Technofumble

When it comes to advancements in consumer technology, it doesn’t matter what certain politicians wish for, or against. For more than a decade now I’ve watched the gigantic oil industry squirm and fight and do everything to maintain its relevance. Petrochemicals will stay with us, but whether they like it or not the use of petroleum for fuel is going away. The old saying that “you can’t stop progress” applies to billion-dollar companies just as it does to small ones.

Ten years isn’t a very long time. So much technological change can happen in a single decade, let alone a few. I grew up watching television on a 19-inch black-and-white Emerson TV set in a wooden cabinet stained blonde, and we were happy to have it. It and its gleaming ilk are gone, supplanted by giant flat-screen displays with brilliant color and resolution that can incidentally do much more than just show network television. I have no nostalgia for that old Emerson. But I do feel bad for the people who used to fashion the heavy wooden cabinets. Few folks give them a thought when contemplating the history of television.

Our first telephones had handsets wired to plastic blocks that sported rotating dials. Two pieces. Now children stroll around playing games on phones the size of a deck of cards, each containing more thinking power than early computers. It did not require a hundred years for this change to take place. Old dial phones are no longer tech. They’re art, or antiques.

Yet our own government and a few others continue to fight against the inevitable tide of electric vehicles even as that technology sprints ahead. The cars (and buses, and trucks, and heavy construction equipment, and mining vehicles, and coming soon, commuter aircraft) continue to improve, while internal-combustion power remains largely static. Every time there is an improvement in battery power and longevity, it not only gives a boost to existing Evs, but sparks entirely new applications as well.

Think of the laser, which went from an interesting breakthrough in physics and optics to a plethora of uses in the modern world. That is what is happening right now with battery power. Look up Candela, a Swedish (not American) company that builds battery-powered hydrofoil boats. As battery power has improved they have moved on to building ferries in addition to their original small craft. No pollution, little noise.

Multiple companies are working furiously on developing battery-powered aircraft. Starting small with trainers like Pipistrel (whose trainers I wish Embry-Riddle would use: no pollution, little noise). Another company, Beta, has already started shuttle service from JFK to Manhattan. It was only a few years ago that “experts” were telling us that electric-powered flight was going nowhere. Apparently it’s going downtown. Reference this by Simon Newcomb, the first president of the American Astronomical Society: “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.”

The Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk 18 months later.

It will take a while to find a substitute for jet fuel, but find it we will. When the first Teslas came out, people made jokes about them being powered by AA batteries. Those jokes have died away. Just like the jokes people used to make about the first cellular phones being bigger than bricks and having foot-long antennae.

Anyone who follows developments in the field of EVs is aware that Norway has a higher percentage of electric vehicles than any other country. But how many know that giant trucks hauling tons of ore out of open-pit mines are now powered by batteries? Or that Switzerland is switching over to electric garbage trucks (alas, the cans will still make some noise). I’ve been trying for years to get the Prescott PD or Yavapai Sheriff’s Dept. to switch out older gas/diesel powered vehicles for electric. Admittedly, these changes are difficult when you’re fighting tradition, even if the tradition makes less and less sense.

I see an article in today’s New York Times about new vehicle sales in Nepal (yes, Nepal) running 76% electric. Katmandu streets filling up with Chinese EVs. The only reason our streets are not filling up with Chinese Evs, which are by all accounts excellent and reasonably priced, is because we’re deliberately shutting them out. So are the Europeans, though they’re starting to have second thoughts.

If Nepal can go 76% electric, why can’t the US? A country that used to be at the forefront of most technology now actively repels it. We lost the lead in televisions, small computers, CD players, and much else. It’s not a good path forward.

You can legislate against imports. You can legislate against the use of certain chemicals. But you can’t legislate against progress — or science.