Conservatives want alternative energy solutions also. I believe most realize that at the moment the economics of alternative energy are not feasible. Research is being performed on an on going basis and with the price we're paying for energy costs you have to think that the private sector is looking for the next solution to cash in on. Most great inventions have been dollar driven. Let's hope someone get's "Gates Rich" in the next few years. I would speculate that even the wicked ole "Big Oil" companies are investing more than we can imagine to cash in on the future of alternative energy.

How about nuclear power. Why can we put that energy source on the fast track. Even the anti-nuke crowds of yester year have rethought their positions and have now backed more nuclear power plants to shed our dependence on fossil fuels. What's the hold up?

Bio-fuels? Looks like they could be part of the solution. Seems there are many unanswered issues with that solution. Many of which will be overcome with time. The question I feel we have to weigh there is do we feed the world or fuel it?

Until the magical cure pops up we need to develop the massive reserves that remain intact in our country. The US won't drill off Florida waters but Cuba by way of China's support intends to tap the same resources that we refuse to develop. My question there is who do you trust to drill off the Florida coast? Exxon or Fidel?

Regarding your comment regarding the lack of name calling and challenging others wouldn't you think that might settle down now that the election is over and we don't have a bunch of politicians and their hacks peeing on our feet and trying to tell us it's raining?

Hmmmm I always wondered why the rain was so warm here ...
Which point did I overlook anyway, Git?

Dollar driven is absolutly the only way to get things done fast and efficiently. Thats why the increase in taxes on larger vehicles.

Nuclear power: That is a decision the "board" would have to make but my feeling it that it is too dangerous and produces too much problem waste. A third factor is that it releases thermal energy which was stored into the earths crust much longer ago than the oil reserves and I'm not certain what that would do the atmosphere.

Bio-fuels: I don't think we have to choose between feeding the world or the gas tank. We have enough space and we already produce excess food. Again, a question for the board to decide.

Floridas coast: This may sound funny but I'm not certain I wouldn't rather have Fidel drilling. He may not give us any of the oil, but the name of that ship wasn't exactly the "Castro Valdiz". Exxon is only in it for the cash. Fidel has a reputation at stake and he may not be so bad.
However, again, the goal is to reduce the amount of fossil fuels being used.

You are going to penalize those who need larger vehicles because they have more people or things to haul around than some others?

Or, how about those who cannot ride in those small buggies because they have bad back and so on. Hurts like mad to be in those little ones.

Is it more efficient to use 20 small cars, with two each riding and little bits packed in, to caravan somewhere or 5 vans with 4 riding and hauling more than twice what can be packed in a small car?

Kinda kills car pooling to penalize vans.

Lots of problems when you think of going that direction.

Hydrogen is a technology that probably will never fly. Keeping hycrogen inside a container is no easy matter. And how much energy does it require to slit it out? What is the impact on water and air resouces when you start altering that much volume of what we breath and drink?

Electricity requires power generation. What is the generating fuel or power souce? Battery disposal. Batteries are not good environmentally.

I fully agree we need answers. But we don't need to cut off our noses searching for them.

I still think the answer lies in the motors we use. There must be some way to captilize on the wasted energy output via mechanical, not electrical retention.

Could be wrong.

What about magnetics? Magnetic filds are very powerful. They are experimenting with using them to boost payloads into space. Surely they can do something for vehicles.

Or flywheels. They can store and release energy, not to mention by rotating them using inertia to create motion.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

PTC guy

...penalize those who need larger vehicles...?
Oh yes yes yes, that is exactly what I suggest. If you have more things to haul around, you must be able to afford them and part of that cost is to pay for hauling them around.
Besides - how many people really need that SUV as something other than a big comfy status symbol?

...those who cannot ride in those small buggies because they have bad backs...
If you are in business and need to drive hours on end, you need a bigger, better vehicle. Tax write-offs but not excessively. If you do the 2 hr commute to that Atlanta 9-5 and your butt gets sore in that Mini, tough. Either have a special seat installed in the Mini, or pay to drive your Yukon. You have a good job, you can afford either option. (I have back problems and drive for hours on end for business)
Otherwise, that Mini will do just fine to take you over to Newnan to visit Grandma and once a year to Orlando for vacation.

...more efficient to use 20 small cars,...
Of course the 5 minivans are more efficient but how often does a family do this? Or anyone? If it's a business, again, tax write offs. If you decide you want 14 kids, pay fort it. If you do it only once in a while, rent for the short term.

