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      02-11-2012, 01:23 PM   #123
mapezzul
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hlmiii View Post
Sure.
It's easy and simple: public demand - the marketplace - and regulatory requirement - the government. These are in direct opposition to "lightweight."
It is impossible to have a four-seat vehicle with the competitive features that people want and the safety and mileage performance that governments mandate AND have that in a lightweight product that can be afforded by anything other than a miniscule market.
Lamborghini has the only current offering that performs better, has more features, and is lighter than the previous generation. This was realized ONLY with years of engineering and a very expensive design + construction that cannot be mass produced and/or sold for less than $450,000.00.

EVERYBODY in the energy industry understands this perfectly.
The statement misses the issues by 60%: Supply and environment are of at least equal importance as efficiency.

The supply of petroleum is becoming more and more limited by actual reserve volume, geopolitics, increasing population and cost. PERIOD. Other sources will be needed.
Supplement and/or replacement must start before it becomes immediately necessary - technology, production and distribution takes years. Starting the process once there is a shortage it is far too late to avoid disruption.

This county - as well as any other entity - cannot both control its destiny and defend itself unless it can be energy independent. We are not in that situation and cannot be as long as "oil" retains its current place in our energy usage.

The increasing demands for energy due to increased population and advancing technological development in the most populous countries make local and global environmental issues critical. China is still relatively early in that process and it already has severe air and water problems, some of which reach even our borders. India is next.
Petroleum has been historically usable in this country only because it has been cheap, plentiful, relatively clean, and fairly local for its first hundred years. All of those advantages have receded and changed dramatically during the past thirty years.

Physics, chemistry and biology are forcing the world to use less oil at some point. This is happening regardless of whether we currently perceive it or understand it or like it. It is time to get ahead of what will be here.*
Ok. Class dismissed.


Ha! Def. But talk about your high weight and mediocre performance.

*I have been in the oil&gas industry or related for over twenty years. As partial owner of such a company that has put my boys through college and bought me cars, I fully understand that what I wrote ultimately works against my immediate self-interest. I'm not a hater or a greenie. It's just unavoidable reality.
Thank you for your post... it was honest and accurate.


The next step is hydrogen in on way or another. Energy is stored in one media or another whether it is oil coal or batteries, hydrogen is the next step as a storage media for renewable energy. Take wind power, a well, electrolysis and produce hydrogen which can be burned cleanly and in this manner is renewable.... the question is whether it is combustion or fuel cell and how can this be interpreted to society as a whole.

That is why plugin hybrids make the most sense for the short term, they can use energy that is being produced anyways (plants still run at night and most people charge then) and the current infrastructure with minor mods can accept them.

Germany since it has announced decommissioning the nuclear plants early has gone full on with green energy and there are some things that will come out of it. Notably the idea of storing wind energy as hydrogen gas.

Wind Power Storage: It’s A Gas
by Pete Danko, November 23rd, 2011

The idea of storing excess wind energy as hydrogen is picking up steam in Germany, with a second pilot program popping up – this one from the big power company E.On. But there’s a key difference between the two projects: In Herten, Germany, the company Hydrogenics plans to use power from a wind plant to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen that will be stored and later used in fuel cells to provide power. E.On also intends to use wind to produce hydrogen by electrolysis, but then the hydrogen “will be fed into the Ontras gas pipeline system and be used like normal natural gas,” the company said.
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