Endoh’s Dungeon

It’s a joy to see automobiles manufacturers taking the cue to re-design their cars due to global warming, with Honda announcing the continual production of fuel cell cars. Of course, there are also other options of hybrid and electric cars to contemplate with. All of them look promising in our desperate attempt to save Earth.

It’s little wonder that vehicular discharge is one of the critical contributors to the deterioration of our climate. However, I actually question how effective these moves will be. Is it really going to help our planet? Or is it just another marketing chant like how some companies use charities to market themselves?

Before you get me wrong, the development of such engines are good in my opinion. At least something is being done, even in the slightest way. If 10 million cars are deducted from the carbon monoxide cohort, it certainly looks like a very impressive figure to motivate the rest. That’s as good as it sounds, technically on paper.

Why do I say so?

Now let’s consider all the alternative fuels that have since been used. Very ironically, most of these fuels are still being extracted with conventional machineries. That’s apart from less favourable options like wind or hydro generators. What these conventional machineries require is still the good ol’ crude oil that has been declining in availability these days.

Imagine how rigs operate to extract natural gases from the ocean floor? How are they being dragged into the big ocean where gas fields are in abundance? How about, how are we producing electricity these days?

Once upon a time, plug-n-drive was frowned upon. According to some reports, consumers prefer a vehicle that can self-charged without ever having to stick a cable into the bonnet to recharge the battery. Over times, we realized our technology is incapable of producing such modes of battery charging effectively yet. But even if plug-n-drive is accepted, the lack of electrical power is not helping matters.

Again with electrical cars, we fall back on power generators. The increase of such cars simply means the demand for electricity will sore. Doesn’t that essentially mean power generators will work even harder, and contribute to more fossil fuels being burned to produce the electricity we need? Or worse still, more such generators to be built? How does that helps our environment when all we merely did was transfer one source of pollution to another?

The extraction of natural gases works on the same fundamentals. What powers these huge machineries? It’s being towed by diesel-powered tugs into the ocean, and a rig operates pretty much with diesel too and is heavily reliant on lubrications. If you’re in Singapore, just go alongside to Jurong Islands bridge and have a feel of how many rigs are being produced a year. It’s not cutting down in any way.

Wind power generators were heavily criticized for spoiling the looks of the landscape when built. Yet, the experimental option of building wind generators out in the open sea poses as hazards to the shipping industry. The hydro-generator ain’t helping much as well. See how much damages it has done in China following the construction of the mega-dam? Some suggested solar power, but imagine 24 standard lab-sized solar panels have to store enough power in one week just to drive a car for a day. I’ll let you figure how unpractical that is.

The severe lack of refuelling stations for these alternatives also pose a great inconvenience to motorists. Singapore is still relatively small, but imagine you had to travel 100km just to refuel or recharge your environmentally tanks overseas? Would you? I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t and I think it’s silly.

I can’t help but feel the world has placed the wrong emphasis when attempting to save Earth. Perhaps we should focus a little more on how alternative energies are being extracted before we even design any items suited to those conditions. Also, we may want to look at more availability of alternative fuels before anything else. How about, redirecting natural gases to power the rigs, which will draw out even more natural gases? How about tapping into the forces of storms since they are so much stronger than the normal weather we are experiencing?

Certainly, pulling away a single car’s usage into a power generator usage is causing more harm than… well, conservation efforts. So if we can come up with a more efficient way of tapping on nature to generate the power we need without further relying on fossil fuels, then we might see a real change in our environment in years to come.

The entire talk about environmentally friendly industries is just bollocks to me. Ultimately at the end of the days, they are still in the hunt for greedy profits. As long as industries can’t bring themselves to sacrifice a little of their profits while advocating for consumers to spend a little more on such cars, the situation will remain as such for a long time to come. The switch in power generation will still enable our daily lives to proceed as usual.

We change the way our cars drive, but not the power generation required for these cars to drive. Point being…?