Kinda kills car pooling to penalize vans
No, it kills vans. Carpooling can also happen in cars. How many carpooling systems do you know that actually have more than 4 people going to long term jobs? And, for those who really want that van but need a way to pay for it, this would add impetus to find others to increase carpooling.
Besides, "penalizing" a vehicle shouldn't be only based on the number of passengers. (That'd make for a lot of 2 passenger Denalis.) The goal should be to penalize underused vehicles; vehicles that can and usually do a lot less than their weight/engine size/mileage would otherwise dictate. Again, get the wiz heads together and let em has it out.

Hydrogen is a technology that probably will never fly
You may be right but I don't think even we would be able to figure this one out. It'd be a good question for "The Board".

Electricity requires power generation. What is the generating fuel ...
This is a good point and often overlooked. We are paying around $3/gallon but how much of that is taxes - that would need to be replaced by any other system?
I think we have to consider electricity an energy carrier - just like gas or hydrogen - and the raw materials used to create it as the energy source.
For electricity, the source energy could be wind, solar, both, or whatever else the board determines appropriate.

Battery disposal
PTC has proven that lead-acid floded cells do work. They are 100% recycled and the only cost to the enviornment is the energy required to recycle them. (So how much is it?)
Again and especially for new battery technology, a question for the board to decide.

... answer lies in the motors we use ...
You are probably right and the following comments you made were some very good discussions.
What the country needs is an energy policy that guides us in the right direction, not a policy that allows the car manufacturers fleet mileage to drop every year and has more loopholes than not.

That was the reason for my suggestion - a bipartisan group including scientists that discuss this, review all the options, and recommend laws that put us in that direction.
Example: If using lead-acid batteries costs too much to recycle, tax em. If NiMH are much better, tax incentives.

...penalize those who need larger vehicles...?
Oh yes yes yes, that is exactly what I suggest. If you have more things to haul around, you must be able to afford them and part of that cost is to pay for hauling them around.

Really? The small business service guy hauling tools around can really afford it?

The small business sales guy?

The family with a kid or two and the parents or In-Laws living with them?

The Scouting or other person trying to help kids by taking them to outiings and meetings?

The working folk who car pool?

Yea. Right. You got the answers to make life even harder on a lot of folk.

Besides - how many people really need that SUV as something other than a big comfy status symbol?

Where did I say SUV? No Where.

They are not practical vehicles. But Vans and similar are bigger and would also fall in your category.

...those who cannot ride in those small buggies because they have bad backs...
If you are in business and need to drive hours on end, you need a bigger, better vehicle. Tax write-offs but not excessively. If you do the 2 hr commute to that Atlanta 9-5 and your butt gets sore in that Mini, tough. Either have a special seat installed in the Mini, or pay to drive your Yukon. You have a good job, you can afford either option. (I have back problems and drive for hours on end for business)
Otherwise, that Mini will do just fine to take you over to Newnan to visit Grandma and once a year to Orlando for vacation.

Really? When you get a bad back or such then you can talk about how short a ride is acceptable. Until then, shut up.

And there is no way to change a mini to work. Key for many with bad legs, backs and such is seat height and distance in front.

No way that mini can accomodate that, custom or not.

You don't have a clue of reality here.

...more efficient to use 20 small cars,...
Of course the 5 minivans are more efficient but how often does a family do this? Or anyone? If it's a business, again, tax write offs. If you decide you want 14 kids, pay fort it. If you do it only once in a while, rent for the short term.

Hello! Scouting did it once a month.

Tax write off! What great thinking. You get a tax break for the huge extra chunk taken out your take home pay.

You still loose take home pay. And many business people are on the edge now with this great economny. I did mean great sarcastically.

Kinda kills car pooling to penalize vans
No, it kills vans. Carpooling can also happen in cars. How many carpooling systems do you know that actually have more than 4 people going to long term jobs? And, for those who really want that van but need a way to pay for it, this would add impetus to find others to increase carpooling.

Oh yea. 4 packed in a mini. What marvelous thinking.

Besides, "penalizing" a vehicle shouldn't be only based on the number of passengers. (That'd make for a lot of 2 passenger Denalis.) The goal should be to penalize underused vehicles; vehicles that can and usually do a lot less than their weight/engine size/mileage would otherwise dictate. Again, get the wiz heads together and let em has it out.

Big Brother's ugly head! Now we have to file how many use our vehicles and prove it.

Hydrogen is a technology that probably will never fly
You may be right but I don't think even we would be able to figure this one out. It'd be a good question for "The Board".

I still think the answer is in alternative tech, not fuel. Or a combo.

