World Population Reaches 7 BillionFollow

Electric cars powered by solar power plants apparently don't drive on the same roads as the gasoline powered cars in Joph's universe. We were discussing alternative energy, right?

That was a lot of words to avoid admitting that you were either completely misinformed or intentionally misleading about fuel taxes.

Funny how you do that a lot.

I also liked how you edited out the first half of my remarks. Guess you didn't like the fact that fuel taxes largely are a subsidy for the petroleum industry

Edited, Oct 19th 2011 9:23pm by Jophiel

If the poor schlep would just move in, he'd never have to commute to work, but NOOOOOOOOOO, got to have labour laws that forbid having him work 24 hour days.

Bring back chain gangs.

How do you get the power to the flux capacitor?

We're actually already at that point, except it isn't the electric cars that are the ones that are killing us, it's the hybrids and more fuel efficient regular cars. Federal gas tax revenues and state gas tax revenues have dropped through the floor in recent years, largely in response to more fuel efficient trucks, hybrid cars, etc. The gas tax used to be a good road maintenance funding source because the tax on a vehicle getting 12-16 miles per gallon largely paid for the wear that vehicle puts on the roadway. Now with the majority of cars on the road making at least 30 MPG or better, we essentially get twice the wear and tear on the road for the same amount of funding. Not to mention that inflation and higher concrete / asphalt costs have dramatically refuced the amount of materials that the tax buys in the first place.

Federal tax dollars used to pay at least half of large projects like river spanning bridges. These days you are lucky if you can get at least 1/3rd funding, and most needed projects are having to wait 5-10 years longer than they would have back even in the 1990's. To put things in perspective, freight trains are starting to make a large comeback because the roads are so congested, major freight companies can't get their products throug in time.

Current proposals for taxing vehicle use in the future include mandating GPS devices inside all vehicles to track milage and taxing based upon yearly miles traveled, with miles driven in X state providing x amount of cash to that state and a portion to the federal government. Other proposals include an odometer reading yearly and tax assesed based on that number sent directly to the federal government, who would dole out funding to the states based on number of registered vehicles. Either proposal could replace or supplement gas taxes. Even more unlikely would be a tax not related to vehicle use, such as a federal sales tax for road maintenance. The main concern seems to be to ensure that people who aren't using the roads don't pay for the roads. THere has also been some talk of using license plate scanning networks to track vehicle miles traveled, which is still big brotherish, but easier to implement because it doesn't involve putting thingies in private vehicles.

Something has to happen soon though. by 2015, there will be enough 40MPG vehicles on the road that we're pretty much screwed.

Hover cars.

There should be a federalized toll road system that is all electronic - no toll booths, no toll takers, no stopping or slowing, no counting out 1.55 in nickles. It's certainly doable with today's technology.

I get one every time I go down there and rent a car. That's not the point though. You simply have a ridiculous amount of tolls.

Half of the tollways in my city are EZ tag only.

In fact, I'd love for all of them to be that way. Waiting for that one douchebag at the exit to dig for change: infuriating.

State-by-state just means what I said about joining the modern world is accurate, and I'm all for it being optional: I enjoy watching idiots suffer, waiting five to ten minutes during heavy traffic digging through their cup holders looking for exact change when I barely have to slow down and be on my way. Hell, if it was mandatory, then I'd be slowed down at those intersections just by the fact the slow-down involved with people paying manually wouldn't exist anymore.

I can drive from Chicago to Washington DC on my I-Pass but I think Illinois is as far west as the agreements go. And it took a bit of arm twisting to get Indiana to accept Illinois transponders; they kind of got forced into it finally when IL raised tolls on cash-users and the Powers that Be in Indiana noodled out that more Hoosiers drive into Chicago than vice versa.

Dilithium oxide is already used in some less toxic lithium ion batteries.

We don't have any of them-thar fancy toll-roads in these-here parts.

You mean why didn't I just accept your wild conjecture at face value? Well, good question!


