Re: Oil Peaked !

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:15:28 -0700, "Ernie Jurick"
<invalidexample@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"Dave Head" <rally2xs@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nk9j545ie7iufcde6jeqhm8pavas8r04f8@xxxxxxxxxx

We need more new refinery's.

We need alternatives to oil, not more of it.

We need more oil in the next 30 - 50 years, which will be time enough
to
develop something else that works, like solar electric.

We could be free of oil in 15 years if we had a common-sense energy
policy.
Paving the Mojave Desert with solar cells alone would do it.

Won't do a damn thing for transportation. Cars don't run on solar cells,
trucks
don't run on solar cells, trains don't run on solar cells except maybe
some
city-bound mass transit, and airplanes don't run on solar cells.

Electric cars. Think electric cars. Every parking meter a charging
station.
That would free up refineries to produce fuel for the essential
transportation you mention. It would be a sensible beginning to dealing
with
the problems we're facing. Drilling more holes in the ground only
postpones
the inevitable.

That's great, but think 20 years - it may take that to get real electric
cars
happening for anyone that doesn't have $100K or so for the battery, and 20
years to wire all those parking meters with electricity.

The Tesla costs $100,000. The target price for the Volt hasn't been
confirmed, but it's believed to be below $20,000 to make it competitive with
hybrids. We don't have to reinvent electricity, the country is already wired
and ready to go. Installing smart meters would be far less trouble than
installing fiber optic cable was, and that took only 6 years to reach
overcapacity. Compare that with the problems involved in setting up hydrogen
refilling stations throughout the country.

You're way off on the Volt. I've been watching it closely, and the price will
be about $35K.

As for the electricity, have you missed all the news about the power grid being
in extremely sad shape and needing to be rebuilt? That was discussed at length
after that sagging wire south of Cleveland plunged the entire northeastern USA
into darkness for an extended period of time. And, stringing power-carrying
copper is WAAAAAAAY more complicated than building out fiber. Fiber can be
strung underground with a "ditch witch" sort of machine, but power wires
require towers and large diameter copper wires, and concrete, and construction
crews, and snorkel trucks, and sometimes even helicopters.

Throw in 7-10
nuke plants for the east coast and we'd be set. Bye, bye Saudi Arabia.

Nuke plants don't do a damn thing for transportation. Cars don't run on
nuclear, trucks don't run on nuclear, trains don't run on nuclear except
maybe
some city-bound mass transit, and airplands don't run on nuclear.

See above.

Yes, see above. 20 years. We need the oil to keep things running for
that
long, until we can get the electrics to happen.


We could begin with an energy
policy not designed by the oil companies.

We could begin with an energy policy to satisfy 300 million Americans
that
can't get anywhere other than to put something liquid and burnable in
the
cars
they own now, and that they will be able to purchase in the
foreseeable
future.
Hint: These cars will, on the order of 90%, run on gasoline or
diesel,
not
alcohol, not hydrogen, not electricity, just gas.

Where do you put that stuff in an electric car? :-)

What electric car? Where are you buying an electric car? Lemme know,
'cuz I
want one, only it better have a 300 mile range, perform like my regular
car,
and refuel in a minute or two...

The Chevy Volt will be rolling off assembly lines in 2010,
http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/ and we'll be among the first to own
one, since an electric car meets our transport needs perfectly. Other car
manufacturers will follow suit if they have half a brain and can see the
future. And, no, the early ones won't have a 300-mile range and be
refueled
in minutes, any more than the first gasoline cars could. In 1899 you had
to
buy gasoline at a pharmacy, believe it or not. The car you drive now is at
the tail end of a century of slow improvements. In 10 years, if we had a
visionary energy policy, you could look for 300-mile ranges and
near-instantaneous recharging. In 20 years induction cables under the
streets would provide an infinite range and no need to recharge.

Closer to 20 years, probably, and the induction coils under the roads
probably
couldn't be metered to each car to have the electricity paid for.

Nothing could be simpler. As you drive, you broadcast your location and time
on the road to the nearest microwave tower, which charges (no pun intended)
your credit card.

That's if everyone would cooperate, but you know that there will be hoardes of
people stealing the power, and there'd be no metering possible in order to
catch them.

(Of course
the environmental bunch would be jumping up and down that the induction
coils
cause cancer, AIDS, or hangnails, and would be against it even if they
couldn't
find a reason...)

Yes, any change is resisted. Look how reluctant you are to give up gasoline.
:-)

Am not. I'm only reluctant to give up gasoline-equivalent performance - the
electric car I buy needs to perform as well or better than my gasoline engined
car, that's all.

But 50 years of protests about the alleged dangers of power lines has
gone exactly nowhere. And I'm counting on a solid propaganda campaign to
sell the concept to the public. Anyone who protests will be called a
Communist and condemned on talk radio as unpatriotic.

Gawd, I hope so...

I also hope to buy a Chevy Volt at the earliest opportunity,
but it'll need the gas engine a lot, 'cuz I'll run out its 40 mile range
pretty
often.

The actual range is 640 miles with the tiny recharging engine, or about 150
mpg. Since Ditty and I would be using battery power almost exclusively I
expect we'd be getting about 10,000 miles per tankfull of gas. Not too
shabby.

