And why ? For several reasons.

First because we are facing Peak Oil. Crude Oil will only get geometrically more expensive as the world begins depletion and supplies stagnate then relentlessly shrink even as world demand accelerates. Our economy will crash with ever higher prices for fuel.

Second because it is the only way to salvage our suburbs. EVs are cheaper to produce, to maintain and to fuel allowing suburbanites affordability that will keep them in place and rescue what would become great ghettos and vast abandoned housing tracts. We don't have the room in our cities for everyone to move back in. Eventually, over time much more environmentally efficient housing will happen but we can't do it all at once.

Third because it will reduce pollution dramatically. Even electricity from coal is cleaner than burning gas and diesel.

Fourth for national security. We are now dependent on unstable countries and long supply lines to get 60% of our crude oil.

A great article everyone should read and get others to read. We must move to EVs.

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The jobs and taxes the internal combustion engine creates would have to be replaced with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. As long as they keep this mode of trasportation going it will be buffer for their money machine.

The problem is the battery electric car is cheaper to buy (-50%), cheaper to maintain (-90%) and cheaper to fuel (-60%). And there is the problem, fewer parts and less asssembly means lots fewer workers to tax, far less profit from parts suppliers and carmakers to tax. Then there are the gas and sales taxes, Federal , State and local that would evaporate. Banks and car companies would lose all that loan interest from cheaper models. Gas Stations would disappear. Car repair work, smog certificates and tire shops would all be cut way back. Car Insurance would have to go down as prices went down along with speed limits causing fewer accidents and fewer injuries. Where's the money for the roads to come from?

The internal combustion engine is a tax revenue machine.

Where do you go to raise the tax money to suport the War Machine, the Homeland Security Honeypot and the Healthcare Hegemoney? Who does that leave to tax? Them that has the Money!

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I quote verbatim from Gore's speech, challenging us to eliminate carbon based fuels in 10 years:

"We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid."

Why didn't the author point this out?

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Solar cells wear out, they degrade from sunlight, like to 50% efficiency is 20 years or less. Solar cells can be damaged by storms.

Batteries wear out. Lithium has a high density and a short to medium life. Lead acid has a short life, and NiCd and NMh are low density medium cost, all wear out and cost to replace.

Windgenerators need maintained, they get hit by lighting, bearings fail, the blades need cleaned, on a tower this is not cheap.

It is unfair and unrealistic to describe the nirvana of EV without a frank discussion of the dark side, and these problems may never be solved, just improved.

Most of us have families that are spread out and we do place a high degree of importance on seeing them, long distance travel by EV is not really possible, and even IF batteries are unproved 10 times it will not compete with internal combustion in range, time, and cost until gas is a lot more expensive than now.

We will have EV's. they will be far from perfect
Rod

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This Oil/Fuel effieciency vehicles has been an issue for 30+yrs.
When we were grabbe by the balls in the '70's by OPEC Americans Screamed for Change.
Innovators began building possible solutions in their garages- eelctric car is about 20 yrs old!
the Auto industry only scaled down once the Japanese car sales started kicking their ass.
so thanks to the deals the western Oil Coprs made with the oppressive Oil Royals of the M.E.- Prices went down, and they auto industry responded in kind by re introducing SUV's with illegitmate marketing tactics- Selling 'Elitism', a symbol of Rank, Social Status - they targeted Egos.
This tactic is NO diffeent and just as deadly as the Tabacco Companies lies and Deception.
Americans not only wanted US out of ,and off M.E, Oil for economic reasons - we wanted out because our citizens had been held Hostage for over a year, planes were being Highjacked, bodies being thrown on to tarrmacks....We KNEW then that to continue to do business in the M.E. would cause far more National Security Issues. anyone alive then - or having read history regarding- Was NOT Surprised by 9/11- In fact saw it for what it was- the Result of decades of Corps flirting with a national disaster- Economically and Security.
who did not realize the Lies Bush spewd "No one expected such attacks'- BS! they had been highjacking planes since the '70's, they hit the WTC in '93,Our Gov't had previous contact with Binny in the '80's- when our Gov't aided his band of fighter against the Russians! Who didn't think We would also be seen as 'conquering Powers' becasue of th enumerous US Flags flying around Oil Fields & refineries!
Who hasn't figured out 9/11 was NOT an attack on Americans- but an Attack on the entity which has used US as camoflague/Human shields....The MIC!! More Accurately the Military/ Oil complex, which has been allowing Saudi Arabia to Breed and instill anti US Sentiment- Afghanistan was just the 'Off to College' country. And why would the Royals want to encourage such hatred of US - because it deflected the blame for the Human condition in their region away From THEM!
so now we not only have Treason charges these Oil/Auto industry execs should face, but also War crimes and Crimes against Humanity. They are th ecause for All deaths in not only these 2 wars - but th enumerous they have been involved with throughout the world- in a quest for the Modern worlds black "gold". The actions which have caused this speculated commodity to skyrocket has lead to food shortages and faimine.
So when Indictments for High Crimes are finaly being issued- we Must not forget those in the Oil AND Auto industry who have spent 30 yrs leading US not only to 9/11, but to todays economic Fall Out!

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MADISON, WISCONSIN WAS JUST the site of the third annual HYBRIDFEST which also featured other alternative energy transportation options and LOTS of presentations on energy-efficient transportation. It was fabulous and gave me much hope for future of transportation, if people can get on the bandwagon quickly now.
Go to HYBRIDFEST website and you can tap into all sorts of great info. Also, cleanmpg.com superb website for info on many levels re. this topic. I now have been driving a hybrid for several years and feel great about that. Where I live, Madison, we have the most hybrids/Priuses/capita in nation, so I see hybrids everywhere I drive in this town. Fascinatingly, once I leave city limits, they immediately become very unusual to view. Prius easiest to identify because of shape.
NEV's now approved in Madison and several other cities. Lots of variety in styles/options; one company producing these in Reedsburg, WI. and the dealer is in Stoughton, WI. Go for a test ride! NEV's can go on roads 35 mph or less. Completely electric.

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America has been using electric cars for decades. They're called "golf carts."

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...and Clinton when the auto industry killed the electric car in the 90's?

They were in office at the time and not a whimper came from them as GM removed and DESTROYED all the EV1s that people were fighting to buy.

All were leased at the time and GM would not allow them to be bought. (See the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car")

Why does not Gore, even NOW, ask GM to bring IT back? Not the pie in the sky Chevy volt which is estimated to cost 50K.

Gore and Clinton are pseudo heroes, who fiddled while Amerikkka started to self destruction under the helpful eye of corporate Amerikkka.

There is NO leadership in this country and based on the two bozos who are running, there is none in sight either.