That was a response? Was your intent to embarrass yourself? Good... job...?

I've been thinking about this. To clarify on my earlier statement. I do not believe the increase in population is draining our last resources (although the article would have you believe otherwise). The problem is our established society and way of living is unable to keep up with the increase of population.

The problem is not a lack or resources. The problem is the distribution of resources and wealth. "Reaganomics" comes to mind. Anyone who recognizes this problem is deemed a Socialist/Communist, and in Americaland, Socialism/Communism is 100% bad 100% of the time. No exceptions.

They probably assume you're lazy rather than evil.

When did you turn into Alma? Just think of all the farm land that will be available next season with all those illegal aliens gone and current crops withering and being wasted. Wham Bam there is a solar farm, or wind farm.

Tidal Flows....all around north america.
The freaking barren wastes of the Mojave Desert.
The frozen tundra of Alaska
And then all across Canada since we already share a power grid with each other. (most notably the North East.)
The bay of Fundy, The sh*tty ass islands in the arctic ocean, and so on and so forth.

As for my porch, I can roof it in Solar Shingles, I can attach wind turbines to my roof of house and Garage, I can put water turbine in my water intake line. I can put these all together to charge a generator that while not a permanent source of electricity it is a completely renewable source of electricity that can be used to "take me off the grid" every so often which saves me money, and (doesn't actually apply to me because i am on Hydro from Niagara.) reduces overall reliance on fossil fuel.

Could, but won't. Could have a long time ago, but did not.

Ok. I can only imagine that you're missing that when I say "good sources" I mean sources which produce sufficient quantities of the alternative energy to make it cost effective and efficient to utilize them. Any place with "sun" isn't a good place to build a solar plant. Any place with wind isn't going to make wind turbines worth building. Same with hydro, tidal, etc, etc, etc.



And massively harmful to the underwater ecosystem.



Also massively harmful *and* generally pretty darn inefficient (even in the Mojave).




Wait! Environmentalists complain about a 40 foot wide swath of land with a raised pipe running over it and you think they're going to let you cover the entire landscape with wind farms? Lol!




Uh huh. So get right on that! It's terrifically easy to blame the fact that those things aren't being built on conspiracy theories involving evil oil, gas, and coal companies, but the reality is that most alternative energy sources *barely* generate more power over time than the cost to produce and maintain and often come with environmental negatives which are as bad or worse than what we're replacing.


As I said earlier, it's just not as simple as you make it out to be.



Uh huh. So why haven't you? Heck. If this is so easy and doable for anyone, while isn't everyone doing it already? Does it occur to you that you might just be missing something?

Take your pick champ.



Source?



source?



Its not the pipe it is what is in it.






Dunno where this came from (crazy conservative logic if you ask me, if we can't prove its bad we will make sh*t up to support our position). It i very simple, find open land build Solar/Wind generating facilities. Done. Find coastal waters build Tidal Turbines. Done.

All three have a minimal effect environmentally and ecologically (unless you can provide this phantom source of information that proves otherwise.)

I get it you have a hard on for big oil and coal. It's ok, the only thing that will change is that these will become even more affordable, and who knows the money saved from reduced demand could be used to find ways to make these age old energy systems even more efficient. Then again a few rich dudes might lose some money, and we can't have that can we.

[/quote]

Because at present it is very expensive to do so. I am sure you have not looked into it, but solar shingles are very expensive, and while eventually the cost will be balanced, at the present that is a 15-20 year investment, and not overly worth it. Once the cost of "greening" up ones home becomes more reasonable you will inevitably see more and more people making the transition. Just as many have begun to make transitions from other previously costly green technologies, most notable being the hybrid and electric car.

In the UK there's a government subsidised scheme which gives homes free solar panelling which is used to heat water. This is in the UK, where we get very little sunshine. If we can do it, you people can too.

Then again, apparently you guys are against everyone getting healthcare, so I doubt this scheme would take off...

