I am not a believer in solar roofs until solar panels become cheaper and more efficient. While, admittedly, I haven't done any real research, a quick google has showed minimal savings on the Prius. I also think biofuels are the way to go because I am seriously worried about the component mining that would ensue once EVs become widespread. But I seem to be the minority on both of these.

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Saving the planet from the crud that's hanging in the air over Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York; saving the planet from depletion of petroleum which we can (and do) use for many things other than setting it on fire, no matter how efficiently; eliminating this toxic relationship we have forged with middle eastern countries; reducing the instantaneous transport volume of petrochemicals by orders of magnitude, and consequently also the number of oil and other petrochemical spills and accidents.

CO2 isn't the only issue, if in fact it's an issue at all. Current transport technology needs to go away because it is definitely problematic on numerous fronts.

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The planet doesn't care about any of that. Maybe people do, but the planet doesn't. Did you know that the ocean releases more oil every year than all the oil spills combined? Oil is a natural product. Nature produces it and reabsorbs it in huge amounts.

LA has smog because it experiences temperature inversion due to the topography. Nature doesn't care about smog either or the complaints of some people in LA.

IN short, the planet doesn't care. It will be here long after we are gone, and we might be gone by the next ice age when a sheet of ice several miles thick covers the globe.

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Yes, and the solar system doesn't "care" about the planet, and the universe doesn't "care" about the solar system. So what. You're being ridiculous.

Sensible people converse about how to enable a continued, and hopefully enhanced, ability for us to live here in such a way as to make our lives equally or more pleasant, and to do the least damage to the environment and the other life forms so future generations have a decent opportunity do the same.

To rant about what "the planet wants" as if you were actually contributing usefully to the conversation is straight-up disingenuous. Pitiful, really.

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You miss the salient point. This whole demonization of the gas car is being framed as a "save the planet" measure. My argument is that this is a false narrative. The planet, nor the nature that resides in it, cares, so to fundamentally alter how we move from A to B under the guise of "saving the planet" is intellectually disingenuous at best, and highly suspect at worst.

Indeed the whole "green" label is Orwellian considering that CO2 fuels photosynthesis, the very thing that gives nature its green color and all the eco arguments are based on reducing the level of CO2.

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Your point about plants' photosynthesis is true but you forgot to notice the millions and millions of trees that are cut down each year in order to make way for our freeways, houses, etc and etc. In short time, there will be no plant that will be able to convert all the amount of CO2 that we release each year.

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Yes, but how does the observation that we have too many roads address the narrative that electric cars save the planet? Electric cars need roads too, or in fact, will just use our current roads. I don't need to drive through the rain forest to get to work. The narrative for electric cars is that they produce no CO2. How does that help the planet? It doesn't. The planet doesn't care. If we are going to go from 400 miles to a tank to 100 miles at best, a better excuse has to be found. And it can't use the word green.

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:: You miss the salient point.

No, sir, I did not. You are simply squirming.

:: This whole demonization of the gas car
:: is being framed as a "save the planet" measure.

Which is exactly what it is, in the sense that it is aimed at keeping the planet in a compatible-with-us state reasonably similar to, or better than, the one it is in now. CO2 isn't the definitive issue. There are many issues. Particulates and various gasses. Limited oil reserves. Political / economic problems.

Ground EVs would address the problem strongly in the short term by providing great reduction in emissions, and in the long term, by providing 100% elimination of emissions from ground vehicles and reducing the need for the wasteful process of burning petrochemicals. There is every reason to think that seagoing vessels will benefit as well, as they have time, sunlight, and can carry both wind and solar power acquisition facilities. Perhaps aircraft too, though that's the toughest thing to change because of the amount of power and weight we're talking about.

And BTW, the fact that LA has inversions doesn't address the issue that what's caught in the inversion is *toxic*; gasoline and diesel vehicles (and industry) foul the atmosphere with all manner of things, CO2 *completely* aside. Try breathing car exhaust for a few minutes if you don't believe me. It won't be the carbon dioxide that kills you, either. We have inversions here, too (a valley in NE Montana), but because it's a rural area without significant emissions, the nature of the inversion is completely different and usually a darned sight less problematic, barring incoming particulates from somewhere else.

> The planet, nor the nature that resides in it, cares,
> so to fundamentally alter how we move from A to B
> under the guise of "saving the planet" is intellectually
> disingenuous at best, and highly suspect at worst.