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There will be disadvantages to any kind of system, but electric cars, and getting off fossil fuels have the extreme advantage of saving our planet! I think that justifies any inconvenience. There's a guy that recently converted a Mustang to get a hundred miles to a gallon, also. We could fix all of this if we applied the same money and R&D as we did to the Manhattan project to build our wonderful method of planetwide destruction, the nuclear bomb.
Unfortunately, it's probably not going to happen because most humans are easily fooled by the sold-out, corporate controlled media, and oil companies have so much control over our politicians.
What's going to happen is, our economy is going to completely collapse very soon, because we've waited far too long and done too little too late--actually, we really haven't done anything at all, STILL! We saw this problem coming back in the 1970s when oil production peaked in the U.S.
If we'd started then, we could have done it. Do you realize how long it will take to transform our infrastructure? And they will never allow us to make and control our own energy. No way.
We've been takin' it up the yoo yoo for a long time; unfortunately, we've been more concerned with Michael Jackson & Britney Spears and who she's currently banging, and a bunch of other banal subjects, that we haven't paid attention to what has been going on.
This country lost its freedom back in 1913 when the bankers tricked and bribed Congress into passing the Federal Reserve Act--giving the power of issuing our currency to a private corporation run by the greediest, most immoral men to ever disgrace the face of this planet..at least until W and Cheney came along.
We let them get away with assassinating JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., beating in the heads of college students for protesting...Most humans are just plain stupid, unfortunately. The only way we could take back this country is if all 330 million of us stood up and demanded accuntability and truth.
The founders believed we should have a revolution every 20 years. Well, maybe that was a little radical, but not much. Now, there's no way to stand up to the kind of weapons they have unless, as I said, ALL of us stood up, and that's not going to happen because most people are still spending the majority of their time sucking on what Harlan Ellison called "The Glass Teat" in his book of the same name--TV! The most mind-numbing device ever created, and now that they control the media--who were once trustworthy--they control the minds of most Americans..or what little minds they have.

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The author focused on just the part that is missing in the public dialogue. To free the country from reliance on foreign oil, and the export of dollars to obtain it...as well as wars, we need an alternative form of energy for vehicles. Abundant and cheap electricity is just how this could be done. There is no need for overregulation, just require that any auto manufacturer that sells autos in the U.S. provide a total EV choice in its offering. Many households have two cars and many people would choose an electic car for commuting. And batteries that can be charged in 20 minutes are not an impediment for longer travel.
An overall plan would include :
-an electrical based transport system by rail for goods to be moved around the country, with EV trucks for local transport of goods. That national system could also include convenient ways of moving personal vehicles over long distances when traveling.
- improving the rail system (electrical based) so that rail travel was as convenient as plane travel.
-replacement of local public transportation with EV vehicles.
-the augmenting and gradual replacement of electical generating facilities with renewable methods so that electricity was both abundant and cheap. Some may argue that the maintenance of wind turbines are labor intensive and expensive compared to central power generating facilities, but that has to be compared to exporting those dollars to buy oil versus generating jobs and opportunities...manual, manufacuring, and engineering/technical joba at home. ( As a bogus solution you see the phony two-parties offering nuclear as a solution, even though nuclear fuel is itself a limited and controlled fuel source and the disposal of nuclear waste remains and unresolved serious problem.)
- yes, the wind and sun are 'intermittent', but the problems with these have a number of known solutions and the overall availability of ample and even flow of electricity throughout the nation is primarily dependent on improving the grid so electricity can be efficiently transported form places where it is being generated to where it is needed.
- as an aside, wind turbines should also be placed on family farms to augment their income to allow them to continue to produce food in a market that has become dominated by multinational corporations that have gained control of the purchase and distribution of food supplies to store chains. Abundant and cheap electricity would also provide incentives for farmers to mechanize more of the labor associated with farming.

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Has no one seen "Who Killed The Electric Car?" A truly eye opening film - and wonder why, when in the early years of this decade there were at least three working production plug-in electric vehicles on the road (GM's EV3, Ford Ranger EV and the KIA Rav4 EV) these auto manufacturers who's job it is to look into the future of transportation basically screwed themselves by dropping these vehicles. Now look at GM and Ford; both of which are looking at huge losses and job cuts. Right here in St. Paul where they make the Ranger pickup Ford has been looking to close the plant and put all of those people out of work when all they should have been thinking about is retooling to build the EV version and be ahead of the curve for once. The manufacturer argument has always been that the battery technology is not up to par yet for mass consumption, but I feel that all it takes is to get the vehicle on the road and demand will push innovation (and don't believe the auto makers when they say the demand is not there) to better storage and shorter recharge times. It would also push business to provide an infrastructure for employees to plug-in at work, as most commuters let their cars sit in a parking lot all day anyway; they could be recharging all that time.
There is not one good excuse for not moving to electric vehicles as soon as is humanly possible. We need to push hard on manufacturers and legislators to look at where we are and make these changes right now.

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Here is another great alternative I haven't heard too much about and folks should take a look at.
goto
www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html

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The car manufacturers are too slow in the release of hybrid and electric vehicles. We need them now. We need to move to rail transportation, and electric busses and cars within the next year. It may take us up to 10 to 20 years to completely implement it, and realize this, but we need to get it going now.

Existing railways need to be optimized, and more tracks and stations need to be built. More ride sharing and public transportation needs to be available, and more electric vehicles need to be available to the public. More bicycle paths, too, need to be made available to the public.

We are essentially out of oil. We may need oil for plastics and other necessities in the future, and we cannot be so visionless and clueless by talking about further drilling for oil, or further jumping to the tune of the oil companies every time they throw around their considerable weight, and say jump.

We can't use fossil fuels any more. Floods, drought, earthquakes, hurricanes of unusual force and frequency are with us now, just as had been predicted. No matter how unified or smart we think we can be, there is a point where there will be nothing we can do to save ourselves. We may still have time, but we are playing Russian Roulette with the future of humanity for every day we delay meaningful action.

Not just Vice President Al Gore, but Senator Barack Obama, and every leader in the world has to know this, and must move now. I believe Senator Obama has the good sense, and vision, to understand the problems we face, and the will to move and challenge Americans to make the changes necessary to save our world from total catastrophe and destruction.

In the 21st century the old attitudes toward oil, coal, gas, and nuclear power must be new, and we must change to honestly clean renewable power such as solar, tidal, geothermal, small hydro, wind, and biomass. We must change to electric cars, and widespread, viable public transportation with trains and electric vehicles. We have no more time to waste, to wait, or to lag behind.

There must be a way to end the chokehold the oil companies have on America. The oil companies can diversify and invest in honestly clean renewable energy, and do their part for life on the planet, and still prosper.

The EV was taken off the roads some ten years ago for suspicous reasons, and under suspicious circumstances. See the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car," for confirmation that we have had viable EV technology since at least the 90s. However, some of our very first vehicles were electric, so we have, of course, had it for much longer than that. It is time to bring the EV back, and we must do it now, not soon, but now.

The party is over. The jig is up. The tipping point has passed. We have to be sane, and move to clean technology like clean renewable energy and EVs, and shun excuses and demand better than more delays or lies such as clean, safe nuclear and "clean coal." We need EVs on the roads, and for public transportation. We are out of oil for transportation, and we need to conserve it for other uses. The airline companies, too, will have to undergo a major shift rather than the desperate bandaid measures they have been scrambling to put in place for the last several years.

Of all the candidates, Senator Obama seems to be the best bet for any hope of vision and progess in these important areas in the next few years. We do all have to work together, and we do not have an unlimited number of years to ponder what to do. We have a good enough understanding already that we cannot use fossil fuels in the same manner as in the 20th century, and that major, dramatic shifts in energy use and modes of transportation, among other conservation methods will be required of us from now on.

