CARB threat to civilization

[R7]

Originally posted by highsider
So you require a vehicle that will tow 16,000 lbs to drive to work along each day?

I can get you this SMOKIN deal on Jenny Craig......

No, it'll cost more than the savings in fuel to have a second vehicle for going to work
Besides, when it's above 40 and dry, i ride me bike

[R7]

Oh yeah, who's jenny Craig? Is she hot & single?

[benVFR]

I think she is very rich but still fat. Shh... don't let her clients find out she's fat!

[highsider]

Originally posted by R7
No, it'll cost more than the savings in fuel to have a second vehicle for going to work

Nahhhh.....you just gotta get e-bay fever, like me

I paid $900 for my winter beater that gets 27 MPG, and has AWD, a turbo, and heated leather seats

I am, of course, not mentioning that my truck doesn't fit in the parking lot here at work in the winter because its so fuggin long, and therefore the car was sort of a requirement.......

[odduc]

If we keep wasting the oil left and right and don't prepare for new energy sources we're going to get hit a lot harder when oil starts to get harder to find...

...and the sky is falling, too...

[benVFR]

Way to go with the short term thinking...

Wouldn't you rather be prepared than be fooked?

It is crap that we pump out of the ground. It takes millions of years to produce it... it is eventually going to be run out.

We don't even have to run out for it to ruin all of our lives, it just has to keep getting more expensive. If we aren't prepared it is going to cause you way more hardship than anything like CARB.

I for one think the Saudis are blowing smoke up our asses and they don't have as much viable oil left as they claim.

[highsider]

Read me:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe...lobal.warming/


Basically says we'll be running out of oil around 2050.

[odduc]

You may be correct about the Saudis, but we have HUGE untapped resources, here in our country. Unfortuately, the enviro lobby is using a smokescreen of their own to fool most people and politicians into believing that it would be dangerous to tap into those resources.

I agree that oil will, eventually, dry up. But, I really do not believe that it will happen in our lifetime. I am all for alternative energy and I believe that we will see a great longterm solution within our lifetime so that we don't leave younger generations without anything. I simply don't see a need for all of the hand-wringing and worrying about it. And, I think that instead of bitching and whining, those enviro-nazis ought to be investing in developing alternative solutions.

[benVFR]

HUGE sounds like a giant exaggeration.

Where pray tell is all this oil in the US.. the domestic production tanked a long time ago...

If you know where it is let's start our own oil company.

Alaska isn't HUGE and it's not going to help us long term. (But I don't oppose that anymore cause it sure is better than us trying to get it somewhere else and/or having to go to war for it)

[RandyO]

hmmm I remember in school 40 years ago, we were told that we would run out of oil before the millenium.... seems like we have morein reserve than we had then. Just last week natural methane gas was discovered in a well in NH... I'm not saying we will never run out of oil, but I doubt it will be in my lifetime, and theres still plenty that hasn't even been discovered yet


Since when do dildos need power? I thought vibrators needed power?? Do they make a gasoline powered vibrator?

Highsider... not all of us get electricity that is made with Quebec Hydropower, I know that my electric bill has a fuel surcharge


Why do they call the stuff "greenhouse" gasses, sounds like the gasses are emitted from plants to me.... CLEARCUT AND BURN is the solution

[R7]

What uses more oil on a per day bassis, auto transportation or air transportation?
Anyone see the show on TLC a year or so ago that explained the greenhouse effect? The was a interesting bit in there about the few days following 911 where the upper atmosphear temperature dropped 2 degres on average over the US while the planes were grounded. Once flying resumed, the temperature rose back up the 2 degres

[tls25rs]

Firstly, I am all for alternative fueled vehicles and their lessend impact on the environment etc.

Secondly, a little bit of devil's advocate here, all of these supposed eco friendly electric cars that everyone thinks are so great for the environment...............What natural resources are used to create all this electricity that will be being used??????????

hmmmmmmm I am pretty certain that quite a bit of the electricity is generated using such things as:

Coal, that is strip mined from the environment leaving nasty scars on the landscape among other negative effects.

Nuclear power, that admittedly if it could be made reliably safe would be incredible. But at this point large scale nuclear is not regulated well enough to become a widespread safe source of power. Not to mention what is to be done with the nuclear waste if nuclear based powerplants were to become more prevalent.

Hydroelectric, it is widely documented the negative effect that dams and other sources of hydroelectric power have had on the environment in the areas that they have been implemented.

Wind, as can be seen by how hard the people down the cape are fighting the proposed wind farm, this source of electricity has a negative visual as well as usage effect on the environment. Not to mention any unseen negative effects on the ecosystem of the ocean when all of these windmills begin to degrade over time and in turn damage the area they are installed in.

Solar, though I don't know why, solar power flared in the 80's and then seemingly fell of the face of the earth, possibly due to a lack of efficiency?

