Big Oil to Congress: "LOLZ, we has ur moneys!"

[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']No, the technologies I am citing already exist. Solar panels fueling electric cars already have enough efficiency to be competitive with a gas guzzler BEFORE taking into account how much money must be wasted overseas to maintain the trickle of gasoline.[/QUOTE]

Solar powered *and* electric? And what's the MSRP? Driving on rainbows and sunshine is marvelous until you consider the economic plausibility.

The only way to make your wondercar viable is through enormous government subsidies and/or rebates. Either way, hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions, would leave our nation, which would be absolutely devastating. This single move would throw us into a depression from which we may not be able to recover -- that's not hyperbolic, it seriously would be that devastating.

[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']Our economy and standard of living are on the decline. The massive amounts of money pissed away down Iraq are to blame.[/QUOTE]

This, again, makes me feel like you don't really understand the difference between money kept domestic and money sent away.

For military funding, Americans are paid, American jobs are created and Americans use it to buy American products, paying American taxes, eventually going full circle. The money leaves Washington and a large portion of it comes back to Washington.

The same, of course, can not be said about a large subsidy for the auto industry, in which a very large portion of it would go to foreign companies, creating jobs in foreign countries, where they pay foreign taxes.


It should be noted that I'm an Earth-loving liberal -- I definitely don't defend the energy industry (or war efforts), but our economy is vital to every aspect of our life, and your proposition has a dreadful effect on it.
 
I find it seriously hard to believe that any plan would make us almost completely independent of oil in under 30 years considering a large portion of the population still drives cars that are 20+ years old. Until you can go by the local mechanic shop and pick up an electric car that someone didn't pay the repair bill for, we will still need lots of regular unleaded.
 
[quote name='Koggit']Solar powered *and* electric? And what's the MSRP? Driving on rainbows and sunshine is marvelous until you consider the economic plausibility.

The only way to make your wondercar viable is through enormous government subsidies and/or rebates. Either way, hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions, would leave our nation, which would be absolutely devastating. This single move would throw us into a depression from which we may not be able to recover -- that's not hyperbolic, it seriously would be that devastating.[/quote]


it would save us money in many fronts. First off it could be developed by a US company which would bring a ton of cash over here. Secondly it would stop the idiotic idea that biofeuls are the answer. This would have farmers just use their fields for food instead of trying to make a buck off the ethanol craze. This would lower the price of food greatly. Finally the long term health costs would be significant. The pollution produced from cars has serious long term effects on people. Cutting down those emissions to nill can save in the long term health costs, especially when there is some sort of Socialized Medicine in effect.

So i think the money you complain would go to subsidies would be considered a long term investment that would payoff
 
[quote name='k0kRoach']I find it seriously hard to believe that any plan would make us almost completely independent of oil in under 30 years considering a large portion of the population still drives cars that are 20+ years old. [/quote]

My last 4 cars over the last 10 years were all less than 20 years old. What great percentage of Americans drive 20+ year old cars on a daily basis? 1%? 0.05%? Sure, I've seen vintage cars (with historic plates) every few weekends on the interstate. In any parking lot, they're an anomaly.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']My last 4 cars over the last 10 years were all less than 20 years old. What great percentage of Americans drive 20+ year old cars on a daily basis? 1%? 0.05%? Sure, I've seen vintage cars (with historic plates) every few weekends on the interstate. In any parking lot, they're an anomaly.[/quote]I'd say you're living in a decently affluent area then. Around us, it's the newer cars that are the exception. Perhaps not 20 years old, but to see a car that is 10-15 years old is far and away the norm.

"Legacy" cars and people who simply can't afford a new car means it's a pie-in-the-sky dream to say we'll be completely off oil for a very long time. We can certainly do things to reduce our oil consumption, but we're not ever going to go cold turkey.
 
[quote name='Koggit']Solar powered *and* electric? And what's the MSRP? Driving on rainbows and sunshine is marvelous until you consider the economic plausibility.

