Is the Chevrolet Volt a good jolt or not?

By Jim Roth | Phillips Murrah P.C. | The Journal Record

[ AUGUST 31, 2009 - OKLAHOMA CITY, OK ] - Whether you believe that human activity is a cause of climate change or not, you probably would opt for a car that gets better mileage and creates fewer emissions than your current car or truck, if at the same or lower price as your gas-powered vehicle. Who wouldn’t? Well there are a few actually, but we won’t waste any print space here talking about members of the Flat Earth Society.

The truth is we Americans love our cars and we love our environment. We often don’t realize the direct impact the former has on the latter. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the transportation sector accounts for almost 33 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions from an individual car are generally low, relative to the choking cloud behind a bus or the power plant image many people associate with air pollution. But in numerous cities across the country, the personal automobile is the single greatest polluter, as emissions from millions of vehicles on the road add up.

Driving a private car can be a typical citizen’s most “polluting” daily activity. But what choice do we have? Our cities have been developed for decades based upon sprawl and suburbs, which seem to require cars in every commuting household. And our choices in cars have rarely been anything but a heavy vehicle with a combustion engine.

Recent signals from America’s consumers and America’s car manufacturers suggest a new direction. Fuel efficiency has now become more important than that third row in that seven-passenger SUV. A choice of ‘flex-fuel’ vehicles, hybrid cars and even electric models are creating efficient, green options for consumers and a chance for survival for Detroit.

The Chevrolet Volt is one such new direction, with some incredible numbers. According to General Motors’ Web site, the Chevy Volt “is expected to achieve a city fuel economy of at least 230 miles per gallon. The EPA procedure for plug-in electric vehicles, which is still being finalized, assumes a single charge each day. The EPA procedure would also note 25 kilowatt-hours/100 miles electrical efficiency in the city cycle – depending on utility rates, this amount of electricity will cost between 75 cents and $2.50.” Wow. That’s incredible.

You can tell from their Web site that the technology is so new, and albeit untested, that the marketers at GM have to quote an emerging EPA testing process. This is cutting-edge stuff.

But is it going to be the saving grace that we drivers hope for the sake of our wallets and our planet? No, but it is a step in the right direction.

You see, we are a nation that still relies on the dirtiest fossil fuel known to man – coal – to power more than 50 percent of our country’s electricity. So what’s the advantage of switching from a gasoline-powered vehicle to millions of vehicles plugged in across America, causing smokestacks to choke out millions of tons of carbon dioxide, mercury, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants into your air and water?

Will we have made any progress to lower our footprint, by switching to a plug-in? Probably not, until we have transitioned our country to cleaner-burning power sources like natural gas, wind and solar power and hydroelectric technology.

Then, at that time, we will finally have clean sources on both sides of the outlet.

Jim Roth, a former Oklahoma corporation commissioner, is an attorney with Phillips Murrah P.C. in Oklahoma City, where his practice focuses on clean, green energy for Oklahoma.