To the more intelligent NS'ers

A Hybrid its a good investment depending on what kind of driving you do. It's made so the motor is designed so the gas fueling doesn't kick in until you hit a certain RPM, which means its running electronically until then. My mom used to have a prius, she used about 20 dollars a week and she drives around town everyday. They get about 50 mpg when your running around town so yes it is a good investment if your looking to save some money on gas. BMW takes about 50 a week compared to 20

i dont like it because electric and hybrid vehicles are no better than gas vehicles. sometimes worse. we just dont have enough of the rare metals and resources it takes for their batteries. and disposing of them is just as bad for the environment as a gas car, and in alot of cases worse. if everyone on the world owned an electric car, we would not last long at all before we would have to go back to gas. its just not a realistic option. im all for finding an alternative fuel source that works, but electric/hybrid technology is not the future.

we should scrap electric and go Hydrogen Fuel Cell.

first of all I'd like to say that we as a human race are incredibly far behind judging by how much natural resources are left on this planet.

Secondly, electric cars are a gimmick. We still burn fossil fuels to create most of our electricity so we're not really doing anything about our fossil fuel dependence by switching to electric cars. If we switch to clean electricy such as wind power, solar power, or hydro electric power we'd be better off with electric cars, but I don't think thats going to happen as large scale as it needs to anytime soon.

True, you do get better gas mileage, and save money. BUT, one thing that I'm not sure that everyone knows is that the average battery life-span for a hybrid/electric is from 100k - 120k miles, even less if the battery is completely drained multiple times. A new battery will cost around $15,000, just about canceling out any money you've saved....

Very true fact there. Add up all the savings from your gas and i bet that will come somewhere close to a new battery installation. Its just something to think about, if you have a good paying career, you will also be able to save and invest in a new car within the span of your battery life.

Subsidies should be given to research rather than industry as of this point in time, in my humble opinion. Biofuels are the future...there is a type of algae known as a diatom that stores its energy in oil. They are incredibly easy to grow in small areas, as well. Definitely by and large the most efficient alternate fuel form. Now that scientists are learning to harvest the oil in greater and greater quantities, I believe that it will be a viable option within the next 10 years.

i need more convincing

i think they should stop all the bullshit with gas/electric hybrids and even full electric ones and just move on to hydrogen power sources. and obviously thats hard but if you have more people working on it then we'll do better.

I totally agree with you that we should be subsidizing further research. I would have no issue with electric cars if 1.) They were charged by naturally gathered electricity (solar, wind, etc), and 2.) The batteries were easier to recycle, but that's beyond the horizon right now. I feel like we've skipped the first step or something.

tenacious D know what to do. we need to travel in tubes!

. no we should not subsidize hybrid/electric cars. Its your choice if you want to get an electric hybrid car and you should be making those judgments based on the savings from gas money, how it makes you feel like a better more green person ect ect. the government shouldn't be paying for you to make that decision. given the governments current economic position it should not be throwing money at people to buy certain cars because they are "more green." in the grand scheme of things $7,500 isn't a lot of money but when there are over 25000 hybrids sold every year. that is a lot of subsidies to be spent on something that isn't that much better for the environment. it takes a lot of greenhouse gases to produce electricity.

this, i think that in order for not only electric cars but the whole green revolution in general to happen, it has to benefit the most common person in america, you average lower middle class person. until it benefits people who have no reason to use the three r's, it aint gonna happen.

for example, jimmy redneck saved up all the beer cans him and his roomates drank for like 3 months. they were all crushed, shit ton of aluminum. he drives 45 mins to turn it all in and gets like 15 dollars. whats the point of my going out my way to recycle he asks? it doesn't benefit me, in fact i loose money. next time i'll just throw those cans in the trash.

recycling is like the most basic "green" thing to do am i right? if you can't convice someone to recycle, how are you going to tell them to turn all of their lights off when they go out? how are you goign to tell them to buy an electric car? my sad but true point is, until mr and mrs common americans start making a little bit of green off this whole thing, they aren't going to go out of their way to use their heads when it comes to the subject

Pretty impressed with the level of knowledge so far.

Electric cars are great, the problem is the energy storage. Batteries are expensive and inefficient. Hydrogen fuel cells are not practical yet either as the majority of hydrogen is produced from natural gas wells and the rest is produced by electrolysis which is a net energy loss. CNG cars are what we should all be driving right now. We have untold amounts of natural gas locked away in the united states, it burns cleaner, is far cheaper, and it is domestic.

I think the future is in genetics and room temperature super conductors. Genetics will allow us to create bacteria that could eat plastic or any other garbage and give off hydrogen. You could literally just throw your trash in your cars fuel tank and then go driving around, the only emission being water. Super conductors, if ever created at room temperature, are going to change the world. This is the science of mag lev floating cars. Your car would function the same on surface streets but once you got on the highway the car would float on a magnetic field and be pulled ahead by magnetic pulses.

