175 comments on Council on Foreign Relations -"National Security Consequences of Oil Dependency"
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Etc. Further, PHEV's will shortly exist in production. Enova is hybridizing school-bus drivetrains, to name just one. We can do this far better today than we could have in 1995, but had we begun then we would be much further along due to the impact of R&D. The current lack of production PHEV's appears to be due to industry intransigence, such as GM's gluing of the plug cover on the PHEV Saab.
* The USA cannot become energy independent.
* That the USA cannot sharply reduce its dependence on imports within 20 years
* That liquid fuels are a sine qua non for the ground transport sector (air transport is another matter)
In the sense that a collape or other countries refuse to sell oil to the US of A.../sure.
The 'we can fix things with new tech' arguments do not show what is being done with the old tech.
The 'replace the cars' arguemtn ignores the poor and their use of fully depreciated cars. And they ignore a desire to carry cargo (in the form of other people or actual items)
Now I haven't seen this point mentioned:
The policy makers 'listen' to orginizations like the CFR. the line "we create our own reality" echos in my head. It doesn't matter if the CFR is "wrong", what they have stated will be considered the reality.
CalCars can't move 2 600 lbs barrels of isocynate (a task needing to be done every 2 weeks or so) So should I rent a truck for 3 days every two weeks, or just have a truck and drive about all the time? Many people select their transportation not for the 90% of what it normally does, but on the 10% they need (or think they need).
Whne you claim 'the technical solutions exist so its not a problem' I don't see a electric transport that can move 1000 lbs of wet brewes grain 60 miles one way for 'disposal'.
On another 'politics is the issue':
Many here would see agenda 21 as a step in the right direction. Yet on other parts of the Internet the plan is a tool of the devil.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=a genda+21
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/agenda21.htm
Having all kinds of 'technology can save us' plans won't matter much if you can't come up with a way to implement them. Something like agenda 21 is being fought by some.... so what's the plan to have calcars work?
You could probably do that today with a hybrid Escape. Add a PHEV battery pack, slap 1 barrel in the back and the other on a utility trailer (towing capacity is only 1000 pounds otherwise both would go there).
I don't have to come up with the implementations, other people are already doing that.
The $64000 question: will you buy the GM PHEV pickup when it comes, so you can move your isocyanate and whatnot and still get decent mileage for commuting? Or will you reject the idea as against tradition? (The whole idea of petroleum-powered vehicles was against thousands of years of tradition; perhaps it's not too surprising that we're being forced to reconsider in the short space of a century.)
I should go ahead, SELL the truck to someone else, have a new depretion schedule on s GM product? Not to mention pay more in insurance on the new shiney truck VS the less insurance I now pay. Which is nothing more than re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic because the no longer needed truck was sold off? With the lesser towing capacity, I now have to make more 70 mile round trips to get the icocyanite off the loading docks.
And where is the $64,000 comiong from to buy this new truck?
Your "model" of "there is no problem, everyone just goes and gets new stuff" never mentions:
- Cashflow to get the new stuff
- The removal of the old stuff so it is no longer conuming the oil based products it once did.
- The additional costs of having 'new stuff' in tax rates or insurance.
Like the people in Washington DC, your ideas are rather free-spending with my money.And now a story:
Got a buddy, he bought a Durango 4 years ago. I said 'your gonna get killed on gas when it goes up in price' He said 'I said that to the wife. She says it's so the kids are safe.' Last year wife wanted out. So the buddy ran the numbers, and he figured that gas would have to go to $7.50 a gallon before the loss of blue book value VS what he owed on the dodge would make sense to dump it based on mileage. Not to mentiopn he'd loose access to the V8 for the towing he does 10 times (or less) a year. (he could drive 75 miles one way and get any of his old man's V8s for towing, so it is not like he lacks access per say) So he still has the Dodge. How does taking on a new, higher payment help him? How does his selling off the Durango to get the new techo-fix also stop that Durango from continuing to consume fossil fuels?
The technology plans people keep trotting out ignore the cash flows of existing business models based on old cheap oil. And I've not seen a transportation model with the autofleet that includes the destruction of the present stock to be replaced with magical new technology to achieve some 5 year plan.
