You really should have gone Bullitt. The spring baths are totally awesome! :D Just be expecting lots of nudity...

You're probably right for normal commuting. Now what do you do when you want to go to the mountains skiing or down to the shore for the weekend or just to the casinos for the evening? You need another car and it's got to be a good one for traveling, but what if you can't afford another car?

Does that ski lodge, shore motel or casino have a charging station? Not in the future, not even in the fall, RFN? No they don't. Electrics are not viable for most people as the family sedan without a lot of bullshit.

A hybrid with a small engine is viable for most people RFN. Go anywhere anytime and still get 40, 50, 60, miles per gallon. The biggest drawback of hybrids is they have been designed and built for maximum bragging rights on mileage, rather than vehicles that are comfortable and with enough space to be useful for a family of four.

If you tend to travel a lot I can understand needing something else. If you can afford two cars, why not have an electric one for home use and another one for travel?

I am really looking forward to the high speed rail systems Obama wants to create. It would be extremely useful for the US to have the same kind of rail system that other countries enjoy.

There is this one commericial that was on TV not too long ago, and as much as I hate commercials, I loved this one. It was for a car company (I don't remember which one), and in the commercial it showed one person driving somewhere and then giving the keys to someone else, and they drove somewhere and then gave the keys to someone else, etc. I thought that was brilliant. I wish we could do something like that in society, where no one really had to own cars, they were just available for anyone to drive whenever they needed to go somewhere. :D

Bruce, you can get 50+ mpg out of a regular Toyota now if you practice certain driving techniques. My 91 Geo can get more than 40. I coast a lot. :D The reason I would like to get a newer car though is because the emmission standards are better now in newer cars. I can't afford a new car right now though.

oh, and as far as elecric cars go, you don't necessarily need plug in stations, some electrics can by plugged into a regular outlet with an adapter, I believe. I remember seeing something about that a while back.

So if we significantly increase the demand for electricity by plugging into our houses where do you think that electricity is going to come from? Oh, that would be the coal fired or nuclear plant down the road.

It is a matter of choosing the things that do the least amount of harm. Electric cars, from what I learned on that show last night, are a lot more efficient, so they are actually a much better choice. Not to mention the fact that we get most of our oil from countries that are hostile to us. No technology is going to be perfect, at least not anytime soon. We can only continue trying to move in the right direction with regard to ALL our energy resources, and to me, that means creating a lot more solar and wind and geothermal, etc. If we could get the government to sponsor a program where people could solarize their homes (where there is a lot of sun), or have individual wind mills (where there is high wind) at a reasonable cost, and sell the excess back to the grid, that is one way to help solve the problem. Less people getting energy FROM the grid, more people supplying energy TO the grid. Less need for big electric companies. More sustainable power for individuals, more empoerment for people. Less costly power. See what I mean? It would feed on itself, and in a good way. Honestly, I don't know why they haven't peoposed that yet. Over time, we might end up with practically free power for everyone.

Look up the contribution of coal fired plants to global warming and get back to me. It is a major source of pollution. China is build about 2 - 4 a month.

Did you even bother reading the rest of what I wrote? I do not like coal. look, just go here and read the transcripts or watch the show, OK?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/car/

But the fact is, even if you don't like them, they are the primary souce of electric power in this country and around the world. So if you want to take a technology and apply it to the cars I am sure that the power companies of the world would be really happy to to have us do that. Because the alternatives are not being practially considered. Although there is evidence that the public outcry against coal is having an effect. The fact remains that there is not a huge incentive at this time to stop building them. And as long as countries like China and India do not have to apply the same standards of technology to newly built or existing coal fired plants it will not make a difference to global warming how many electric cars we build. It may make us feel better and make the coal companies and power companies rich, but it is not going to improve the environment.

Whatever. There is more than one reason to get off of oil. Electric cars are only one way to go. I would prefer we have choices. Electric, biofuel, compressed air, hybrids...

I would also prefer no more coal plants be built, and people who own those plants have to pay big taxes. There is no such thing a "clean" coal.