Petroleum products, though I do not know of any, I am guessing that there are petroleum fired electric plants. Which is more efficient, burning the fuel directly in a motor vehicle or burning the fuel to generate electricity to power a vehicle alternatively?

Obviously I have presented multiple reasons why electricity may not be the end all be all of alternative power sources. As I mentioned above I am fully playing Devil's Advocate with these points. I, as much as the next guy, would love to see technologies developed that would not affect performance yet have a far less negative impact on the Earth. Multiple people have mentioned Hydrogen and from what I understand about it Hydrogen would be a great alternative fuel if the research could be done to make it feasible.

My main point is, is electricity the saviour that so many people make it out to be or are there downsides to it as well?

If any of you have any information that disproves the things I have said above I would definitely appreciate your sharing of that info with me. This is a subject that I find interesting and would love to learn more about so I figured I would post this. Hopefully no one is offended and we can continue to debate the topic and learn from each other.

Joel

[RandyO]

Another potential engine that hasn't been looked at much is external combustion engine.... remember the Stanley Steamer...
except don't heat water, use another substance that expands in the cylinder like steam,but with a lot lower energy requirement, maybe even something that could be solar powered by day and electric or hydrogen at nite

there will aways be a problem of some kind with everything, we already know that warp power will cause solar system gravitational degridation..... so we might as well give up, use what we have, our oil reserves and when they are gone we might as well implode the planet.

until then, I, for one, am going to burn as much gasoline as I can

[CheshireNinja]

Ok guys, some of you really need to do research before spewing out crap. First of all, studies have been done on hydrogen that say properly contained hydrogen is as safe OR SAFER then gasoline. A spark will not cause a hydrogen bomb. Hydrogen bombs use Fusion, H2 + H2 = 2He, which releases a tremendous amount of energy, a spark of hydrogen causes combustion, 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O.

Secondly, the batteries in Hybrids are NiMH batteries, they don't have battery acid, they are drycell batteries. And yes they can be recycled.

The sky IS falling, oil is running out, prices are rising. PRICES WILL NEVER GO DOWN AGAIN! Very shortly, America will have to deal with $3 per gallon, then $4, then $5, and so on. The presidents will do what they can to keep it down and keep up the propoganda telling us that everything is fine. But the fact of the matter is, its not.

There are energy sources out there that we haven't tapped yet because there is little funding for research. Fusion is one of them. Solar is another.

The scariest thing to me is that there are people like richw out there that they are so ignorant as to believe what was said to start this debate, and they will do anything to defend that faith. If we don't start legislation requiring effeciency now, by the time gas is $6 per gallon (I give it less then 5 year) we won't have any way of travelling.

I personally own a hybrid for commuting and common stuff, it has a tow bar, and I can tow smaller loads without too much difficulty. As a single homeowner in the country, I have still never found the need for a large pickup. I can go rent one for $29/day if I need to haul cargo around. The savings that my 50mpg gives me more then compensates for the 2-3 times I use a pickup per year.

There is one more benifit for good energy sources. As the sources get more thermally efficient we can make cars lighter(engine blocks are heavy), electric bicycles (Its only because of some of the hills I don't ride one to work), and small pod cars for commuting with computer controlled driving.

In our lifetime we are going to see a MASSIVE change when it comes to personal transportation, probably less then 20 years out. And there is NOTHING anyone can do about it except prepare for it. Personally, I look forward to it.

[TheIglu]

Finally, someone who understands that this isn't a "screw the rest of the world, I like my big heavy gas burner" is a smart way of thinking.

[ancosta]

What I wish I could have gotten was my basic Tacoma with a 4-cyl Turbo Diesel. Something like a 2L motor would be perfect, and give another 10MPG easily.

Because you know that such a small, spartan, useful & practical truck would sell so good in america

I think that the sooner we can shut off the middle east re: oil needs, the sooner we can put away a whole slew of political problems.

I think people are more likely to kill themselves off through conflicts long before we run out of fuel. I am not saying we do or do not have a lot of fuel, but the future isn't looking so rosy regarding world issues. We are busy building a hydrogen car while some fanatic is building nuclear capacity on the other side of the world (ironically using modern technology so they can restore civilization to about the 7th century).

To be more on topic...I think hybrids are pretty cool likewise! I think if there was more social conciousness and people made good choices on their own, the concept of ramming regulations up everyone's ass would not be so valid.

[benVFR]

Just want to add...

With regards to "How do we generate the electricity/hydrogen/whatever for alternative fuel vehicles."

If we are generating electricity at a central plant and using it to charge up electric cars, or generating hydrogen by burning oil, etc.. and then pumping it into cars, we have a lot more options.

E.x. say tomorrow someone invents a fantastic new catylitic converter or CO2 scrubber, etc... but it weighs 5000lbs. You can go ahead and attach that to a power plant but you are not going to be able to attach it to millions of cars.