Feel free to show a cashflow that gets me the same transportation level as I now have on a paid off and written down truck.
The truck will probably be worn out soon, definitely within 10 years. If you continue in this business you'll need another one. You'll have to fill your need from the options available at the time, either new or used. I'll rephrase the question so you don't feel quite so righteous in evading it:
Given a choice, will you buy a PHEV truck at that time or not?
My model recognizes the fact that some 17 million light vehicles are made in the USA each year and the average light truck is something like 6.9 years old. All the "new stuff" becomes "old stuff" within a relatively short time, and the cash flow to replace it certainly exists. The major question is what that "new stuff" is going to be like. We once decided that it was all going to slash exhaust emissions compared to previous practice, and within a few years all the new stuff was a lot cleaner and demanded unleaded fuel in the bargain. This will be no different.Sum up the costs of feeding your guzzling truck, including the war to try to secure oil supplies, and it looks more the opposite. How many PHEV trucks could you buy for $2 trillion? Even if they did cost $64000 apiece and you just scrapped the ones they'd replace, you could get 31 million of them. At a saner figure of $3000 incremental cost, you'd be able to pay to upgrade the next 667 million vehicles coming down the pike. At 17 million/year that's the next 39 years of production, even assuming no cost savings from the change.
He has my condolences.
And his analysis probably assumed the value wouldn't keep falling if gas prices rose further. (Which actually argues for selling now, and letting a bigger fool assume the risk of higher future gas prices.)
Essentially, he's screwed. But his situation doesn't bear on the question of what he SHOULD have done, or what a wise national policy would promote.
If he DID sell the Durango, it would probably be to someone who needs plenty of space but drives fewer miles (otherwise THAT person would buy the more-economical replacement). The other thing he could do is buy a beater econobox and park the Durango except for those times it's absolutely necessary. A parked Durango burns no fuel.
You're rapidly descending toward troll-dom,I'll rephrase the question so you don't feel quite so righteous in evading it:Given a choice, will you buy a PHEV truck at that time or not?
A choice?
Many factors make up a valid choice. Existance, cost, capability. Just the existance does not egual a choice. I could CHOOSE to have an airplane for transportaton, for airplanes exist. The cost stops that choice from happening and is considered a 'non choice'.
The magical PHEVs are a non choice if the cost is too high.
The truck will probably be worn out soon, definitely within 10 years. .......
My model recognizes the fact that some 17 million light vehicles are made in the USA each year and the average light truck is something like 6.9 years old.
I question your modelspace as the truck is 3 years old and gets 6,000 to 14,000 miles a year on it. That and your modelspace of a 'average of 6.9 years' doesn't jive with the 20 year fleet replacement rate as cited in the past on TOD.
If he DID sell the Durango, it would probably be to someone who needs plenty of space but drives fewer miles (otherwise THAT person would buy the more-economical replacement).
Now who's avoiding?
You keep speking of a 'lack of will'. Yet:
Sum up the costs of feeding your guzzling truck, including the war to try to secure oil supplies, and it looks more the opposite. How many PHEV trucks could you buy for $2 trillion? Even if they did cost $64000 apiece and you just scrapped the ones they'd replace, you could get 31 million of them.
So you go from a free market idea (include all the costs of oil in the price) to using tax flow to buy PHEVs?
Meanwhile a comment about the cssh flow of war over here (bolded)
http://tvnewslies.org/blog/?p=515
TV New Lies- And Readers of TV New Lies:
Well, I'm a veteran of the anti-war movement when Vietnam was the wizz-bang of the moral crusade against the communists, who were going to over run all of SouthEast Asia, and lots of Congressmen then were also making lots of money on the war then too.
It is not so easy to stop a war economy on the march.
None of this is new to me. And, while the time frames are likely going to be sped up, this war won't be stopped by writing letters, voting, marching in the streets, or praying either.
I've seen it all before.
I read recently, the Vietnam War wasn't ended until Congress cut off funding and Dick Nixon was forced to pull out the troops because they didn't have the hardware to continue fighting. This is true, and to get to that stage then took years.
