Bree Mcdonough wrote: > Americans plain and simple love their fast cars and big SUVs.
Because they are agressively marketed to them > These > electric cars that only go 50mph are not feasible and are ugly to boot. And > believe me, if I had children I would have a SUV because they are safe. Not that safe. Although you have all that steel and ballast, because SUV's are so high off the ground, they are pretty easy to roll if you turn sharply at high speed-for instance, avoiding road debris. You would be better off with something like a Volvo, which has a strong steel framework built around the passenger compartment. On electric & hybrid cars: Electric cars, besides being slow and having a limited travel range between charges, are not really that ecological. It takes copious amounts of electricity to power them. Electric rates have soared- and most US electric power is made in oil-fired plants (nuclear is next), so they are still using oil. And anytime you convert one type of energy to another, you waste power, since no conversion process is anywhere near 100% efficient. Charging an electric car with solar power would require a larger investment in solar panels than the car cost you, or nearly so, and is only do-able in certain climates or during certain times of the year.(Although, in California, they will actually pay for part of the solar installation, and you can sell your extra power back to the utility, theoretically breaking even in 10 years or so.) The other problem with electric cars is that they run on heavy lead-acid batteries that have a limited lifespan before they need to be scrapped and replaced. I think electric cars are being sold to us by the oil industry, and are not a viable solution to anything! The major car manufacturers all have models on the drawing boards-some are available now. Much more promising is hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. Hydrogen technology has made great advances, and needs to be develped. It burns completely pollution-free. And you don't really hear about it. Also, bio-diesel, which, like Henry Ford's first car, actually runs on modified vegetable oil, with very low emissions. Hemp oil would work great, or some other legal plant source. Some cities are running their bus fleets on bio-diesel now. Kakki wrote: For years the people who have certain technology, such as for home solar generators, have charged an enormous amount for installation and maintenance of the units. Either the conversion technology/engineering has to become a lot more cost effective or some financial geniuses need to figure a better way to fund it. Nonetheless, I've heard many in the federal government and the Bush administration advocating moving forward towards alternatives. I guess I missed that announcement. I recall the Bush administration saying early on that oil and nukes were the way to go. But, having lived with alternative power for over 20 years, and having designed and installed many alternative power setups (mostly solar or solar/generator assisted), I disagree that "installation and maintenance" are the chief financial hurdles. The hardware itself is really the problem. Solar panels are very expensive, and generate power in small amounts, compared to what we are used to. We are energy junkies, and we are used to oil, which is an extremely cheap source of energy (unless you factor in the costs of the war machine that keeps it flowing). Try pushing your car the amount of miles that $2 worth of gas will take it and you will get an idea of how much power there is in petrol. A small gas generator can generate more power in a couple of hours than a moderate sized solar system can generate in a week. That said, if the government was not in the pockets of the conventional energy sector, and was willing to invest the money to do it, they could bring these prices way down. So far, budgets for alternative energy have been miniscule, regardless of political lip service about developing alternatives to oil and nukes. Again, hydrogen, fuel cells, wind power, tidal generators, etc could all be used to wean ourselves off of oil. But one of the biggest problems is that we are used to cheap oil. When you run off of alternative power, you have to count every watt. Leaving on a light is like leaving the faucet on. Electric heating is simply not feasable. I just read an article in the SF Chronicle about Holland. They are way into wind power and other alternative technologies, and the by-products from one factory go into some other factory to be recycled. It has created lots of jobs, and they have already met the goals of the Kyoto protocol ahead of schedule (which the US shamefully did not sign because of the impact it would have on "business"). We should be using some of that $1 billion dollars per day we are pouring into the military establishment for alternative energy, health care for all, etc. The investment in would be well worth the money. RR
