Does this scare you?

[Bleach]

no, the current battery CEOs hired a bounty hunter to off all the scientists working on that project just like they did to all the people working on electric cars years ago. :D

[]2eDeYe]

The only problem with electric cars is you have to charge them....

of course the only problem with gas cars is you have to refill the tank :eek:

 

Alchohol, fun for driving in more ways than 2... :D

[tnip]

yea the thing with electric cars and having to charge them isn't as big of an issue as people think. other than your daily commute to work the average person doesn't really drive that far. or that much. how far do you really drive every day? i think if this country started using better public transportation it would improve alot of things. look at city's like new york and dc (i use these examples cause i've personally experienced them). you don't have to own a car if you live in either of these cities. people use the subway or take a cab... or heaven forbid you live within walking distance of stuff.

 

and charging an electric car really wouldn't be that big of a deal... in the very early 20th cent new york city had electric car charging stations all over the place. like every 4 or 5 blocks there was a station that you could plug into if you needed to. if we all had access to better public mass transportation, had better access to and more options for alternative fuels, we wouldn't need gasoline at all. as far as the issue of oils and lubricants and plastics, aren't synthetic oils called that for a reason? and heaven forbid we don't have as much plastic to throw away every year.

 

as much as i love internal combustion engines, i know i've personally been distracted by and become really interested in other things, including electric power. what about steam engines? the technology of steam engines never got very far because as technology progressed the main focus was on internal combustion engines, and because steam engines worked as well as they did for what they did, nobody cared to futher their efficiency or design very much.

 

actually that's not true... i didn't realize for a long time how a nuclear submarine worked... instead of using wood or coal to heat a boiler to make steam it uses radioactive material to super heat and flash boil ocean water. a steam engine.

[hang_510]

and charging an electric car really wouldn't be that big of a deal...

 

that IS the deal, where is that electricity coming from?

who is getting paid to provide it to all the necessary stations?

 

solar?

 

hydrogen(H) can cheaply power many (electric)vehicles, but still requires electricity to release the H, from H20 or NH3

 

 

its a vicious circle... :mellow:

[copacetickid]

...This is a finite resourse and no amount of increased fuel economy will stop it from running out only slow it down. By the time it runs out this world will be way past fixing. If you save a gallon of gas some fat rich fuck will just buy it for his Hummer anyway... fuck it, I ride my bike to work. Might as well get used to it.

 

totally right.

 

... the thing with electric cars and having to charge them isn't as big of an issue as people think. other than your daily commute to work the average person doesn't really drive that far. or that much. how far do you really drive every day? i think if this country started using better public transportation it would improve alot of things. look at city's like new york and dc (i use these examples cause i've personally experienced them). you don't have to own a car if you live in either of these cities. people use the subway or take a cab... or heaven forbid you live within walking distance of stuff.

 

public transportation has to get better. the main problem preventing it from getting more widespread is that it's a money sink for every city. even london, with the biggest and (imho) best pub trans system in the world, loses money on it every year. It's just not a necessity (for middle class and up), so we haven't come to terms with the fact that we have to pay for it.

 

nuclear power is the answer

 

nuclear power scares the shit out of me. it's not renewable, and it certainly ain't clean. the answer is the sun. whether it's harnessed directly with solar cells or from the wind or from waves or even from plants, it has to come from the sun. it's the only power that is clean and renewable. but equally as important is our own need to scale back. we keep looking for fuels that are comparable to oil, but there ain't one. gas has more bang for the buck than anything out there because it is the sun's energy, it's just been stored up over the last couple billion years. each of us can't afford 300hp engines to do burn-outs in, that's just the way it is. if you think about it, it's ridiculously wasteful moving a ton or two of metal along with you where ever you go. we've just gotten used to it.

 

but sadly, i have to agree with datsunmike: we are going to kill ourselves even if in a couple more generations we have the kind of social-global consciousness it will take to do what needs to be done. pessimistic i know, but i can't see us pulling out of this one.

[tnip]

there's a million ways to create electricity. solar cells could be more efficient. somebody in asia is already using ocean waves to generate electricity. there's windmills and also hydro electric.