But for right now the best way that you can save the environment is to live close to your place of work or school and ride your bike. Its funny how so often the answer is so simple. America has created a car culture where people live in the burbs and have to drive literally everywhere, if we could redesign cities so that biking and walking coupled with public transportation were the primary mode of transport things would change overnight. That goes into freight as well. We need to redevelop our rail system and encourage community food supplies. All this will happen (or we will die) as the price of oil continues to increase.

If you must drive get an older 4 cylinder car. Buying a brand new car is just about the most inefficient thing you can do. The best car for the environment is a 1989 Civic.

my $0.02

dont know how many have seen this bloombox.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml

http://www.bloomenergy.com/

yo im not smart alot so ill just stay out of this one k bye

if you do alot of highway. hybrid the way to go. but hybrids are pretty slow in the city

Respect.

agree with almost everything said so far. electric isnt as much of a viable alternative as the mass media makes it out to be, especially considering the small cumulative effects of physically making and transporting the car (fuel to get it to the us, fuel to produce the car, and the scarcity and value of materials involved in making the batteries). instead of focusing so hard on the electric aspect of alternative fuels, i think we should look around and find a better option. in south america they use 90% ethanol and 10% gas (only reason for the gas is so people dont drink it) which is a much more efficient and renewable energy source. we should also look to hydrogen, i know it was done before and there was an issue about not having enough hydrogen stations, but that seems more like an excuse rather than a real reason.

Ethanol is a pretty interesting fuel. It makes a lot of sense, grow your own gas. But again it suffers from net energy loss, in that it takes more energy to grow and synthesize the fuel. In addition the US ethanol demand probably killed thousands of people in the 3rd world because of increasing corn prices.

On a related skiing/electric car note: I will be installing CAT5 cable to networked charging stations for electric cars at Stevens Pass Resort this week.

This will be the first electric charging stations in a mountain pass, and as far as i know, the first electric charging stations at a ski area. Of course these stations = premium parking.

Puget sound is an emerging electric car market, so it's going to be exciting where this technology goes in the next few years.

LS9 could help with petroleum, but on their website, they like to beat around the bush with exactly what they do. But take a look at them. They might be part of the near future.

my mom got a civic hybrid, much to our dismay. it gets good mileage but has such a small god damn tank that you need to refuel very often anyway. I say fuck hybrids, and fuck electrics. lets use up the rest of those there fossil fuels and end existence with a bang

threads for when i gots some timez

also, you can synthesize ethanol from a lot of shit too, not just corn.

threads

http://www.engineair.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2

government needs to leave well enough alone and stop trying to have a say in every area of our lives.

The aspect of electric cars that appeals to me is how low maintenance they are. The electric motor is much more simple and does not require the care that a gasoline powered car does. The only thing the mechanics do to them is rotate the tires and put more windshield wiper fluid in. That aspect alone probably saves you money and pays for the cost of the car over the long run.

To all you Ethanol supporters, E85 programs are also heavily subsidized in order to reduce the price at the pump. It's a good idea on the outside, but dig deeper and it's just impractical.

HPV is the answer


















Human Powered Vehicles and better city infrastructure that is.

Funny enough I got this email shortly after posting in this thread. Its a NY Times article.





If even the liberal left-wing NY Times is saying it, surely it must be getting traction?:)

Best,
M


Time to Tap the Bounty of U.S. Natural Gas
By CHRISTOPHER SWANN
Published: January 16, 2011


Natural gas may be America’s most ignored blessing. With resources now equivalent to Iran’s oil reserves, domestic shale gas offers a chance to meaningfully reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the deficit and even reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Every president since Richard Nixon has paid lip service to the quest for energy independence. Similarly, the bloated trade deficit and climate change have become political obsessions over the past decade. Yet precious little has been done to deploy this growing gas endowment to solve these problems.

To be fair, politicians have had little time to react. Just a few years ago it seemed that like falling domestic gas production would force the United States to rely increasingly on imports. Instead, new drilling technologies — hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling — have enabled energy companies to tap vast quantities of gas trapped in rock.

Just last month, the Energy Department more than doubled estimates of recoverable shale reserves to 827 trillion cubic feet, the energy equivalent of roughly 140 billion barrels of oil. That’s slightly greater than the proven oil reserves of Iran, the world’s third largest repository of crude.

As gas reserves have ballooned, so has the potential to help solve decades-old policy conundrums, starting with an addiction to foreign oil. Last year, the tab for the 12 million barrels of oil the nation imports daily came to around $260 billion, accounting for roughly half the total trade deficit.

Gas can be used directly in vehicles and to generate electricity. So it offers great hope of kicking the habit. By shifting America’s gasoline-guzzling heavy vehicle fleet and buses to natural gas the United States could cancel orders for up to three million barrels of oil a day. This could shave $100 billion off the annual trade deficit at current oil prices.

It would also represent a giant step toward energy independence, reducing reliance on unstable foreign powers. Three million barrels a day is equivalent to more than half of imports from OPEC; Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Libya combined sell around two million barrels daily to America. Even greater import savings could accrue if such a move gives way to the next generation of domestically manufactured electric cars.

