L. David Roper
Physicist
Blacksburg, Virginia, United States

All Electric Energy for Transportation and other Purposes

“Perhaps you have been taught that the extreme weather we experience regularly is due to having burned coal and exploding gasoline and diesel, fossil fuels for many years long ago.”

You probably find it difficult to believe that we used to drive cars in which we exploded a dangerous liquid, called gasoline or diesel, to propel it. It took us a long time to realize that using electrons to propel personal vehicles was much more efficient, much less dangerous, much quieter and more fun!

Yes, we actually drove them ourselves! A few of us are lucky to still enjoy driving electric cars. However, after we learned that electricity was the best way to propel cars it did not take us long to get them to move safer without a driver and come to pick us up within minutes wherever we are by just pressing a button located on our bodies, as you know. Before that many tens of thousands of people were killed in car accidents every year!

For a decade or so we drove electric cars stopping about every 200 miles or more to charge the batteries. Of course, now they charge themselves without us having to worry about it.

You also may find it hard to believe that we used to burn a black solid, called coal, to generate the electricity. Perhaps you have been taught that the extreme weather we experience regularly is due to having burned coal and exploding gasoline and diesel, fossil fuels for many years long ago. It is terrible that burning fossil fuels for so long also eventually made us abandon our big cities on the coasts.

You may think that humans always used the direct and secondary energy from the Sun to propel personal cars, fast trains and provide energy for other purposes. It took us a long time to figure that out, also. You should praise the few pioneers who first started doing that and finally convinced the larger society to join in. Finally, as you know, we started collecting solar energy on all buildings, roads, railroad tracks, in pastures and fields and on canopies under which many activities take place.

You are fortunate to live during a time when we no longer burn or explode fossil fuels, which caused many diseases. However, we humans will suffer the climate change effects for several more centuries.