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Look at these republicans--and a lot of democrats, as well--they base their policy decisions, like deciding to torture people, on TV programs, mainly that damn show "24"! We don't even know what happened on 9/11! If you believe the official story, it's because you haven't done any real research for yourself, and are therefore ignorant, or can't accept that the government might induce something like that to happen, and then run all these war games to make sure our fighter pilots were so confused, by the insertion of false radar blips onto their screens, that they didn't know where to go--despite concrete evidence that shows that this is the rule, not the exception, as proven by the "Northwoods documents," "Pearl Harbor," "The Gulf of Tonkin," Hilter's "Reichstag(sic? Fire, and those are just a few we know about. We're supposed to believe that WTC 7--which most people don't even know about, that there was a 3rd building that collapsed, but was not hit by anything, and was farther away than other buildings which were fine. Then you have the overwhelming evidence of police, firefighters, and reporters displaying knowledge that they not only knew this building was going to collapse--which they shouldn't have had any reason to suspect--but exactly when it was going to collapse. Then, you have Larry Silverstein on public T.V saying that the building was "pulled." I have the video clip.
But the story was buried because people started realizing, by asking questions, that to rig a building of that size for wireless demolition usually takes a week, and no amount of rushing could have pulled it off on that day--which means, if it was demolished, it was set at least two or three days prior to 9/11.
A steel-framed building has never collapsed from fire alone--ever. The 9/11 Commission report doesn't even mention WTC 7, and NIST said, in their report, that their best hypothesis for collapse--fire--was very unlikely.
What about the over two million dollars from "put options" placed on United and American airlines that still remains unclaimed? Privacy rules protect any reporter from finding out who placed those bets, but Congress could subpeona the information.
Why was the steel from the buildings, in violation of Federal law concerning disturbing a crime scene (which Guiliani, being a former prosecutor, knew damn well was wrong), and which could have helped determine why two buildings that were designed to withstand multiple impacts from jumbo jets (and they weren't that much smaller when the building was designed, and actually had a faster rate of flight, giving them an equal or greater impact potential)collapsed at near free-fall speed directly down into their footprints, hauled all the way to China and melted down? Steel is expensive..why give it to China?
Why and how did Hani Hanjour, the supposed pilot of the plane that supposedly hit the Pentagon, whose pilot instructors said could barely fly a single engine Cessana, make an elaborate and totally unneccesary turn when he could have just flown straight in and hit the Pentagon? And why aim for the very narrow side, instead of diving into the very big target of the top, which would have caused more damage? Instead, he makes several manuevers that professional pilots say would be difficult for even the most seasoned pilot, to fly at 500 MPH just yards above the ground, and hit such a small target with pinpoint accuracy? Do you know the kind of skill that would require, to guide such a huge craft, at that speed, where the building would be approching incredibly rapidly, but manages to not even scrape the lawn?

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cont... And then, where are the holes, not of the wings--I can buy that maybe they came apart on impact, but not those two 800 ton titanium steel engines! We're supposed to believe that these engines basically disintegrated, yet the cone of the fuselage, far weaker, was able to penetrate all the way through to the C-ring and leave a perfectly round 16 foot in diameter hole? That makes absolutely zero sense.
And then, professional pilots, after examining the data from the black boxes, have said there's no way that plane, on the trajectory recorded on the black box, severed those light poles...
What caused the pols of molten steel in the basements of all 3 WTC buildings, when everyone aknowledges the fires were not hot enough to melt steel, let alone hot enough to not only melt it, but keep it in that liquified form, for days(at least one day, but I think it was more like 2 or 3) after the event? What about the Israelis who recieved a warning through an email to evacuate the building, and broke their lease to get out? Why were all the warnings ignored, and then when it happened, they told everyone in the other tower to just stay put, instead of evacuating them?
The whole thing stinks to high heaven. It's also been proven that many of the phone calls that were made, did not come from those planes. For instance, United 93 (I think that's the right plane), it turns out, didn't even have plane phones, and all the cell phone calls were made when the plane(s) were well below 30,000 feet. The government possesses voice-morphing technology so sophisticated that I could call you, using this technology, and you would not be able to tell it was me and not your mother, or whomever I wanted to be. Besides, who calls their mother and uses their last name? Like, "Hi, mom, this is John Doe, your son. You believe me, don't you?" was one of the calls that were supposedly made.
I knew the day it happened, when there was no military response in over two hours, that this was somehow allowed or assisted to make happen. The other explanation, that there was massive failure and incompetence on every level of the system..well, it's like a 50 million to one chance.

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Notice I excluded solar and wind because unless the demands were not that of the guzzler, it's just not gonna fly whereas coal and nuclear despite their finite supply will be able to meet the rising out of control demands. And you can thank the pro-energy-inefficient policies for this mess.

P.S.: What about the winter? I'm not so sure electric cars can handle the colder days. Anyone from the upper north want to fill me in on this one?

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GHGs are not the only problem with our auto-centric transportation system. The highway system itself has large negative impacts on ecosystems. Our suburban sprawl, largely promoted by the automobile, is a socially destructive force and suggests a different path. Then there are the environmental impacts of manufacturing of all those new electric vehicles. Then there are the obesity and health issues of our auto-centric culture. Do you think maybe its time to get out of our cars.

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Last I recall, those run on good ole gasoline and diesel. I know most of you will never have to drive a 20 ton dump truck for a living but when your boss has to cut back on help because diesel is sky hi from poor energy policy, you might wanna think twice. Plus I'm not too keen on a lawnmower as a car.

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Those are good questions, but I guarantee you, if they put the kind of money and research into this problem that they do with devising killing machines, all these problems can be overcome. If a lone mechanic can make a Mustang get a 100 miles to a gallon, imagine what a team of researchers could accomplish? Even if we started with hybrids, but had that 100 miles to a gallon capacity, it would be a great improvement.
I did see "Who killed the Electric Car" and those cars were fast, quiet, and could be plugged into a regular socket, with an adaptor, if I remember correctly.People loved them. Yeah, at the time, they could only go 60 miles on a single charge, but that would meet most people's everyday driving needs; and then, if you needed it, the gas could kick it, but at a 100 M.T.A.G. you could go very far on very little.
Yet these cars, bright and shiny, were taken and destroyed, except for one or two that went to museums. Why do you suppose that was?
They can solve all these problems, and all the arguments against doing it are bull--the oil companies just don't want to give up their record profits. Exxon Mobile made the largest profit ever made in history in its last fiscal quater. It just takes Congress to demand that they use a large amount of that money to design a vehicle that meets all the standards we need them to. It can be done, the people want it done, but as long as the oil companies continue to weild so much influence, it's not going to happen. It's not an engineering problem, it's a political problem. And now, a time problem, and a money problem. We could have all kinds of things, like Universal Healthcare, if it wasn't for the oil companies driving foreign policy to cause us to wage illegal wars fought with the blood of our brave soldiers for reasons they've been lied to about. It's always been about oil, and 9/11 is the excuse for perpetual war, which is why it's so important to expose that lie.

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Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Way to go Americo.
KICK the Habit!
Kick the Oil Pushers out of Government.

Conservation,
Raise MPG standards
Increase Efficiency
Invest in GREEN energy solutions,
Across the board.
Trillions for War and nothing for U.S.
Sounds fishy to me!
Cut out the Corpirate Middle Man.
End the Fossil Fuel Age now.

Nationalize all energy reserves and resources
for National Security Reasons.
Do you believe that Big Oil has your best interests at heart?
GREED is the bottom lie, it's their motivating factor.
GREED is a negative human trait.
It works great for the RICH and very badly for U.S.
We are the victims!
We pay for it.

While they get hundreds of billions in Corporate welfare, billion dollar bailouts and 500 million dollar Golden parachutes.
We get the shaft!