 

as far as public transportation. i think tokyo has the answers there. i've never personally been there so i can't say from my own experience but looking at the numbers and the video clips and pictures they have the best system. and their subway rides aren't cheap, maybe that's why they are doing so well. i was reading that in tokyo, any train you get on, the cheapest ride just from one stop to the very next costs like 5 bucks. that doesn't seem like a whole lot but this is the only form of public transportation you get and that's like the cheapest. there aren't even taxis that i know of. the article i was reading was saying that as a tourist you get a lil bit of a break, for like 200 dollars american you can get a special tourist month pass. you can only buy them if you do not live in japan and it's only good for about a month. but it's unlimited uses within that time period. and i think when it comes down to this idea of running out of fossil fuels, i think it will change alot of things but it won't really be that big of a deal. either the major cities will see the change coming and prepare, or we'll go through a period of time where commuting will be a hassle for a year or two, while the cities work their asses off to build some kind of public transportation. look at the florida turnpike (another one i have personal experience with) to pay for that highway system the state charges drivers about 75 cents per car per toll booth. and the toll booths are pretty damn close together, like every mile or two along most of it.

 

i think it will actually be pretty easy to transition into public transportation. and just like with everything else that comes into demand, electricity prices will skyrocket. and it really wouldn't be all that difficult to put in a public transport system. if there's no more crude oil there won't be nearly as many cars on the road... so you go through the interstate system and you take a lane in each direction and you build a lil wall and you throw down some railroad tracks and you put in some hydrogen powered electric vehicles... or they run off cocunut oil or whatever.

 

yea i forgot about that. the guy that invented the internal combustion engine that runs off coconut oil. he wanted to help out these island nations that had nothing after some hurricane and he came up with this special motor which was basically a diesel engine that could run off coconut oil and would run for like 2 days off of one gallon of coconut oil. which was basically free for them.

 

the fact is, the worry that was expressed about running out of crude oil in 30 or 40 years isn't even much of a relevant issue right now. the fact is that the people that are going to develop the newest fuel sources and revolutionize the automobile as we know it are children now. so when they grow up, they are the ones that are really going to have to worry about this stuff... i know that sounds like an assholeish thing but even if somebody came up with a solution to the fuel issue and to fix global warming, the fact is that human nature isn't going to change until something big happens, like mike said and copacetic is agreeing... mankind will be on the brink of, or already in the throws of full on desolation and destruction before any kind of change takes place. and by then we'll all be old and probably dead... so who cares? i still think we need to get a research team together and get some govt grants to start building engines that run off babies. HAHAHAHA

[datzenmike]

Lets see, Americans buy electric cars, and then plug them in to charge over night. The electricity comes from coal, oil, gas or nuclear fired generators. Back to square one.

 

Unless you recharge from wind, solar or hydro electric sources your wasting your time. Even nuclear will run out and it has very bad waste to deal with. Wind, solar and hydro have almost no side effects.

[copacetickid]

hydro electric power has a devastating effect on the river ecology and therefore the surrounding ecology as well. plus salmon hate obstacles they can't jump :rolleyes:. don't know how much of an impact solar or wind have, prolly not zero.

[tnip]

the only effect that solar and wind energy have are the fact that they are man made structures, in other words, the same effect of putting a windmill in the middle of a field would be the same as building a building with the same footprint in the middle of a field. and the fact is that both solar and wind sources would be much easier to incorporate into buildings that exist already. think about if every building in new york city over 10 stories had a couple windmills and a big ass solar panel on its roof... do you think they'd need any electricity brought in from an outside source? and i fully understand the effects of hydro on the river ecology and i do hate the fact that thousands of species of animals are destroyed completely before they were even discovered (or so they say) but fuck the fish. so what if they can't go back to their proper spawning ground. they're just fish. all they do is hatch from their lil eggs, eat bugs and get fat and then get eaten. the only reason i care anything about preserving the earth, or rather, thinking of ways to preserve the earth is because i live here. it's not cause i'm worried about the ice caps melting and threatening the penguins natural habitat... fuck the penguins, they look the same on video in their natural habitat as they do in a zoo. don't get me wrong, i love animals, but if it comes down to me having something that i'm used to having and it requires them being relocated or possibly them dying off.. i'm all for relocating, and hell maybe penguin burgers are really good. or like the river's ecology... big deal. there are enough people in this country that make enough money that they can have fish delivered to their personal man made pond to mature and give them somethin to catch when they want to go fishing... then i think it'll be alright if we ruin a couple rivers. plus like i said, there's always this electricity generated by wave movement.