I really think that we will have to go nuclear soon. The safety standards have been raised and it is cleaner and more practical than any other option. Although, a lot of research is going into other clean alternative energy sources (wind, solar) and in a few decades, those will start to become more viable options as well.

They are viable now. I'm sick of people saying they aren't viable. They are.

sure, they are viable when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Neither of those things are happening at the moment here.

The sun shines here almost all of the time. And in California and the southwestern states.

Biggest problem are the many labeled as hybrids that, instead, pervert the technology only to increase horsepower during acceleration. And other hybrids that provide none of those needed benefits.

Routine for all driving is for a hybrid to get over 50 MPH. So we put hybrids in larger car and get something around 40 MPG. Meanwhile, even GM's smallest cars average (at best) 26 MPG.

But again, how many horsepower is required to maintain 50 MPH? My worst case calculations on an Olds 88 and Taurus were 8 and 10 hp. GM engineers told me it was more like 4 and 2. That means most every car needs maybe a 1 liter engine. If using hybrid technology, it accelerates same, but does not waste a 200+ horsepower engine putting only 10 hp to the wheels. Damning numbers that say why hybrids should have been routine ten years earlier - when even President Clinton was a better innovator than auto executives.

Hybrid technology is the 'at minimum' requirement for all cars of the future. So what will GM introduce in 2010? A 500 hp obsolete technology Camaro. Could they be any dumber?

There is no viable replacement for fossil fuels (petroleum). The electric car is the hybrid. Hydrogen was never a viable fuel - could not even work in theory. Compressed air - do the thermodynamics. Also not viable. Biofuels - myths. Yes, there are exceptions just like some farmers still use the old wind mill for backup electricity. But face reality. We have no viable alternative to current petroleum transportation systems for the next 30 years. And then, only in limited applications.

Time to start getting smart about it. The only solution is doing more with less. Smart as in letting scientists – not White House lawyers – write the science papers.

That is complete bullshit. The Tesla is an all electric vehicle and is already being sold. Granted the original car is a sports car that many people can't afford, but they also have a family car coming out. It is about the price of a Lexus or Mercedes. The cars can go up to 300 miles on a single charge. http://www.teslamotors.com/

Biofuels are not a myth. I know several people who changed their diesel engines over to biofuels. Willie Nelson's tour bus runs on biofuels. We have trolly car in Savannah that is a hybrid; it is an electric trolly that uses biofuels. So please stop spreading lies about alternatives.

lol - sugar - as much of an asshole wacko partisan dickhead as tw is, he is right on this one.

I never said they are a myth. After all, golf carts have been operating for generations. Ethanol has been in Brazil for decades. But I said replacements for petroleum based transportation fuels are not viable. We have and are stuck with petroleum energy sources for generations to come. Even in theory, there is no viable alternative. There is just no other energy source that packs so many joules in that same weight.

Current solutions are the same ones we needed to implement even in the 1970s. In ten gallons of gasoline, how much energy actually does any productive work? Between one and two gallons. The rest gets wasted - does nothing productive. Therein lays the problem. Even upping that number to three out of ten gallons is a major accomplishment. Not only are we stuck with petroleum. Look at the numbers. Solutions are possible. But only if we stop listening to wacko extremists and start demanding more innovation.

Where could other energy sources come from? Even nuclear is not a viable solution if we do not solve the waste problem? But quantum physics - a potential source of future solutions - has been seriously impeded in America. Especially when White House lawyers rewrote research papers for the greater glory of their political agenda. Part of the contempt for "doing more with less" that has been particularly promoted by extremists of the past decade. Even quantum physic research must now leave America for nations that more wanted to advance mankind.

Yes, there are other energy sources that can supplement our petroleum demands. But we are stuck with and have no *viable* alternatives to petroleum.

You cannot post logically. Everything is typical of extremists complete with the Rush Limbaugh insults.

So where does classicman provide any facts on this topic? Rush forgot to tell him what to say. So he posts insults. Now let see how he lies about it.

:headshake

I did not forget to tell him what to say. He's going off the reservation on his own.

