Batteries No Clean Transport Panacea
Professor of history at the University of Maryland, David Hirsch warns against expecting too much from battery innovation, such as in electric cars, but not from alternative transportation.
Batteries are important to future transportation, but there has been a single-minded focus on them for too long, says professor of history David Hirsch: “Batteries are only one piece of a complex suite of long-term solutions to the problem of over-reliance on internal combustion. Yet too often the public debate begins and ends with groups of scientists and engineers praising the super-battery of the future and other groups, often economists or incumbent vehicle manufacturers, talking about the liabilities of the battery of today.”
