This is an interesting point. Sort of a shell game that looks good at one
level, and turns out to be of minimal benefit when you look at the big
picture.
To carry this a bit further.....and to give me some valuable input.....
I do a 160-200 mile daily commute, most of the distance on relatively flat
interstate slab. I use up enough tires in a year that the Discount Tire
trolls know me by first name. I change oil every third Saturday. You get
the picture. Gasoline is a major household expense around here. Lately,
I've been thinking about buying a hybrid vehicle. The other option (in
Michigan anyway) is compressed natural gas, as CNG pumps are becoming
available at gas stations along my route. Any listers have experience or
(dare I wonder?) opinions, on such options?
Don't care about performance, as long as it will cruise control at 80 mph
and play books-on-tape with automatic reverse on the cassette player. And I
now understand it may not reduce oil imports, but may still cost me less
money week-to-week.
....Also, a side benefit of something super-light weight, like the Honda
Insight, is that when it wears out, I could swap in a V-tec and have bad-ass
street racer-autocross car!
Waddya think?
======================================
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 05:58:32 -0800
From Bill L <pythias at pacifier.com>
Subject: Re[2]: Saudi oil
Hello ,
hydrogen IS the current darling for a renewable energy source,
but there are multiple problems, the biggest being that it is
an energy "neutral" solution. that is it takes as much energy
to MAKE hydrogen, (that is extract it in its pure form from
either the water or the air) as you get in return when you use
it. the problem then being, where you get the energy to begin
with! some push for electric cars as being non polluting, but
again the energy to power them has to come from somewhere, and
most (around 80% if i recall correctly) come from oil fired
electrical power houses, so we would be merely moving the
pollution and energy comsumption from the tailpipe to the power
plant. that and the fact that anytime you convert energy from
one form to another you suffer LOSS. that's why Chrylser is
working so hard on fuel cell technology that uses gasoline
instead of hydrogen. ... hmmmmmmm
- --
Best regards,
Bill mailto:pythias@pacifier.com
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