No Gas Day

disneyjoe7

I seen a 2 panel starter system which included 2 110w panels, invertor / charger / 2 120ah batteries for $1999.00. But felt that 2 110w panels or 220w x 8 good hours of sun, would be 1760 watts a day wasn't worth the price. I would reduce my electric bill by 60kw a month, pay back too long IMHO.

TNRabbit

We have some of the cheapest gasoline in the world (middle east excepted) yet we complain the most about it.

Willow

I won't eat beans,garlic or cabbage that day! how's that for my part!

kevhed72

FedEx is making a huge investment in electric delivery vans...no offense, but I trust Fred Smith on the viability of electric vehicles more than anyone.

The huge problem with oil in this country is the futures markets. Supply and demand accounts for only approx. 40% in the variability in the price of oil. While we are supposed to be a market driven economy, there are forces out of the markets control which will continue to drive the price of oil up or down. Now you could make the argument that the futures markets are an integral part of our "market system", oil is currently vital to our national security.

bobman1235

Joe08867 wrote: »

Electric and or hybrid gas/electric vehicles would be fine if they didn't cause more harm than good.

1. Mine nickel
2. Ship to another country via diesel vessel to create a foam that is part of the battery.
3. Ship to another country via diesel vessel to be placed in said vehicle.
4. Ship to another country via diesel vessel to be purchased by consumer.

Before the car is even used by a consumer it has used thousands of gallons of diesel fuel.

Better plan,
1. Have your current vehicle serviced regularly.
2. Have your tires check regularly.
3. Learn how to drive more efficiently.

Careful Rush, your ignorance is showing. That same argument could be made for any product not produced entirely in the US.

I'm not the big Prius defender here, and I understand why people are against some of the REGULATIONS or restrictions involving fuel / electric vehicles, but just being negative on the things themselves? It makes zero sense.

Joe08867

bobman1235 wrote: »

Careful Rush, your ignorance is showing. That same argument could be made for any product not produced entirely in the US.

I'm not the big Prius defender here, and I understand why people are against some of the REGULATIONS or restrictions involving fuel / electric vehicles, but just being negative on the things themselves? It makes zero sense.

Not being totally zero on them. I am just pointing out the waste to make them. Yes the same can be said for anything not made within this country. But I am trying to say that this isn't the most viable answer. Hydrogen probably is. But then again I am not sure if I want to drive a BOMB around town.

PS: Nice reference but I truly despise Rush. He makes my skin crawl.

DMara

TNRabbit wrote: »

We have some of the cheapest gasoline in the world (middle east excepted) yet we complain the most about it.

We also drive a lot more than the rest of the world :biggrin: For example, I drive 28 miles to get to my office, that's a total of 56 miles a day.
In such a big city like Houston: what we need is to look at commute solutions: light rail, subway, bus, carpool, vanpool, etc. Getting out of the old convenient level will help drive the oil demand down, hence lower gas price.

ryanjoachim

Keiko wrote: »

Nah, get a pedal car or better yet, a horse and buggy. Pave the streets with road apples.

I'm going to buy one of jay Leno's cars.

Either the nearly "perpetual" steam car he has (closed system, makes the water go on for a long time), or one of his 75-100 year old electric cars.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/jay-leno/vintage/4215940

His 100-year old electric car has a range of around 110 miles, which is as much or even more than some of today's "modern" electric cars.

“It’ll go for about four or five hours on a single charge, at about 20 to 25 miles an hour. Its range is about 110 miles, just about what most electric cars made these days will do. So we really haven’t come very far in a hundred years.

“It’s pretty fun to drive, actually — if you’re not in a hurry, that is,” he said.

Granted, it's not made for going out of town, but for city driving? I'd be happy to have it when gas is over $5 a gallon.

quadzilla

ben62670 wrote: »

there are a lot of idiots.

t,ftfy

tonyb

bobman1235 wrote: »

That same argument could be made for any product not produced entirely in the US.

.

Thats the problem. Not much is produced here. We have become a consumption nation. We consume way more than we produce. Tie that into currency devaluation, debt, and what it means to us as a country if the world ever stopped useing our currency as the world reserve and you'll see you have more to worry about than gas prices. Everything is relative, but the one constant is the value of currency. It can,and has in the past,destroyed nations.

Sorry for the derail, carry on...

madmax

I like the idea of a natural gas car with a small engine and battery assist to provide great torque. Haven't seen that combo yet. Honda has a natural gas car and I've seen city owned trucks running on NG. I wonder where you re-fuel them?

bobman1235

ryanjoachim wrote: »

Either the nearly "perpetual" steam car he has (closed system, makes the water go on for a long time)

It's not the water that's the "fuel" in a steam engine, it's what boils the water to make it steam.

AudioGenics

A Day Without Gas is A Day Without Gas (no matter how you pass it…)

All in favor of conserving gasoline, please raise your right foot.

ryanjoachim

bobman1235 wrote: »

It's not the water that's the "fuel" in a steam engine, it's what boils the water to make it steam.

Very true, I worded my comment baddly. It's a closed system, so it better recycles the by-product of steam to extend the life of the water currently in the system.

Either that, or I'm as clueless as I think I am.

gdb

Charring coconut shells can fuel an internal combustion engine. So can the methane produced by hog ****.:eek:

JimKellyfan

I wish I could afford one of these !
http://www.teslamotors.com/models

Awesome !

or Latin

Awe Full.

obieone

Whatever happened to those hydrogen celled cars that they were working on?