Hello SP

I must say in all honesty that most everything that you post makes my trigger finger twitch and the word "bullshit" slip out of my mouth quite loudly.

We do however agree on the biofuels issue. Food for fuel? That does not have to be the case. How many people eat marine algae as a food stapel? Not many. I believe that ethanol is viable through algae.

Ethanol alone is not the answer and wont replace gas as a motor fuel. It seems possible to me that 50/50 gas ethanol would make a huge difference in energy imports and allow more job/business opportunities here in the US. Not bullshit census jobs, real jobs that pay and that are sustainable.

With some luck and good planning I should be able to study and experiment more on the subject in the coming months on my next great adventure back to the Philippine islands.

The coastal waters are warm enough year round to allow continuous harvesting of algae and the islands combined have about 25k miles of coastline to accomplish this. The US, on the other hand has about half of that length of coastline and much of that is out of the temperature range of many types of algae.

This is something that I'm quite serious about investigating. It seems possible that with all the conditions present today that the PI could provide a good portion of alcohol to it's fuel market as well as possibly China's.

Lots of "ifs" in there but it's technically possible IMO.

This is too much.
 

Tw, if you were fully competent, you'd copyedit -- it might help with your memory problems. But oh, no, that might make you less the wacko extremist we all know you are. (You make adhominem attacks on you mandatory, you know. Or you don't know, and demonstrate that exquisite incompetence yet again.)

You continue your bad behavior here:

-- an instant adhominem bellow of your own, and with what need? And you'll never ever improve, you damned fool. You never wanted to. Your emotional development came to a halt at about age four, five tops. It is grotesque. Vulcan, schmulcan; your personality prevents adult thinking ever being manifest, owing to the stupid emotional needs of your ruling lizard brain. Look at how well the anti-Limbaugh Left is served: it has you! Mister Thoughtless.

Now in the hope that you might demonstrate some rare flash of competence, let's hear this "quantum physics" idea explained more fully, and how it might have anything to do with powering transportation.

Or are we to suppose you believed every word of The Republican War On Science?

I dunno guys, did you ever consider this?

It's being done. Boeing is pushing it bigtime, convincing several jet engine makers and the US Air Force to test it successfully. Teeming up with a couple of Aussie outfits to work on reliable mass production techniques from algae. It's not ready for prime time but they've made impressive progress and see it as a viable solution for aircraft.

Which coastline are they proposing to set up production?

Southern Cali would be nearly perfect. That means it will not be done there the way things work.

I've not seen the published data on the emissions but heard in an interview that it's "nearly as clean as hydrogen while being much more economical."

I have brought up the whole biofuel from algae thing before and posted a link. Brazil makes fuel from sugarcane, so we know it can work.

What else did I say that makes you want to kill me? :D Electric cars?

Here is a link to Tesla Motors, fully electirc cars... http://www.teslamotors.com/

Here are some links:
http://cc.pubco.net/www.valcent.net/...gro/index.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0818184434.htm
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...61432871186746
http://gas2.org/2008/03/29/first-alg...-april-1-2008/
http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/27/15-...to-fuel-tanks/

It works for Brazilian biomass because they grow in temperatures above 70 degrees F. The process to obtain energy from biomaterial grown at lower temperatures (ie corn) is so inefficient as to probably consume more energy than it creates.

The concept works in theory. In practice, it has been a grand and expensive disappointment.

So how did we solve the problem? A technically ignorant admistration solved it by putting a $0.50 per gallon tax on Brazilian and other imported ethanol. Biofuels were really only welfare to midwest farmers.

For your proposals to work, first they must work in science. None have yet shown anywhere near the promise or success that must exist today for them to work in years future.

A glaring fact makes the most viable solution obvious. In ten gallons of gas maybe one and never more than two gallons do productive work. That other eight plus gallons gets wasted completely as heat or pollution. That is where solutions can be implemented, already exist in some examples, and are still being routinely stified by the companies who could best implement them and be profitable for doing so.