Electricity requires power generation. What is the generating fuel ...
This is a good point and often overlooked. We are paying around $3/gallon but how much of that is taxes - that would need to be replaced by any other system?

A big one. And one that needs a lot of research.

I think we have to consider electricity an energy carrier - just like gas or hydrogen - and the raw materials used to create it as the energy source.
For electricity, the source energy could be wind, solar, both, or whatever else the board determines appropriate.

Now the issue is availability.

Solar has proven a farce. And the others are not there for many areas.

Battery disposal
PTC has proven that lead-acid floded cells do work. They are 100% recycled and the only cost to the enviornment is the energy required to recycle them. (So how much is it?)
Again and especially for new battery technology, a question for the board to decide.

Work and practical are two different issues. We will have to wait and see on that one.

... answer lies in the motors we use ...
You are probably right and the following comments you made were some very good discussions.
What the country needs is an energy policy that guides us in the right direction, not a policy that allows the car manufacturers fleet mileage to drop every year and has more loopholes than not.

That was the reason for my suggestion - a bipartisan group including scientists that discuss this, review all the options, and recommend laws that put us in that direction.
Example: If using lead-acid batteries costs too much to recycle, tax em. If NiMH are much better, tax incentives.

But my sketicism is in that such research has been going on for 30 years, in some areas.

Not encouraging. But we have to try.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

(Had to play around with empty lines at the top of my post to fix the Strong stuff)

You're getting caught up in the details. I would never say of the suggestions here should be carved in stone without further analysis.

We can beat individual situations until they give up but that's not the core of the issue. The symptoms of the core problem as I see it is that our current energy policy allowed car manufacturer fleet mileage to actually drop instead of improve over the last several years.

Let me make my initial response on this a bit clearer. My idea here is not to declare specifics but to set up an impartial group of people (including politicians and scientests) that would make the decisions. THEY would declare specifics, and THEY would have the goal of classing vehicles, setting up the tax code, and implementing a strategy to make the 2 hour single passenger (the driver) SUV commute way more expensive than the 4 passenger mini commute.

As I said, I do have a bad back and I do have to drive long distances as part of my job. No, I wouldn't drive a Mini but that was just an example.
I drove a long time and lots of miles at high speeds in Germany, sometimes using small fast diesel vehicles that got better mileage at high speeds (120mph +) than my Motorcycle did at 80mph.
Part of dealing with the long trips were frequent stops and frequent seat position change. Had my back become much worse, I could have received a special seat installed by the medical system over there.
I can tell you that small cars don't have to be uncomfortable.

Solar has not proven a farce - only the will to implement it.
The core of this entire issue is which energy source will give us the best bang for buck, cost us the lowest per mile driven, and right now solar is pretty expensive.

All of our energy needs could be supplied by solar heating and photovoltaic alone but the cost would be prohibitive.
Yet in spite of that factoid, Germany (not exactly in the Sahara) has initiated a "10,000 roofs" program (The link to the German website)which encouraged the installation of solar heating and photovoltaic units through tax breaks.
Whether this was the best path forward will only become obvious much farther down the road but the effects so far has been to put Germany in the middle of a strong growth industry as well as a lot of research into more efficient solar panels.
These are the kinds of ideas I'm talking about.

We come home to our air conditioned houses and take showers with warm water heated by gas or electricity. Why aren't we using the waste heat from the A/C to heat the shower water? Because it's cheap not to. But building a system that warms the water and cools the house is not rocket science, there's just no demand without the tax incentives.

Here's another great example of the effect taxes can have.
You remember when unleaded fuel was introduced here? It was 2 cents a gallon more than regular, and many people driving a new, unleaded-only vehicle looked for ways to buy the cheap stuff. Myths and stories abounded about how bad unleaded was for the enviornment, how bad it was for engines, and those little plastic adapters that allowed the leaded nozzle to fit to an unleaded tank were a hot item.
In Germany, they did it the other way round. They adjusted the fuel taxes so that unleaded was about 2 cents CHEAPER than leaded and guess what - yep, everyone was asking if they could use unleaded in their vehicle. There you had suddenly lots of additives you could buy to replace the lead, but those little adapters for the nozzle were never an item.

I hope you get a better picture of where I'm going with this. It's not about penalizing and it's not about making people poor(er). It's about giving people the reasons to make the right decisions - sorta like what $3.00 gas has recently done for the SUV market.

You are just getting way to complex. It would be impossible to set up such a system for categorizing vehicles and people. The cost would be prohibitive.

