JoeyMeatballs

Speculation

samc

On the electric side, I heard producing the NIMH batteries creates a ton of pollution. I doubt LiION or NICAD batteries are much better especially when you account for disposal. I've never heard what battery type is most viable for a 4 door sedan application. Does anyone know?

Not that we shouldn't do something to get off fossil fuels but I don't think we have any near term alternatives. Isn't the automobile still a small part (10%) of the overall US fossil fuel consumption?

adso81

Agreed.
EV are a great idea, however the production and disposal of the batteries cause their fair share of problems as well. We are just now reaching a point where EV/Hybrid savings will offset the cost of battery replacement during the life time of the vehicle. The answer.... domestically controlled small scale nuclear fission! Or anything else that would pull the rug out from under the Arabs.

rickair7777

Private automobiles are a very large part of US fossil fuel consumption. The electric grid uses more energy than cars, but some of the grid is hydro, nuclear, or more-abundant coal or NG. Without looking it up, I'm pretty sure that cars/SUVs consume the largest or second-largest chunk of the oil we use in the US.

Li batteries are probably the most effecient thing we have for cars now, and they do pose a waste problem. However...if we go to large numbers of electric vehicles, a battery disposal/recycling infrastructure will develop shortly.

From a cost perspective, plain old lead-acid batteries are probably cheapest EV power source even if you do have to replace them every three years. Deep-cycle boat/RV batteries work fine in electric cars, and you can buy them anywhere.

Li batteries are more effecient and lighter, but they cost serious bank when they wear out.

BoilerUP

THAT is probably the biggest reason; institutional investors using commodities such as oil as a hedge against a weak dollar.

Speculation would likely be the second biggest reason.

The price of oil is not even remotely tied to supply-and-demand fundamentals; it hasn't for many months now. Blame Bush, blame China and India, blame the oil companies, blame their shareholders, blame your 401k manager, blame yourself...blame doesn't matter.

Yes, it will. Tech did, housing did, and oil will too..anything not tied to fundamentals always does. That said, I doubt it'll ever again dip below $75-80/bbl. The $64,000 question is when will the oil bubble burst and the substantial drop begin?

WhizWheel

The United States consumes roughly 20 million barrels per day (MMbpd) of crude oil. This is a phenomenal amount, and constitutes about 25% of the world's oil production. So where does it all go? The stats show that personal transport accounts for 45% of U.S. consumption -- about twice the consumption of trucking, aviation and shipping combined.

The breakdown for 2006 is:
Total oil consumption: 19.7 MMbpd
Transportation: 13.1 MMbpd
Autos/light trucks: 9 MMbpd
Medium/heavy trucks: 3.8 MMbpd
Jet fuel: 1.6 MMbpd
Feedstock: 3.5 MMbpd

Scoop

If people are not cutting back, then maybe $4/gallon is the right price? If people want to drive their SUV's for every day use they will have to pay more for it. Unless you are one of the oil rich countries $4/gallon is still cheap in the "global" market. Our country knew about this coming problem for over 40 years and neither Republicans nor Democrats did jack **** about it. So lets have a "gas-tax holiday" so people can keep consuming at excessive rates- brilliant!
Scoop

DYNASTY HVY

Ok so we can blame the enviro,s and who are they ? they are part of our generation and we have no one to blame but ourselves since we did nothing and i repeat nothing to stand up to them ,myself included so we have what we have .
Deal with it !
BTW wait until the next generation comes into power ,going to be some payback i reckon for all the screw ups our generation has been involved in .
Flame away if you want




God how I hate the 21st century !

Scoop

My ALPA 5 year pin was from China!
Scoop

aerospacepilot

Reading some of the responses in this thread have been.......well.........interesting.