Everybody likes Sara Lee - even though she routinely stifled battery innovation? General Motors remains unscathed by your contempt?

Here's another one.

They aren't nearly as efficient as they could be. Here in Minnesota they identified a very strong wind draft that occurs about 500ft (or meters) above the surface that happens every night. If that can be exploited, it can create a lot of energy. More research as that will push the technology significant steps further.

Either way, these technologies need to prove themselves to the public before mainstream use. That is in the process. The technology will grow.

Not you, your socialist/collectivist ideas/non-stop slobbering on the Messiah.

Which ones? Yeah I know, please cite. I'm working 7 days now and don't have time to properly add to many of these irritating posts.

Very interesting.

The time available for researching and reading has been reduced lately due to deadlines at work.

Anything that can make the US fuel independant or move us in that direction has my attention. That attention is limited for now but that's going to change in a few months.

Not something you can prove, so it must be one of your moronic lies: you cannot show improved battery technology to exist, and insist some industry conspiracy is suppressing its expression. Well, conspiracy theory is the realm of flakes and kooks.

Note that I never subscribe to conspiracy theory in any of my so-called "crazy" posts.

Not like you could make a 500-mile/80mph battery pack, either. You can't even theorize how, let alone engineer it. Broke-dick.

They have proven themselves. But to be clear, are you arguing we shouldn't do it because they aren't as efficient as they could be, even though they are already more efficient than what we're using now? yea, that makes a whole lotta sense. :headshake

non-stop slobbering on the messiah? Clearly you have me confused with someone else...

There IS a 300 mile battery though, already in use, and I have posted SEVERAL TIMES links to the website. yes, the cars are still kind of expensive for some people, but as more people buy them, they will become less expensive, AND, they are comparable to other cars in the same price range.

Exept tesla is apparently full of crap - err - exaggerating their claims.

Thought for the day
 

Hey guys 'n' gals,

Dont forget that all energy originates from the sun
either as thermal energy or by
causing things to grow into "biofuels" to serve as
food aka fuel for living things or decay into fossil fuels.

You have your choice of eating or getting biofuels!

You cannot get anything for nothing (First Law
of Thermodynamics)

Even the Tesla needs an external source of energy
to recharge its batteries.

Just hope and pray (to whatever "god" you may
believe in, even if only yourself) that the sun keeps shining!

Al

And Tommy Toilet says, "Don't forget to wipe!"


http://www.knitteldude.com/images/An...mmy_toilet.jpg

cite please.

Are they realistic to use? Whats the price?

Of course they are realistic to use. The price of some things may be high now, but it will come down as the demand for those technologies rises. And the cost of those technologies really is much less expensive than building coal or nuclear plants or using oil.

And ftr, there is no such thing as "clean coal." We have one, count it, ONE, coal plant in this country that captures the co2. Even the plants that are in the process of being built do not capture the co2. So they are ALL "dirty coal" plants. But of course people wouldn't know that by the commercials being aired every 5 minutes on TV touting the promise of "clean coal."

Read the thread Sugar - you have brought the Tesla up a dozen times and their claims rebuked by a number of posters.

Claims rebuked? Hardly. However some of what Telsa claims is not always accurately grasped by a public that also so easily *knew* Saddam had WMDs.

Numerous concepts are limiting - starting with three thermodynamic laws.

One fact so often forgotten - there is no replacement for our basic energy sources. Even Telsa is only about doing more with less. Just another attempt to solve a fundamental problem that will remain if we don't address it: ten gallons of gasoline; but less than two gallons does any productive work.

The electric car is not about new energy sources. It is about increasing thermodynamic efficiencies. Even every alternative energy source is about efficiencies that must increase to become viable. Telsa is simply another attempt to improve a part of an 'energy consumption' chain.

Even VCRs could not be sold for less than $20,000. Then the technology was sold to a company that wanted to innovate rather than reap fast profits.

There is no magic bullet in Telsa. But Telsa is part of a multidimensional solution that was all but completely subverted in America for most of the last ten years.

