Hate to belabor the point, but we really dont need gas (oil) for cars.

[BigBearJohn]

I just finished watching the movie "Who killed the electric car?"
We were on the verge of a VIABLE electric car, one that was fast,
beautiful, sexy and practical. And the "POWERS THAT BE"
killed it. Killed it good. WE HAD THE ANSWER RIGHT IN OUR HANDS.
I mean, really. There is NO need to destroy our beautiful, natural
habitats to explore for oil.

WE DON'T NEED OIL FOR TRANSPORTATION

I mean, just think of the implications. No pollution.
Quiet. No fumes. Less maintenance by far. CLEAN.
Easy to fix. CLEAN ELECTRIC CARS.

It just goes to show you how fucking powerful the oil lobby
is if they could KILL -- wipe out from the planet -- a viable
means of transportation in the name of oil profits.

But then again, why should that surprise me? A whole
encyclopedic volume could be written on the atrocities that
have been committed in the name of oil profits.

I highly recommend this movie. You can rent it at your
local video store or Netflix or Blockbuster. It's worth it.
Share it with your friends.

[Dogmudgeon]

1. How do we make the electricity?

Oil? 'Nuff said.
Wind? 30-year growth curve required until it's producing even half our energy.
Solar? See "Wind".
Nuclear? It's very good, but it makes people melt down.
Coal? Filthy; hundreds of times the radioactive pollutants as modern nukes.
Tidal? See "Wind" but double the time.
Cold Zero-Point Orgone Zombie Power? Hmmm, that just might work ...
Beer farts? Now yer talkin'!

We need a lot fewer cars. And less massive cars. And more mass transit. And big changes in the way we live so we don't have to depend on cars.

Electric cars are a Good Thing, but the problem we face is one of scale ...

--p!

[XemaSab]

3. GMTA

(and so do we :P )

[BigBearJohn]

7. Look at this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x85997

When people are strongly interested in SOLUTIONS
problems gets solved. period.

[XemaSab]

11. We've been talking up ocean power for decades

Frankly, I'll believe it when I do the AFC. :D

[kestrel91316]

13. Yeah. So the best thing to do is keep driving oil-burners until we can go

100% electric. There's absolutely no rationale to a gradual transition.

:sarcasm:

Whatever happened to the idea that doing SOMETHING was better than doing NOTHING??? Let's just keep on attacking people offering partial solutions..............

[GliderGuider]

15. The problem is the OP said, "We don't need oil for our cars"

That's not moderate talk about a gradual transition, that's "Hi-ho, away we go!" talk.

BEVs are not ready to take over from ICEs yet, the batteries still have way too many problems. They will take over to some extent, over time and in some places. IMO they will be somewhat useful as a medium term mitigation strategy to deal with the economic decline caused by Peak Oil. They may see extensive use as the developed world re-localizes into smaller communities with reduced transportation distance requirements. However, I don't foresee them becoming a primary mode of global transportation for a number of reasons, including vehicle replacement costs, electricity availability and range and load requirements.

While I understand the source of the original poster's enthusiasm, I admit I despair a bit every time someone watches one movie and proceeds to share their epiphany about something as complex and multi-factorial as replacing a global transportation infrastructure.

[BigBearJohn]

23. Oh yes. Why don't we just get mired down in the complexity of it all?

Whatever you do -- don't offer simple solutions.

The whole point is, electric cars WERE working.
Period. And every electric car we put on the
road, took one gas guzzler off the road.

Simple.

Truth is simple. Lies make matters complex.

[GliderGuider]

24. To quote H.L Mencken

"For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple--and wrong."

[BigBearJohn]

26. He also said, "A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."

[GliderGuider]

27. I like that. It fits.

Thanks :-)

[LSK]

36. wheres that one thread?

The one that claimed that the CURRENT grid could sustain electric cars during offpeak hours (like 1am - 7am).

:)

[XemaSab]

2. Where would the electricity come from to power the nation's auto fleet?

Everything's a tradeoff.

Would it be coal? Nuclear? Hydro?