The only way to make your wondercar viable is through enormous government subsidies and/or rebates. Either way, hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions, would leave our nation, which would be absolutely devastating. This single move would throw us into a depression from which we may not be able to recover -- that's not hyperbolic, it seriously would be that devastating.
[/quote]

Are you describing electric cars or the last five years of making Iraq a democracy?

But seriously...

The average car payment is $378 over 63 months. http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_2267.shtml
They're pissing away $4500 on car payments every year. They can afford a $10K conversion if the electric car is a more reliable product than a gas guzzler. (This is where you launch your first counterargument that will fail.)

The average American uses 500 gallons of gasoline every year. The average vehicle is driven more than 12,000 miles per year today. http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/saving/efficiency/savingenergy.html
Using the best gas price I saw yesterday (3.11 per gallon), that $1555 per year if gas prices go no higher.
Pushing a car for 1 hour requires 10-15kWh at a speed of 60mph. That's 2000-3000kWh per year. At the current cost of coal delivered power (10 cents per kWh), that's $200-$300 per year if coal prices go no higher. BTW, coal is a product with enough domestic reserves that invading a foreign country isn't required. Then again, Kentucky could have WMDs.
At the current and expensive cost of solar panel delivered power (40 cents per kWh), that's $800-$1200 per year unless the sun stops shining or a supervolcano such as Toba blocks out the sun. (This is where you launch your second counterargument that will fail.)

[quote name='Koggit']
This, again, makes me feel like you don't really understand the difference between money kept domestic and money sent away.

For military funding, Americans are paid, American jobs are created and Americans use it to buy American products, paying American taxes, eventually going full circle. The money leaves Washington and a large portion of it comes back to Washington.

The same, of course, can not be said about a large subsidy for the auto industry, in which a very large portion of it would go to foreign companies, creating jobs in foreign countries, where they pay foreign taxes.


It should be noted that I'm an Earth-loving liberal -- I definitely don't defend the energy industry (or war efforts), but our economy is vital to every aspect of our life, and your proposition has a dreadful effect on it.[/quote]

A massive conversion to electric cars would create American jobs. Jobs to assembly batteries with current technology and distribute them locally. Another country could manufacture the batteries, but they would lose a significant amount of profitability transporting heavy batteries thousands of miles. Jobs to convert the crap Detroit churns out into electric. An electric car takes 80 man hours to complete. There are 240 million cars out there. That's 19.2 billion man hours of work to be completed that can't be shipped overseas. Are people going to ship their cars out of the country to be converted OR have it done locally?

Considering the lifespan of batteries and cars in general, the conversion has a built in percentage of renewal business.
 
[quote name='daroga']I'd say you're living in a decently affluent area then. Around us, it's the newer cars that are the exception. Perhaps not 20 years old, but to see a car that is 10-15 years old is far and away the norm.

"Legacy" cars and people who simply can't afford a new car means it's a pie-in-the-sky dream to say we'll be completely off oil for a very long time. We can certainly do things to reduce our oil consumption, but we're not ever going to go cold turkey.[/quote]

There's a trailer park less than a mile from where I currently live.

I can see 10 years old because I drive a 97 Sable and the wife drives a 99 Sable. 20 years is bullshit.

We don't have to go off oil tomorrow. For vehicular travel purposes only... I can get the country off of oil imports in 4 years and completely off of oil in 8 years. Do you want the math?

If somebody simply must continue driving a gas guzzler, there will be oil. Of course, there are probably still leisure suits available for purchase.

The idea isn't wand and fairy godmother. It is hard work for several years that can't be outsourced.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']In one response, you're arguing we need to aggressively develop domestic oil resources. In another response, you're arguing the development of the electric car is easy of the way to go. It seems like you're trying to please everybody. Don't worry if you stomp on some toes. We're all adults here.[/QUOTE]

I'm not worried about stepping on toes around here or I'd be a party-line liberal. I don't like to be misunderstood. I'm arguing that we develop oil resources and electric cars aggressively as neither is a panacea.