[73super]

Just as long as there is enough to last the next 50 years. :D

[]2eDeYe]

Even nuclear will run out and it has very bad waste to deal with. Wind, solar and hydro have almost no side effects.

 

Actually if we recycled our nuclear waste instead of burying it in the ground, we would get more and more energy from the same fuel each time it was reprocessed.

To bad the Non-Proliferation Act bans recycled nuclear waste (it becomes weapons grade after the recycling process)

This is one of the reasons why we have problems with Irans nuclear power ambitions. They want to burn recycled nuclear waste...and, well, maybe blow up Isreal :P

 

Nuclear Power can be one of the lowest impact power sources if people would pull their heads out....The Sun is a Nuclear Powerplant....Solar power at it's finest even.

 

Remember the Hindenburg :D

Free Hydrogen :fu:

 

This is fun :lol:

[Cruzn620]

if only we could find another fuel that changes the world like duct tape did...man...we'd have it made.

[Thomas]

2eDeYe;25867']Actually if we recycled our nuclear waste instead of burying it in the ground' date=' we would get more and more energy from the same fuel each time it was reprocessed.

To bad the Non-Proliferation Act bans recycled nuclear waste (it becomes weapons grade after the recycling process)

This is one of the reasons why we have problems with Irans nuclear power ambitions. They want to burn recycled nuclear waste...and, well, maybe blow up Isreal :P

 

Nuclear Power can be one of the lowest impact power sources if people would pull their heads out....The Sun is a Nuclear Powerplant....Solar power at it's finest even.

 

Remember the Hindenburg :D

Free Hydrogen :fu:

 

This is fun :lol:[/quote']

 

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas

A gigantic nuclear furnace

where hydrogen is built into helium

at a temperature of millions of degrees... :cool:

[73super]

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas

A gigantic nuclear furnace

where hydrogen is built into helium

at a temperature of millions of degrees... :cool:

 

My wife sometimes calls me a mass of incandescent gas! :eek:

[hang_510]

fuck the fish. so what if they can't go back to their proper spawning ground. they're just fish. all they do is hatch from their lil eggs, eat bugs and get fat and then get eaten.

...fuck the penguins...

there are enough people in this country that make enough money that they can have fish delivered to their personal man made pond to mature and give them somethin to catch when they want to go fishing... then i think it'll be alright if we ruin a couple rivers.

:cursing:

your an idiot :fu: you gotta lot to learn about how the world depends on other things, its not only about money (even though it seems like it).

 

should we cut down all the forests so all the people have a place to live?

fuck the animals, maybe just eat them(before they eat us), well find other things to eat once we've depleted them too, like fish, no wait we destroyed the rivers getting the logs out, so there already gone...

there is always :poop:

 

 

guess its all about you, as long as your making money, and as long as you can exploit the ltd resources for yourself, FTW

 

your attitude scares me more than running out of oil

[datzenmike]

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas

A gigantic nuclear furnace

where hydrogen is built into helium

at a temperature of millions of degrees... :cool:

 

When Joni Mitchell, in her song "Woodstock," sang,

 

"We are stardust, we are golden,

We are billion year old carbon,

And we got to get ourselves back to the garden."

 

she was being factual as well as poetic. Every element on earth, except for the lightest, was created in the heart of some massive star.

 

And the heaviest elements -- such as gold, lead and uranium -- were produced in a supernova explosion during the cataclysmic end of a huge star's life.

 

We really are stardust.

[datzenmike]

True Brian. Tnip doesn't bother me as he has plenty of time to learn otherwise. It's just his view of things right now, but in the near future there's going to be some changes.

[tiltnose510]

Things will always change, we will always adapt. Some one is tinkering away in their garage at this moment working on new, more efficient engines which will use less fuel and run on bio-fuels and the like. These old piston driven boxes will go away and the 510 will be retro fitted to the latest, greatest engine available. SUVs will go to the junkyard and be crushed while 620 pick-ups get even lower because the exhaust will no longer be in danger of scraping the ground. I will die and 1 or more of my 5 sons or my 1 daughter will continue to enjoy the American pastime of takin' a drive.

