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I have nothing better to do but to complain about gas right now!
AtomSmasher:
I'm still a fan of Natural Gas vehicles. It's not the ultimate cure-all solution, but its a great stop-gap to keep us going for another 100 years until they do find the utlimate cure-all solution. Plus America has a huge supply of natural gas, so we would no longer be dependant on foreign oil.
pinballwizard79:
I think hybrids area a good start, then electric & what ever comes next.....propane or hydrogen.....whatever it is.
Yes the environment is important & no the above mentioned items do not expel strawberries & pretty girls but they are a step in one direction, getting away from big oil. We have to reduce/move away from oil first, asap, then fine tune other options.
I don't want better fuel economy or new oil-less technology just for the earth, I am tired of funding the never ending Jew vs Islam fight.
So lets stop giving money to oil first & then save the environment......................the alternative is to give them money, lose all global economies & still destroy the planet.
As for the housing, America is huge & in LA, NY, Chicago & etc the houses are indeed on top of each other.
In the suburbs or rural areas in any country they are not.
So quit your finger pointing, at least we have EPA standards we make the auto makers adhere to unlike every other country.
TOK:
--- Quote from: richms on January 25, 2009, 09:24:50 am ---The solution is higher density housing tied into commercial areas so that there is no need for the car.
So long as people want to outlive their means by having a detached house in the middle of a large plot with a yard they have to maintain with even greater demands on water and resources just to look pretty, there will be an energy deficit.
More like bees in a hive and less mcmansions on land thats better used for agriculture etc...
--- End quote ---
Living in the city sucks.
Nothing to do with a pretty yard or the environment, thats why everyone that can flocks away.
The ones that can afford to flock away but stay do it because of excellent jobs linked to the city lowlifes and they barricade themselves into million+ dollar 2 bedroom gated condo's.
Manhattan is a traffic-jammed cesspool despite a total public transportation infrastructure. I'd live in a shack in the woods before I resorted to that.
Kevin Mullins:
--- Quote from: TOK on January 25, 2009, 01:06:06 pm ---Living in the city sucks.
--- End quote ---
:cheers:
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: Level42 on January 25, 2009, 05:39:45 am ---Great. So what do you suggest ?
--- End quote ---
It's not easy, but a multi-solution er... solution.
Most of these ideas are specific for the U.S. Mileage, excuse the pun, will vary depending on the country.
Don't focus so damn much on HEV or EV research. It's a crock anyways. *EV vehicles were available to the masses a hundred years ago. So it's pretty obvious that their application with the then current technology were more than suitable to fill a very specific need. In other words, quit trying to bill the *EV as the end-all-cure-all and treat it like it really is, a solution to fill specific aspects of transportation. For example, localized transportation within a city. eg, the distance I travel from home to work (even if I don't ride the rail system) is short enough to justify an EV. I don't use an EV for a variety of reasons, the primary one is there is no existing infrastructure for charging the EV between trips. The only public EV charging station I know of is six blocks from my home. Useless when my job places me 15 minutes away by car. I can't think of any reason why charging stations are non-existent other than the associated costs of the charging stations and the desire to eat up dedicated parking spaces for them.
For those who live far enough away that EV is useless, FFV or Dual Fuel vehicles should be investigated. Just like the electric system, an infrastructure needs to be put in place. The process is already started with some gas stations retrofitting for alternate fuels. With so many damn gas stations in the U.S. and an existing massive transport system already in place, shoehorning a different fuel into the supply chain should be a given.
Get rid of the ---smurfing--- environmentalists. They're a thorn in our side and have been for ---smurfing--- years. They push and push for less polluting forms of travel, but go absolutely ape ---Cleveland steamer--- over some toad that nobody gives a ---fudgesicle--- about. How is it the U.S. still does not have a Maglev??? Japan, Germany, France all have triple digit speed trains, yet the U.S. still doesn't have one. Get a ---smurfing--- ferry train in there while we're at it. Drive your car onto the train and be in PA and back with your new cab before your wife even realizes you're gone.
Alternate fuels for the power plants. We have coal, oil and gas plants down to a science. How about a waste burning plant that actually works? Let's push for the solar towers and solar farms in the desert, give those lizards some shade. How's that under water current "Water mill" coming along? We've got miles of ocean to exploit. Better subsidy for fitting every home with cheaper mirror/silicon hybrid solar panels. With all those roofs baking in the sun, might as well put them to good use. Same goes for those acres of parking lots. We're too lazy to put up a few trees so we might as well put up panels. Get rid of that damn corn subsidy, we don't need it. There are alternate fuel crops that can be leveraged that can be used in a FFV.
We need to be more aware of the actual costs associated with raw materials and recycling. It's cheaper (as in energy) to mine for raw aluminum than it is to recycle it. That goes hand in hand with the actual cost of producing a particular car or product. We have some sense of the cost, but a vast portion of the population are outright clueless. So the U.S. clamors to recycle recycle recycle but never actually look at the costs associated with recycling. One town I visited had a recycling program. Everything had to be put in separate bins which get put into a compartmentalized truck which arrives at the landfill. Wait... the landfill? Why? Turns out that the recyclable goods are so expensive to recycle that no one wants to buy them from the town. So they're given no choice but to dump them in the dump with all the other refuse. Heh, that worked out really well. :banghead:
The list potential improvements goes on and on.
For as much money as we put into the "war", we could have placed the U.S. ahead of the game in alternate energy sources. So, like I said, there is no "magic pill" that solves all of our energy problems, there is no ZPM, it's a multi-source solution that's going to get us out of this mess.
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