[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']Next year? No. 4 years to make the US completely independent on oil import. 4 more years to make the US completely independent of almost all oil. Does my solution have to save the country in 6 months? ANWR won't help us for at least 10 years once exploration is approved.[/QUOTE]

Four years? You're dreaming...I would say crazy dreaming. Realistically there is no way for us to be off foreign oil in the next 20-30 years completely unless we completely destroy our own economy to do so. So please, enlighten us as to how we stop using foreign oil altogether in four years. Our policymakers need to know this straightaway!

[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']No, the technologies I am citing already exist. Solar panels fueling electric cars already have enough efficiency to be competitive with a gas guzzler BEFORE taking into account how much money must be wasted overseas to maintain the trickle of gasoline.[/QUOTE]

I think again you are dreaming. If not, you should be contacting some venture capitalists to form your solar car company. I'm sure if the technology is there people would be lining up to buy them given $3.50 gas.

[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']Bernanke much? Our economy and standard of living are on the decline. The massive amounts of money pissed away down Iraq are to blame.[/QUOTE]

Our economy is slowing down, obviously. I don't think our standard of living is in decline as of yet, but who knows if things get worse. The massive amounts of money spent on Iraq are not really the reason though. Paying soldiers and buying equipment harming the economy is not a viewpoint I'd consider rational. You'd have better luck decrying the contribution of said spending to massive government deficits and a massive debt.
 
In response to me stating earlier...

We don't have to go off oil tomorrow. For vehicular travel purposes only... I can get the country off of oil imports in 4 years and completely off of oil in 8 years. Do you want the math?

[quote name='daroga']I would like to see the math, actually. :)[/quote]

Absolutely. That's a more than fair request.

If you find a flaw in the math or a piece of data, pounce on it.

The United States has roughly 300 million people.

20% are under the age of 15 and are not allowed to drive cars. That leaves 240 million people including prison inmates and oddballs who walk and bike to work.

If nobody carpools or takes public transportation AND a person can only drive 1 car at a time, there are roughly 240 million cars in the United States.

As I've stated earlier, an electric car conversion requires $10,000. Federal and some state rebates exist, but we'll ignore those and possible costs overruns for the car's conversion.

We spend $300 billion per year on Iraq and Afghanistan to keep them "stabilized". (Also, the Pentagon and other Defense agencies request up to another $200 billion behind closed doors. However, I don't need that extra money to make the math work.)

$300 billion divided by $10,000 per car equals 30 million cars.

For every converted car, there is a savings on energy (see my 8:03AM post) of $200 (15kWh car fueled by solar cells) - $1300 (10kWh car fueled by coal plants overnight). These savings are rolled back into the conversion process next year to allow more cars to be converted. (Think interest on a bank account.)

SO...

End of Year 1: 30,000,000 electric cars
End of Year 2: 61,125,000 electric cars
End of Year 3: 93,375,000 electric cars
End of Year 4: 125,625,000 electric cars
End of Year 5: 157,875,000 electric cars
End of Year 6: 190,125,000 electric cars
End of Year 7: 222,375,000 electric cars
End of Year 8: 254,625,000 electric cars

The US uses 25% of the world's oil and produces 10% of the world's oil. 80% of the oil is used to push cars from point A to point B. The other 20% is used to make plastic bottles, fertilizer and pesticides to support highly inefficient and lazy monoculture agriculture (a different rant for a different time) and other products. The big picture equation is (10%/25%)/80%=50%. In other words, 50% of 240 million cars have to be converted to electric (120 million cars).

As you can see above, 120 million cars is reached just before EOY4. In the grand scheme of things at EOY4, the US would be using 15% of the world's oil and producing 10% of the world's oil. So, there is net import of oil BUT those imports can be used for something other than pushing cars from point A to point B.

For vehicular travel purposes only... off of oil imports in 4 years

More importantly, the entire US car population is converted to electric before EOY8. In the grand scheme of things at EOY8, the US would be using 5% of the world's oil and producing 10% of the world's oil. There is still oil being used BUT it isn't for pushing cars from point A to point B.