And *again*, "save the planet" is not about preserving the planet for itself in some random state; it is about preserving the present environment for us with minimal negative changes. It is only your interpretation of the argument which is disingenuous. If we don't transition from petrochemical fueled vehicles, the environment will indeed become continually more hostile, and this will hurt us both directly and indirectly. The problems will come in many forms. More pollution. More political entanglement. Expenditure of natural resources. Transport shortages. All the things consequent when transport is short.

There's no intelligent argument to be made in favor of keeping the status quo in this regard. We need - not want, but *need* - to get off the petroleum teat. Every entity that delays this is culpable in the consequences, which are in no way as speculative as what will happen if CO2 keeps increasing. It isn't an untried, untested theory of global warming we're talking about. We *know* gasoline and diesel fueled vehicle exhaust is toxic; we *know* we need petrochemicals in an extraordinarily wide range of non-burning roles; we *know* dependence upon the middle east has bred political turmoil and outright war; we *know* that transport is becoming a very expensive part of daily living; we *know* that poor countries are being locked out of the benefits that inexpensive transport brings.

No amount of reshuffling "save the planet is silly because the planet will continue regardless" will save your position. We're trying to maintain the environment's state in, or improve it to better than, the extant condition, by abandoning use of technologies that are *proven* to be degrading the situation. It needs to be done. EVs are the best way to do it. End of story.

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"Which is exactly what it is, in the sense that it is aimed at keeping the planet in a compatible-with-us state reasonably similar to, or better than, the one it is in now. CO2 isn't the definitive issue. There are many issues. Particulates and various gasses. Limited oil reserves. Political / economic problems."

You are changing the parameters of the debate. The planet is not changing in any measurable way that would be bad for humans. A slightly warmer planet leads to longer growing seasons. Read about the Medieval Warm period that began in 800 AD that brought civilization out of the dark ages. A time, by the way, that grapes for wine grew in England. The worst case scenario for global warming is that we could go back to growing grapes for wine in England. Cold is the enemy of life, not warmth. Particulates and various gases? We already discussed smog and temperature inversion. Limited oil reserves? That one has been debunked. And even if the oil reserves do run out in a hundred years, again I ask, how does that harm the planet or mother nature, the very point of the environmentalists make in suggesting that the ICE engine needs to go.

By the time the oil does run out, if it does, we will have technology that is actually practical. Battery electric vehicles are not practical. That is the salient point. There is no need to rush out and buy these impractical creations out of some misplaced fear of oil running out today.

"There is every reason to think that seagoing vessels will benefit as well, as they have time, sunlight, and can carry both wind and solar power acquisition facilities."

If you are actually suggesting powering sea vessels with solar power, you have never seen a commercial vessel up close. There are not enough non-usable surfaces on a ship to put enough solar sells to run the microwave. At any rate, ships move cargo more efficiently by several orders of magnitude better than trains, and trains are several orders of magnitude better than trucks, and trucks move cargo several orders of magnitude better than cars. Until we have solar panels powering our cars (lol), let's not talk about solar panels powering 100,000 DWT ships. Even environmentalists don't suggest ships are a problem. They wouldn't have the audacity to reach that far.


"And *again*, "save the planet" is not about preserving the planet for itself in some random state; it is about preserving the present environment for us with minimal negative changes."

I think you better talk to some environmentalists. They disagree with your framing of their argument. The planet has not changed in any hostile way. If LA has smog in the summer time, that is their problem, a problem that does not necessitate the world going from 400 miles to a tank, to 100 miles and then conking out requiring a tow truck.

"If we don't transition from petrochemical fueled vehicles, the environment will indeed become continually more hostile"

That is a narrative that you have been fed that does not reflect reality in any measurable way. The world environment is the same today as it was 100 years ago. Recently the globe has cooled and that is due to solar cycles. The same solar cycles that caused it to warm. Man has no effect, nor could he ever have an effect, on something as large as a planet. It is only the political environment that has changed. Nature does not care about man.

The birth rate in Europe is sinking. There are actually less people there now than before. So this meme that we are cutting down trees to build more roads is nonsense. The population is shrinking. The birth rate in the US is barely stable at 2.03. The increase in people you so try to warn about, is not happening in the first world where all the environmental politics are hard at work trying to change something at great cost that doesn't need changing.

