Bush FAILING to Convince the Saudis

[The Leaper]

No, definitely not true. Something like 85% of all car travel is short distance commuting and errands. There is no reason this can't be done in electric cars.

So what? 85% of travel is what we HAVE to do, it isn't enjoyable. The 15% you are talking about eliminating IS enjoyable...going to visit family and friends elsewhere, going on vacation, going to see the Packers, etc, etc.

Again, if you are ready to sacrifice your personal ability to travel more than 100 miles from your home...go for it. I just seriously doubt most Americans would share your fantastic enthusiasm of it.

Electric motors are far simpler and have much lower maintanance costs than internal combustion. There is no technical reason why we shouldn't be tooling around in electric cars, the only barriers are entrenched business interests and a failure of imagination.

There's a darn good reason. When my gas tank is empty, it takes me less than 5 minutes to fill it up and continue my travels. When your electric battery gets low, is it going to take you less than 5 minutes to recharge it? It will take hours to recharge it...there's a great way to spend your vacation time heading down to Myrtle Beach or Orlando.

Until there is a way to quickly and efficiently charge an electric motor for a vehicle, I don't see any way you can justify your notion that we should be 100% electric right now.

Have you really thought this through at all Harlan...or are you just talking out your ass? In general, electric motors are highly desirable to internal combustion...I agree on that. Great for golf carts...but people don't use golf carts to drive to Grandma's or the beach. In terms of the automobile, gas engines still provide the greatest ease in terms of usage and time at this point...by far. That could change 15-20 years down the road...but I don't see it happening in the near future.

Stop relying on Al Gore for your thoughts...the car is not the single greatest threat to our globe.

[Harlan Huckleby]

No, definitely not true. Something like 85% of all car travel is short distance commuting and errands. There is no reason this can't be done in electric cars.

So what? 85% of travel is what we HAVE to do, it isn't enjoyable. The 15% you are talking about eliminating IS enjoyable...going to visit family and friends elsewhere, going on vacation, going to see the Packers, etc, etc.

I haven't read your whole post yet because I'm a very busy, important man, but I didn't mean to suggest that electric cars can totally replace gas cars any time soon. Most families would have two cars.

But who knows what electric cars would be able to do in 30 years.

[texaspackerbacker]

No problem with the length of the post, Dean. Well said.

All of the various things you advocate pass the what's-good-for-America test. That is in stark contrast to a certain half-assed America-hater in the lead for the Democrat nomination who made the truly Carter-esque statement that Americans should make sacrifices like not driving SUVs. The hell with that crap.

What precisely is so horrid about driving a smaller car? And I'm sure the idea of using solar (which is free) or wind (right, free too) is loathsome as well because you have to make an initial investment to do it? or is it because you don't like the way saving energy looks?

It's not a question of what is or isn't good or bad about small cars versus SUVs. It is the idea of a God damned elitist piece of crap like Obama advocating government intrusion to prevent or discourage people from driving SUVs. And I say that as somebody who has never owned an SUV.

I get the same feeling as with motorcycle helmet laws. I always used a helmet, but I hated like hell the idea of some damn government telling me I had to. Same thing with seat belts, except most of the time I don't even use them. Down here in Texas, they have an absolutely galling commercial--paid for with taxpayer money, saying "Click It or Ticket"--to which I say "Stick It".

When the time comes that market forces bring us solar or wind power or electric cars or whatever, then we will have them. Until that time, the idea of some God damned sick elitist liberal bureaucrat dictating to Americans what we can or can't drive is pure bullshit. And the idea of Americans being forced to do ANYTHING because the God damned rest of the world wants it or thinks it's better, that better NEVER happen--and it won't happen, barring the prospect of electing an America-hating asshole like Obama.

[MJZiggy]

But shouldn't we be spending the money to develop the future rather than on drilling for more oil dependence? There's a difference between the government mandating the use of smaller cars and discouraging the use of SUVs.

I find it fascinating that out in the desert, one of the richest oil nations in the world is spending billions on R&D of alternative energies in order to assure that we will always be dependent on them...

[texaspackerbacker]

There's a difference between the government mandating the use of smaller cars and discouraging the use of SUVs.

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A difference in DEGREE only. How do you define "discourage"? I define it in this case as the government delivering a hard financial hit to people driving the vehicle libs want to "discourage". And that is just plain wrong--a totally unwarranted restriction of our freedom just because some damn elitists want to see life become less pleasant in America.

Who do you think should be paying for all this "R & D" on alternative fuel sources. As you said yourself, there actually IS a lot of it being done already. As market forces justify such investment, there will be more of it. That's the way free enterprise capitalism works--and it DOES work!

You said you were "fascinated" by the fact that the oil companies are prime movers toward alternatives. Does that mean you are for that or against it? I don't see how you could possibly find a rational reason to be against it.

