Website design By BotEap.comIt was President George W. Bush who said in his 2006 State of the Union address that America needed to end its addiction to oil. Ever since the president’s oil addiction line, politicians have been arguing about how to rehabilitate America as an oil addict. And the private sector has been pouring money into alternative energy like floodwaters over broken levees.

Website design By BotEap.comMeanwhile, some of the solutions have been too hasty, if not wrong. An example of this is the ethanol rush, which has skyrocketed the price of corn along with all items derived from corn. In fact, one could argue that all food prices have gone up as an indirect result of the corn-based ethanol solution to American “petrolismo” (oil addiction). In my home country of Liberia, the price of rice has more than doubled, thanks to the biofuel solution to our energy need. Talk about ‘the law of unintended consequences’!

Website design By BotEap.comAs we all know by now, other alternatives besides corn or biofuels have stepped up to compete for oil’s replacement spot: wind power, solar power, hybrid technology, hydrogen fuel, and the all-electric vehicle. .

Website design By BotEap.comSpeaking of the electric car, a businessman named Shai Agassi was at the Dennis Miller Show on August 5, 2008, promoting his project to mass-produce electric vehicles. Mr. Agassi claims to have raised more than $200 million, the most for any startup in recent memory.

Website design By BotEap.com“Previously, Shai was President of the Products and Technology Group (PTG). He resigned from this position on March 28, effective April 1, 2007 to focus on alternative energy and climate change. In October 2007, he founded a company called Project Better Place, focusing on a green transportation infrastructure based on electric cars as an alternative to current fossil fuel technology” (wikipedia).

Website design By BotEap.comProject Better Place will adopt the strategy of the cell phone industry: build the infrastructure first; then build the product. It will cost $100 billion to put the infrastructure in place. That amount is equal to what the United States spends on two months of oil supplies.

Website design By BotEap.comUnlike oil, which is produced from a single source (fossil fuel), scientists know how to generate electrons from multiple sources: coal, dam, solar, wind, etc. And any electricity generated from any of these sources can be used to power electric vehicles.

Website design By BotEap.comYou see how the success of electric vehicles could mean the end of the gasoline industry. Is that drastic or what? No, seriously, would such a solution be overkill? How many oil companies and employees will lose their jobs for the sake of these electric vehicles? Let’s just hope the oil companies are quick enough to make the switch from fossil fuels to electrons, or else we may be in for an economic slump when electric cars initially replace our gasoline hogs. Well, of course, the world economy will recover, depending on how quickly the oil gorillas and oil addicts wake up from torpor to make the transition from “big oil” to “bright electric.”

Website design By BotEap.comProject Better Place will partner with auto companies Renault and Nissan to build the electric vehicles. They will start by testing 50 cars. By 2010 they will manufacture 500 electric cars. If they succeed, they will go into mass production mode, with tens of thousands of electric vehicles hitting the streets.

Website design By BotEap.comStarting with Israel, Project Better Place will build sharing/charging stations, like gas stations, where electric car drivers can recharge or swap out their batteries. If the plan works in Israel, Better Place will repeat the process in Denmark. The company has selected Israel and Denmark to be the guinea pigs for electric vehicles because, according to Shai Agassi, these nations are “islands of transportation.”

Website design By BotEap.comThis entrepreneur speaks with such doubt-free confidence that it makes listeners feel like his solution to oil-dependent transportation is a sure thing. He claims that making electric cars is actually the easy part; they already have the technology in place. He says that building those electric car stations is really the biggest challenge. Once this is done, electric vehicles will begin to flood the planet in the same way that cell phones have covered the earth from Europe to Africa, from Asia to America, once satellite signals and other equipment became available.

Website design By BotEap.comAfter Dennis Miller’s interview with Shai Agassi, my only question was, “Where will I get some serious money to invest in Better Place at an entry level, so I can join the current ranks of alt-vehicle billionaires?”

Website design By BotEap.comAnother question: Does it cost less than half a tank of gas to change or charge the battery of an e-car? It better! What we need is not only to end the addiction to oil, but also a sobriety plan that doesn’t cost us the same as our current addiction. Otherwise, we would have been better off staying addicted to oil, especially if we could supply the drug from our own soil.

Website design By BotEap.comSo depending on the cost to the consumer, in years to come, we might just say, “Give me that lithium ion battery” or “Give me another booze ~ I mean tank of gas, and make it unleaded.” with techron”.