And the details are what make and break plans. We do not live lives that repeat one to another. Do not share the same needs.

Solar is a good suppliment. But will never be a replacement.

Snow country does not play well with solar. Nor areas that have long periods of short daylight hours.

Geothermal is a good suppliment.

But now we are talking non-vehicular applications.

There are plenty of people out there that recognize finding another engine system would make them billionairs. And they are trying.

I want them to keep trying.

But some of the fuels they are tinkering with now are dead ends, as in ethanol and electric.

I still think the answer likes in a new engine technology, not new fuels.
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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Vehicles are currently catagorized - SUVs, Minivans, passenger vehicles, etc. While people aren't and don't need to be categorized, the ways they use the vehicles are categorized in our tax codes.

An example of what's wrong with the current system is that SUVs are built on pickup truck chassis, and trucks are -logically- in a different economy class than passenger vehicles - even though the weight or load capability may be more or less.
So who makes these decisions?

What I am thinking about is a board composed of a 50/50 mix of politicians and scientists, and with a 50/50 mix of democrat vs republican. This board would study and determine which power sources should be developed. If they determined that, say, hydrogen had the best future, then tax breaks would be given to purchasers of hydrogen vehicles to help create the market.
This board would also have not only decision making power over classification of vehicles, but also of setting the tax laws to manuiplate the desire for people to work in the recommended direction.

The mix of scientists and bi-partison politicans on the board would be crucial to preventing pork and wasted incentives as well as for debating the pros and cons of specific ideas.

Your statement "Solar ... will never be a replacement" is something you can't say for certain. Just like the tinkering on the motors may bring us a huge breakthrough, so could Germanys solar thrust bring the breakthrough on photo-voltaic cells. In fact, they have managed to greatly improve the PV cell efficiency and further improvements are expected. And this in a land that is known for clouds and rain. All because of an initiative the German government started to get solar panels on roofs.

One other comment I'd like to make: we can't really differentiate between fuels for vehicles and fuels for non-vehicluar uses. The fuel is really only an energy carrier, and the source of the energy is important. If we start using plug-in electrical vehicles, we have simply moved the load from gasoline to the electric grid. If the generators are buring oil, we are still using a fossil fuel.
On the other hand, if we are using nuclear power to generate electricty, our plug-ins would be virtually atomic powered.

Classification by vehicle type is not to complex. But reason for buying most assuredly is.

Tax breaks don't work. For a small business buy, in example, a tax break only refunds a portion of the penalty tax, not the whole thing.

Thus, he is still penalized.

Then there is the administration cost. You are inventing another IRS here.

Solar power is limited because collecting more energery is an issue of sqare footage, not efficiency of the system. It eats up too much land. And only collects energy for a portion of the day.

Get some rain weeks and in the winter, then collection goes way down.

Nuclear power has the issues of waste and parts disposal. Already major problem.

We have to face it. Every technology has a problem. So we have to be smart about what we pick.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

It was clean when I finished posting and looked.

Something broke the last 6 close tags.

But I added another close here. It stayed open.

It took adding 6, here, to get it to close.

This is a DB error. Must have brokend open tags.

I always add the tags in pairs and the / immediately.

You do know, that under normal circumstances, you can close a spilling tag by adding the close to the top of your post? Instead of asking someone to do it after the edit time has expired?

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Bold is back on.

That's why I didn't bother to try and close it.

Look at "Shesh PTC Guy, I think you misunderstood a bit".

If anyone posts under your origional post, your close gets overridden.

This just isn't your day.

It was clean when I first posted. It was clean after I added closes to the next post.

Now, the whole thing is clean because the DB is reading the closes in the initial post you accused me of not closing.

I know what I am talking about. You don't.

I am not responsible for DB or script read errors.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

I looked at the source code and you had 13 , (open) tags and only 7 (close) tags in that post.

Look at the Source all you want. I put a close in for each.

And you said they were still open. I don't see any open at this time and I have done absolutely nothing else after adding the 6 closes.

There is ether a DB, script, or both errror. I have seen a lot of glitches hit these blogs. I am sure you have as well.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Now....Stop it you two.

.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Would you make these two go stand in the corner for a while.

You didn't close the BOLD correctly.

Now everything is bold

I did do it correctly. The DB glitched.

You could have closed it if you knew how.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

I don't know the effect of ethanol production on our water resources, so PTC Guy, why don't you educate us on that?

What I do know is that using more than about 15% ethanol requires your car to be modified. Also, ethanol has less energy per gallon than gasoline, so converting to ethanol would result in decreased gas mileage and less range per fillup. That's not a showstopper, but it is a consideration.

