Electric Vehicle Challenge; Electioneering - 29 July 2010
By the time you read this, the first electric car challenge on Mt Panorama will have taken place. While the occasion will have little of the hoopla surrounding the V8 race coming up in October, I am willing to bet that this is just the beginning of something big. As oil reserves decline, we'll be looking for other ways to move ourselves around. We are now seeing rapid improvements in the technology for electric cars so we can expect that they'll just get faster and faster. The electric challenge on Mt Pan is part of the Centroc Summit, where all the councils of the central west are getting together to explore ways to enhance quality of life through sustainability. Three cheers to the organisers, particularly Centroc's Climate Exchange Project Officer Lis Bastian, who is throwing her heart and soul into this venture.
The electric car challenge is taking me back to the day I visited the Roberts brothers at White Rock, who have been working on their own electric cars for some years now. One is a converted mini; the other is a hand-built vehicle that looks like something out of Mad Max. (If you'd like to see my YouTube clip of this vehicle, it's at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsuj8O69roE – it only goes for 50 seconds but it is by far my most viewed clip!)
This week's Foreign Correspondent program on ABC TV explored the vast reserves of lithium under the salt plains near Uyuni in Bolivia. Last year, my partner Steve and I were lucky enough to cross these endless salt plains in an amazing four-wheel drive tour. Lithium, an essential ingredient in the batteries that will be used to power electric cars, is now being viewed as "the new oil". This desperately poor country is hoping to raise living standards for its people by harnessing this resource.
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The so-called debate (more like a polite and rather dreary discussion) between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott last Sunday was a rather depressing affair. Gillard's idea for a community talk-fest about climate change has been slammed from all directions as a bit of "non-policy" designed to just get her through the next few weeks. Why are we putting off this crucial issue? Isn't an election campaign precisely when we should be hearing about genuine policy? But all we get is platitude-central.