You pay,
Every time you pump.
WAR TAX!
Stop the war and gas will drop by 50%!
The same Corpirates that overthrew our Government,
Control the Media and
Censor the News,
Spy, Lie, Torture and Terrorize us.
Who is getting Fu-ked? and Why?
What are we going to do about it?
How long can you sit and take it?
After Loosing our jobs, homes, savings and Social Security?
What's left?
While Dead Eye Laughs and the Monkey dances?
75% of The Government and Military have been privatized.
Including the clandestine services.
Just check the list of who they were Spying on in 2004 in New York.
Ben who?
No!
Me and you.
They're is no separation of power,
When the same Corpirate Mercenaries run all branches of Government, Media and Industry there is no freedom.
It is Anarchy.
Monolithic Corporate Totalitarianism.
Beware
The Military, Media, Banking,
Industrial Complex!

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That is, We'll never be allowed that independence
until all of the people who get rich from oil figure out how to make the same money from electricity.

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Electric Vehicles are highly desirable, but as the article below describes - they simply aren't feasible with solar power. The limitations of solar power come down to the fact that the sun delivers only 100 watts per square foot - and that's in perfect conditions. After conversion, transmission and storage losses only a tiny percentage of that energy is usable.

To convert from petroleum to electric vehicles would require at least a doubling of the current electricity supply. That means twice as many powerstations and greatly beefed up distribution network.

Whilst this is possible, the idea that all this extra energy can come from solar is physically impossible due to the limitations of the sun's energy.

There are also major environmental and efficiency problems with batteries. Batteries can only be charged about 500 times and require enormous amounts of energy to produce and are made from exceedingly toxic heavy metals.

Electric vehicles can work well though - particularly in towns and cities where they are driven via a directly connected current, that doesn't require batteries.

It would be far more sensible if these vehicles were publicly owned and shared - like buses and trains - but with far greater availability and desirability - such that travelling in them was a significantly better experience than being in a private car.

There is a great deal of mis-information about all kinds of alternative transport due to the massive research funding involved. The better the story the more funds that are likely to be forthcoming

Without massively increased electricity power generation which can probably only come from nuclear on a long term basis, the replacement of millions of petrol vehicles with electric ones simply cannot work.

Why there won't be a solar powered car

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Not only do we need electric cars, we need electric cars which are as close to 100% recyclable as possible, and we need mass transit, in the form of high speed trains which are powered through electricity as well. Then we need to provide the technology developed in the pursuit of all this with every nation on earth. EVERY nation. So they can move in the same renewable, sustainable, and clean direction.

Politicians are always talking about how they will create jobs. Well, seems to me that if they jumped all over this alternative energy gig, they would actually be able to truthfully say that in supporting such initiatives, they would actually be creating 1000's of jobs. Good jobs. High paying jobs. Jobs that created something useful for all of society. Indeed, for all of the world.

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Please do not publish sloppy logic.

Logic in following paragraph is faulty.

"Oil generates only 3 percent of our electricity. Therefore a 100 percent renewable electricity system does little to reduce our oil dependency..."

Logically, even if oil generates only 3 percent of our electricity, that could take all of our oil.

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The End of History
The End Point And The End Game


Prologue:
With the rise of communist China, the advent of peak oil, and an unresolved economic crisis in the United States, it’s not hard to see that history is at turning point. Peak oil and a foundering economy are threatening challenges. But how should we perceive China? First of all we need to get rid of the communist label. Communism is the end state of historical materialism. The inexorable push of economic determinism that ultimately leads to the collapse of capitalism and then finally to communism—a worker’s utopia.
So better said, China is a nation ruled by Marxists whose mission, towards this end, is to overthrow the existing order by beating capitalism at our own game.
Still, for us, history is determined by our free will as we put forward the ideas to meet the challenges that a changing world presents. Yet up to this point we seem to be at loss. And neither Obama nor McCain, as they seek the White House, has presented a clear strategy either for economic recovery or ideological victory. And while we embrace democracy and free markets, ideas that Marxists see as a meaningless reflection of capitalism—brave words in the face of their ultimate demise, they too need an update.
So, given the gravity of these issues it’s best that we consider the worst-case Marxist scenario and then consider the practical idealism that can resolve these challenges.
For full text go to: http://theendpoint.blogspot.com/

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The first EV company is Tesla Motors. They must have, what, 10 of their cars on the road by now. They promise to ramp up, but they have a backlog of 1080 cars ordered the last I checked. They go for the expensive green hot rod market. So cool, but you need the cash!

The second EV company is Nissan. They are preparing to flood the Los Angeles market with semi-affordable electrics in 2010.

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we have no choice and that's a fact. if you think cars are perfect,you're nuts.they break down,too, and are lethal on the roads.they kill and maim us by the thousands every year,outstripping our war deaths.they suck up our money for insurance,car payments, repairs,medical bills and depreciation.you buy it for thousands and sell it for hundreds.
so nothing works well and we live with it anyway.wait for a bus and see how that feels.ride with strangers standing up,with shoving and pushing,yelling and music,cell phone talk and wet clothes on rainy days.Like it? or take the train and pray you arrive in one piece.

oil is over and China and india are speeding it up.we have no options,just like the stable owners and carriage makers of the 1800's.what is done is done.you can keep looking and drilling but it will be gone in minutes and won't be back.Science will save us but we have to wait and make do.our lives will change but they do anyway.drunks miss their booze but do much better sober.we will too.

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and I'm not talking about that generated by 'gasbags' in Washington.

For over a week I have watched the oil bribed Republicans in Congress thwart any efforts that would shift us substantially away from oil, and toward cheaper, sustainable, less geo-politically disruptive power sources. Their continued repetition of the 'drill, drill, drill' mantra is not only extremely deceptive, but flat out wrong. T. Boone Pickens even stated, "We can not drill our way out of this (crisis regarding oil)", and this from the lips of a billionaire oil man.

Sadly, amongst all this talk of electric vehicles, short shrift has been given to the power of air. I'm not talking about wind power, which we desparately need, but compressed air as a source of vehicle propulsion.

Other countries understand the potential of the 'air car', and India will release the first mass produced model next year (2009). France & Australia also have good working models, and will likely follow suit soon, too.

Google 'air car' for more info including videos of working models.

BTW, air can be compressed and stored in underground caverns (depleted oil wells?) by solar cells & wind power, to be used later to generate electricity at 'peak demand' times...and piped to air car service stations. The underground storage caverns are the same basically as huge batteries, meaning the negative comments about wind & solar being intermittent, and electricity going out on the grid must be used immediately, are stated from lack of information or imagination.

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Yes, I am sure the article is right on the money. Electric cars will solve all our problems, and we can go on with our gluttenous wasteful habits into infinity. We can continue to use artificial power sources to take away manual labor, then drive 30 miles to the gym for "exercise." Meanwhile we are all gonna get diabetes and die from our collective lack of will to live. It doesn't matter, though, we are gonna blogg about it, and make tv shows on the issue. God forbid that we walk somewhere, ride a bike, stay at home, sleep over at a friends, make a garden in the back yard, carpool to work, or any of those things. Forget recycling. We are gonna have the miracle of science save us from ourselves. Monsanto, Dupont, Bayer, Merck, GMC, etc. I really believe that line!

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how's 'bout mass transit and a total reorientation of our urban planning policies?

jdfu!

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I love articles like this as it provides a precise picture of the problem as well as a clear plan to resolve it instead of wishful thinking or "maybe when the technology matures". The premise was well thought out. I guess as long as congress doesn't get hijacked into nixing that part of the bill like they have in the past we might be on the right track.

