Alot of people are offering really good ideas about energy solutions these days. Andy Grove argues that energy resiliance should take priority over energy independence. Very interesting. He says that transferring our energy usage to be more electicity-oriented would insulate us against the volitility of the energy market. One of the problems he cites is the technology gap between traditoinal gasoline vehicles and electric vehicles that have to be charged every 100 miles. How can our expectations of transportation work if you can only go 100 miles? You could go further, but charging time and infrastructure would be prohibitive.

Here's my idea: why don't we sell electricity for cars like we sell gas for grills? You buy an electric car and a battery separately. You drive 100 miles. Then you pull into a station, deposit the spent battery, swipe your card, and plug in another, pre-charged battery, and then drive another 100 miles. The station then recharges the battery and swaps it with another customer the next day. Zero end-user recharge time. My gas car only goes 300 miles between fill-ups. I wouldn't mind "filling up" a little more often.

The trick would be to establish a safe, standardized, cross-model battery that could be easily swapped out. Stations might have to hire changing attendants who could perform the swaps for safety and weight reasons. Still, Oregon and New Jersey already require attendants, right?