For vehicular travel purposes only... off of oil in 8 years

There's the math. Please point out any flaws.

...

Before somebody complains again that an electric car can't be bought as readily as a gas guzzler, I understand that.

Big Oil and Big Auto are as close your hand and your forearm. Both like it that way. Big Oil keeps the demand for its product high. Big Auto doesn't have to figure out how to make money on electric cars that have significantly lower maintenance costs than gas guzzlers.

Big Oil and Big Auto have inertia (and many, many government officials) on their side, not the math or logic.
 
Yeah, on paper that works. I just don't see that being a feesable real-life scenerio.

As you said, the oil and auto companies have intertia. The plan pretty much presupposes either A) we won't sell cars at all any more or B) on day 1 of year 1 all the auto makers will switch over to electric-only. Otherwise, you're still pumping in new gas-run cars to the eco system, which may or may not take the place of an already converted car, depending on how that goes. Even so I'm not convinced that the auto makers are convinced that there's more money to be made in electric cars as opposed to fuel-efficent and hybrid cars.

The problem with this country is the urban sprawl in most areas. When I'd visit my wife in Philadephia before we got married, we could go anywhere by train, bus, or walking. Here in the semi-outskirts of Milwaukee? Hardly! You'd be walking 4 miles to get to the grocery store. That's not really feesable.

We're in this awkward position in this country between not being in an urban enough area in most places to have things and PT readily available, but few own enough property or have the recourses to be semi-self-sufficient. As a result, our whole infrastructure in built around personal transportation, and as we both stated, I don't think the auto makers are in any hurry to drastically change anything that they're doing. Although more Civics and fewer Expeditions is a start.

Thanks for the math, it's an interesting read in that we could do it, but I think it's a fairy tale at this point. Meanwhile, gas jumped to $3.50 here for regular today.
 
[quote name='daroga']Thanks for the math, it's an interesting read in that we could do it, but I think it's a fairy tale at this point. [/quote]

You're absolutely right.

1. Big Oil has no incentive to lower price even if they could. Of course, Chevron owns the rights to NiMH car batteries and has no incentive to make the price lower. NiMH is somewhere between lead acid and lithium ion batteries in terms of range (>100 miles on a charge) and durability (10 years).

2. Big Auto has no incentive to introduce electric cars. Gas guzzlers have a lucrative maintenance schedule. A car sold at a loss can easily become profitable during normal maintenance.

3. The government has no incentive to nudge electric cars into the market or even attempt to educate the people. Big Oil and Big Auto have paid their dues.

4. The consumer has no desire to buy an electric car. The math above (8th grade level at best) would anger and confuse the average American and it can't be read while watching TV. Also, vehicle fuel costs still make up a small percentage of a family budget.

When will it change?

I don't have any math for that.
 
[quote name='Koggit']Solar powered *and* electric? And what's the MSRP? Driving on rainbows and sunshine is marvelous until you consider the economic plausibility.

The only way to make your wondercar viable is through enormous government subsidies and/or rebates. Either way, hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions, would leave our nation, which would be absolutely devastating. This single move would throw us into a depression from which we may not be able to recover -- that's not hyperbolic, it seriously would be that devastating.



This, again, makes me feel like you don't really understand the difference between money kept domestic and money sent away.

For military funding, Americans are paid, American jobs are created and Americans use it to buy American products, paying American taxes, eventually going full circle. The money leaves Washington and a large portion of it comes back to Washington.

The same, of course, can not be said about a large subsidy for the auto industry, in which a very large portion of it would go to foreign companies, creating jobs in foreign countries, where they pay foreign taxes.