 

How's that for a diatribe?

[Icehouse]

Lets see, Americans buy electric cars, and then plug them in to charge over night. The electricity comes from coal, oil, gas or nuclear fired generators. Back to square one.

 

Okay I couldn't find the link to my favorite electric car sight... but the developer said we have enough electricity to charge 180,000 electric cars. His theory is that power plants don't turn off over night there are no batteries saving this energy... His idea is that if we had 180,000 electric cars they could charge at night, then say if california had a brown out these cars could send there electricity to the main grid. Which would actually solve problems. So if your car was just hooked up and not being used, the power going in and out makes it so we don't need more power plants. The power also gets monitored so you would get credit for the power sent out. They also break down the cents per mile. I like batteries better than hydrogen, burning shit to get power just takes way to many moving parts.

 

 

 

 

2eDeYe;25867']Actually if we recycled our nuclear waste instead of burying it in the ground' date=' we would get more and more energy from the same fuel each time it was reprocessed.

To bad the Non-Proliferation Act bans recycled nuclear waste (it becomes weapons grade after the recycling process)

This is one of the reasons why we have problems with Irans nuclear power ambitions. They want to burn recycled nuclear waste...and, well, maybe blow up Isreal :P

 

Nuclear Power can be one of the lowest impact power sources if people would pull their heads out....The Sun is a Nuclear Powerplant....Solar power at it's finest even.

 

Remember the Hindenburg :D

Free Hydrogen :fu:

 

This is fun :lol:[/quote']

 

 

Think how small the amount of the suns rays actually hit the earth to!

 

 

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas

A gigantic nuclear furnace

where hydrogen is built into helium

at a temperature of millions of degrees... :cool:

 

Gotta love They Might Be Giants :D

 

 

 

 

Things will always change, we will always adapt. Some one is tinkering away in their garage at this moment working on new, more efficient engines which will use less fuel and run on bio-fuels and the like. These old piston driven boxes will go away and the 510 will be retro fitted to the latest, greatest engine available. SUVs will go to the junkyard and be crushed while 620 pick-ups get even lower because the exhaust will no longer be in danger of scraping the ground. I will die and 1 or more of my 5 sons or my 1 daughter will continue to enjoy the American pastime of takin' a drive.

 

How's that for a diatribe?

 

Dam your a poet :D

 

 

SUV's remind me of Rap Rock... We just have to wait it out...:rolleyes:

 

 

Electric fwd 620 dam that thing could be LOW!!

[pope_face]

Wow, this is a good topic... And by reading a lot of these posts I feel shamed for owning an SUV... It's actually made me seriously start considering an electric-powered 521... I wonder what the costs associated would be... I have to swap the engine out anyways, as well as the transmission... Even if I got a rebuilt I'd probably modify it... then assuming 10 litres of gas per 100 km, and an average monthly driving total of 2000 km, that's 200 litres of gas... assuming gas stays fairly steady at about $1.05 per litre, that's $210 a month on gas... that comes out to $2,520 a year on gas... factor in a 6,000 km oil change (full synthetic, new filter) is about another $50 every three months... $200 over the course of the year... plus $50 for aircare a year... for a grand total of... $2,770 a year on the dino fluids, not to mention all the other things that go along with an internal combustion engine... spark plugs, air filter (although a K&N will last forever...), fuel filters, coolant... let's say they add up to another $30 a year total... so $2,800 a year, roughly, for me to run my L521 on 87 octane gas, assuming I get an L16 and a light foot...

 

I don't know, I might actually start considering the electric engine. I drive about 7,000 km more in a year than the average person, which means there are people who drive 7,000 km less a year than the average person... Someone who drives minimally and owns only a little econobox might not benefit as much as someone like me, but if I switch over to electric that's about 2,500 litres less of gas burned a year...