[MJZiggy]

You said you were "fascinated" by the fact that the oil companies are prime movers toward alternatives. Does that mean you are for that or against it? I don't see how you could possibly find a rational reason to be against it.

When did I ever say anything about oil companies wanting to do anything about alternatives? Oil companies want nothing more than to suck every drop of oil they can get out of the earth and charge us a mint to do it.

(by the way, when I said America should spend the money on R&D, I was referring to the money that they would have spent fighting the legal battles, then pumping oil out of virgin territory, refining it, and transporting it before a penny of profit can be made from it.

[texaspackerbacker]

You said:

I find it fascinating that out in the desert, one of the richest oil nations in the world is spending billions on R&D of alternative energies in order to assure that we will always be dependent on them...
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If that doesn't refer to the oil companies, then WHO does it refer to--oil companies getting into alternatives to assure "we will always be dependent on them"?

It certainly is true, and has been for 50 years or more.

If by "America" you mean the government, then hell yeah, they/we should stop spending that money on legal expenses in those cases--because they are the ones fighting the suits by companies wanting to drill in ANWAR off shore, and elsewhere that the environmentalist wackos whine about.

[mraynrand]

Probably the best the govt. could do is to get out of the way of industry trying to solve problems. With respect to the Saudis, if the oil output is truly maxed out, then - other than the bubble due to speculation and the weak dollar - the Saudis shouldn't be able to screw with prices when companies really heavily invest in alternatives and alternative sites for drilling. The ability of OPEC to dump their product has undermined profitable exploration in the past - so the U.S. govt.'s job is to prevent this.

One hidden problem that I don't see addressed here is that energy companies are not always necessarily trying to fight to drill for more oil or produce more energy - they are trying to make the best profit. That's OK, but it does lead to funny deals, like when the Nat. gas industry sided with the environmental lobby to get congress to limit nat. gas exploration. why did they do it? Because it's easier to charge more for the same product than invest in exploration and drilling. Ultimately, if the market expands and demand continues to rise, it will be in the best interest of companies to explore and drill, but don' t be shocked if deals like this are carried out to max out profits in the short term. Remember that most of you with mutual funds probably have your kids college and retirement at least partially dependent on energy profits.

[MJZiggy]

Tex, I was referring to the government of the UAE, namely Abu Dhabi which has dumped billions into R&D and is now in the implementing stages of making us look like ignorant buffoons over here, but if you want to keep drilling for oil and let them take the lead in innovation, don't complain when it pays off for them and we're still sitting here debating about whether we should be drilling in pristine natural environs in order to keep life more convenient for us.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Drilling more domestic oil might make us more "energy independent" in a theoretical sense. If some giant world war disrupted shipping, we'd have a relatively secure supply.

But it will do little to nothing about price. Domestic and foreign oil sell at the same market price, we'd have to suck enough oil out to affect international markets, and I doubt that is possible.

I think we face a very scary situation. We failed to retool after the last major crisis in the 1970's.

[oregonpackfan]

I think we face a very scary situation. We failed to retool after the last major crisis in the 1970's.[/quote]

If you recall, Harlan, Jimmy Carter began a program developing alternative forms of energy. Though he had his shortcomings as a President, he did have the foresight to realize there is just a finite amount of fossil fuels on this planet and that alternative sources of energy were needed to make the country energy independent.

So what did Ronald Reagan do when he was elected President in 1980? His first symbolic act was to remove the solar panels that Carter had installed in the White House. Then he systematically scrapped all the alternative energy programs the Carter administration had begun.

Reagan was a big advocate of oil. His own Vice-President, George H.W. Bush, was an oil man. In addition, the oil companies were huge contributors to his presidential campaign.

Think of where are country would be right now if we had been developing those alternative energy programs since 1980. We would have been far less dependent on importing foreign oil(we currently import 60% of our oil use.)

In addition, we would not have had to invade Iraq and have this 5+ year Iraq War. This is really what this war is all about--OIL. It has been well documented that Saddam Hussain had no Weapons of Mass Destruction which were a threat to the United States, nor did he have anything to do with 9/11 or al-Qaida.

[Scott Campbell]

Natural gas is around 65 cents a gallon here in UT, and we have 20 stations for refueling along the Wasatch front. Honda makes a $23K natual gas civic. Very tempting. Smaller tanks mean only about 200 miles per tank.

[MJZiggy]

I have a smaller tank and get about 400 per tank...though I'm not using natural gas. I wonder what mpg it gets.

[oregonpackfan]

Hydrogen is an alternative fuel source that needs to be explored and further developed.

[oregonpackfan]

Hydrogen is an alternative fuel source that needs to be explored and further developed.