Hybrid vehicles have gone mainstream in just a few years, with soaring gasoline costs boosting demand for more energy-efficient cars and sending Priuses and Civics off the lots in droves.
Off on the "lunatic fringe" of the hybrid crowd were hobbyists and tinkerers who wanted more bang from their rechargeable buck. These folks toiled in their garages to fill their already-limited trunk spaces to the gills with batteries, which could be hooked up to the house power supply at night to recharge...the so-called "plug-in" hybrid.
Now, though, just as the peak oil people have stopped being laughed at, the home bio-diesel producers have come in off the farms, the plug-in crowd has a conference of its own, complete with a think-tank and corporate backing.
The Brookings Institute and Google sponsored the June 11-12 conference, which spent time discussing questions such as "How would the world be different if cars and trucks could run on electricity in addition to oil?"
While the agenda wasn't too heavy-duty, the lineup of speakers was quite impressive, with no fewer than four members of Congress (split evenly across the political divide) offering remarks, along with former CIA director James Woolsey and a representative from the Department of Energy.
The DOE pledged $30 million to research plug-in hybrid technology, which is a good start. While the concept may make the most sense for public vehicles such as buses, which run specific routes, the cost of natural gas has been far surpassed by gasoline and diesel, so the enhanced hybrids may be just the thing to bridge the gap as fully renewable technologies are developed.
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