Meanwhile, I'm interested in biodiesel. I recently read that you can burn vegetable oil in any diesel engine, without any modification at all. It delivers similar fuel mileage to diesel, and lower emissions. The only drawback is that it thickens up in very cold weather, so you might have to thin it with regular diesel during the winter.

Shifting over to alternative energy sources that we grow ourselves would help our own economy, especially for our farmers, and it would stick it to our enemies in the Middle East.

It is already a problem.

Ethanol, Water and Kansas

Plant uses 1,000,000 gallons of water a day.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Water Rich Brazil Faces Water Shortage

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Unless something has changed, all diesel fuel gels in cold weather. That is why in cold climates they don't turn semis off and they have to have preheaters to warm the fuel up enough to liquify.

Beyond that, I don't know a lot about biodiesel.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

PTC Guy, you are right about all diesel gelling if it gets cold enough. However, what I read is that vegetable oil aggravates this tendency somewhat. Unfortunately, I lost the link to that article. Nevertheless, I think that drawback is probably easier to overcome than drawbacks to some of the other alternatives being discussed.

Coming from cold and snow country, it would need a bunch of help.

If the tech boys can overcome it, good for us all.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Also, ethanol has less energy per gallon than gasoline, so converting to ethanol would result in decreased gas mileage and less range per fillup. That's not a showstopper, but it is a consideration.

That statement by itself is NOT true.

Go to: (again, sorry for the long address)

http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=ISO-8859-1&client=pub-6760503316607231&cof=FORID:1%3BL:http://redesign.discover.avatarnewyork.com/images/discover_logo.gif%3BLH:49%3BLW:271%3BGL:1%3BBGC:FFFFFF%3BT:%23000000%3BLC:%23666600%3BVLC:%23cc6600%3BALC:%23666600%3BGALT:%23CC6600%3BGFNT:%23cc6600%3BGIMP:%23cc6600%3BDIV:%23D1CB80%3BLBGC:FF9933%3BAH:center%3BS:http://www.discover.com%3B&domains=discover.com&sitesearch=discover.com&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=ethanol&spell=1

Hey bad_ptc. There are special instructions you can use to keep the link intact while leaving a short underlined blue text that can be clicked on.

Examples:

This link doens't do much for us:
http://www.thecitizen.com/filter/tips#filter-g2_filter-0

But this link, How to make links, is a bit better, or?

Play around and see what you can get.

That was a particularly ugly link.

I'm actually familiar with the syntax. If this were on one of my sites it would have been a link.

My preference is to let people see the address, not a hyper link on things such as forums.

It’s the old, Click here, to load a bug syndrome.

I have learned many do not know how to copy, paste and open URLs.

Yea. I understand the set up for getting g virus or trojan.

That is why there is security programs.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

I myself have learned that many people can’t drive yet the state still gives them a license to do so.

For some unknown reason I seem to get behind a large number of them every day.

For those that don’t understand “highlite” or Crtl A, Crtl C, Crtl V then “enter” I will endeavor to post the address and link from now on.

As I said in another post, it makes the page so wide that each line needs to be scrolled left to right to read it.

Don't get me started on those who cannot drive. Arggg!

Many do not understand highlight, right click and copy either.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

I posted a help page and asked Cal to make it sticky. He didn't.

adding target="_blank" after the "URL" opens in in another window.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

I wouldn't have posted it if I was just making it up. Here's the link, and below, I copied an excerpt from that article.

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/fueleconomy/articles/109194/article.html

If you own one of the 5 million E85-capable vehicles, fueling with E85 is not only beneficial to the environment, you'll most likely see a small increase in performance, which will be accompanied by a small decrease in fuel economy. On average, when flexible fuel vehicles are powered by E85, the vehicles have about 5-percent more horsepower and a 10-percent drop in fuel-efficiency. The added power comes from ethanol's higher octane rating (ranging from 100-105). The fuel economy decrease comes from the fact that ethanol has a lower energy content than gasoline, which means you have to use more of it.

It's not perfect, but it may very well help. All in all, good informative, seemingly unbiased article. Remember, these are car guys, so consider that when you read it. I'm kind of a car guy too..

From the June Car & Driver magazine. I remember reading it when it came to my house, and I believe this is the direct link.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11174/tech-stuff-ethanol-promises.html

You may have to cut and paste the url.