It should be noted that I'm an Earth-loving liberal -- I definitely don't defend the energy industry (or war efforts), but our economy is vital to every aspect of our life, and your proposition has a dreadful effect on it.[/QUOTE]

Pull your head out of your ass please! Zap's lower cost Electric cars cost around $14K for their low cost/charge model(25 miles to the charge with an additional battery upgrade that can bump it up to 40). Yes this is legit and the Zap-X at $60K gets 200-250 or even 300 to the charge. That's a SUV too.
They also have one $10K UNDER the Zap-X that gets like 150-200 I think.
Principle it's not so much they still run off Oil indirectly, it's that the electricity generated from those Power Plants and Oil is much more efficient then a car with an engine. Think about the cost of them getting the power in bulk.
 
fatherofcaitlyn, that was a great post. As an engineer, I really appreciate seeing raw numbers for these sorts of things. Couple things, though:

1. The demand for electricity would increase, yes? Would that cause an increase in costs, or are these converted cars equipped with solar panels to offset that?

2. I assume this would be concurrent with building nuclear power plants, as a unit at one of those fuckers can produce a GW, and electricity needs would rise.
 
[quote name='evanft']fatherofcaitlyn, that was a great post. As an engineer, I really appreciate seeing raw numbers for these sorts of things. Couple things, though:

1. The demand for electricity would increase, yes? Would that cause an increase in costs, or are these converted cars equipped with solar panels to offset that?

2. I assume this would be concurrent with building nuclear power plants, as a unit at one of those fuckers can produce a GW, and electricity needs would rise.[/quote]

Question 1:

Demand for electricity would increase somewhat. Most battery technologies take several hours for a full recharge. However, a full recharge could happen while the driver was asleep in his or her bed. It is just a matter of keeping the power plant at peak or higher capacity for longer periods of time.

In terms of slapping solar panels on cars to fuel them, even thin film panels wouldn't work in sunny environments.
http://www.oksolar.com/pdf/solar_energy_catalog/unisolar_usf-32.pdf

The panels listed on that pdf are 0.11Wh/in squared on the low end.

My Sable's surface areas are 60"*44" (hood), 60"*60" (roof), 60"*24" (trunk), 60"*34" (windshield) and 60"*30" (rear glass). Obviously, removable solar arrays similar to reflective sunshades would be used to cover the windshield and rear glass when the vehicle was parked. Anyways, I have 8880 square inches of surface area. 0.11 Wh/in squared times 8880 in squared would equal 976.8Wh or just under 1kWh. That translates into 4-6 minutes of interstate driving time in the best of conditions.

If I had to power my car with solar power, I'd have large stationary or sun-tracking photovoltaic arrays with grid tie-in next to my parking space at work and next to my garage at home.

Realistically, I'd just plug the car into a 120 volt outlet until the car paid for itself or until rising utility costs made wind, solar or geothermal necessary.

Question 2:

There would definitely be more fuel (uranium, coal, etc.) consumed to power electric cars. However, uranium and coal have larger reserves than conventional oil. (Oil has optimistically 50 years, uranium has roughly 70 years and coal has roughly 200 years.) The need for more plants would depend on a power producer's ability to keep plants generating power in a safe manner. The coal plants I'm familiar with require a month of intensive maintenance per year, but the end consumer doesn't notice.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']
Question 2:

There would definitely be more fuel (uranium, coal, etc.) consumed to power electric cars. However, uranium and coal have larger reserves than conventional oil. (Oil has optimistically 50 years, uranium has roughly 70 years and coal has roughly 200 years.) The need for more plants would depend on a power producer's ability to keep plants generating power in a safe manner. The coal plants I'm familiar with require a month of intensive maintenance per year, but the end consumer doesn't notice.[/QUOTE]


Also, if we were to start using (and converting to) breeder reactors, like France uses, we would have enough Plutonium for millions of years.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']We spend $300 billion per year on [war][/QUOTE]

Sending $1 to some engineer in Japan and sending $1 to PFC Joe Blow do NOT represent the same economic impact, and are NOT of equal cost to our nation.
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']In terms of slapping solar panels on cars to fuel them, even thin film panels wouldn't work in sunny environments.
http://www.oksolar.com/pdf/solar_energy_catalog/unisolar_usf-32.pdf[/QUOTE]

How do those thin panels compare to the recent developments from Nanosolar?