Solar and solar thermal are getting bigger, but they're not big enough to replace nonrenewable energy sources. Ditto for geothermal. And wind, on edit. :P

Would you take a nuke next to your child's school to power your car? Would you be okay with bulldozing a mountain in Alberta or West Virginia? Should we raise Shasta Dam another 90 feet and back water up to Oregon, drowning out some of the best trout rivers in the country?

There's no free lunch.

[BigBearJohn]

4. What about ULTRA CLEAN COAL technology?

Solar energy... hydro.. wind... and the new wave technology...

There are TONS of sources of hydroelectricity that have yet to be tapped.

[XemaSab]

5. Dude.

Send an email to [e-mail]

And ask him that. :P

[NickB79]

25. Ultra-clean coal, an ultra-BS oxymoron

There is no such thing as "ultra-clean coal", just greenwashing from the companies that produce and use coal. Coal companies talk about carbon sequestration of their coal plants "sometime in the future", but that future is always a decade or two away. Frankly, we don't have a decade to wait.

[kestrel91316]

30. Since you have obviously given up and thrown in the towel on ANY

solutions, why haven't you done the only truly responsible thing and committed suicide?

Sheesh.

[NickB79]

33. When did I say I've thrown in the towel?

I've repeatedly stated on this forum that we don't have 20, 30, 50 yrs to dick around and wait for some miracle technology to save us while at the same time building more coal plants. I'm not the only one saying it either. Pointing out that there are virtually no coal plants that can sequester their CO2, and that suitable locations for CO2 sequestration are few and far between as well as untested, is not giving up. It's pointing out the obvious that people don't want to hear because they think we can just keep on with our current "American Way" lifestyles while at the same time saving the planet.

Like I said, I think we've got probably a decade at most to get our act together and build like mad a new energy infrastructure. If the leaders of our world actually took the problem seriously, we could probably establish a wind/solar/nuclear power grid in that time frame that could displace most coal and oil. It may push many nations to the point of bankruptcy, and we would have to drastically alter our lifestyles, but that would be better than nations seeing mass starvation and flooding from climate change and then collapsing into anarchy.

[BigBearJohn]

6. I don't agree with your position. When creative minds work together, solutions are possible.

There may be no free lunch, but there are MUCH
better alternatives than oil.

[kestrel91316]

31. Lots of folks would much prefer to curse the darkness than light

a few candles.

Go figure.

[JDPriestly]

8. Why don't we have solar installations in the desert?

I realize that it takes energy to produce solar panels. But wouldn't the panels last a long time? Couldn't we eventually produce the panels with energy from solar panels? Think how fast computers have developed from huge rooms of equipment to small laptops. It's a matter of incentives -- rewarding engineers and scientists for finding good solutions. That's how the atom bomb was developed. That's how the cure for polio was found. Sure, it takes time. But we understand the basic technology of solar energy. It's a matter of exploring how to convert sunlight into energy more efficiently. And one aspect of efficiency is scale. If we encouraged investment in solar research and solar facilities through tax cuts and even direct grants, we would speed up the process.

[BigBearJohn]

9. WELL SAID. And this is a GREAT idea. We need MORE great ideas.

[XemaSab]

10. We're siting two large solar thermal installations in the desert

but it's trickier than one would think.

If you put the installation in the mountains, you have to grade, and if you put the installation on the lake bed you're screwn.

There's also the tortoises.

It would frankly be easier to put it a lot of other places with less volatile soils and lithology. :P

[Dead_Parrot]

12. That rather depends on the EROEI of a PV panel...

...which is a fascinating subject in it's own right. If I ever find out exactly what it is, we may have to have a thread on it...

Edit to add: Solar thermal might be a much more sane idea. :)

[jpak]

18. The EROEI for PV is 6-31:1 with a payback period of 1-5 years

http://jupiter.clarion.edu/~jpearce/Papers/netenergy.pdf

http://www.csudh.edu/oliver/smt310-handouts/solarpan/pvpayback.htm

[phantom power]

19. The Pearce/Lau paper made a claim about rooftop vs central PV...

which I have a question about. They claim that the embodied energy is lower for rooftop PV than for centralized, but I wonder if they factored in the embodied energy of an inverter?

