Sales of the GM Volt.

[Wiglaf]

nah joshh just reposts anything that has obama and hitler in the same picture

[jrobie79]

my question is....who decided green technology was the technology of the future? why can't there be any option for advancement in fossil fuels...or shit something we havent even scratched upon?

[Wiglaf]

Well, depends how far into the future we're talking about. At this point an advancement in fossil fuels could be even just political and make a huge difference in it's viability.. the middle east is unstable. But it's also not renewable and makes smog. All obvious points, right? As for cars it's a matter of making them more efficient. Even if all of the fuel burning was offloaded to power plants that would be more ideal, they are more efficient and cleaner about burning the same stuff. And maintained better.
There's still no way around it given the rate at which we use energy.

[u3b3rg33k]

my question is....who decided green technology was the technology of the future? why can't there be any option for advancement in fossil fuels...or shit something we havent even scratched upon?

There's a lot of progress on the fuel burning front - smaller, higher compression turbo engines that have similar BHP to engines from days of yore... Aside from marketing, it's pretty much both.

[rwh11385]

my question is....who decided green technology was the technology of the future? why can't there be any option for advancement in fossil fuels...or shit something we havent even scratched upon?

Unless you know a way to make a machine that creates dinosaurs and can put them under pressure and heat treat them into oil in a short amount of time, eventually we'll be out of fossil fuel, or it'll be so expensive to obtain it wouldn't be worth it.

[jrobie79]

that still doesnt answer my question, and that scenario doesnt take place for decades, if not centuries, and during that time alternative energy can be sourced (not rammed down our throats), but who decided 'green' was the new go to? the market sure as hell didnt

[Kershaw]

research can take a long long long time.

the time to fully flesh out the research and to make the transition to alternative fuels is not when we run out of fossil fuels.

why are you so against this? all your post seems pretty angry for no reason. do you own stock in oil companies? do you have a REAL reason to be so concerned whether diesel is made from dinos or algae, for instance?

because i really think you dont.

[rwh11385]

my question is....who decided green technology was the technology of the future? why can't there be any option for advancement in fossil fuels...or shit something we havent even scratched upon?

that still doesnt answer my question, and that scenario doesnt take place for decades, if not centuries, and during that time alternative energy can be sourced (not rammed down our throats), but who decided 'green' was the new go to? the market sure as hell didnt

Well, I guess if you want to call the TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE, the technology of next week or month, then by all means a tiny IC engine with a turbo and electronic flaps that close to save 2% of gas is the "future"... or last year.

But as mentioned previously in this thread, the efficiency of an internal combustion engine is limited by thermodynamic law and the limitations of the materials we are using. (which also has to do with cost). It's not like people just aren't trying to make a car more efficient as someone else assumed, that 50% more efficiency on engineering the IC alone would allow.

In the future, only energy you harness from nature or can grow will likely be sustainable enough to last throughout. Anything in the meantime, is buying time until we can accomplish that. Sure, we can have some slightly better dinosaur-burning cars and enjoy them while oil/gas is cheap [to us] and affordable, but who honestly expects that to be FOREVER? Or even in the future for that much longer?

Remember, when the car first came out, people considered it to a problem as it startled the horses on the roadway. Human flight and personal automobiles aren't much older than a century in existence... Technology changes what we take as the norm, and will change what we consider the status quo today.

research can take a long long long time.

the time to fully flesh out the research and to make the transition to alternative fuels is not when we run out of fossil fuels.

why are you so against this? all your post seems pretty angry for no reason. do you own stock in oil companies? do you have a REAL reason to be so concerned whether diesel is made from dinos or algae, for instance?

because i really think you dont.

Yup. Why wait until a huge problem occurs before taking action? People are already complaining about $4/gal gas? What about double that?

If we don't start now, when people begin to have concern for gas being less cheap or being at peak oil, then WHEN?

[jrobie79]

there is known to be massive deposits of oil in the united states...im not against alternative fuels, its the forcing of the govt to ram it down our throats, i understand it isnt infinite, but it is here for a long time to come (relatively speaking)...we should let the private sector figure these things out, it is not govt responsibility to make all these regulations on fuel efficient cars and all that shit

[Morrison]

Private sector business without government oversight is like a child without discipline - it'll be a spoiled brat that gets away with everything AKA Veruca Salt. You can look back to the buffalo hunting business and the whaling industry as examples of what happens when the private sector is left to its own devices. On the other hand, Oregon's regulations of the logging industry have resulted in a re-forrestation compliance rate of 97% - similar to the more responsible Charlie character.

