A Hybrid for the Future - 1979

If you look at a graph of new oil field discoveries, you'll find that they've been on the decline since the 1960's ... so that by the 1970's we had to import. We've had less and less new oil field discoveries now for about a half century. The fact that you find a new field here or there will NEVER outweigh that simple fact. Then ... throw increased demand, and (perhaps) then you can really grasp how hosed we are about to become as a world economy. Sorry if that reality rocks anyone's boat ... but it's just simple physics ... you can search and search and search for new fields until we're blue in the face ... there are only so many new technologies that can squeeze blood out of the turnips ... and after that plateau is reached ... that's all you get. At that junction, we all have to consolodate ... the world economy can not continue to grow and grow and grow exponentially ... unless we come up with the silver bullet.

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turnips...yeah...why haven't we tried that?

 

Its hard to find things from 1979, the best sources say the panels cost $28K plus $7K to install. The amount of gasoline used for the press to come over for the press conference to cover carter's great green initiative probably used more energy than the panels ever saved. Carter was the coal president. Please give me a break if you think he actually helped reduce pollution. The facts are all against you. He wanted to pay utilities to switch to coal, but couldn't get that through congress. Instead he made it illegal to build base load natural gas plants.

As to my assumption that the damaged roof under the solar panels was likely cased by the panels,well its common sense. Many of these solar water heaters cause roof damage. My cousin needed to get his roof repaired after damage. I agree it is an assumption, but not a big one.

I never said Bush was a good president, but your rant belongs to FHOP. I didn't like the man, but mainly for foreign policy. I never voted for him.

But lets stick to the facts on this one. When it comes to hv and phevs, bush was a supporter. This includes tax breaks for hybrid cars including the prius, incentives for R&D for phevs and batteries, and tax credits for plug ins. Cafe standards were also raised for the first time since Gerald Ford. Under bush R&D and installation funding for solar, geothermal, and wind increased. When you stop and look at the facts instead of your partisanship, things get clearer. Bush was no friend to the environment, but his policies were lightyears ahead of carters plan to make gasoline from coal, and telling people to wear a sweater instead of set the thermostat up. Wait maybe that was carters plan all along, more coal for global warming so that we didn't need as much heat to warm our homes. It seems like most of the policies were awful in retrospect.

 

Instead of worrying about who wrote the past, you should be focusing on what is being written for the future. While you still have time.

 

Those who ignore the past, are doomed to repeat it. Bush was highly successful in advancing the corporate, libertarian agenda. Bush is gone, the agenda lives on.

AG:
Bush's enviro record was atrocious, but consistent: he advanced the oil industry. In fact he invited the oil industry to write executive policy and directive. While true that a pittance subsidy was given to HVs, it must be compared against the subsidies he doled out to his 'hydrogen economy' and 'yellow' (aka Ethanol) initiatives. Fractions of pennies on the dollar, at best. Bush (or at least his handlers) were astute politicians, but do not confuse a bit of sleight of hand with the overiding enviro negligence that is republicanism and li'l Bush.

 

You know if you keep quiet and think, you would not keep saying idiotic things. GO to FHOP. I don't want to play your partisan blame game. But at least read what a libertarian thinks, instead of claiming the oposite.
The Humble Libertarian: Bush 2.0: 100 Ways Barack Obama Is Just Like George W. Bush
No libertarian actually does the stupid things you claim.

We were talking about hybrids, phevs, wind, and solar. Do you have anything to add here? I didn't think so.

I never praised Bush's environmental record as a whole. It was quite bad, but it was so much better than the crappy policies you advocate.

Do you have anything to add of substance or do you just want to act superior and put false arguments out there?

My guess is you propose to cut phev funding as well as wind and solar. How does that help?

 

I always hate it when the enviro posts go left/right .... because both parties are the lackies of the special interests ... and often the lobby pander to both sides ... and both sides entertain the same lobbies to fund their next re-election war chest. It's enough here to say that Bush is/was just a simple minded tool of Cheney ... and you don't dare cross Cheney ... or he'll take you out hunting and accidentally blow your face off with his shotgun . . . . . good ol' fashion lead pelets and all.

