Electric cars are not the answer

Robert Gardner, Henderson

Wednesday, June 6, 2012 | 2 a.m.

Regarding Nicholas Cain’s piece May 27 in favor of government subsidies for electric cars:

Cain says “over 20 years, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids could reduce health care costs by $4.5 billion to $11.2 billion.” Those numbers might be low. We might save more money when medical personnel show up at car accidents to pronounce people dead because smaller, lighter cars equal more fatalities. Funerals are cheaper than Social Security and Medicare payments.

Cain says, some utilities “are offering a month’s worth of electricity for only $50 to $90.” If Obama gets a second term and his promise comes true — “Energy prices will necessarily skyrocket under my cap and trade plan” — rates would increase exponentially!

Lastly, Cain uses the old wive’s tale that we have only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Saudi Arabia reported in 2009 that they have about 713 billion barrels of oil left in the ground. We have at least 800 billion recoverable barrels in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado in the form of oil shale. We have another 6 billion to 24 billion barrels of oil shale in Montana and North Dakota, 10 billion barrels in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — and that doesn’t take into account our offshore oil.