Also, when it comes to deploying such things, the cost to the homeowner matters, although I like that they did their analysis in terms of total energy production, and that they pointed out how much superior that is to thinking in terms of efficiency or wattage, etc.

It would have been in formative to include solar thermal in their analysis. Solar thermal electricity is clearly going to be most effective in centralized plants, but it might yield better return on energy and lower cost.

[Dead_Parrot]

20. Your second link illustrates some of problems quite nicely

One if the key ones is What is the energy content of material which would otherwise be wasted? While PV remains insignificant as a source of power production, it can use waste from chip manufacture without a problem. If PV were to be pushed as a major source (or we hit Moore's law), this isn't an option, and the EROEI does indeed drop to single digits. And if it was decided that hacking into old-growth forests for carbon was a bad idea, and the silicon needs to be smelted electrochemically (there are a couple of process that might scale up) it takes another beating.

A primary source of power that has a EROEI of maybe 2:1 when done responsibly on a large scale ain't that hot (compared to, say, wind at ~250:1, nuclear at ~500:1, and hydro which goes through the roof).

But as I said, It's a discussion that needs it's own thread, at some time when we've got some more analyses to play with. :)

[jpak]

21. You are right - the EROEI of PV is negative-exa-thingy raised to the umpteenth minus power

after all it's solar energy and therefore "can't work"...

:evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

22. No, it works...

...it's just a bit crap.

[kestrel91316]

32. There;s already a big solar project in the Mojave. It's NOT PV's

however. It's some solar-heated solution used to run turbines. It's either cheaper or more efficient than PV's and maybe both.

[hunter]

38. It's big, it looks like this:

I've been there, I'm not really fond of it, but it does work.

[Javaman]

14. What would be an interesting partnership would be...

if say Tesla cut some deal with a solar panel manufacturer to sell the car and the panels at at unit cost.

Car and fuel sold together.

Of course it would have to be a cheap car not their high dollar sport car.

[IDemo]

16. Almost there

from Tesla's faq page:

Can the Tesla Roadster use Solar Power?

Yes. The Tesla Roadster can be recharged using solar energy. If you would like to use solar energy at your home, we can help arrange installation through one of our partners, including SolarCity.

[Javaman]

17. That is very cool! :) nt

[eppur_se_muova]

29. There are already private solar installations charging solar vehicles...

http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ealcompaan/

[Javaman]

28. Damn right they are powerful. Read up sometime about the

anti-trust lawsuit in the 1950's against the U.S. tire manufacturers that bought up all the trolley lines in the U.S. and were only fined a dollar.

Change is coming. As long as the gas is priced high (it's going back up) and SUV sales are staying low, we will get what we think we want. LOL

I'm holding out for an electric car or a diesel plug-in hybrid.

[hunter]

34. We don't need so many cars.

You could tax fuel and cars at rates of 100% or more, and use those funds to increase housing in urban areas well served by public transportation.

If there's no reason to drive most days, and nice places to live in urban areas, most people won't bother to buy cars.

We could tear down the low density housing of commuters, scrap all the poorly built energy inefficient MacMansions on small acreage lots, and return this land to it's natural state, or use it as farmland.

Think big...

[Dead_Parrot]

35. Time is the problem...

The US (and most of the "developed" world) has been developing suburbia for at least 50 years: Undoing the damage will take at least another 50, and that's time we just don't have.

[hunter]

37. When the oceans rise we should have a plan.

A nice condo in the city is better than a FEMA trailer park.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/24/1346217

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4604701.html

[Dead_Parrot]

39. Oh, there is a plan...

Gen 6:14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
Gen 6:15 And this which thou shalt make it : The length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
Gen 6:16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; lower, second, and third shalt thou make it....

It's just not a very good one.

[4dsc]

40. How will you build these cars without oil??

Just wondering how you are going to build these cars without oil??