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Car use should be restricted mainly to the country where it is a necessity. Cities should be designed to move people closer to where they need to go so people have little or no need for a car. Instead, we've designed our cities the exact opposite way in a futile attempt to eliminate traffic congestion. The main reason we're so dependent on oil is that we doubled the amount we drive per person since 1970. I fail to see how we can ever be energy independent or green if we continue our trend of sprawling out across the entire country.

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, recently mandated 45,000 state jobs must convert to teleworking (working from home using the already existing communication means). Granted, it's only government jobs, but if applied to business also, and multiplied by 50 states, we are literally talking about eliminating millions (or tens of millions) of un-necessary daily commutes by oil based vehicles that pollute our air, waste time & money, cause hunreds of thousands of deaths, saddle us with military expenses to try to steal oil from other countries, ruin our infrastructure by over-utilization, degrade our standing in the international community, dangerously consolidate financial & political power in too few hands, compromise whatever ethics & honesty our congress people have by constant bribery from special lobbying efforts, and inevitably assure environmental disasters on a large scale.

I would also point out that teleworking has been measured & proven to increase production & job satisfaction.

Why isn't this being done on a national level?

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If any of the projects I'm working strikes with major success, I've already promised myself a year ago that I'm getting a Tesla - an electric car that rivals Porche or Ferrari.

More on it here:
TESLA

To paraphrase the documentary, we already know who killed the electric car.
But maybe the car buying public can resurrect it!

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"Americans hate being dependent for our mobility, and therefore for our livelihoods, on countries often hostile to our way of life." the author states.

Can no one see that it is dependence that is the problem here, not foreign countries? Electric cars are in the same paradigm as the system that brought us salmonella tomatoes, Exxon Valdez spill, and weak New Orleans levees. Decentralization is our only way out of this mess, and that happens to include transportation. Those expecting techno fix for our troubles are facing culture shock when:
their electric cars break down after a few years, the American dollar collapses, all those renewable electricity projects get canned for lack of funds and credit, and there are no parts/exhorbitant costs for parts and labor to fix the cars.
Centralization makes you reliant on the forces of centralization which are concerned only with accumulating your wealth/power, using it to further centralize society. Our dependence is not on foreign countries but on the elite in this country, and this elite is the enemy.

Decentralize: take control and accept responsibility for the harshness of life in the industrial system American leaders have been championing as our birthright since WWI. There are no easy way out, and the electric car is an easy way out.

Ask yourself, will the electric car be built for experts to work on, or will it be designed to be fixed without hi-tech equipment?

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To help today, check out hydrogen on demand or HHO -- www.water4gas.com. Double your gas mileage. For tomorrow, why dump the internal combustion engine? A company called Valcent is in the algae biofuel business. Algae is 50% lipids (oil) and different species of algae produce a specific kind of fuel -- you can custom produce gasoline, jet fuel, home heating oil. They have vertical rack systems in huge greenhouses that WAY outproduce any other forms of biofuel. And it sequesters carbon dioxide. They claim that in an area 1/10 the size of New Mexico, they could produce enough biofuel to fill all US needs -- at $25/barrel. So can you imagine a biofuel facility in each of the 50 states to decentralize our fuel needs?

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Lesee, many, if not most of us live in cookie-cutter "suburbs", which used to be productive farms or beautiful natural areas. We commute-sometimes fifty or more miles- to some urban cespool which is unfit to live in, but must be relied upon for a living wage. Our population is mestasizing unchecked, and our whole economy is built around the assumption of growth fed by this increase. Would ANY sane people wish this situation upon themselves? Well' it's there anyway, isn't it? Maybe if cities could clean themselves up, produce enough food locally for everyone there, eliminate most if not all noise, pollution, crime,enviornmental degration, create a free (yes, I said FREE) public transportation system, and get a handle on the huge population problem, we could stop destroying natural areas and give our Mother Earth a chance to repair and heal herself, making life a damn sight better for a reduced population than it is now. Maybe we can accomplish all this worldwide WITHOUT wars, famines, pestilense, and ethnic cleansing. We'll never know if we can accomplish all this if we don't make a beginning, now, will we? Just think of all the hard work it took to get us into the sorry mess we're in now. It COULD work in the reverse if enough of us pitched in and gave it a try. What do we have to lose?

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I recently was doing some research on events in the early 1900's. I went to my local library and was able to locate a copy of a 1910 New York Times. Absolutely amazing - On the page I was perusing there was a quite large AD for long trips in - you guessed it - ELECTRIC CARS !! I am certain that these vehicles did have many flaws and defects, but you might think that in 98 years, a truly workable car could have been produced. Ever hear of a little company called Standard Oil.
In 1910 oil production was really just getting into full swing and you can rest assured that the neo-cons of that era did everything possible to keep the electric cars locked far, far away. Just think how different the world would be with successful electric or non fossil fuel cars.

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Yes, hemp can be processed into fuel for diesel engines. It can even be done for gasoline engines although the process is a bit more complex. But did you know that hemp can also be used for pellets used to generate electricity? But hey, since a lot of you out there will still act like babies and say "So much pot do I fill my car with?", like solar and wind, hemp for electricity or even fuel just ain't gonna do for the energy guzzling E-CON-UH-MEMEME. Maybe edith was right when she comically suggested that let's just slop up all that coal, oil, and nuclear because as long as they're "cheap", people will still stay the course on it despite the serious side effects both environmentally and economically. Only as the prices go up will the demands drop as some of this year has shown with crude oil despite the general public misunderstanding.

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Where will the electricity originate throughout most of the US for all these plug-in electric cars? Coal-fired or natural gas-fired power plants, that's where.
Coal is the the most abundant and the dirtiest form of electrical energy we have. Coal-fired power plants are the most common in more places than any other. Thanks to Bush's "Clear Skies Initiative", they have not become any cleaner in this century.
From an environmental point of view, all that plug-in electrics do (today in most of America) is trade one form of pollution (significantly reduced over the last 40 years) for another (not seriously reduced). You may feel righteous that your vehicle isn't generating the pollution, but the power plants that power your vehicle are belching dangerous pollutants into the air at a horrendous rate. In addition to carbon, they are spreading heavy metals that drop onto the soil and into the oceans to the point that we must limit the amount of many popular seafoods we eat because of the mercury in them.
The day will come when plug-ins will be a great vehicle, but that day won't come until the electrical grid is strengthened to handle the extra load and can move electricity more efficiently from one coast to another. The grid will have to be powered by far cleaner sources than at present. And electric vehicles will have to be rechargeable is less than 10 minutes; many of us have to drive more than 500 miles in a day from time to time. Most will not willingly wait at a truck stop for hours waiting for a "refill" (and at what cost -- not likely at our residential rates).
It is most likely that biofuels will be the preferred fuel for long distance travel while electricity will be preferred for commuter (including mass transit) and errand-running local travel.
The point is that we must begin doing all of this now. The era of petroleum-based energy is ending. It is long past time to find clean, sustainable and reliable domestic sources. If we look at the problem in a holistic fashion, the solutions are fairly obvious as is the urgency to achieve them. Let's get on with it.

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EVs will reduce our Carbon Footprint, just maybe not how we think they will.

If EVs are powered completely by solar, aside from the electrical current which may interfere, actually will, with our health, it is bad. There are more to consider than just air with electrical cars. Electrical fields are proven to cause sickness and disease. Electricity has frequencies, some heal, some disrupt. The occupants would need to be shielded from the fields. That only leaves the wildlife.