Yeah, I love it. Hopefully I will be able to move back to the big city, and
not have to drive too far for anything...

America used to be
capable of great projects, like the interstate highway system and the
incredible reaction to WWII. If we're not completely senile as a
society,
perhaps we could do it again.

People are working like crazy on the electric car thing, and have been
for
decades, but this is a tough nut to crack.

Yes, no argument there. But the approaches have been haphazard. We need
the
equivalent of the push for the interstate highway system in the 1950s, or
an
all-out War on Oil. Until the public is galvanized (pardon the pun) into
supporting in, it won't go anywhere. A propaganda campaign on the scale
that
sold Bush's war could do it nicely, and there's a real benefit this time.
My
great-grandkids will think a gasoline-powered car is as quaint as a
Stanley
Steamer.

I hope that they get the electric cars going, and the electrical
infrastructure
necessary to get charge them. Probably 20 years, tho, unfortunately. We
need
a serious battery breakthrough.

Think of the space program. All we need is the will to accomplish it. There
are many new battery designs in the works, including a carbon-fiber/plastic
assembly that acts like a giant condenser, permitting near instantaneous
recharges. And selling electric car technology to the rest of the world
might make us a net creditor country again.

Yep, there's all kindza things out there, but they are experimental. There's a
Lithium Ion battery invented at Stanford last December that is supposedly 10X
the capacity of a regular Lithium Ion battery - if that works, then the
electric car is here. But... its development is being done in Saudi Arabia now
- I look for the professors that are the inventors to be kidnapped and beheaded
in an "unfortunate" security breach, and of course all the designs and
prototypes of this battery will, of course, be stolen.


But until we're rid of the petroleum
presidency we can't even begin to plan. You heard Dumbo's speech about
drilling all over the place to give oil companies higher profits. He's
not
even aware that oil is the problem, not the solution.
-- Ernie

We need to fuel the cars we have, and the cars that will be available,
for
the
next 20 - 30 years to keep the economy from collapsing, while we use
that
prosperity to fund the research necessary to figure out that electric
car...

Ten years to an all-electric economy. We already have the foundations for
it. We put a human on the Moon in less time, and that had to be invented
from scratch. All we need is the vision, public demand and a mandate from
on
high.
-- Ernie

The envirowackos and NIMBYs will have to be overcome, and that will also
take
time. The NIMBYs just recently forced 5 miles of overhead power wires to
be
buried here in Virginia, at great expense, supposedly adding 10 cents a
month
to all our electric bills.

Oops. Scratch my comment above about not responding to the electrical
transmission line nutcases. :-) But at least those power lines are immune to
ice storms and hurricanes/tornados now.

Yeah, burying them is not all bad, its just hideously expensive.

That's _all_ our electric bills here, for these few
people next to that wire. What are they going to do when we need 5000
more
miles of wire to transport the energy to charge all these batteries?
Shall we
have $100 / month added to all our electric bills to bury that too? And,
supposedly, its absolutely impossible to string new wire in California -
they
just don't want to hear about it at all. As for 10 years, you won't even
get
the permits done for the nuke power by that time. Think 20, maybe 30
years...

All we need is the national incentive. How many people have protested
against cell phones or airport scanners? If the benefit far outweighs the
cost, people will come around. And I really can't see Californians
preferring to stick with internal combustion engines rather than switching
to electric vehicles. They'd be a pariah state. As for nukes, if we adopted
the French method of building to a single design rather than designing each
plant from the ground up, the permit process and construction times would be
speeded up tenfold, the cost halved and we, like France, might be getting
75% of our power that way.
-- Ernie

Well, it sure would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath. The forces of
obstructionism don't really need reasons, just a few things that they think
they can scare people with, and things will come to a grinding halt, as usual.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Hydrogen Economy
    ... me your home is covered in solar cells and you're off the grid, ... solar cells to make electricity for direct use as electricity, ... And if you wanted to store the hydrogen for use in a car, ... workable solution to the energy problem, ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Jewish inventor-genius, Dean Kamen, going Sterling Green.
    ... year-old engine nobody else thinks can work. ... But when I first meet him, Kamen takes me out to the car park at Deka ... in theory it can turn any source of heat into electricity, ... When the Segway Personal ...
    (soc.culture.german)
  • Jewish inventor-genius, Dean Kamen, going Sterling Green.
    ... year-old engine nobody else thinks can work. ... But when I first meet him, Kamen takes me out to the car park at Deka ... in theory it can turn any source of heat into electricity, ... When the Segway Personal ...
    (soc.culture.israel)
  • Jewish inventor-genius, Dean Kamen, going Sterling Green.
    ... year-old engine nobody else thinks can work. ... But when I first meet him, Kamen takes me out to the car park at Deka ... in theory it can turn any source of heat into electricity, ... When the Segway Personal ...
    (talk.politics.mideast)
  • Re: OT: Price gouging?
    ... Where do you think the energy comes from?? ... they have to use regular oil. ... >>> powered car. ... >> I guess electricity is another topic you don't understand. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)