Everything I've read doesn't exactly make ethanol the saving grace fuel that everyone seems to be hooping it up to be. Doesn't it seem that ethanol appears to be a bandaid on a gushing wound? The more I learn about ethanol production the more it seems there are many unresolved issues surrounding it's production. Hopefully ethanol production doesn't turn into being a scenario where we're spending a dollar to save a dime.

You have to think that there are a bunch of folks out there working on this issue now. With the price of energy where it is at one has hope that the next Bill Gates or two might be on the verge of making some discoveries that will revolutionize our energy consumption.

I hope.

Study

To summarize: Ethanol produces more horsepower but it takes a lot more of it.

Another study gave the equivalance as 1 gal of gas = 1.4 of ethanol.

Add to that it is more expensive to produce.

It is not an answer when all factors are factored in.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

IF it meant less money to the Middle East. But like we've established, nothing is perfect for sure.

Price per gallon would rocket, as would livestock feed costs.

Then the water cost issues.

Too much.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

We need to get off of vehicles getting 15 MPG when a good portion of our gas comes from the Middle East.

The thread was about stopping terrorism, well the best way to slow it down(it will never be stopped) in my opinion, is to slow down the flood of $$$ going to the Middle East Region of the world.

I'm not expert enough to figure it all out, but, we could do better as a Country than we are doing now.

But understand. Trading a gas problem for a water problem is not a sane solution.

We already have enough water issues as it it. And in drought weather, when farmers start irrigating, they often have a very negative effect on water tables.

Now, multiple that and add in the massive amounts of water needed for processing ethonol.

It will not add up.

This is just the wrong path. Sounds nice, but it has nasty ramifications.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

Let gas stay around 3 bucks a gallon, and I have a feeling that may work itself out. Let it creep to 4 per/gallon, and I'm quite sure it will.

But not at the cost of safety and function.

So many vehicles out there do nothing more than hold 2 people, and not comfortably.

Sure seems there should be a way to have a potential energy storage system, like flywheels, in example.

Or magnetic drives? Pushing two fields closer and farther apart have some pretty dramatic effects? But not usre if plausible.

I am just doubtful an internal combustion can be much better.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

My wife drives a Toyota Prius and gets about 50-52MPG average. We bought it to reduce our family's consumption. I know many say that cheaper cars get almost the same mileage. There may be battery issues in the future, but if consumers demanded better mileage, manufacturers would comply.

I would like solar powered augmentation to be explored as well as practical electric vehicles. I would own one around town electric car that would go 200 miles on a charge and a hybrid for long hauls.

Cutting revenue to terror supporting nations is all well and good, but they will still try to attack Americans anywhere they live or visit.

Case in point,is Lybia an oil power? Until recently they were terror sponsors. Syria isn't a major oil producer nor Somalia, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Phillipines or Indonesia.

North Korea, no oil there.

a Camry Hybrid would get strong consideration from me. Nice mid-sized car, with plenty of get up and go and room. What's not to like? Probably not quite as effecient as your Prius, but not many things are.

The additional cost of the engine says you have to drive it about 120,00 miles to break even with a standard gas engine.

Not to mention it accelerates very poorly at highway speed when you need to move.

Common to all hybrids.

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Keeping it real and to the core of the issue, not the peripherals.

In order to burn pure ethnoal, some major changes have to happen to the design of car engines.

Currently most domestic car engines can only burn a fuel mixture of about 10 – 15 % ethonal. Beyond that they start to melt.

There is no requirement that the fuel consortiums produce a pure ethonal fuel. Nor is there a car company that can produce a vehicle that can run on pure ethnoal..

Currently ethonal is an additive, to regular gasoline, that will enable cars to meat the clean air standards.

Please go to: (sorry for the long address)

http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=ISO-8859-1&client=pub-6760503316607231&cof=FORID:1%3BL:http://redesign.discover.avatarnewyork.com/images/discover_logo.gif%3BLH:49%3BLW:271%3BGL:1%3BBGC:FFFFFF%3BT:%23000000%3BLC:%23666600%3BVLC:%23cc6600%3BALC:%23666600%3BGALT:%23CC6600%3BGFNT:%23cc6600%3BGIMP:%23cc6600%3BDIV:%23D1CB80%3BLBGC:FF9933%3BAH:center%3BS:http://www.discover.com%3B&domains=discover.com&sitesearch=discover.com&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=ethanol&spell=1” for additional information.