While oil isn't the ideal solution, certainly electricity isn't either. Type in "Mountain Top Removal", and check your results. After you read about where and how the coal is obtained, type in Mercury. Burning coal releases Mercury. Our bodies can't live with Mercury. Research Mercury related diseases.

Now we are down to Nucleur. Check out Russia's experience with oops. To get rid of that much delpeated Uranium we would need a few more wars, oh yea, forgot, this one will last 100 years. That is what the ammo we use is made from. Could that be what is making our men and women in uniform sick, as well as "the enemy"?

There are clean alternatives using the very vehicles we have on the road today. Joe Cell. There are motors that generate their own inertia driven energy, they were in use in the 70s, maybe earlier.

There is a BIG push to reduce Carbon Footprints, it's called death. Very profitable because on the reduction scale, Big Pharma and medical get their cut, because you will need care before you die. Big Coal companies and Nucleur companies get their cut. Wells Fargo and others get their cut financing. The world banks get what they want because they will lend what can not be paid back, so they get the collateral. In Brazil's deal, the world banks now own the Amazon River Basin. Population goes down and the older are weeded out, replaced by younger, dumber (if that is possible) people, able to buy more, work harder, and be even more decieved.

Like the CFL bulbs, there is a hook. I even fell for that one. It is Mercury. When the alternative is worse than the disease, are we winning? Now I really don't expect anybody to take my word on it, reseach it yourself. While you research, research something else, H.A.A.R.P. Could this be partly the reason behind droughts, famines, floods, heat, storms and more sickness? It is also proven.

We do need good alternatives and they have been around for many years. The next time someone gives you an alternative or agenda, ask youself, who benefits (follow the money).

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I can find no reputable source which asserts that the average life expectancy of an automobile is 7 years.

Here is a source which puts it at 13 years - which may even be a bit low:

http://www.safecarguide.com/gui/new/neworused.htm

My Dodge Caravan, with manual transmission and a 2.4-liter 4-banger, is 21 years old. It gets about 25 mpg on the highway.

Maybe that's just a quibble. Here's a somewhat more substantive difference of opinion.

The entire notion of using ton-and-a-half of steel and glass monsters for all of our personal travel is one which could arise only because energy was cheap. And boy, was it cheap. There was a lot of very easy-to-extract oil in the world, and it took a long time to extract most of it.

But easy-to-extract oil is going the way of the dodo. What's left is harder, and more expensive, to get out of the ground.

Then there's demand for oil, which is rising rapidly, mostly because of economic success in China and India and other third-world countries. They're modernizing, they've got money now, and they want ton-and-a-half steel and glass monsters to ride around in, too.

Rising oil influences the cost of electricity very directly. Coal depends heavily on petroleum-fueled equipment and transportation, for example. Right now electricity is cheaper per unit of energy than oil, but the cost of electricity is going up. It'll rise even more as our nation gears up for some very expensive investments in solar and wind, in additional electrical infrastructure, and in such oddities as two-way metering (letting you sell power to the electric company as well as buy it).

All of this should lead us to rethink our reliance on these big personal vehicles as our only transportation option - whether electrically-driven or not.

Now, I'm not anti-electric car. I'm all for 'em, which is why I characterized this post as "Begging to Differ - Slightly." But I think we shouldn't say things like "the electric car is the only solution." Actually, it isn't.

If you really want to reduce your transportation energy costs, think about a bicycle.

Ah, that's right, a bicycle can't carry enough stuff to be useful. Or if you did load it down with 150 lbs of groceries, it would be unstable, and you'd need to be an olympic athlete to get it to move.

If you think that, you're ignoring two new developments in bicycles.

The first is the longtail - basically a sturdy mountain bike that's been elongated, so there's room directly over the rear wheel to carry cargo. It rides like a normal bike, isn't much heavier, and it is stable and comfortable under loads of 200-440 lbs of cargo, depending on model.

You can use it to carry a passenger (or two children). You can use it to buy a microwave at Wal-Mart and haul it home. You can fill up a grocery cart to the brim, pay for it all, wheel it out to the parking lot and stuff it into the panniers (bags) on your bike, and pedal home. It's stable under a big load, unlike the bikes you're used to.

Slap an electric assist on that baby, and you can ride uphill with a heavy load at up to 20 mph without breaking a sweat - and get the equivalent of 400 mpg or better.

For your shorter trips and errands, a bike like this will let you leave your car parked. That's an energy savings regardless of whether your car is gas-powered, electric, or runs on a cage full of hopping frogs. (Hey, frogs have to eat.)

So let's not say that the electric car is "the only solution" to our transportaton woes. It isn't. The sooner we get the word out, the better for all of us.

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Now if they could just come up with an electric car that doesnt LOOK like an electric car! the current electric cars look so tacky!

JT
Ultimate Anonymity

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If you keep suggesting that another type of automobile will get us out of this mess you are very short sighted.People have to pay hard earned cash to buy them . a whole infrastructure for electric cars must be set up. More metal on the road more toxins from batteries to be recycled and so on. It is pure stupidity to go that rout. When will all the internal combustion engines be full replaced/ generations I bet.
How much can we effect change and conservation now ?In the mean time we must reduce speed limits in our highways, mandate reduced use our A/C in skyscrapers etc. We can have the benefits now.of conservation.

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When Big Government can subsidize oil, coal, and even nuclear, why can't it just allow nano-technology to compete. The advantages are numerous. Hell, even solar technology is getting a major boost in efficiency thanks to nanotechnology for thinner plastic solar panels. And while we're talking about plastics, let's allow hemp to be used for manufacturing some of those thin plastics for nanotechnology solar panels !

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http://www.understandingnano.com/fuel.html

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Yes, let's save the cars.

Electricity must be made. It does not magically appear. Most of our electricity is made with coal, a non-renewable resource which will peak in 15 years, not to mention poisoning our planet to the point of our extinction. Nuclear energy is a sick, sadistic joke. Not only are we about to peak in uranium at current usage rates, precluding any ramp up to further folly, these plants will prove to be poisonous little enclaves for foreseeable human history. Natural gas is also peaking despite the various so-called shale plays which have yet to prove economic.
Tidal, geo and all the other secondary solar sources are unreliable and their knock on effects are unexplored. Many species in the ocean rely upon certain tides, currents, and other ocean movements to determine everything from food availability to mating habits.

No. EVs are just another nail in the coffin--a fancy really cool nail that seems kinda green, but a nail nonetheless.

Quit trying to save the cars and start trying to save the planet.

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Good story, but Al Gore DID include electricity in his speech.

We obviously need to develop wind, solar, biomass, etcetera. IN ADDITION, we need to look at what we WASTE every day and use it for energy --

1. REAL RECYCLING & RE-USE.
(a) Scoma’s Restaurant in San Francisco is a great example of what is possible if people just learn and care! They recycle or re-use 95% of their stuff and even their truck(s) run on “grease-diesel”. What incentives or challenges would encourage other restaurants to alter their mindsets and follow this example?
(b)75%+ of the stuff in landfills could be recycled or re-used, or converted to power.

2. WASTE MANAGEMENT Inc. does operate some biomass conversion plants associated with landfills, and sells power to local utilities – but this is small and not widespread, and is limited to incinerable materials.