 

Funny, you first accuse me of bad policy positions, then admit you do not have a clue what my positions are.

I have stated before -- I support ending ALL subsidies in energy except basic research. This might strike you as odd since it almost sounds libertarian, but I diverge from that group of corporate flunkies by supporting taxation of cost externalities to correct the damage.

Now, repeating Bush's record is not FHOP food, it is fact that should not be forgotten or repeated; or falsely likened to Obama as you often do, which I rebut. Your Libertarian manifesto, OTOH, definitely belongs in the FHOP heap.

I'll do you a favor and ignore the rest of the drivel in your post.

 

And we will do you, and the rest of us all a favor and ignore yours as well.

Yay! The first bipartisan agreement on priuschat.:cheer2:

 

Your policy positions that you rant on here, always just seem to be the opposite of mine. You follow me around claiming you are against anything libertarian, so yes it sounds to me that you have poor policy positions. Yes, if your for programs like DOE investment of venture capital in solyndra as you said in another thread, but are against incentives for individuals and utilities to use solar or wind. That seems that yes, IMHO you have poor policy positions.

You seem to have a cartoonish fox news idea of what a libertarian policy is, but a discussion of that really does belong in FHOP. So lets take your policy choices. No tax incentives to add wind, solar, or plug ins. This is political, but it is also environmental, and helpful to understanding the news item.

Somehow you believe that autos and oil behave in a free market fashion. They don't and any idiot knows the government is deeply entwined. Electricity is one way to break the monopoly oil has on transportation. A commitment to the status quo really is not a free market approach. Tax incentives for plug ins help level the playing field. The idea of taxing oil for its externalities is a good one, but do you trust the government to spend the money on those externalities? There are health costs and climate change costs and econonomic dependancy costs. Worse Rand estimates that military costs not including war are $60B-$90B a year. No one expects the congress that talks about making gas cheaper to tax the full cost and not spend it on something stupid. I certainly don't. I certainly don't want to justify the military spending just because we are taxing the oil. Any free market approach would include incentives to buy vehicles that use less oil. Its pretty simple.

When it comes to the grid, the government has always been highly involved. The government practically mandated coal everywhere. This is also not a free market. Again with the government heavily into coal, is likely that taxing its externalities will ever happen. The coal plants with the worst health effects are granfathered into the system. Don't even think about congress taxing coal in cap and trade legislation, the Reid/Pelosi bill seemed to mandate we subsidies coal even more. Given a choice most consumers would choose not to use coal, but we are not given that choice. The least the government can do is give solar, geothermal a shot and put tax incentives and feed through tarrifs out here to speed up the move away from heavy polluting coal.

But you don't want any of that.

Ofcourse it is political, it had nothing to do with this thread. Most libertarians are free market thinkers that want limited government. There is no libertarian answer on this. None actually have been elected to the house or senate. There is even disagreement. But for those that think the limited government, should try to get big oil and big coal off our back, the idea of tax incentives for plug-ins, wind, and solar is appealing. There is no libertarian manefesto here. The closest guy in congress to a libertarian is Ron Paul, who would reduce coal regulations, which I disagree with, but would give tax incentives to efficient vehicles like plug ins and to alternative energy.

Oil depenancy is one of those things that gives government an excuse to take your freedoms away (idealism here). If incentives can help someone drive a plug-in from a wind mill or solar panels on his home, that gives him a extra measure of freedom.

Well do me a favor, throw away the picture of jimmy carter you keep under your pillow, stop watching fox, and please think about the environment when you think about policy.

+1

Dead-Eye Dick - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 02/13/06 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

 

I'd never heard of 'em. But MAN . . . what an uphill battle THOSE 350 folks have. How do you fight one of the top 10 giant lobbies in the nation?!? Talk about a lost cause. but ... hey, I like lost causes ... I've been one.
My hat's off to those folks.