Finally, gas offers one of the quickest and most cost-effective ways of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Switching electricity generation from coal to natural gas roughly halves the output of carbon dioxide. Simply raising the use of America’s advanced gas plants to 60 percent capacity, from 40 percent at present, would eliminate a quarter of the increase in emissions over the last two decades, according to Navigant Consulting.

So why has Congress so far looked this gift horse in the mouth? The speed of the shale revolution may be partly to blame. Initially many policy makers were skeptical that gas reserves could have increased so suddenly. But the political heft of the coal lobby, and its close ally, the railroad sector, also helps explain inertia in Washington. By comparison, gas producers are political parvenus. Spiraling budget deficits meanwhile have made it harder to find even modest public funds to promote a switch to gas vehicles.

Still, given the benefits of gas, further delay would be a shame. The free market has already done much of the heavy lifting. With the abundance of gas pushing down prices, only minimal policy support is needed. First, new lawmakers ought to back Senator Harry Reid’s plans to promote natural gas-powered heavy-duty vehicles.

For taxpayers, subsidizing these vehicles initially would pay off soon as rising sales drove down prices. And with gas less than a third the price of oil for the same energy content, freight companies would quickly recoup the cost of the more expensive trucks through lower fuel bills.

Second, lawmakers need to cease coddling the coal industry. Putting a price on carbon may be politically difficult, but Congress should allow the president to use the Environmental Protection Agency to penalize coal for its emissions. With so much spare capacity, gas-fired plants could pick up the slack. Rock-bottom gas prices and abundant supplies would make the impact on electricity prices virtually imperceptible.

America’s natural gas bonanza is too good an opportunity to miss. The new Congress needs to embrace the bounty beneath its feet. CHRISTOPHER SWANN

FUCK SALT

I agree changing cars over to electric does not reduce our impact on the environment anywhere near enough, because the burning of fossil fuels is our main source of electricity. But if we were to change over to electric/bio-fuel hybrids that ran off both clean energy (wind, water, solar...) and algae produced bio-fuel, this would greatly reduce our impact on the environment. A change in energy source would need a hugee overall of our entire society so the environmental and long term financial pay-out would have to be well worth it.

Subsidizing any product is a bad idea, let alone energy. There is a reason why it has to be subsidized in the first place, because almost all "green energy" is not cost effective. Why would someone want to pay more to use green energy for their car when oil -> gasoline is much cheaper? Subsidizing this type of energy is just diverting resources which could be used in a more productive capacity like investment in nuclear energy!

What are the drawbacks to using SVO? Seems like there is a lot of that wasted.

this.

Ignorant conservative americans can suck my dick when it comes to having anything government subsidized. would you leave a child to die cuz the parents cant afford the healthcare, or would you say here, take the few tax dollars i pay and live the rest of your life.

it is the same arguement when it comes to environmental efforts by the government, only its the human race and all of your children who are at stake. FUCK OIL COMPANIES AND FUCK ANYONE WHOS THAT SELFISH AS THEY CANT EVEN SPARE THEIR 13% FOR ANYONE ELSE WHO NEEDS HELP, NOT TO MENTION THE BENEFITS YOU YOURSELF ARE REAPING.

It is no business of the government to subsidize anything. The free market will bring prices down, less government is a good thing. Saying that though the government does need to regulate companies that become to large and threaten competition. However the US federal deficit is approaching 14 trillion dollars. The US government can no longer afford to subsidize anything really. People will say that the subsidizing of electric cars is only a drop in the barrel, which is true, but think of all the things the government subsidizes. From corn to cars, the US government subsidizes everything. And then it taxes people excessively to attempt to cover the costs. In response to carltusz, I do feel for people who do not have enough free money around for healthcare. That's why I donate to charity. The government should not have a hand in the personal business of anyone. Let charity help people, not Big Brother.

I'm not going to go deep into this or say whether or not electric is the right form right now...

This subsidy is probably just part of the stimulus package. The main point ISNT the electric car part. By getting people to spend money on cars more money is flowing, therefore more jobs are being created selling these cars and more taxes are being picked up to fund the recovery effort from the recession. If we don't increase the deficit by a stimulus until the unemployment rate is near its "natural" level and begin contractionary fiscal and monetary policies we will enter a "double dip" recession similar in style to the great depression.

WHATS WRONG WITH SVO?

we are lumping the problem back together. It makes it easier to deal with when you don't compartmentalize it. It is a step in the right direction

I was talking to this guy I work with about this who used to work for the power company. He was saying that our current electrical grid doesnt have the capacity to support electric cars on a large scale. And it would drive up tje cost of electricity

there is alot of facepalm in this thread.

yeah...

society as a whole has to change the way they live such as becoming more localized in where we live,eat, and work. we can't depend on the electric car to keep us on our 40+km commutes and driving to the grocery store to get food that was grown on the other side of the country.

Ethanol is what ever really not that good of a alternative. You really don't get that much bang for your buck.  It can also really screw up your engine if your not careful
 http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/biofuels/e15-gasoline-damage-engine

All you dumb asses spouting off facts about e85, the grid, natural gas, thanks for checking in, but this thread is about subsidies.