| thranx said:
Hybrids are great. I do agree on that. But you pay about 3-5 thousand more for one of the same model so youy savings from gas are erased. Especially since a lot of people buy a new car every three to five years. And improving on combustion engines will also improve hybrid vehicles MPG when using gas and it doesn't require adding to the power grid to charge cars. Win win I say when they get the cost down. ps: glad we are still discussing things and not arguing, doesn't happen very often on this site. |
haha I know, I'm very pleased with that.
To address your point on the car engines, the inherent problem is that there are millions of cars already on the road and nothing can be done to fix them except for introduce new models for people to buy, whereas a power plant can get an upgrade and instantly be more efficient. Even a difference of .5-1% is a huge gain in terms of efficiency since 100% efficiency is frankly impossible.
Regardless of that, though, car manufacturers have no incentive to make their engines more efficient and pour research into it. Why? Because it costs more lol. It costs more and that raises the price of cars (or eats away margin) to the point where someone selling a cheaper gas guzzler will have a better shot on the market for people who don't give a damn. Like I said previously, the only reason we are even seeing 30mpg today as standard is because of regulations that were violently contested. Everyone said it would kill the auto industry. But it hasn't. We are currently at tier 2 engine grade (I believe it's called that) after the regulation was put in place. The goal, I believe, was for tier 3, which is what is standard in Japan, for, 2016? 2020? Something like that. Currently, it's supposed to be 32mpg, but the ideal is 40+.
But again, the difference is that power plants are capable of using fuel mix, as well as renewable sources, whereas a car is reliant on both electricity and gas alone (or diesel). As long as cars use gas, we are reliant on the middle east, and I think mainly, from the government's point of view, is something we need to quickly move away from.
Regarding your input on wind and solar, while it's true that these will never be able to solely replace gasoline, they are very effective in mitigating it. We can put solar panels on rooftops, for instance. What else are we going to put there to gain energy? Nothing! Solar can be put almost anywhere very effectively, and in the desert where the sun is hottest and stays longest in the sky, the outputs are very high. Similarly with wind and tidal along shorelines, by 2020 we are capable of displacing a full 20% of America's energy supply (by wind alone). Not only is it safe (no emissions, noexplosions or combustion) but it's also safe from destruction. An enemy of the state could bomb a nuke plant and put an entire state out of power, and cause massive damage to the environment, but to do so similarly to wind would take an enourmous amount of effort nationwide.
Lastly, there is one last thing to bring up, though isn't quite at market level yet, is algae. A lot of people are against algae, but in the future this will become one of the dominant technologies. Right now it costs roughly double to triple what gasoline costs, but algae farms across a state like Nevada could power the entire country alone . They are still testing and trying to get the formula right, but algae basically also displaces waste, because it eats trash and produces gas. I would say in roughly 2030-2040 algae could be generating as much as 30% or more of our entire consumption.