Did you learn nothing from Mr. Wonka and his team of singing Oompa Loompa's?

[rwh11385]

there is known to be massive deposits of oil in the united states...im not against alternative fuels, its the forcing of the govt to ram it down our throats, i understand it isnt infinite, but it is here for a long time to come (relatively speaking)...we should let the private sector figure these things out, it is not govt responsibility to make all these regulations on fuel efficient cars and all that shit

Really? Where? Even 20B in proven reserves won't last long...

http://www.financialsensearchive.com/fsu/editorials/2007/0724.html

You do know that there are many private investments into renewable energies, from wind to solar to biogas, etc.? Not everything is covered by mainstream media.

[87e30]

This is a really long thread, has the topic of solar come and gone?

I'm waiting for solar breakthroughs that allow us to store the energy from the sun and distribute it more efficiently.

[rwh11385]

This is a really long thread, has the topic of solar come and gone?

I'm waiting for solar breakthroughs that allow us to store the energy from the sun and distribute it more efficiently.

I'm not sure how much it was talked about in the thread, but this was a good article I've read:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679391/t...ciency-records

"The company’s tech uses low-cost lenses to make the sun focused on the cells brighter by a factor of 1,100, achieving a record 41% efficiency rate. The tiny cells occupy only one-one thousandth of the entire solar module area and can be printed by the thousands, cutting manufacturing costs by 50%."

"It received funding from Siemens, Duke Energy, and venture capital investors..." "SunShot Initiative is selectively funding research and loan guarantees for "high risk, high payoff concepts" that promise to transform "the ways we generate, store, and utilize solar energy projects" and has leveraged $1.6B in private capital"

Since 2007, waffleswaffleswaffles has invested $50 million for 35 solar start-ups in which private investment of them represents a 25-to-1 multiple of that.

And not sure if people mentioned Solyndra (which conservatives LOVE to do) but really, they represented a risky unconventional business plan that got beat by too good / strong of a solar market, not a poor one: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1678478/w...-went-bankrupt

Solyndra thought it would be successful when photovoltatic modules cost $3.25 per watt. But in the past 24 months, solar prices have fallen 70%, and are now moving close to grid parity (the point when it is just as cheap to generate solar as grid-tied fossil fuel sources ). And Solyndra just couldn’t compete with foreign (read: Chinese) companies that have overwhelming government resources and ultra-low price points. This isn’t a great statement about American manufacturing, but it’s not such bad news about where the solar industry is positioned.

"This is a reflection more about the success of the industry than the specific failure of Solyndra," says Arno Harris, CEO of Recurrent Energy . "Costs are dropping rapidly because a number of other companies have lower cost technology. The price wouldn’t be where it is if there weren’t willing sellers at that price."

[KenC]

This is a really long thread, has the topic of solar come and gone?

I'm waiting for solar breakthroughs that allow us to store the energy from the sun and distribute it more efficiently.

Energy storage is a different beast than its capture from environmental sources. It's essentially electron storage no matter the source. Battery technology is the bottleneck in the system. Right now, as far as I know, Tesla uses the "best" batteries available, but the cost is astronomical. If we had the ability to effectively store solar and wind power, North and South Dakota would be one large wind and solar "farm."

The solution is within the link Bobby posted. We need cheap and efficient capture/conversion devices. Placement of these devices at the home (or commercial building) of the end-user where the produced energy is used immediately is going to be the best solution.

[z31maniac]

Really? Where? Even 20B in proven reserves won't last long...

http://www.financialsensearchive.com/fsu/editorials/2007/0724.html

You do know that there are many private investments into renewable energies, from wind to solar to biogas, etc.? Not everything is covered by mainstream media.

"So, is this an historic anomaly? No. Let’s look at more recent data. In 1980, according to the Energy Information Administration, the United States had 31.3 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. However, between 1980 and 2010, the United States produced 77.8 billion barrels of oil and still had 20.7 billion barrels of oil reserves left. In other words, between 1980 and 2010, the United States produced 2.5 times the amount of oil as it has proven oil reserves in 1980."


http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/45229