Git Real,

As stated in your post ethanol can be created from many different sources. Not just corn. My understanding is that it can be created from the corn stalk or other parts of plants that are currently being trashed. Also, why do I hear of our farmers going bankrupt and losing farms because they can't make a profit ? Make farming profitable again and more farms will pop up to supply this demand. I'd rather support our farmers than OPEC ! And as for those corn importing countries, if they are also oil exporting countries, maybe we should charge them for corn equal to the way they've charged us for oil ?

Some other countries seem to be using ethanol successfully. What is the delay in making it available to us ?

Other countries produce their own oil without the enviromental wacko's and lilly livered politicians.

We have the internal resources to be completely independent of foreign oil.

We just need politicians with guts to do away with the EPA and the get the show on the road to be self sufficient once again.

And you thnk Mrs. Clinton can do that. Ha, Ha??????

So if we pollute more, oil reserves will magically appear beneath the surface of the United States.

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!

no one said polluting produced oil. What was said was that ethanol is a viable anternative and we should be doing it. EPA is preventing the drilling in Alaska. Bet you didn't know that.

And by the way, ethanol burns much cleaner than petrol. We have the ability to produce ethanol in great enough quantities to literally drive the cost of fuel down if we produced enough.

Brazil has been doing it for 30 years, effectively. It can be done, we just have to force the politicos to do it.

You and thirtyyearresident are neck and neck in the Ignorance Olympics. You guys may have to go to a sudden death dumb-off.

Drilling in the ANWR is not prohibited by the EPA, it's prohibited by an act of Congress (first in the Eisenhower administration, later modified in the Carter administration).

Why? and Should it be?

I'm no expert, but I'm smart enough to realize that we and the rest of the world are lining some crazies in the Middle East with $$$ everytime a ship full of crude leaves from over there.

I think something needs to be done, but what? Seems like decent dialogue on here is too much to ask. Don't call folks ignorant, just correct and move on...

Don't think I'll stoop to your level, but just to let you know that you really should read these comments in detail before releasing your "name calling" responses.

Just so this will sink in... my comment was directed at EPA and lilly livered politicians. Read that to mean (I hate explaining the obvious to liberals, but sometimes you've got to) that Congress needs to step up and allow off-shore, shale and Alaskan oil exploration.

So next time you can't think of a response, please be sure and revert to name calling.... it's an excellent way for others to judge someones intellect. But it's a typical ploy for the left.... we understand that.

Your assertation that the EPA is somehow the villain preventing the United States from acheiving energy independence shows a remarkable paucity of critical thought.

Your argument reeks of the discredited "Gummint doesn't solve problems, gummint IS the problem" pap promoted by the Reaganauts in the early 80s.

Even if Cheney's Biggest Wet Dream was realized and oil rigs lined the coast of Florida, we as a country still are consuming oil at an ever increasing rate. Increasing supplies of oil is at best a temporary stop-gap measure.

You are an {{EDITED}}. You accuse everyone else of being blog predators but you top the list in being the biggest {{{{{EDITED}}}}} hypocrite in the bunch.

You are truly the king of the drive by blog attacks. If only you had some substance behind your predatory assaults.

Disclaimer: This blog was self edited for obscene verbage.

Do you use that language in front of your precious middle school daughters?

And if so, do you consider that setting a proper Christian example for them?

Sooner or later, you're going to have to realize that not everyone agrees with you.

Like you told poor Mr. Crenshaw a few weeks back after you verbally raped his poor murdered son's corpse for week for having the audacity to like rap music, you may not agree with what I say but you have to respect my right to say it.

Do you use that language in front of your precious middle school daughters?

Nope...just for hateful people like you.

And if so, do you consider that setting a proper Christian example for them?

Never claimed to be one. Just observed that you hate them so fervently . Maybe I should become one.

Sooner or later, you're going to have to realize that not everyone agrees with you.

OMG...you mean they don't?

Like you told poor Mr. Crenshaw a few weeks back after you verbally raped his poor murdered son's corpse for week for having the audacity to like rap music, you may not agree with what I say but you have to respect my right to say it.

OOOOOOOhhhhhhh! Woooow weee... Coming from you I won't take that as an insult. Especially considering your blog history. Well if that ain't typical left wing spin I don't know what is. I will have to say BW...you certainly do fit well into the party of Howard Dean.

The coastal states are fighting it. They don’t want to take the chance that an oil leak would damage tourism.

Florida makes some ungodly amount of money because of their beaches. The amount of revenue they would receive from drilling for oil wouldn’t even come close to that if a spill occurred.

Natural Gas is what is available off the Florida Coast, MUCH more than any type of crude oil. They are still fighting it. Alabama, LA, and TX have chosen to be a part of the solution, Florida should be made to be a part of the solution too.