Edited, Oct 20th 2011 8:52pm by Nilatai

Not as bad as solar farms or tidal energy plants!


Apparently.

Of what? My point is that very few locations have sufficient quantities of *any* of those things to make the generation of reasonable amounts of power feasible. You can't just plunk down whichever method you like the most anywhere you want and expect to get more power out than it cost to build and maintain the equipment to tap it in the first place.



Sure



And that from an advocacy site. They actually downplay the negatives there. But I'm giving you a best case scenario. Um... There's also the whole fact that the entire planet can only possibly generate a pretty limited amount of power from tidal forces (pesky laws of physics). It's like a couple terawatts. That's a lot, but that's the absolute upper bound if we could somehow tap into 100% of all tidal energy (which is pretty darn absurd).

Also, the cost for tidal power is so ridiculous compared to the power generated that it's not realistic except as an experiment.



Some environmentalists seem to think so

I find particular amusement in the political parties involved in various sides of this. The GOP kinda just wants to generate enough power to fuel our nation, but it's like the left versus the far left when it comes to getting anything done.





Nope. It's the pipe as well. Do I have to do the googling for you?




It's not that simple. and it's *not* some evil cabal of fossil fuel companies making it not simple either.



They really aren't. You have to compare the environmental impact to the actual amount of power generated. And you have to include the infrastructure in that impact as well. It's easy to say "look! Wind makes the turbine spin. It's free energy!!!". But when you calculate the energy cost to build, install, and maintain the turbines, and compare it to the energy produced over the lifespan of said turbines, it's not really free.



No, I don't. I'm looking at the facts is all. We don't use oil and coal just because they're dirty and evil companies make us use them. We use them because the ratio of energy potential gained compared to the energy expended to harness that energy is incredibly high for both of them. It's you who are forming opinions based on half understood notions about how energy is generated.

Because at present it is very expensive to do so. I am sure you have not looked into it, but solar shingles are very expensive, and while eventually the cost will be balanced, at the present that is a 15-20 year investment, and not overly worth it. Once the cost of "greening" up ones home becomes more reasonable you will inevitably see more and more people making the transition. Just as many have begun to make transitions from other previously costly green technologies, most notable being the hybrid and electric car.

Do you think the economic comparison is any different on the large scale? That's why we use oil and coal for most of our energy needs. The oil an coal companies don't have to do anything other than provide their product at a natural market cost to make this so. There's no evil involved here. Just factual comparisons of different products. As you correctly point out, those alternatives are more expensive. They aren't "free" by any stretch of the imagination, and it doesn't help the development of them when people continually misrepresent the issues at hand.

Edited, Oct 20th 2011 6:22pm by gbaji

The reason that coal and oil have been used for so long is that governments make it cheap to do so. More and more governments are now making it cheaper to look at those options as well. All over the world. While the actual infrastructure and maintenance costs of such plants is not free, the source of the energy provided is. It is a cheaper cleaner and more long term solution to energy issues, overall for companies (no cost for the energy source, no one owns the sun, the wind or the water vs having to pay for oil/coal to be transported, refined, mined etc).

as for your source on tidal power ecological impact:


That is a very informative article, it basically takes an unsubstantiated opinion and passes it off as fact. Oil Platforms do the same thing, shipping lanes in the ocean do the same thing, and I am going to counter with this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill

sure it is from wiki, but I think even you understand the comparison.

Tidal turbines make fish move, oil wipes them out, take your pick.

As for your second "source" since when are environmentalists considered leading experts on ecological impact? If all the bleeding hearts were knowledgeable in their practice then you wouldnt have pam anderson sobbing all over her titties over the seal hunt in Canada, the seal hunt that takes place to keep the eco system in check and has been going on for thousands of years for this very reason.

So unless you have any real sources other than arbitrary opinions from unsubstantiated persons (most notably the lack of a link to this "environmental study" in your second link, im going to bed.

Oh and here is another source supporting reduced oil and coal use.

http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants

have fun.