3. PLASMA GASIFICATION. Our most reliable renewable resource is our endless waste-stream -- Municipal Solid Waste. Even the newer lined landfills start to leak and leach out in 25-30 years. A plasma converter “vaporizes” ALL types of waste, including medical and hazardous waste.

> Mine the landfills and keep on converting our waste stream to energy!
A plasma conversion plant should be built adjacent to every major landfill site – and when they convert the trash that has accumulated, they could continue to convert trash as we produce it.
> SMALL GRIDS ARE BETTER
With good planning, these facilities could serve smaller regional areas, removing people from the humungous power grids that are inefficient, destructive land use, and great terrorist-targets.
> WHY NOT IN THE U.S.?
For example,
A PLASCO ENERGY group demo-facility in Ottawa, Canada processes 85 tons of MSW per day. Who is doing this in the U.S.?
STARTECH has installed operational Plasma Converters in: Australia, China, Costa Rica, European Union, Japan, Panama, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
In addition, the U.S. Army is using Plasma Converters in some field locations.

> BUT WHAT ABOUT U.S. DOMESTIC USE OF PLASMA CONVERTERS? Puerto Rico has new facilities to process MSW (hard to dispose of endless trash on an island) and Rhode Island converts hazardous & toxic waste.
The U.S. has a tendency to try to avoid alternatives. In part, this attitude is fueled by the petroleum industry.
For further information, please visit http://www.startech.net. Especially look for their 10 top FAQs!

> PLEASE PASS IT ALONG . . .

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There are other alternatives. Right now the French conmpany MDI in association with Indias Tata is producing cars running on compressed air! If Americans are lining up to buy Smart cars then it means that they could easily accept not only the MDI version but also it's manufacturing concept. What is the car used for anyway? A visit to the mall or the shops, a school run perhaps or to go to work. If you evaluate the real use of your auto you will soon find that it's uses are somewhat over rated, even limited. Of course in Europe we have a vast choice of public transport which is clean, efficient and plentiful. Nowadays If I have a long journey to do, I go by train. I try to avoid even using a plane, too much security issues, hours waiting at crud airports. A train will take you the heart of a city and no problems with baggage either.

So think about it, it's not about impressing your neighbor it's more to do with safe guarding your hard earned money. I know when I gave up smoking 30 years back, I have since saved a raft of money and my health improved. Likewise get rid of the gas guzzler, use your bike or the above mentioned car and you will achieve real benefits financially and in your health.

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I did not see any discussion on how the electricity gets to the outlet to plug the cars into. We must discuss this because the nuclear energy cult has been waiting quietly in the sidelines to get back into the mainstream of electricity production. Do we want nuclear/fission power as a main source of power? Do we care how messy nuclear fission power plants are and how dangerous to life on earth? Do you know where the waste products like depleted uranium go? Into and on weaponry missiles. There is no safe, humane way to get rid of the stuff. It seems that the half-life of the radioactive wastes are centuries. And the stuff is leaking into the Columbia River in Washington state from Hanford Nuke Reservation because no one knows how to get rid of radioactive waste.

Do we hear about fusion energy? Is anyone familiar with the status of research of it? Fusion vs. fission used to be a big topic before the 1990's. Clean energy from fusion. Think about it. Fission/nuclear power = cancer; fusion = clean, non-toxic waste if there is any at all. Anyone know out there?

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Of course such an idea seems a bit "communist" but it seems eminently sensible to me

Amsterdam still has an enormous number of bicycles - and is one of the nicest places in the world with people who are just genuinely nice to each other

The model of the Amsterdam FREE bike system could easily be copied in cities all over the world.

The beauty of a bicycle should not be underestimated

If you drive a car you get really angry and irritable which does your blood pressure no good at all

But riding a bike means that you can get about a lot quicker than walking

It also exercises your muscles which is really good for your body such that it keeps you really healthy

So you look good and live a long time and can still have brilliant sex when you are in your 80's

Bikes are great

Governments should make them available for free - then we wouldn't need so many bikes

Cos most bikes are just sat rusting away doing nothing in a garden shed throughout most of their lives.

I love the Dutch

They are a really liberated people with a wonderful attitude about life

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It doesn't matter how you power them. CARS are a problem. We need to focus on public transit wherever possible and encourage walking and bicycling.

No matter how you power them, creating the power contributes to global warming.

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shanks' mare.

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Whether you are a Global Warming Believer or not, you don't have to stretch your beliefs to see that EVs are better for our environment. If you don't think so, go for a run during rush hour and tell me how your lungs feel. I'd rather smoke while running...

Now we just have to get technology to catch up and produce AFFORDABLE products. I would happily buy a hybrid (for long distance travel) or an EV (for everyday travel), but right now I can't stomach the cost and there is the problem with the batteries. We gotta keep trying. The progress will continue now that the need is slapping up in the face at $4 a gallon.

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The wish list would also include that the electricity to charge the car would derive from photovoltaic arrays mounted on the roofs (or anywhere) at everyone's homes. "Free" electricity from the sun powering our cars. The only stumbling block? How do you get the utility companies to work with this concept? We need to create a win-win situation wherein the utilities will be content to provide the relay infrastructure to facilitate the home-generated electricity across the grid -- unless we will be forced to make the choice to go off grid and store our own electricity in batteries. That is a much costlier proposition and much more complicated.

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Want to grasp the true "stake in the heart" of the big oil bloodsuckers?

Water and Solar to Hydrogen and Oxygen
Water Fuel Cells

It is much easier and much more efficient now to simply split water into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombine them, repeatedly! The old story about it taking too much energy to get hydrogen from water is hogwash. Furthermore, those excuses ignore the fact that a well-designed engine that captures both pure hydrogen and pure oxygen and burns them in a closed chamber is far more energetic than just burning hydrogen in the relatively low oxygen atmosphere. This is the key to success.

The problem has been, BIG OIL, once again. Once this cat is out of the bag, any oil source as fuel is dead and gone, including biofuel. Water is abundant and if one captures the exhaust, which is water, you are recycling fuel. Get it?

If it can put rockets into space, it can run a well-designed engine, which can then be used for onsite electric generators, internal combustion engines, etc., etc. Likewise, if we can go the Moon, Mars, the outer planets, etc., we could put the same effort towards this and end our energy dependence on corporations and their monopolies.

The bottom line is that the knowledge and technologies to kill Big Oil already exist and are simply waiting for widespread recognition, acceptance, and fine-tuning. Also, it's not rocket science and it's much easier to implement than we have been told. This is also part of their big fear. Since people are desperate for change now, every inventor and tinkerer worth their salt will be able to implement this, if the knowledge is freely available

The lying dogs are being exposed daily. The only reason we haven't moved to water as fuel is their inability to monopolize the profits. Let's take our world away from these greedy assholes and end the dependence on all oil sources and corporations.

Here is Wisdom !!

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a 32 hours, 4 days work week would cut commute consumption by 20 percent.

Utah and Colorado are moving to a 4 days work week for public employees to reduce costs. If we all did, we could reduce costs and cut fuel consumption.

http://pogoprinciple.wordpress.com/

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There are no "dire national security problems inherent in our dependence on imported oil.". In fact the biggest national security problem faced by the US is it's imperialist tendencies, which are discouraged by a dependence on foreign oil. In fact the US "dependence" on foreign oil creates a foreign and especially arab dependence on US money, which is the best guarantee of "national security" the US has.