This breakdown was for Marathon gas stations, admittedly not around here...

Gulf of Mexico crude: 31 percent
Texas crudes: 28 percent
Nigerian crudes: 17 percent
Arab light from Saudi Arabia: 10 percent
Louisiana sweet: 8 percent
Illinois Basin light: 4 percent
Angola crude: 3 percent

As near as I can tell, that's roughly 10% Saudi, 20% African, and 70% American.

Middle eastern oil flows mainly to Europe.

But those aren't anywhere near the figures I've seen for the Nation as a whole.

I wish it was only 30% from other countries.

Five countries make up 66% of our imports. What is the true import number?

June 2006 Import Highlights:

Released on August 14, 2006

Preliminary monthly data on the origins of crude oil imports in June 2006 has been released and it shows that three countries have each exported more than 1.50 million barrels per day to the United States. Including those countries, a total of four countries exported over 1.00 million barrels per day of crude oil to the United States (see table below). The top five exporting countries accounted for 66 percent of United States crude oil imports in June while the top ten sources accounted for approximately 85 percent of all U.S. crude oil imports. The top sources of US crude oil imports for June were Canada (1.799 million barrels per day), Mexico (1.734 million barrels per day), Saudi Arabia (1.549 million barrels per day), Venezuela (1.008 million barrels per day), and Nigeria (0.996 million barrels per day). The rest of the top ten sources, in order, were Iraq (0.617 million barrels per day), Angola (0.525 million barrels per day), Algeria (0.474 million barrels per day), Ecuador (0.282 million barrels per day), and Russia (0.216 million barrels per day). Total crude oil imports averaged 10.779 million barrels per day in June, which is an increase of 0.532 million barrels per day from May 2006.

Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum products in June, exporting 2.253 million barrels per day to the United States. The second largest exporter of total petroleum products was Mexico (1.855 million barrels per day) which was an increase from last month of 0.145 million barrels per day.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Petroleum Facts 2005

Gallons of Oil per Barrel 42
U.S. Crude Oil Production 5,121,000 barrels/day

U.S. Crude Oil Imports 10,056,000 barrels/day

Top U.S. Crude Oil Supplier Canada - 1,643,000 barrels/day
Top U.S. Petroleum Supplier Canada - 2,138,000 barrels/day
U.S. Petroleum Consumption 20,656,000 barrels/day

Dependence on Net Petroleum Imports 59.8%
Crude Oil Domestic First Price Wellhead Price $50.26/barrel
Regular Grade Motor Gasoline Retail Prices $2.34/gallon (U.S. city average)
U.S. Average Home Heating Oil Price $2.05/gallon (excluding taxes)
U.S. Proved Reserves of Crude Oil (2004) 21,891 million barrels
U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve 676 million barrels

US Government report on how much oil came from the Persian Gulf and which companies brought it in.

Thank you Git for the link, it was very informative.

For those too lazy to paste the link like I almost was, this is the US Government Energy Information Administration official website.
The page Git linked to shows which countries export to the US and showed us that;
Canada is nr. 1,
Mexico is nr. 2,
Saudi Arabia is nr. 3

Thelink above shows which companies use the most oil from the Persian Gulf, with the total being (currently) 22% of all US oil imports.

Now that the stats are clear, is 22% of our oil imports too much money to be sending to such an area? Does this need to be stopped?

It seems that if Brazil was able to get away from using non-renewable resources, the US should be able to manage it too.

Lots of other ways to consider too.

And let's not forget the positive impact on traffic and fuel usage PTC citizens are making with the golfcarts. I saw something over 150 carts in the HS parking lot yesterday. Imagine if those were cars.

Ethanol may not be "the" answer, but it would certainly be one of the answers. Increasing fuel efficiency is another big answer. Now I voted for President Bush and I have the W sticker on my car to prove it; however, I believe that history will show that one of the big negatives of the Bush Administration is that they sat on their hands and never addressed our current and future energy needs. I'll agree that they're on it now, better late than never.

I read where sugar production around the world can be stepped up to meet an increased demand in ethanol for an extended period of time. Increased demand for sugar could also help some of our neighboring nations economies (Mexico, Caribbean Islands, etc.) too. That would give them more dollars to buy our goods and services.

ExExPatriot makes a good point about electric usage as well. We have only begun to look at renewal electric transportation.

I think there is some truth to the large energy companies slowing down the alternative energy development process. But the public anger over energy costs with throw the government and the universities into high gear.

Vote Republican