>> ^KnivesOut:
WP your argument is based entirely on the preconception that humans have to continue to use at least as much if not more energy that we currently do.
With the increasing cost of energy, the demand for it will be reduced. Economics 101.


The global population is not decreasing, it's growing exponentially. Add to that the fact that developing countries like China and India have done a u-turn and are now more capitalist than we are. That is enabling more of them to outbid us for resources to power their new cars and homes and appliances, we didn't have to compete with that before. There is a global shift of capital happening from the deeply indebted and welfarist west to booming capitalist countries in Asia. If you tax fossil fuels here, Asia will be happy to take them off our luddite hands. You cannot artificially induce a transition to technologies that are hopelessly inefficient and expensive, you will be kicking people out of their cars, homes, off their computers.

70% of our oil is imported and we haven't built a nuclear power plant in decades to prepare for a transition to electric cars. Even if it were possible to snap our fingers and make every car and tanker electric, our electric grid is completely incapable of that load, we're getting blackouts in California already. How are we going to keep the cost of transportation and products as cheap as it is now without a massive, massive amount of nuclear power?

Wait, what? Now I'm confused as to who you're talking to. I assume it's me since I'm who you quoted. But where am I wrong?

USA didn't fuck-up Iraq? We have no responsibility to help them financially?

"Sorry guys, we bombed the shit out of your country, destroyed your infrastructure, your electrical grid, your sewage and water systems. We leveled your hospitals and schools, filled your morgues and cemetaries, disbanded your armies and killed off your police forces. We even were kind enough to leave your museums open to looters, almost erasing your cultural artifacts, which happen to kinda be important since Babylon n shit was like all first human colonies n stuff. But, you guys been around these parts a while now. I'm sure you need no help or money from us. BYE!!"



@blankfist: Sorry, I read the sentence wrong. I did read your whole stupid thing, but I missed that part, cuz i dum. also.


>> ^imstellar28:
Your logic is wrong on so many levels, I'd need a ladder to even attempt to address it. Since arguing with you is about as constructive as arguing with a brick wall, I'll just leave a comment here noting that people think you are wrong.
>> ^volumptuous:
That was personal?
I'm just wondering what you're getting at here. There are many ways the Gov should fix messes they've created.
Iraq is a good one. As Colin Powell said to GWB "You break it, you own it."
Obviously the Bush admin was too corrupt and incompetent to fix a fucking flat tire, but still, the US now owes Iraq big time. We completely fucked their shit up, and to not fix it is a horrendous idea.

>> ^blankfist:
To be honest, I think it's great to give people jobs, but am I the only person on here that doesn't understand how inventing government jobs is a smart solution that won't aid the growing deficit?

Read the bill, 90% of the jobs created will be in the private sector.

And how can placing more federal standards on industries in any way save money?

Here's a simple one: standardize electrical delivery on 120V AC. Now we don't need to worry about crazy conversions whenever we buy a new appliance, or move to a new home.

Then there's always regulating Credit Default Swaps so that there would have to be transparency, letting investors know the real value of what they're holding, so we don't have an economy-killing situation because when companies suddenly realize they don't know what they're worth anymore.

Then there's always the whole thing about not changing the chemistry of our planet's atmosphere and getting everyone killed, but I forgot, you don't believe in chemistry.

How can spending more money help us?

Simple, spending money creates demand. Companies increase their supply to meet demand, hiring more people. More people have money, and spend more, creating more demand. For long-term, we're trying to create durable infrastructure that will help the economy long term (roads, rail, electrical grid upgrades, internet bandwidth upgrades, funding for education, health care, etc.), which will provide a boost when the short-term stimulus ends.

You want to save the economy, I'd recommend looking at ways to allow the people to save more money and spend more money. And this can only be achieved by cutting back on government spending.
It's that dreaded "cut taxes" philosophy that makes my fellow liberal brothers shriek in terror when uttered. But, come on, you could start by cutting payroll taxes and lessening income taxes. Hell, here are a few other places we could start cutting back, too:
Accounts Receivable Tax, Building Permit Tax, CDL license Tax, Cigarette Tax, Corporate Income Tax, Dog License Tax, Excise Taxes, Federal Income Tax, Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA), Fishing License Tax, Food License Tax, Fuel Permit Tax, Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon), Gross Receipts Tax, Hunting License Tax, Inheritance Tax, Inventory Tax, IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax), Liquor Tax, Luxury Taxes, Marriage License Tax, Medicare Tax, Personal Property Tax, Property Tax, Real Estate Tax, Service Charge Tax, Social Security Tax, Road Usage Tax, Sales Tax, Recreational Vehicle Tax, School Tax, State Income Tax, State Unemployment Tax (SUTA), Telephone Federal Excise Tax, Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax, Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes, Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax, Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax, Telephone State and Local Tax, Telephone Usage Charge Tax, Utility Taxes, Vehicle License Registration Tax, Vehicle Sales Tax, Watercraft Registration Tax, Well Permit Tax, Workers Compensation Tax.
But, for some reason the majority of my liberal friends think taxes are just fine and dandy. But, by better funding our government we've created trust fund brats out of politicians. We were warned but refuse to listen.


