*** Quoting Roy J. Tellason from a message to Jim Dunmyer ***
RJT> Jim Dunmyer wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:
 > Another consideration,  and one that I don't often see addressed 
 > with regard to electric vehicles,  is the power grid.  I can't 
 > remember where it was exactly,  but somewhere in my collection of 
 > Analog magazines there's an article that looked at that issue and 
 > came to the conclusion that in order to move to electric vehicles in 
 > this country we'd need to *double* the power grid,  in order to 
 > support current levels of usage.
And to add icing to this cake, the "Save the (insert pet whatever)" folks 
want to shut down the local Nuke plant, as well as (I kid you not!) demolish 
the Hydro dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers because they interfere with 
the salmon migration!
Most of these folks aren't even from around this region.  I personally think 
they are just jealous of our electrical rates.  My rates are actually a 
little high for the area, at 5.7 cents per KW/hr.  Community I moved from was 
3.87 cents per KW/hr.
The cheap electricity, combined with relatively mild winters, make it 
difficult to economically use "alternate sources".  Solar pre-heat for some 
of the local schools' hot-water and heating systems exist, but it is my 
understanding that maintenance costs due to the age of the system start 
building before the systems begin to pay for themselves.
Kevin
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