Posted on 12/04/2006 4:49:44 PM PST by SJackson
shut off our engine when idling for longer than 30 seconds and dump the SUV.
Aside from the idiocy of turning the car off every red light, I'm sure someone more knowledgable will be along to comment on the fuel consumption issue. Dump the SUV, you need to move south.
The US is foreign oil dependent by choice. Let's use the world supply first, then our domestic supply. M2C
Turning off the engine at a light is actually a good idea. That technology has been available in JApan for 30 years.
I don't think there is a fuel consumption issue any more. There used to be the myth that it took 45 seconds worth of gas to start a car but I believe that has been debunked.
When I was in college in the early sixties I was told we would run out of oil by the year 2000. Obviously better technology, better ways to find oil and fuel efficiency has made this prediction a joke. If energy prices get too high alternatives will be developed that will be feasible.
I'm so sick and tired of this rampant hippie hysteria. It's sickening. Don't these morons have anything better to do than start scaring a poopulation of people already stressed from war, terrorism, and employment? Sickening. I wish people would jsut shoot thes brats and use their bodies for fertilizer. I'm fed up with doomsday hysterics running the media nad in some worse cases, the country.
Tractor can idle
What about all those trucks idling at truck stops?
This story has been around since the 1920s. I don't know how many times someone has predicted the end of the oil reserves, it's occurred too many times in my life. What all these predictions ignore is that new reserves are being discovered on a fairly regular basis, plus new technologies allow more oil to be recovered.
I'll worry about it when it happens.
No, it's not, but it's policy on the cheap, an no one is going to come out against "conservation".
Articles like this one claim that "oil" is in short supply, and therefore hydrocarbon fuels will be in short supply.
This is just as silly, ignorant or disingenuous as saying that natural climate change is man's fault, that "climate change" is the same as "Global Warming". Like Peak Oil, this is more about political issues and ideology than about hard facts and hard science.
In truth, the United States is almost awash in hydrocarbons in many diverse forms, such as coal, oil shale and sewage sludge. The *all* can be *converted* in to liquid fuels with existing technologies. The *only issue is cost*.
I'm not about to conserve just to make greenies happy. If oil ran out tomorrow, we have enough oil and coal to gassify that we really don't have to worry. I ani't hanging my hopes on hydrogen, solar or wind.
I'm intrigued by hydrogen and nuclear. It's a combo that I think could work, albeit after another decade of research and development. And it would be a great feeling to wake up every day and know that your enemies can't shut off your energy supply and criple your economy. Because right now, we are seriously at risk. I obsess over it a lot, granted, but we get a sizable chunk of our energy from people who would rather see us dead.
What is is about these folks? Y'know, I agree with the need to minimize oil consumption, but why do the environmentalists so rarely offer any ideas or insights that are even remotely outside the four corners of their standard socialist rhetoric?
Let's try some different insights. First, let's look at one reason why conserving oil makes sense. Try this reason; it has nothing to do with the environment or hugging trees or saving cute little furry seals. We import most of our oil from countries like Venezuela and what we pay for that oil helps to support cretins like Hugo Chavez. You fill up your tank, you might as well be scratching them a check. I don't like that thought, so I'm going to try to minimize my fuel consumption where I can.
And what is with this fixation with SUV's? I don't like them much personally, but you know what? I don't lie awake at night worrying that somewhere, somehow, someone is driving an Escalade. Why not stress the economics of owning a smaller car? Like the fact they cost less to purchase and cost less to fill up. And what about the simpler ways to save energy that don't take much effort at all, like buying a more efficient washing machine when the old klunker finally gives up the ghost? The new front loaders do a better job of washing your clothes, and save water and energy. Or how about installing compact fluorescents in your house. Net cost, about $3 each.
You know, energy conservation does make sense. But I fear that as long as we have to listen to nothing but environ-socialist rhetoric about energy conservation, what we'll get is 1/2 of the population simply ignoring the message.
The Greens and Democrats are certainly doing something about our undeveloped domestic oil supply. They are putting it all off limits.
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