As for "Who killed the electric car?" well it died of lack of interest. The reason the legistlation was weakened was that nobody wanted to buy what the politicians wanted them to buy. That is the sole reason that GM and other manufacturers sought leave from their masters not to make any. Of course the idea that the legislation was only introduced so that auto makers would bribe politicians to repeal it is just a conspiracy theory. Move along nothing to see here.

From mistakes we go to simple lies when the author claims "This is the reason Enron and others were able to manipulate the system in deregulated California 10 years ago, a manipulation that led to the near bankruptcy of the state and continues to burden the state budget.". For a start the system was not deregulated as any glance at the stories about said system will tell you. What sort of "deregulation" is it that bans long term contracts and forbids you to pay the price you agreed on with the seller, instead insisting you pay the _highest_ price on the day? The reason Enron and others could manipulate the system was because it was designed to be manipulated for corrupt purposes. It has nothing to do with the nature of electricity generation, transmission and sale which resisted manipulation in genuinely deregulated markets for decades.

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There are no "dire national security problems inherent in our dependence on imported oil.". In fact the biggest national security problem faced by the US is it's imperialist tendencies, which are discouraged by a dependence on foreign oil. In fact the US "dependence" on foreign oil creates a foreign and especially arab dependence on US money, which is the best guarantee of "national security" the US has.

As for "Who killed the electric car?" well it died of lack of interest. The reason the legistlation was weakened was that nobody wanted to buy what the politicians wanted them to buy. That is the sole reason that GM and other manufacturers sought leave from their masters not to make any. Of course the idea that the legislation was only introduced so that auto makers would bribe politicians to repeal it is just a conspiracy theory. Move along nothing to see here.

From mistakes we go to simple lies when the author claims "This is the reason Enron and others were able to manipulate the system in deregulated California 10 years ago, a manipulation that led to the near bankruptcy of the state and continues to burden the state budget.". For a start the system was not deregulated as any glance at the stories about said system will tell you. What sort of "deregulation" is it that bans long term contracts and forbids you to pay the price you agreed on with the seller, instead insisting you pay the _highest_ price on the day? The reason Enron and others could manipulate the system was because it was designed to be manipulated for corrupt purposes. It has nothing to do with the nature of electricity generation, transmission and sale which resisted manipulation in genuinely deregulated markets for decades.

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I have pushed this idea for a long time. Even wrote to congress and posted articles online.

Fuel Up at Home

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Mr. Morris indicated that only 3 percent of our electricity is provided by oil.

I believe he missed the point regarding energy independence. Yes, if we had no oil we would still have electricity. But when we can no longer afford oil or have access to oil, our transportation dependent economy will stop.

Oil is the foundation of U.S. transportation. This is why electric vehicles are so critical.

American car companies are now scrambling; even oil companies have dropped prices in recent days. This "brotherhood of greed" (the U.S. car manufacturers and oil companies) is now seeing the writing on the wall.

Electric transportation is coming and those that sailed on greed will sink in need.

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I diligently did my homework 3 years ago and bought a hybrid Toyota Highlander. Since it was the best I could do here in Oregon only to discover that Toyota offered a few Californians the ability to purchase all electric RAV4s which have demonstrated their durability with some over 100,000 miles with no gasoline or oil used. I'm pissed! Why do they tease us with technology that is current and viable only to deny us its availability?

I have tried to engage Toyota to secure a Plug In Hybrid conversion for my hybrid and they act like they don't know what I'm talking about or state that the technology is not yet available! Can you read BULLSHIT here? If they are available in California why can't we in Oregon have access to these units? Why is our American auto industry degraded to junk bond status when I could sell more electric vehicles than they could make!? Do you know anyone who enjoys putting their food and healthcare money in their gas tank?

Pissed in Oregon

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The problem of intermittency of energy supply from solar energy may well be solved. Seriously!

Go to this MIT website: (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html) and feel genuine hope for the first time.

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The key to energy independence is to produce more energy in the USA by Americans! The market is smart enough to figure out how to use it! Electric cars are definitely part of that equation along with many changes in the way we produce and consume. More oil, more gas, more nuclear, more coal, wind, solar, geothermal energy and...

Less Government, liberal media, and NIMBY's (not in my back yard)

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When Gen Motors came up with 50 prototypes of the EV-1 in 1995, within 3 short years, battery storage design had improved from the initial 80 miles for a 1/2-hour battery charge to 300 miles for a 1/2-hour battery charge, well within the weekly commute needs of the average American, yet even though the 50 private individuals (Mel Gibson, the actor - among them) leased the EV-1 in anticipation of its manufacture for the masses, and came up with 4.5 million to reimburse Gen Motors for their R&D costs for development of the EV-1. Gen Motors REFUSED the reimbursement offered by the leasees who wanted to keep their EV'1 in spite of the fact that Gen Motors was now changing its mind about mass mfrgring and gave no reason for why they then recalled all 50 prototypes, smashed them, loaded them on a flatbed truck and drove far out into the Arizona desert, where they were dumped - and are rusting today. 50 cars, all totally SILENT, going 300 miles on a 1/2 hour battery charge, no need to ever buy filters, oil, etc.,(the cost of upkeep on combustible engine). Mel Gibson and all other 49 leasees who wanted to keep their EV-1's, now have a lawsuit against Gen Motors re: the EV-1 -- ON BEHALF OF THE ENTIRE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Americans - find out what is happening with this lawsuit, and send as much money as you can to fight the hoard of legal reps that will keep making the inevitable legal delays to keep this lawsuit from ever seeing a courtroom. Get angry! Get furious! Demand the EV-1 and TO HELL WITH THE AUTO INDUSTRY'S PATHETIC HYBRID DESIGNS THAT MAINTAIN THE ABSURDLY HIGH COST OF ANY CAR TODAY AND WOEFULLY INCOMPARABLE TO THE EV-1 of more than 10 years ago! Am beginning to wonder if Americans are not such pathetic, embarassingly wimpy sheep that we all deserve to be screwed every single day for the rest of our lives because we REFUSE TO GET DOWNRIGHT RABID -- IF THAT IS WHAT IT TAKES.

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Stupid article on two counts. One global warming is a hoax. Two the energy crisis is a hoax. There is lots and lots of oil but as long as free people continue to let huge corporations dictate where oil is obtained from and how much is extracted and refined then us serfs will walk around with our heads up our assholes talking about peak oil and CO2 as a poisonous gas. Meanwhile if this guy doesn't know that battery powered cars would already have taken over if oil was truly running out then one must assume he is unqualified to comment on this issue. The technology has been available for a long time that would allow us to convert transportation over to battery powered but don't hold your breath while they have your balls in their grasp with oil and government control.

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I'm just curious as to who proofread this article? The article might have been interesting and well worth the read as are most articles coming from AlterNet. I do appreciate the work you do here and read you everyday but this article slipped through the cracks in my opinion. I could not get past the overuse of "that" in the article. Admittedly, this is a pet peeve of mine, even so, the article read like it had not been edited.

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After reading this article an idea occured to me that we will need refueling technology for plug in electric cars. Maybe we could develope a battery that is interchangeable in all EV's. They could be plugged in at 'refueling stations' (the power bank referred to in article). As you travel across the country you would stop here, pay for a charge and simply exchange your car's battery with a charged one from the station. This could also be used for public trasit and taxi cabs. I know this technology already exists because fork lifts and EV's are managed this way where my son works. It's so simple! Lets do it!

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Sounds good, I'm so looking forward to 300 mpg in an Aptera.

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