How to electrify the trucking industry. Surely the size and weight of the batteries required to power an electric semi-truck are a huge obstacle. Current technology probably allows for building a truck capable of driving a few hundred miles if it weren't for the fact that it also has to pull a load.
So here is my solution: Distributed storage. (Like distributed power on a long freight train.) Build an electric semi-tractor with a two-hundred-mile range unloaded. (Because that's about the range we can get with current technology.) Then, in each trailer the truck might be pulling, build in a battery big enough to provide the additional power needed to pull just that loaded unit the same distance. Plug the units together with a big electric cord. It wouldn't matter how many trailers you hooked up, or what you hooked them up to, the incremental power would always be there! Brilliant?
These trucks could be deployed for local fleets that get to return to home base every night. As battery technology improves, the range improves, until electric trucks can be used for long hauls. Of course we recharge these imaginary vehicles with wind, solar, or tidal power, and the whole system is clean.
I suppose others might have stolen my idea already by having it first, but no matter. Whatever it takes to make progress preserving this delicate planet we all rely on.
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