"There's no intelligent argument to be made in favor of keeping the status quo in this regard."

LOL. What about keeping cars that get 400 miles to the gallon that don't need extension cords to go further than 100? What about keeping light bulbs that everyone loves rather than light bulbs that everyone agrees produce an inferior light and which contain mercury that will go into landfills and poison the ground? A true environmentalists would be against battery powered cars and mercury light bulbs. The problem is that we don't have any real environmentalists anymore. It's all politics now.

"We need - not want, but *need* - to get off the petroleum teat."

There's that political narrative again.

"Every entity that delays this is culpable in the consequences"

Wow. Every entity. Culpable. Consequences. Sounds like you want to jail your political opponents. Jail them if you want, but don't say you are doing it on mother nature's behalf. As we have already established, mother nature doesn't care. We must not radically change how the world functions under the guise of a quickly unraveling pseudo science and the politicos that want us to go there at full speed. Internal combustion engines have given us the modern world as we know it. Let's not be too quick to throw away the engines of our civilization for some imaginary utopia.

"Which are in no way as speculative as what will happen if CO2 keeps increasing. It isn't an untried, untested theory of global warming we're talking about. "

Yes, that is exactly what we are talking about. The globe has cooled since 1998. Winters are harsher now than back in the '90s. The planet warms and cools according to solar cycles. CO2 has no effect since the oceans absorb CO2. Even the Vostok ice core records show that CO2 levels lag temperature changes, they do not lead them. So the whole argument for blaming CO2 on temperature is debunked.

"We *know* gasoline and diesel fueled vehicle exhaust is toxic"

It's toxic if you breath it directly from the exhaust pipe. Put your finger in a windmill, and you will lose it, too. lol. Ever heard of the carbon cycle? Nature reccyles. What do you think happens to this toxic carbon monoxide when it leaves the tailpipe? It joins with another atom of oxygen and becomes carbon dioxide. That then reenters the carbon cycle and is reabsorbed.


"we *know* that poor countries are being locked out of the benefits that inexpensive transport brings."

Funny you should mention poor countries. The environmentalists are trying to keep the developing world from using their own natural resources. This is what will keep them poor forever. Africa is natural-resource rich and the environmentalists want to keep them in grass huts so they don't "harm the planet". Solar panels are not going to help Africa get an infrastructure built. Solar panels are great for your calculator.

"No amount of reshuffling "save the planet is silly because the planet will continue regardless"

I'm glad I got you to admit at least that the green narrative is a fraud. And it is the green banner under which all this nonsense is being propagated. Save the planet does not mean save the planet at all, and you acknowledge this. That's a start. Any other argument is built on a lack of understanding of how the world works.

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I hope for abiogenic oil.

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@LesPaul - do you mean shale oil? Taken from the mountains of Canada like this:
http://redgreenandblue.org/files/2008/11/oil-shale-mining.jpg

http://assets.wwf.org.uk/img/a002_001803_6398.jpg

Well, I suppose it's not my problem if another country is destroying it's natural wonders...

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That's why ultracap research is so important. UCs don't use chemical processes to store energy; so they respond entirely differently to cold. Other tech, such as fuel cells, are still chemical in nature but some can (must!) self-heat; and of course it's always possible to spend some energy actually heating components that need it, and insulation can serve a very useful role there so it doesn't take a huge amount of energy to get the heating done. Right now, mainly because UCs are low capacity compared to batteries, most system designs are hybrid; UCs *and* batteries working together. UCs for surge draws like cold starts, high incoming current storage (like regenerative braking), batteries for longer term energy storage. If and when we get UCs that store power in amounts comparable to batteries, the whole cold problem will go away.

It gets cold enough here in NE Montana that our cars have engine block heaters and oil pan heaters and battery heaters. -40º is cold enough to change the entire startup regime of almost any vehicle. Compensation include garages (which tend to completely solve the problem, btw), The aforesaid vehicle component heaters, and lately, UCs. The cranking power available from a UC that is simply in parallel with your normal battery can provide a significant boost to initial turnover, when the battery is only capable of providing current in relatively small amounts. The UC charges, you turn the engine over smartly using high levels of energy *from* the UC, and typically, the engine will start right up. If not, you wait a bit while the UC recharges from the battery, then try again.

Ultracapacitors are going to be critical to this whole EV thing on one level or another; where they fit best will be determined by just how much energy they can store.

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