the efforts and campaigns of those who are leading the charge trying to address these issues. From the big visions to the little steps, we are searching for those trying to answer the call.
First up to be featured is CalCars not because they represent the end of the journey, but quite to the contrary, because they offer such a simple, readily applicable, and potent first step.
Led by Felix Kramer, CalCars, is an advocacy group for the industry adoption of Plug-in Hybrid technology. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) technology is an evolvable solution, available today and ready to take any hybrid vehicle and give it the option of charging a hybrid’s batteries with a normal 110volt home electrical circuit. The advantage of this is that today's lithium ion models, the conversion gives you the ability to commute the first 30 miles or so of your daily commute on purely electric power; only consuming gas when you require the car to perform passing or freeway speeds. This means you use less gas! HOORAY!! And the power you charge you car with in the evenings currently costs under $1/gallon. Mile per Mile, pulling power from the national electric grid, which is around 50% coal, these cars pollute about 50% less than today's current internal combustion engines. And the cars will only continue to get cleaner and the grid gets cleaner. But get this, current PHEV drivers are reporting to get 100+ mpg!
Now this is a technology that will continue to utilize the same fossil fuels that are causing so many of our problems, but it has the power of tripling to quadrupling our national fuel economy and will buy us some time to develop more comprehensive plans. Yet there is nothing to say that the same technology can't be put towards flex-fuel vehicles and already a 500mpg PHEV running of Ethanol is in being envision. And then imagine charging your Plug-in Hybrid off your home solar panels? FREE and CLEAN ELECTRICITY!!! The real draw to PHEV's is that they are available with today's technology! While CalCars has partnered with a handful of companies that can perform these conversions, the goal is to leverage the buying power of the automotive industry to mass produce their cars with this plug-in option, which are currently pricey due to an economy of scale.
Well that's enough from us on the matter, go to CalCars website for more Q&A and watch the video on TreeHugger TV that SHP made for CalCars to get a better idea of what PHEV's are all about.
We’d love to hear what you think on this solution and the topic as a whole. So please drop us an email and if we get enough responses we’ll start a blog for you all to share and discuss with each other (OUR REAL WISH!!!). SO WRITE TO US ON THE SUBJECT!!!
