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Costco Unplugs

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Boom_70, Aug 21, 2011.

  1. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Is it safe to say that the zealously pro-EV crowd is the environmentalist equivalent of soccer parents and soccer fans? A lot of the comments sound awfully similar:
    "If you just gave it a chance, it would take off!"
    "In 20 years, everyone in America will be doing it!"
    "It's the media's fault for not covering this more!"
     
  2. Brian

    Brian Well-Known Member

    Probably. Or they could be the guys in their basements in the 1970s laughed at by IBM because they believed there would be a personal computer in every home.

    Just like few foresaw microchips becoming so inexpensive so quickly, we're one scientific leap forward from a lightning-fast revolution. That revolution isn't likely to be EV, but I'm glad there are some people investigating it.

    We always need some crazy people doing that.

    It's going to take a lot of trial and error to replace the combustion engine. probably decades. I don't think it's smart to put all our eggs in any one basket. We're at the steam engine point that eventually led to the modern engine, in my opinion. It could be another 40 years to find the right answer.

    I personally hope Doc Brown was prescient and we run our cars on root beer cans and banana peels. Hopefully not Libyan plutonium, though.
     
  3. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    I once had a '73 Buick Electra. 455, 8-cylinder engine. Enough gas mileage to get you to the next gas station. A 1980 Grand Prix ran a red light without stopping and hit my driver door at 40 mph, no skid marks at impact. The Grand Prix was totalled, the Electra had a dent in the steel and the passenger walked out perfectly fine outside of a little glass on his lap. I drove the Electra home, but the body work proved too expensive to keep it.

    This would have been about '88 or so.
     
  4. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    We have had 125 years of electric cars. There have been companies trying to market them for the last 40 + years. All the power to anyone who thinks they can invent something marketable. But it seems that this is an idea whose limitations have been greater than all the imaginations out there.
     
  5. Brian

    Brian Well-Known Member

    Oh, I agree. Most of the R&R should be going towards fuel economy with our current engine. We're going to be using fossil fuels for another 50 years. And even if we found the miracle engine now, it'd take India and China 30 years to switch over.

    But I hope some crackpot is out there trying something else, in case he leaves the proverbial petry dish on the kitchen counter and finds somrthing amazing.
     
  6. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    The feedyard where my father worked tried to switch to natural gas in the 1980's. Flip a switch and you went from gasoline to propane. The problem at that time was, pickup truck engines ran even less efficiently on natural gas. Soon my dad was uninstalling all the natural gas tanks and converters the company spent something like $2K to send him to Los Angeles to learn to install.
     
  7. Brian

    Brian Well-Known Member

    I had a friend who had a CNG Civic in like 1998 or 1999 and loved it. Had a hookup to his gas line on his house with a doodad in his garage to fill it up. It took FOREVER to fill up, but for commuting purposes he loved it. Looked and drove just like a regular Civic. But I figured if they became really popular, it'd drive up the price of CNG to gasoline-like prices and kill the advantage of them.
     
  8. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

    - Lord Kelvin, 1895

    http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Kelvin.html
     
  9. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    SOME DAY, it may be in 15 years, or it may be in 100, the oil is going to be fucking gone, as in GONE, and we will have to figure out some other way to power vehicles.

    In the meantime, let's all DRILL BABY DRILL, and that "someday" day will be a lot closer to the 15-year than the 100-year figure. Oh yeah also we get to keep paying through the ass to the loony mooslims they hate so much for all that oil, too.

    At this point it's just Pavlovian-dog stuff.

    "Green (i.e. any non-petroleum burning) energy" ? They're agin' it.

    "Improved fuel efficiency" ? Agin' it.

    "Reducing pollution" ? Agin' it, agin' it, agin' it.


    Fine. Let's play it all their way.

    Burn up all the oil as fast as we possibly can. If we have to roll in with nukes to take over some of the raghead countries, so be it. What's the worst that could happen after that?

    Pump out pollution absolutely without limits, because any kind of controls "inhibits the free market."

    Go for it. I'm over 50. I'll be dead in 20-30 years tops. I don't give a fuck.
     
  10. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    Starman's post reminds me of an question I trot out every 12 years or so -- basically whenever we decide to invade a Middle Eastern country:

    Would you kill someone for cheaper oil? (Or at the very least, would you pay someone to do it?)

    Unfortunately, if we're honest with ourselves, the answer is YES.

    Personally, I'd much rather find ways to use less oil and, therefore, kill fewer people to get the black bubbly stuff.
     
  11. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    I always think of Lewis Black's take on alternative energy, when he pulls out his iPhone and talks about how, 30 years ago a phone was mounted to a wall with a cord. Now, they're all basically hendheld, wireless computers. "I can download 3 million vaginas onto this thing in a second...don't tell me we can't have alternative energy."
     
  12. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    I am holding out hope that used McDonalds french fry oil will be our salvation.

    We can hit the drive through, fill up our tummies and vehicles at same time.

    On a related note the World Cup is just around the corner. Get ready for some soccer.
     
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