A power plant is also vastly more efficient than a car at getting every last drop of energy out of oil, etc.. than a small engine.

Finally switching the central power generation from say oil to solar or hydroelectric is a lot easier than getting everyone out of their gasoline powered cars.

If you can't understand the environmental reasons understand the economic reasons... the rest of the world is doing this stuff, we are not. No one is going to want to buy our cars if they can't meet the specs in their part of the world. If we stay super dependent on gas and it keeps getting more expensive it will hurt our economy a ton until we can reduce our dependence. Better to have a smooth transition that is in our hands than an abrupt one that is dictated by some stupid middle eastern war or something of that effect.

Not being able to get clean burning diesels here is a huge pile of of course.

[CheshireNinja]

People in the rest of the world generally don't buy our cars anyway.

[richw]

Only France and Japan are trying to go to 50% nuclear that is the only non Green House Gas Energy source currently practical

Our tree huggers and chicken littles have halted nuclear here.

Solar cells are a joke I once read that the silicon processing takes the energy that would take 50 years for a solar cell to break even.

Once again you guys are lost in the rhetoric.

I still insist that all these federal and state agencies have been populated by earth mother God extremists. They are carrying on their anti humanity agenda couching it as efficiency, or oil dependence etc. Yes they want a cleaner environment but mostly they want you restricted to a dormatory; sterilized so you can't breed so as Stalin said " no people no problems".

Back when Rachael Carson started the secret eart motha God relign they spent 90% their time with Global Warming will raise the temperature 10 degrees by the end of the century. Half the American Cities would be under 20 ft of sea water.

Is all anti-smoke and mirrors to stop US
from conducting our lives as we choose.

You as motorcyclist should always question the cursed do gooder cause you know if they could they would save you from yourself in a New York Minute.

Any high school physics kid should be able to design a 3 fluid recycling power plant that is up to 75% efficient. They don't exist because they are not financially sound. When/if this is true they will but as I stated life as you are currently enjoying it will be over.

OH by the way Exxon/Mobil please save the last 5 pound of petroleum to make some vasolene we're gonna need it

[highsider]

Originally posted by richw


Once again you guys are lost in the rhetoric.

I still insist that all these federal and state agencies have been populated by earth mother God extremists. They are carrying on their anti humanity agenda couching it as efficiency, or oil dependence etc. Yes they want a cleaner environment but mostly they want you restricted to a dormatory; sterilized so you can't breed so as Stalin said " no people no problems".

Hmmmm....... I was really hoping you were going to come down from that acid trip you are on.......

[ancosta]

Originally posted by richw
Only France and Japan are trying to go to 50% nuclear that is the only non Green House Gas Energy source currently practical

When I mentioned to nuculear capacity being pursued by fanatics, I was referring to weapons grade nukes.

My overall point was that I think the world is more likely to self destruct due to war before we run out of fuel.

And I suggest that not because I think there's a lot of fuel one way or the other I sure hope I am wrong on this!

[highsider]

Richw, I'm going to attempt to make a clear argument with you, although I fear I might be wasting my time; you make some pretty grandiose claims with very little to back them up.

CARB is working for cleaner air and less dependency on foreign oil, which are both good things. You just cant argue that. We are eventually going to run out of oil, so we need to be less dependant upon that. And what exactly is the problem with cleaner air?

The government is not trying to unite some sort of bizarre scheme to move us all into cities and kill us, or whatever the hell it is you're trying to imply. They are giving auto manufacturers a much needed kick in the ass to spend some money on Research and Development to make cars use less fuel. Thats all; no Stalin, no Hitler.

You need relax, my friend.

[bigred875]

Originally posted by highsider
Richw, I'm going to attempt to make a clear argument with you, although I fear I might be wasting my time; you make some pretty grandiose claims with very little to back them up.

CARB is working for cleaner air and less dependency on foreign oil, which are both good things. You just cant argue that. We are eventually going to run out of oil, so we need to be less dependant upon that. And what exactly is the problem with cleaner air?

The government is not trying to unite some sort of bizarre scheme to move us all into cities and kill us, or whatever the hell it is you're trying to imply. They are giving auto manufacturers a much needed kick in the ass to spend some money on Research and Development to make cars use less fuel. Thats all; no Stalin, no Hitler.

You need relax, my friend.

werd..I agree with everything you said.. but the tree huging extremists are just as bad if not worse then the people who fail to see the problem..

running around telling everyone the sky is falling and the world is going to end tomorrow helps no one...

and what about the environmental "extremists" geinuses who blow up SUV dealerships and commit similar arson...those guys really have a clue...

Do we have to get our asses in gear and work on this issue..yes

it is a reason to change your lifestyle...no.....atleast not yet...

[Degsy]

Originally posted by benVFR
.

Alaska isn't HUGE

I have to disagree with this

derek

[bentbryan]

For every scientist that says the world's oil supply is in jeopordy, there's another scientiest who says that it's not.