Quick question: What sort of electric
“green-car” technology should America embrace? Which is the greenest?
There are four current choices:
- Gas/electric hybrids, like the Toyota Prius. Very
practical and can work in almost any vehicle; downside: still burn lots of
gasoline.
- The plug-in hybrid. Check out www.calcars.org/vehicles.html
. A hybrid you can plug in overnight and store enough power
to take you back and forth to work and go on shorter trips. But like model 1,
you still have a backup gas engine. Also check out www.BYD.com and prepare to
have your mind blown. This is a Chinese auto maker that plans to take over the
world with plug-ins. Take note of this company; Warren Buffett did and
recently pumped $232 million into it. But also understand that much of the
electricity stored in those batteries will come from power plants, many
burning coal.
- The all-electric car. Tesla motors (www.teslamotors.com
) and others are already making them. Tesla's are sleek and
sexy but very expensive and require a minimum of 45 minutes to charge—and they
have no backup gas engine. And all of their electricity comes from power
plants.
- This one combines all-electric cars with a global
infrastructure of “battery-charge spots” in concert with robotized “battery
switch stations” where you would exchange your spent battery for a
fully-charged one in minutes. Don’t laugh; investors have already poured $300
million into the concept of “Better Place.” It’s the brainchild of Silicon
Valley entrepreneur Shai Agassi. Read more at www.betterplace.com
or www.cbsnews.com.
So: Which is the greenest? In my opinion? All of them. Which should we
embrace? All of them—because all can and will help to get us where we need to
go. And because we can’t possibly tell at this juncture what will ultimately
prove to be the optimal approach.
I bring this up because it bears great relevance to going green at your
enterprise. Where to begin? Where to start? The answer: anywhere. You’ll read a
lot inside this magazine about some highly ambitious initiatives that can be
overwhelming when you’ve got to squeeze every dollar to death. So don’t go big.
Start small, and pluck the overhanging fruit. Follow the path of least
resistance. Start where it’s easiest to start!
But this just might also be the time for larger investments, not in spite of
the recession, but because of it.
As you’ll read on page 41, one global financial services organization
relocated insurance administration to a central area rather than at branch
offices and used imaging to eliminate paper files and provide online access to
information with a portal for branches. The company achieved a 100-percent
return on investment in eight months and saved $3.6 million in paper and copying
costs in one year!
But back to that overhanging fruit: You can help
Infonomics go green by subscribing to our digital magazine at www.infonomicsmag.com/subscribe
. How are
you going green?
How are you making a difference at your own company? We’d love to hear about
it. Send me an email and we’ll run your letter in the next issue of this
magazine.
Benjamin L. Herring is the
editor-in-chief of Infonomics.