[curious]

The morons in Congress interviewed the CEOs of the top 5 US oil companies today and in the context of "why are gasoline prices so high?" asked this insightful question "why are you oil companies making zero investments in wind energy?, you should invest more in wind energy". So, obviously the Congress critter solution to the high gasoline prices is for all of us to put sails on our cars and run them on wind energy.


I thought the CEOs were totally out in left field when they suggested that an alternative which might actually impact gasoline prices would be for the federal government to open up the federal land that is off limits to oil drilling and exploration (90% of federal land is off limits including 98% of offshore US territorial waters). Hmm, reducing the cost of gasoline by increasing the supply of oil? That is crazy!

What are these oil company CEOs thinking? I am not going to fall for it, I am going to go with the much more sensible wind energy idea from the Congress critters.

Anyone know how to sail a car?

Just Curious

[Deuce]

Today in Detroit and sail would have worked. I was all over the road it was so windy.

[Shark79]

Prius is being sold in CR since '06 ... it is an expensive car though.

[tacomax]

Thil one Looks pretty funky. However, I think I'd get better value spending $98,000 (not including extras) on something else.

http://www.teslamotors.com/design/gallery-body.php

[Thor4140]

These greedy no good coksuckers are goughing and to think that if they could drill somewhere to get more supply and this, in fact will give us a break in prices, is not only gullible and naive but borderline laughable. Im not having problem with supply. I can go to any gas station in america and get gas.

[Arnold]

I sailed my bicycle to work today no problem.

I wonder what makes up that 90% land that is off limits? Forests and mountains? Screw them then.

[curious]

I like the idea of a hybrid car that runs on 90% electric and gets 250mpg. They are going to release one in November/December in Cali. The catch? The car looks like the Jetson's mobile.

It also costs $200,000 or more.

[curious]

I sailed my bicycle to work today no problem.

I wonder what makes up that 90% land that is off limits? Forests and mountains? Screw them then.

Most of this land is so remote you would need a parachute or a helicopter to get to it.

One case that I just love. There is a proven oil field near the northslope field that is five times bigger in terms of proven reserves. There are working wells on that field. One of the DemoCong presidents, I forget which one, Carter maybe? declared the island where the proven wells are a "wildlife refuge" and put it off limits to oil production. The wildlife that is being protected. Sea gulls. That's right, flying rats. I hate those stupid things. Anyway, sea gulls can live anywhere, eat anything. There is no reason to protect them. I have a picture somewhere of sea gulls infesting an oil well.

There are three other fields in Alaska bigger than Gull Island. All have working wells, all are forever prohibited from being developed by the DemoCong. This doesn't even count Anwar, that makes 4 fields. Gull island makes 5. 5 fields all bigger than north slope and they can never be touched. And the Congress critters blame the oil companies for high oil prices. Am I missing something here?

I'm curious why the Big 5 oil company execs didn't bring up some of this nonsense.

[DukeJohn]

I was at the gym today and reading a article in Popular Science. There is this new microwave technology that takes just about anything and brakes in down to oil and gas. The trick is finding the right frequency. Anyway, they are currently building one in New York to begin braking down tires and stuff. It was a pretty good article. The inventor also said oil companies are going to want to "kill him." He took a piece of coal and within 15 seconds it was burning a torch at the other end. I don't know much about the processing of oil, but I guess he was getting at that this would be much cheaper to refine than current methods. Also, the plan is to brake down everything from plastics to junk yards.

Wait let me see if I can find the article online. Okay, this is the link, in case you are interested.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bo...novator_2.html

[curious]

That is very true due to the demand. It's a shame when companies rely on outdated methods just for the purpose of milking the cow.

The price isn't due to demand. There are three factors. First, battery technology in this country has not received the kind of R&D dollars necessary to make battery technology equivalent to say microchip technology in terms of the advancement of the technology and constant delivery of more capability at lower costs as happens in the microchip industry. You can thank the DemoCong for this since R&D dollars were raided in the federal budget to pay for DemoCong social engineering experiments. If the federal government was serious about batteries being an alternative to gasoline they would do the same thing for battery technology that they did for microchip technology. Invest tens of billions of dollars in fundamental R&D and get the top laboratories and think tanks in the country under the gun to come up with a solution.

The second factor is economies of scale. A small company building cars basically by hand has zero economies of scale. Again the government could help here by awarding this small company a contract for say 100,000 vehicles (for the military, post office, government motor pools etc) and give the company a grant so that they can build a modern factory.

The third factor is weight. Batteries weigh a ton. This car requires more strength in the frame and the body to carry the weight.

No conspiracy here.

[jackpot269]

Thil one Looks pretty funky. However, I think I'd get better value spending $98,000 (not including extras) on something else.

http://www.teslamotors.com/design/gallery-body.php

taco that one bad ride dude

[curious]

Curious I've got to give you props. I can't say I agree with everything you say but you definitely seem to know what you are talking about. How do you find and remember all of this information (not just this post - all the other posts as well)?

I do lots of research on a wide variety of topics in my work. Last year I was helping a client figure out if building gold lithium batteries was a good idea. Take one look at the table of the elements and you see why they would think that.

In researching state of the art in battery technology, I stumbled across the electric car guys in California. Wasn't really pertinent to the research I was doing, but it was cool.

If it wasn't for government contracts, the microchip industry would not have developed so far so fast. Only the government and global corporations can place the huge orders necessary to get past the "we'll buy more if it costs less", "okay, it will cost less if you buy more" problem.

The Japanese government solves this problem for its manufacturers of key technologies by guaranteeing them a high volume which meets the sizes needed for economies of scale. The Japanese use the model of "price the product at the economies of scale and the sales will materialize to make it possible to achieve the economies of scale". Of course this strategy would not work if the Japanese government was not taking on a big part of the risk. But, they have created entire industries pretty much from scratch this way. Either created them or taken them completely over.

No reason why the US government could not do the same, if we could just get rid of the #$%*&@ DemoCong.

Curious