Again, read the bill. Temporary tax cuts account for more than 1/3 of the bill right now. Most of them are aimed at people who only pay payroll taxes and sales tax (or as the Republicans call this: socialism and payoffs to our voters).

Obama has been talking about cutting spending on programs that don't work since the primary days. He's repeating that promise again now as a way to get the deficit under control in the future. He's also talking about letting Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010, because, well, we do need to pay our debts at some point.

Us liberals don't think taxes are fine and dandy. We think they need to go down for the lower and middle class, and up for the top 1%. We don't think taxes are inherently evil, nor government spending. There are taxes we like, taxes we don't like, and spending we like, and spending we don't like.

We don't understand people who're totally fixated on taxes as if it's their chief burden in life. We think it's childish to constantly bitch about them -- you might as well be screaming and refusing to brush your teeth, or bathe, or eat your vegetables.

It's fine to not like individual things the government spends its money on, but to cry out "cut, we don't care where" is lunacy. Say what you want cut, and try to make a proof that life will get better for people without that thing you cut. Otherwise it's just whining.

Regulation of Credit Default Swaps would have significantly reduced, and possibly eliminated the problem we are currently having, we would not have had as large a real-estate bubble, nor as large a crash, banks would probably not have evaporated under the strain of what remained.

As for throwing money at the solution, I don't really buy that it will be done in a way that helps. If I had to solve it I would spend every penny on infrastructure, which is in effect a blanket subsidy of the economy, without being a "stick it in your pocket and run away" sort of bail-out, as we saw with the banks.

Spending on regulation and enforcement could have helped, but at this point I don't really expect anything but crash and burn. When mobs of people are starving in the street, then Washington will pay to put them all back to work rebuilding the electrical grid, mostly because that's cheaper than prison, or revolution, until then I don't think much of what they spend will do any good.

Moving freight, airplanes and battleships requires different solutions (in my opinion) then the problem of getting your kids to the hockey game.

The engines that run minivans are identical to the ones used by freight ships, freight trains, Farm implements, highway tractors, backup generators, battleships and prop planes. The same solution applies to them all. In fact, large enough ships like carriers and subs already run off electricity instead of oil because it is cheaper.


Even if energy storage technology was to rapidly become what we would need it to be, where would the energy come from if the source for more then half of our current use was to vanish?


We have enough sources of uranium and thorium to meet global energy needs for 100's of years. With any luck, we can develop renewable sources like wind,tidal and solar with that kind of time to get them ready. If we're really lucky, maybe we'll even get fusion power before that and then we are good for the lifetime of the solar system. As a bonus, nuclear is cheaper when developed on a large scale, France is making good money running over 80% nuclear power and exporting it's cheaper electricity to the rest of Europe.


A battery won't move an 18 wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18 wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline, and our domestic natural gas.

That is utter nonesense. Lookup Tesla motors, they've actually managed to use current battery technology to make a Lotus Elise that is FASTER than it's oil driven counter-part. The argument is as silly as when people felt automobiles where worthless because they couldn't go as far as a horse without a fill-up. Batteries don't need to improve too much more to be a viable replacement and then a landslide shift will take place to cheaper more powerfull electric vehicles.


In the mean time, let me know when you've found a battery that can power an ocean liner.


And this is your fundamental and underlying misunderstanding. The navy is currently using compact nuclear generators as giant batteries to power their largest ships more cheaply and without any dependence on oil. The problem for ocean liner's isn't building a battery that is big enough, it's building them SMALL enough. If a battery can be made small enough to replace the gas tank in a car, then you can power ANYTHING bigger than that car as well by using 2,10 or 1000 such batteries. Already with current laptop battery technology we are almost there. We don't need a breakthrough, a few small improvements to weight and cost and the solution is there. Anything to small to be powered by a compact nuclear generator can instead be run off of batteries without a loss in performance or ability.


The social attachment to oil is much deeper the powering the transportation to get to the grocery store or the beach. It is in every piece of food you get at the grocery store or bring to the beach. It is in the road you drive on, the oil that lubricates the engine as well as just the gas tank.


But moving goods is all still part of the transportation network. And ALL of those applications use internal combustion engines that can be replaced with only a moderately improved battery over those available today.


The agricultural attachment to oil is not just that it is used in the production and delivery of the fertilizer that grows the food to feed the citizen or just the fuel in the gas tank of the grain harvester and other farm machinery.