Oh, that's right. They got defunded by SOMEONE!

inspiredsports

jbooker82 wrote: »

I guess a mass public transit system like high speed rail would make more sence. If school busses were more stylish and avalable in other colors besides yellow. You would be seeing socker moms driving in them by their self to work and back. Got to have the bigest, badest you know.

I guess even if the cost to own and operate a car is 100 times what it costs to take a bus or train, I will choose to operate cars.

I HATE being cooped up in a tube with sick, smelly loud people, and confined to a schedule and destination dictated by someone else.

Music also sounds better when not delivered by ear buds, and you can take phone calls and remain productive when you are in your own space.

inspiredsports

mantis wrote: »

Natural gas , Wind and Solar are all ways to get electric power. Hydrogen is another alternative to gas. I don't know about you but I'm really tired of paying over 3 dollars a gallon for gas. If there is a better way then I'm all for it. I'm not an Engineer in this field so I don't have the answers but I know at some point we all need to get off the oil.

But the point is, if you switch to an alternative, you will be paying way more than $3 per gallon.

ben62670

I have a friend who is working with hydrogen. The nice thing about hydrogen is you can use solar power to charge the cells all the time when the sun is out. It can keep producing more "fuel" for storage. What is better about this over batteries is that you need to fuly charge the batteries and you can't charge them on the go. The bad thing about hydrogen is you need to purchase the high pressure cells and a compressor to fill the cells. Youtube has some interesting stuff on hydrogen production.

tonyb

High speed rail is a joke. Lets take a 200 year old idea of mass transit and spend billions on it. Ridership on rails has gone down year after year and pretty much every one of them is in the red. You put in a fast train, and it will have to slow down too often,residential area's,cross roads. For the kind of money their talking, you can buy everyone a jet pack and be done with it. Now that would be cool....except when some dude comes crashing threw my roof at 6 a.m.

Airplay355

Guess where the best source of hydrogen is folks? Oh yea, those big hydrocarbons called oil. Take it from water you say? Well that requires electricity, which put us back where we started as well. I shouldn't even have to answer the why can't we just take it out of the air question...Hydrogen isn't a good alternative yet.

Seriously, who cares about an electric car that can go 20 and has a range of 110 miles? Get a friggen bike and ride your **** to work. Lame.

jmwest1970

I think we should promote alternative fuels. If we can influence the rest of the modern world to switch to alternative fuels then our gas will be inexpensive.

Pycroft

I loved Germany - Most people live in the town they work, and most ride bikes, take public transportation, or walk to work. Some smaller towns that I spent time in, you can count on both hands the number of cars you see per day. In America, even in small towns, you need way more than two hands to count how many cars you see in 5 minutes.

James

bobman1235

Pycroft wrote: »

I loved Germany - Most people live in the town they work, and most ride bikes, take public transportation, or walk to work. Some smaller towns that I spent time in, you can count on both hands the number of cars you see per day. In America, even in small towns, you need way more than two hands to count how many cars you see in 5 minutes.

It's a cultural thing that's not going to change anytime soon. We have a hundred years of infrastructure and society based around the idea that we need cars, you can't just say "hey! stop driving cars!" and expect everything to work. Most people work far away from home, and have friends far away, and blah blah blah.

treitz3

One thing I'd like to know. There was a cat here in Charlotte that got 53 mpg out of a Mustang V8. It was on the news a couple of years back and when I try to look up the story, it has been deleted. I heard the same thing about a cat in Arizona or some other western state that basically did the same thing. Both cars had no loss of power, both cars modified the carburetor and both cars still ran on gas. Both stories have been deleted.

It has always been believed that the car companies or big oil was responsible for the inventors and their stories, news reports and what not disappearing. I don't care about the stories disappearing but it does make me ponder....if the common man can make it happen, why the F can't the big auto makers? I believe they would be able to figure that out more so than the common man.

bobman1235

I'm sure those stories are "deleted" because they're found to be hoaxes. Conspiracy theories abound, but it is WAY too easy to get a story to go viral these days that if it were possible to squeeze that kind of mileage out of a big engine, "the people" would know it.

treitz3

bobman1235 wrote: »

It's a cultural thing that's not going to change anytime soon.

True for now. If gas gets to be $9.00 a gallon? Not so true.

It wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things that gas was considered to be outrageously priced down here in Charlotte when it was $1.92 a gallon. That's a freakin' outrageously priced BARGAIN now!

treitz3

bobman1235 wrote: »

I'm sure those stories are "deleted" because they're found to be hoaxes. Conspiracy theories abound, but it is WAY too easy to get a story to go viral these days that if it were possible to squeeze that kind of mileage out of a big engine, "the people" would know it.

These stories weren't viral. They were broadcast on the news. I can't remember the station that did the Arizona one but the one with the local Mustang was on WSOC-TV. They covered the story for a couple of days and then "poof".....no followup, no correction, no links online, no stories about a hoax, no nothing. I called to ask the station about it and they "had nothing in the records that showed the news report even existed".

Uh-huh.

bobman1235

I understand, I'm saying if someone REALLY had found a way to make a standard gasoline engine get that kind of mileage, the story WOULD go viral. Unless they had the guy killed before he could tell the world his story (except one TV station?), he could have uploaded the plans to anyone on the web, and they'd be "out there," no matter how many guys in black suits and SUVs were out trying to squelch the story.

I assume the idea is that Big Oil paid this guy off to keep his trap shut / buy his design, but... I dunno, it's just a tough pill to swallow.