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Jared’s blog article, Myth of the Electric Car, got me thinking about our cultural predisposition to become singularly focused on a good thing when we find it. True, electric cars are not the sole solution to greenhouse gas emission or to the fuel shortage we are currently experiencing. I agree that it’s highly probable that CO2 emissions from electric cars are simply relocated to the power source from which the electricity originates. But, unlike the electric car bandwagoneers , I think that they only make up part of the equation to the issues we face today. I submit that our main issue is that we (humans in general) are too focused on developing standards, instead of embracing diversity. This goes is for technology, medicine, agriculture, legislation and energy.

Take the case in point with Germany. Germany made a strong commitment to embrace bio fuels, derived from corn, rapeseed or soy. To produce the raw material, land needs to be available to grow these crops and this has cause spike is food prices and deforestation. Plus, the CO2 emissions are part of the production of this fuel, too. So, this is causing some to reconsider bio fuel as an alternative to petrol. But does that mean we should do away with bio fuel? No. Bio fuel can become part of the “box of tools” we have available to produce energy. But we need to be smart about how much we can afford to produce and making the right choices based on logic and reason, not belief and blanket policy politics.

Consider this: Instead of focusing on one single solutions, let’s embrace diversity. BMW is a model of this thinking with their Hydrogen 7 that can use both gasoline and hydrogen. Honda embraces diversity by offerings cars in the US that are hyrogen, hybrid, natural gas and gasoline. The ironic thing is that market demands and government legislation drive this behavior in automakers. In Brazil, fuel diversity is all around and required by the government. Brazil exports its oil and powers its internal energy on its own sources. If you can burn it, a Brazilian car runs on it. Guess who the automakers are in Brazil: VW, Ford, GM, Nissan, Honda and Toyota (amongst other European companies). This proves my point about our ability to create the infrastructure and vehicles to embrace fuel diversity.

We have lots of fuel options and we have the means to produce vehicles that can accept multiple options. Electric cars will and should play in part of the solution to the terrible global warming and fuel shortage issues we have today. Fuel diversity will spread out consumption, lessening the immediate and dramatic reduction on a single energy source, allowing the environment to recoup and us to have options when shortages do occur. Electric, Bio, Diesel, Hydrogen, Natural Gas, Gas and hybrids should all have places at the table and all should be made available.

We also can do things to lessen our consumption of any fuel (which is a big part of the equation), but that can be another blog topic.