I grew up on a farm. The agricultural attachment to oil is again dominated by the use of internal combustion engines for machinery, which is easily replaced with a better battery.


The political attachment to oil is not just ensuring that a population have access to the cheap energy for their car, but the cheap fuel for the cheap power plant the provides the cheap electricity for to run the fridge for the cheap food brought from all corners of the earth.

Wrong, the cheap power plant runs off of coal, not oil. Coal reserves utterly dwarf oil reserves, that's why not even crazy people talk about 'peak' coal. In fact, many talk about converting coal to oil if necessary.


I'm sorry, but the entirety of the arguments you make NEVER go beyond the assumption that nothing can replace internal combustion engines and so when oil runs out everything using them is doomed. Fortunately that is not the reality we live in. Even with current technology, battery powered electric motors are begining to appear in automobiles. The military has been running their largest ships on electricty and independent of oil for decades. We are not looking at a dire need for a major breakthrough. We only need small, incremental improvements to battey technology to being able to replace internal combustion engines with batteries, and oil with electricity. Then we are free to simply expand the electric grid, which we have been doing for nearly a century already and are getting rather good at.

With all those people and all those computers, it's only a matter of time that something like this happened. Who is behind it? Duh! The Chinese. I wonder when we'll have the world's first hot war that begins as a cyberwar. I mean, if a foreign country fries your electrical grid with malicious code, do you have the right, in terms of the "rules of war," to actually kill some of them and break their shit?

>> ^campionidelmondo:
Oh guys, please get your heads out of your asses. I know those lil electric cars look promising, but they can only be part of a solution when used in connection with clean energy. Right now, these electric cars won't solve anything, because the additional energy that would be needed to "fuel" these things would have to be generated from coal and nuclear power plants.

Maybe so, but power plant emissions are easier to manage than those of millions of cars, especially old cars. Remember that the first cars were electric, but that petrol won in the end because of the convenience factor as there was no national electric grid yet. In pre-war days, fuel efficiency was low and roads sparse. People used mass transit to go from city to city, or even from place to place in a big city. In fact, subways predate the automobile and are still run by electricity to this day.

But this is primarily a North American problem/misconception, that anything that doesn't let you go in the remotest of places the instant you think of going there is "not good". Let's quote Wikipedia: "Some cities have built urban rail transit systems that are so comprehensive and efficient that the majority of city residents use it as their primary means of transport. This is common in many of the largest cities in Europe, such as Berlin, Paris, London, Madrid and Moscow, many large cities in Asia, such as Hong Kong, Osaka, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo; in North America the only city matching these is New York.[52]" And so the conundrum: if you're working in a big city where mass transit is useful and ubiquitous, do you really need a car to commute? No. If you're not working in such a city, do you need a car? Potentially yes. Then, would you need a car that can go 500 miles in a day to commute? Not useless you're crazy. And if you really need to go from Los Angeles to New York in your car (because you're mentally ill or on a road trip), why don't you take an electric car and take your time? Driving too many hours in the same day only increases the risk of accidents. And if you don't have the time to take your time, what the hell are you wasting time driving for?

biodiesel is better. Heck 60-100mpg diesel is better.

Where the hell do you think the "electric" magically comes from?
Yes, dynamic breaking is good and 4-wheel direct drive DC motors with new battery technology is great for weight and maintenance.

But if everyone bought electric cars we would end up using MORE energy, MORE petroleum. Just because you think this is the best think ever.. it isn't.

Energy loss from generation to transmission to homes.. charging losses, electric motor losses, storage losses. Sure gas is converted mostly to heat, but you have less energy loss from 1 gallon of petroleum in a combustion engine, then 1 gal burned at a power plant to power an electric car.

Do you have the aluminum mines and copper mines that will be require to move all these gigawatts to people's garages to charge their "green" pieces of crap? We would have to double the electric grid to meet the need. We would need to build power plants and transformers. Rechargeable batteries are about the most harmful thing ever to the environment. Get real. Right now turbo diesel is the best bet, maybe biodiesel if we ever get a source that can scale to more than a few hundred hobbyists.

I cant understand how you would be upset over this.

Removing a transport fuel from the national electrical grid, and putting into transport, and replacing it with renewable clean energy for the grid....

Energy independance....the clean, renewable way. Whats wrong with that ?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

^ That's crap DrPawn - electrical grid power plants have the economy of scale on their side. Any energy they produce is way more efficient and green than energy derived from an IC engine in your car.

The point with this one- is that for your everyday running around you don't need to use any gas at all. But you still have the range of a conventional car if you need it with the included small generator.

You must not have watched the video- or read the comment right above you. It has a range of 650 miles. Not that much different than your hybrid- which I'm sorry - does not have an "endless" range either.