Frankly, m'dear, no he doesn't. You sound like this textbook example of someone with leftist opinions only -- a stereotype Secular-Progressive, completely politically correct, and completely unversed in the merits of competing views. Thus you believe you are both right and moral. There are those of us who aren't so sure of either.

About Sugar, or about yourself?

People keep saying electric cars aren't viable, but NO ONE has offered any proof that they aren't. the Tesla is a perfect example of how wrong these people are. Show me any kind of proof that the Tesla isn't everything they claim it to be. I have seen NONE.

You sir, are the one who believes without a doubt that you are always right and on the side of good, as defined by your religious beliefs. Your attitude against anyone with leftist ideals is that you are the smarter one and they the lowly idiot. But... you are sadly misguided.

I am not always politically correct. I think we have gone way overboard with the political correctness. It's downright silly sometimes. That doesn't mean I think we should go back to the way we were before, because I don't. Some sensitivity is necessary when trying look at all sides of a situation. Empathy is important. Understanding is important. That doesn't mean it should rule out common sense. You on the right seem to think common courtesy is stupid, and manners are a bad thing, but they are not.

I have had my mind changed before numerous times, on issues I believed in deeply, because I had an open mind and I was willing to listen to another point of view. I cannot imagine you ever changing your mind about anything, especially when confronted by someone on the left.

And ftr, I have voted for republicans, democrats, and independents, even though I fall far on the left side of the political spectrum, so please don't try to figure out my political tendencies, because your brain would explode; it doesn't have the complexity to look objectively at two opposing views, and see where both are right, and both are wrong.

Re: CO2 Emissions:

All who believe that CO2 emmisions are dangerous and should be
eliminated, are you suggesting that we should eliminate the human
race? After all humans do emit a lot of CO2.

With respect to thermal pollutions Al Gore will not attack the worse
source of thermal pollution - air conditioning (and his Tennessee mansion
is assumed to be ACed. Just check the atmospheric heat budget changes
of any major city in the lower 48 and HI over the last 70 years.

Cheers, Al

If we kill you off, then global warming will be solved. After all, your numbers prove it.

There are two different types of carbon cycles, a micro and a macro. The Micro carbon cycle involves all living organisms. Animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Plants take in carbon dioxide and then release it when they die. This cycle fluctuates every year.

The macro carbon cycle is the cycle where carbon dioxide get trapped in the bottom of the ocean and gets pushed underground where it is either converted into coal or oil or gets shot back up by a volcano. This cycle takes hundreds of thousands or even millions of years to fluctuate.

The reason burning coal and oil is dangerous is because we are taking the carbon cycle out of equilibrium and by doing that, consequences regarding the climate will follow. Climate change does happen naturally but by changing the carbon cycle, we are causing throwing other variables in there that are not usually counted for.

Looking at the kind of thing presented by those loudest in opposition to me, I'd say I'm not misguided one bit. Nor can you actually show misguidedness, sad or happy, on my part. Just saying is not proving.

Worthy. And PC is even worse than "silly sometimes." It's a tyranny of non-think, a tyranny over the minds of men. Like all tyrannies, it should be abolished.

This attitude is to be found only among the Wrong Right, not the conservatives, who hang onto their manners pretty well, even in the face of routine provocation from the immature sorts that make up the Left.

Then you're not doing all that well at it, are you? I once was antigun, particularly anti-handgun. I'm not, now.

I do have a good understanding of those permanent things that are good. You are trying, as several here have to nil result, to find evil where it is not -- in the heart of Urbane Guerrilla.

M'dear, you are sadly misguided here: you cannot explode my brain, however hard you may try. I am probably more objective than you are: I've seen more of it. I can figure you out and I routinely do. When I catch you doing something good, I'll mention it; same goes for doing something bad. I can tell genuine sophistication from the specious, and grounding in the good from grounding in the bad.

Having looked over the Left for a couple of decades, and compared them with the Right -- yeah, the Left is mostly full of shit.

So it is spoken, so it must be true.

Only if he says it Three Times.

I think he's said it rather more than three times already.

LOL. touche'.

Ohhhh SNAP!