 

But, there are many sources of energy, as has already been mentioned... hydro-electric dams, the wave power generators, wind farms, solar panels, geothermal (the new thing in home heating)... and those are just the "clean" renewable sources... Or if those don't float your boat, how about nuclear or hydrogen? And if you're still after the controlled explosions, there's natural gas, propane, biodiesel (also renewable, mind you), and the two classics, gasoline and diesel. Of course, that's not including alcohol or nitro (the stuff some RC cars run on)... Or how about coal? I'm pretty sure kerosene and gunpowder could be used to create power some way... or there might be some way to use actual explosive materials (think HE, C4, TNT, etc...) to create power. Hell, you could even use human power... get people to sit on a bicycle for a few hours a day and pay them according to how many kilowatts they produce... it used to be done with horses and mills for grinding grain or whatnot... I just figure using people would be somewhat more ethical.

 

I left electrical power out for a reason... someone brought up the very important point that electricity is created from more primitive fuel sources, rather than a source itself... and, I do realize that not all the above fuel "alternatives" would work in a vehicle, but they could be used to generate electricity which could then be used in a vehicle. The power for a vehicle doesn't have to come from any particular source... all it requires is portability and the ability to convert it into a simple mechanical motion: the rotation of a shaft.

 

Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure you could even harness the energy from lightning strikes if you really put your mind to it... it'd be clean, renewable electricity without any of the primitive fuel middlemen...

 

EDIT:

 

His idea is that if we had 180,000 electric cars they could charge at night, then say if california had a brown out these cars could send there electricity to the main grid. Which would actually solve problems. So if your car was just hooked up and not being used, the power going in and out makes it so we don't need more power plants. The power also gets monitored so you would get credit for the power sent out.

 

One more quick point: I've actually heard something a while back about this, but it was more about people putting up solar panels on their roofs and storing the excess power, and then using some two-way meter that could increment when the household was taking power from the main grid, and decrement when it was adding power to the main grid... it was some idea to encourage people to use solar power... great idea, if you ask me. People could learn to be a lot more responsible for themselves...

[tiltnose510]

I still want to see an electric with motors at each wheel rather than through a trans. Would that handle or what? Just seems like the way to do a 521.

[datzenmike]

Okay I couldn't find the link to my favorite electric car sight... but the developer said we have enough electricity to charge 180,000 electric cars. His theory is that power plants don't turn off over night there are no batteries saving this energy... His idea is that if we had 180,000 electric cars they could charge at night, then say if california had a brown out these cars could send there electricity to the main grid. Which would actually solve problems. So if your car was just hooked up and not being used, the power going in and out makes it so we don't need more power plants. The power also gets monitored so you would get credit for the power sent out. They also break down the cents per mile. I like batteries better than hydrogen, burning shit to get power just takes way to many moving parts.

 

 

Sounds good... but, (IMHO) power plants are there overnight working , but at a reduced level. Just like a car alternator spinning away untill you put the headlights on and then there is an added load on the engine. It's not producing power that's going to waste, only what can be used according to need. There is no excess power only potential power available. (IMHO)

[datzenmike]

I still want to see an electric with motors at each wheel rather than through a trans. Would that handle or what? Just seems like the way to do a 521.

 

Inteesting , but it would add weight to the wheel. Ideally you want reduced unsprung weight so that the wheel more easily follows the contours of the road. Maybe a power plant where the IRS differential is on a 510 and separate drive shafts to each rear wheel. The front too! This would even out the front to back weight too.

[]2eDeYe]

I like batteries better than hydrogen, burning shit to get power just takes way to many moving parts.

 

 

Think how small the amount of the suns rays actually hit the earth to!

 

SUV's remind me of Rap Rock... We just have to wait it out...:rolleyes:

 

Electric fwd 620 dam that thing could be LOW!!

 

Hey now I like moving parts :D

 

...and that little bit of sun could (theoretically) supply all the power we need and then some...not to mention it already runs alot of our planets systems...

 

Rap rock...ha

 

Ice you need to get your exhaust tucked ;)

[Cruzn620]

talking about energy uses...my buddy here at the plant calculated how much it costs to make 1 cu/ft of compressed air at the plant. he took that amount and figured out that this plant could save $25,000 a year on energy costs if we sealed up the air leaking through our instrument purge panels. if everybody did a little, we could accomplish a lot. the thing i do is save my plastic bags and jugs. use the bags for trash cans around the house, use my jugs for fishing and parts bins. oh yeah...back to topic...am i going to be able to run my 350hp 620 when im 50 years old??? hahahahah...great discussion you guys