New Zealanders shouldn’t be fooled by quick fixes to the current energy crisis, says the car buyers’ Dog & Lemon Guide.
Editor Clive Matthew-Wilson says yesterday’s EECA Biofuels and Electric Vehicles Conference in Wellington appeared to be a thinly disguised promotion for energy wastage.
Matthew-Wilson – who was not invited to the conference – said the event’s website made it very clear that the purpose of the conference was to promote the use of energy using fuels that appeared to be ‘green’ but were in fact often worse for the environment than the fossil fuels they replaced.
“If there was an easy way of powering the world’s cars on some alternative energy source, I’d be all for it. However, the current hard reality is that most of the world’s alternative energy industry is based on quick fixes to the current system, and many of them are an outright scam.”
“Electric cars and biofuels are like the emperor’s new clothes; they seem great until you look closely. When you check the facts, you’ll find that most of this so-called alternative technology either isn’t economic, isn’t green, doesn’t work, or simply doesn’t exist and isn’t going to exist anytime soon.”
“The energy shortage & global warming are real problems, but the hype surrounding these problems is not real. Many people have the impression that the world is going to run out of oil in 2015, but that hydrogen, hybrid, electric and biofuel powered cars are going to save us. Most of those assumptions are pure rubbish, but few people seem to have actually checked their facts.”
“It disturbs me to see politicians and business leaders promoting fantasy technology using fantasy economics.”
“There’s no quick fix to either the energy shortage or global warming. In the longer term, we’re all going to have to use less energy, and that means smaller houses, less plastic junk that we don’t really need and less wasted trips in our cars.”
“If we make decisions based on the wrong assumptions, we’re just going to make things worse.”
See also: Biofuels Fact Sheet