General Electric To Buy 25,000 Electric Vehicles

Expect more of this kind of news: General Electric has seen the writing on the wall and has decided to buy 25,000 electric vehicles for its fleet by 2015.  They will make an initial purchase of 12,000 GM cars, beginning with the Chevy Volt.

This is good news on a number of fronts.  Most importantly, tens of thousands of electric vehicles on the road means that much less oil needs to be drilled, transported, sold and burned in the United States.  The next phase in a 21st century grid will require less coal and natural gas burning, but less demand for oil is good for the environment and our national security.  It demonstrates that electric vehicles are viable transportation choices for fleet cars, which means cars like the Volt will be on the road and visible to the public in greater numbers sooner.  It will allow for smarter grid technologies to be implemented in more places.  It will help push the cost of electric vehicles lower moving forward.  Hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle sales will have to be made to start doing this.  The more, the merrier.  This will have a direct and nearly immediate benefit to GE – they are developing charging stations to sell.  There’s nothing like real-world use to make charging stations’ performance more efficient and robust.

Obama Giving Up On Cap-and-Trade Approach

I’m sort of torn on this news.  In light of historical losses in the House and a dysfunctional Senate, President Obama is changing strategies to deal with one-third of his reported primary priorities as President: global warming.  Instead of pursuing a cap-and-trade approach (which passed the House in 2009, when Democrats still held majorities), the President will pursue other solutions in the next two years.  It would be ironic if he decided to really use his powers appointed to him as chief executive.  I know full well the Republican Teabaggers would scream and howl about his arrogance, but remember we didn’t hear a peep out of them back when Bush was using more powers than he Constitutionally held.  What was good for one of the Teabaggers isn’t good for someone else.

President Obama could have used the past two years to establish the range to which executive powers could be applied.  By not doing so, or at least by being more timid than his predecessor, changing how he approaches problems now will be met with scrutiny and alarm that might not otherwise have been the case.  By pushing the envelope in the next two years, on a signature policy topic, however, I think a lot more could be done in the global warming arena.  It is the largest crisis facing this country in terms of negative economic impact, not to mention long-term existential viability.  That is to say, too much time has been wasted pursuing strategies that were doomed to fail from the start.  There is no more time available on this issue if the goal is to maintain the largest parts of our societies and ecosystems.  Global warming therefore presents the perfect opportunity on many fronts for President Obama.  Addressing this crisis vigorously and unapologetically would help redefine his image in the public’s eyes.  The crisis would finally be dealt with as it should have been and President Obama and the Democrats would likely come out of the 2012 elections in much stronger shape than they did the 2010 elections.