The heart of the matter is WHY did Congress cut off funding? It certainly wasn't because Dick Nixon won the WHite House on a promise to end the war in Vietnam, which he did in fact.
It happened because the anti-war movement had been radicalized to the point where bombs were going off in this country, kids were getting killed at Kent State, the universities were being sht down, and the anti war sentiment was starting to hurt enough monied interests in this country in the pocket so THEY put pressure on enough Congressmen so that they then pulled the plug on the whole dirty mess.
Vietnam was a lie too. These people in politics are born liars. You know that.
Let me tell you how much of a lie this war is now.
When John Kerry stood up at the DNC and said, "When I was a young man, I defended my country." this was the biggest lie he could have uttered all these years later. He knew full well no one in Vietnam was defending this country, any more than anyone in Iraq is defending this country.
All those soldiers are pawns in a big game that is played with real hard cash being made by the barrel full, and much of it going into the pockets of those whom the author is encouraging us to write letters to in an effort to get this thing stopped.
Believe me when I say, no matter how much can be put at the feet of Bush & Company, they're heroes inside the beltway in Washington, heroes who are making all of those Congressmen very rich right now as it is their companies or companies in which they have an interest that are supplying the materials for the war effort through government contracts.
And the Democrats are absolutely not going to stop this war as long as it is their own personal cash-cornucopia, which is what it is since they took the midterm elections by storm. They have a mandate. And as far as they're concerned, that mandate is to get a bigger piece of the war profiteering pie.
Don Robertson, The American Philosopher
Limestone, Maine
An Illustrated Philosophy Primer for Young Readers
You keep speaking of political will, yet the above and documents like from the CFR do a far better job of addressing reality than a handwave 'its all solveable 'cept for the will to do it'. Reality has things like this:
http://www.devvy.com/notax.html
all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their government.
'Influence' of markets by the govenment requires a cash flow. Is this influence just going to be "willed" into existance? Where is the cash flow going to come from in a world built on way underpriced energy?
Considering that we were just talking about vehicles capable of carrying two 600-lb drums of isocyanate from loading dock to your destination (plant? work site?), it's utterly absurd of you to start talking about airplanes. Unless, perhaps, both ends of the trip have taxiways to them. I rather doubt this.
And the rest... you should add another layer to your tinfoil hat, they're clearly getting through to you.
The issue is no longer in doubt. You ARE trolling. And I'm done with you.
The issue is no longer in doubt. You ARE trolling
More name calling VS addressing issues.
Way to go.
You assume industrial capacities that are simply NOT THERE !
Building 20 to 30 million PHEVs/year globally is orders of magnitude (like 2, i.e. x100) more than component supplies can supply.
Yes, capacities can be increased (with markets assured) but that takes several years. Which would be time for 1st generation designs to be designed and production set up.
For a normal ICE, typically a 4 year process.
Best Hopes for Realistic Planning,
Alan
BTW, I would not buy a 1st generation PHEV, and only a Honda or Toyota 2nd generation PHEV. I expect just TOO many problems.
But if the, say, tantalum is lacking...how will this magical elecro-car world come into being? And what would be 'more important' - using silicon wafers for electrocars, X box 360's, embedded controllers, or PV panels?
clap clap
As for motors, we also make induction motors by the tens of millions per year. Adjusting designs slightly for new applications is something manufacturers do all the time.
This is the sort of thing which could be going full-bore within 5 years.
There is also the issue of vehicle design to deal with different issues. 4 motors driving 4 wheels, 2 motors driving two wheels or one motor driving 2 wheels through a differential is just one of several design issues. How to meet heating demand (fairly easy) or air conditioning demand (OOPS !)
I think I see your vision, but I am more of a skeptic (by far !) than you when it comes to the rate of adaptation. I see all the issues that have to be resolved, many of which just take time.
I also remember the sorry history of GM when it comes to innovation (Corvair, Vega, GM diesels, V-4-6-8).
If I bought an EV it would be a GEM ( http://www.gemcar.com )
Simple, easy, meets my needs for 90% of my trips, etc. And ALL proven technology :-)
Best Hopes,
Alan
BTW, have you noticed the standardization of laptop computer batteries ?