[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']The coal plants I'm familiar with require a month of intensive maintenance per year, but the end consumer doesn't notice.[/QUOTE]

Yep. The plant I work at started its outage yesterday.
 
[quote name='Koggit']Sending $1 to some engineer in Japan and sending $1 to PFC Joe Blow do NOT represent the same economic impact, and are NOT of equal cost to our nation.[/QUOTE]

You're an idiot. Seriously. Have you heard about the companies like Halliburton relocating to Dubai to avoid paying taxes?
Also Iraq is on credit so it's destroying our dollar. The money isn't there because taxes aren't being charged to cover Iraq.
 
[quote name='evanft']How do those thin panels compare to the recent developments from Nanosolar?
[/quote]

They aren't listing their prices, but they're sold out for the next 12 months.

If they can get the solar panels' cost down to $1/W, Big Oil will have to cut fuel prices or buy Nanosolar out to survive.
 
Father konnarka might be better then Nanosolar. I've been meaning to contact them and ask how well they can receive the sun's ray even on cloudy days which Konnarka's tech has no problem with. Also Konnarka's tech you can use inside to even get energy from the lights you have on. Imagine if you will your house powering itself at the same time you have the lights on. Basically someone has the TV on in another room and you have the fluorescents on in the kitchen and it's powering the TV partially.
 
[quote name='fullmetalfan720']What we need to do is:
a: Start using electric cars.
b. Start opening more nuclear power plants, and start utilizing more wind, solar and other energies in areas where they are viable.[/quote]

Speaking as someone whose wife is an engineer overseeing environmental permitting and compliance for a major power cooperative, I declare this post FULL OF WIN. But it only scratches the surface. And yes, whoever said getting new nuclear plants built takes a lot of time is absolutely right. Coal plants with scrubbers are, unfortunately, still the most popular way to go for most power companies.

Did anyone see that Nova report about how Germany looks like they will achieve something like 30 percent renewable energy within the next decade? Solar is HUGE there, but it's largely due to massive government subsidies that make it profitable. Everyone and their brother install panels on their farms and sell power back to the grid, plus get money from the government. Still, if they can make solar work in a cloudy northern latitude like Germany, you'd think they could make much better use of it in many parts of the U.S., especially when you look at the promise of solar thermal technology (great NY Times article on the latter).

And let's stay the fuck out of ANWAR, k? Thx.
 
[quote name='Tybee']And let's stay the fuck out of ANWAR, k? Thx.[/QUOTE]

Interesting article on solar, thanks.

Why should we stay out of ANWR? There are few disadvantages and many advantages, in my view.
 
Guess what's been on my fridge for the past seven months?
scan001001.jpg
 
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']They aren't listing their prices, but they're sold out for the next 12 months.

If they can get the solar panels' cost down to $1/W, Big Oil will have to cut fuel prices or buy Nanosolar out to survive.[/quote]

From what I've read and heard google is subsidizing them for the next 18 months to cut their costs under a dollar just to get the ball rolling and hype generated (which based on the stock/demand for the next year it seems to be working).
 
[quote name='VanillaGorilla']The REAL answer is, we all need to start driving these:[/quote]

Uhh... no this

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSwlTqaM1oA[/media]
 
Anyone seriously interested in getting to the bottom of why Oil is as expensive as is, owes it to themselves to watch this.

The oil company's are making record profits, but they aren't the main problem.
 
[quote name='elprincipe']Interesting article on solar, thanks.

Why should we stay out of ANWR? There are few disadvantages and many advantages, in my view.[/quote]

ANWR isn't a bad idea if it is understood as a stopgap method that will have no effect on oil prices for nearly a decade.

Opening up ANWR won't put gas back at $1 a gallon, but it will keep off peak oil for a few years.

ANWR could be of better use maintaining pesticides and fertilizers need for food growth.
 
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