Prius gets 100 MPG

Hummm. One one hand, you aren't happy with letting me decide what kind of car I buy. You want to mandate 100% electric cars or at least hybrid cars.

One the other hand, you advocate doing exactly what we are doing now, leting the market decide what product it wants.

Make up you mind please.

Jack

I do. Except I take the train as well when I go to work.

Funny, we still use water to power tools and other things, like computers.

Funny, steam is still used by power plants. And, steam is used by companies in NYC to power compressors for air conditioning and other things.

Correct. Oil will be a power solution in a growing number of available solutions. One will be able to choose the best solution for a particular application, just as one can choose the best source of heat for a home, like electricity, oil, coal or natural gas.

Jeff

Commuter trains aren't available here in the mid-west (Ohio) and they pulled up the inter-urban tracks 75 years ago. Looks like that was a mistake now.

When was the last time you saw a water-powered grain mill? How about a water-powered stamping mill? Hydro power is good, but too limited in availability and capacity to replace coal and atomic power plants. That's why there ARE coal and atomic generating plants.

Yep, Ford still uses a big old steam engine to power it's plants. So does GM and Chrysler. Quaker uses steam to cook the oats it sells because it's the cheapest way to move heat around. But it isn't the cheapest, or the safest, way to generate mechanical power.

Oh yeah, I forgot about all those steam powered cars running around on our roads as well as those big steam engines the rail roads use. And how about those steam engines that farmers plow with?

Of course it is limited. Why would want to replace clean atomic plants, though? The point is that hydro power is still used, as are coal, oil, solar, and other types of plants.

Steam is rather safe in NYC. And, for some applications, it is cheaper than converting steam in to electricity and back into mechanical or heat energy. And, it saves space.

Whatever.

Who said mandate?

But if we produced enough to just run this country, we'd free ourselves from importing oil.

Sounds like enviro-extremism. Humans don't have a right to exist?

Sounds like post-war Japan and Germany, or Korea. When WILL we pull out of those places? 100 years?

Who aren't the liberals protesting that?

It's Bush's fault, right?

Yet, the price of oil would still be determined by the world oil price, because it is a global economy.

Of course, the opposite view is that if we reduced our energy needs to the amount we are able to produce through increased efficiency, using renewable resources, etc., then we'd free ourselves from importing energy.

Jeff

Hint: we need the earth to survive. If we destroy the environment, we destroy ourselves.

Jeff

No, just use common sense; instead of plugging in a short-term solution for a long-term problem - & in its (short-term solution) wake create more probs for the earth which we inhabit, work (in earnest) on creating better solutions. Ones which will serve the long-term problem, & which will have lesser negative impact on our environment.

Cathy

It amazes me how many people don't appear to understand this simple concept. What's the point of anything else - anything at all - if we destroy our environemnt?

Cathy

No, this is enviro-extremism:

Yeah, that's a tad on the exterme side. Just a tad. ;-)

Cathy

That's unrealistic, and the two presidential candiates are either naive or being dishonest with us when they say we can be independent of foreign oil. The only way we can be self-sufficient in oil is by greatly increasing the use of expensive, dirty, inefficient coal, which we're loaded with, unlike oil or even natural gas, and of these drawbacks, the expense is what's really holding back the use of coal.

Our energy policy of the past 25+ years has been to rely on the free market, and $4 gasoline is a result of that. But remember what happened to the last president with a real energy policy and the last major presidential candidate who wanted to do something substantial about energy. We simply don't want to face the reality but instead want nothing more than feel-good solutions, even if they do result in $4 gasoline and the wheat and corn doubling or tripling in price.

OTOH Bloomberg has an energy policy and is requiring all new major construction to be much greener, both in regards to energy consumption and pollution.

How can gas turbines be too dirty?

Without you, the women in this forum would have a record of being 100% intelligent in their posts, unlike the men.

There's no comparison between the occupations of Japan, Germany, and South Korea to the occupation of Iraq. For one, it was completely unnecessary to attack Iraq.

Disagreeing with you does not make one unintelligent. (One could argue that disagreeing with you is a sign of intelligence, however.)

I think there is a good comparison. In the case of Japan and Germany, there are good questions why we are still there. After all, we haven't been involved in either country. And, in both cases, the size of the US forces have declined over the last few decades.

In the case of South Korea, one could question why we were ever there in the first place.

And all cases, one could have learned lessons about long occupations after hostilities cease.

One can learn from both simularities and differences.

Jeff

Hey, I thought his comment was rather astute! ;-P

Cathy