All cars built after 2015 should be powered by...

All cars built after 2015 should be powered by...

This is one of the few surveys I can't enter. I hope the government never gets to the point where "they" say only one type of power is acceptable. The free market place will probably determine which of these or other technologies is the most efficient.

Don:
I appreciate your comments, however, to be candid I wasn't suggesting no regulation of automobiles. I only meant the way the survey was presented, there was only one choice, and I do believe the best technologies will prevail. In fact, I'm kind of a tree-hugger, but I don't fit into any nice neat political category, which is why I tend to annoy people in all parts of the political spectrum.

George

[QUOTE]Don Barar said:


Governments have no business mandating what fuel or efficiency of a motor vehicle. This should be purely a market matter.

Your statement is idiotic. Govts. have EVERY right to mandate fuel types and vehicle efficiencies, for the same reasons they can regulate things like air quality and criminal conduct. Natural resources such as oil and the environment belong to the people as a collective, not the monied interests. The reason we are in the current situation is because govt did NOT regulate fuel efficiencies stringently enough. It was your free market that gave us SUVs, pick up trucks and other ecological disasters while fuel efficiency stagnated.
It's time the govt stopped being the prison bitch to the oil industry and did its "job". It should start with a glutton tax on any vehicle that is not a passenger automobile--collect it at the pump and through license plate renewals-- and mandate 35 m.p.g. as a minimum for any new vehicle sold for private use and increase the m.p.g. requirements by 5-10 for each successive model year.

However, I am certain the Obamcons view things differently.

Hopefully.

Les

Since Uncle Sam mandated HD TV next year (I'm sure the "market forces" had a lot of $ay in that) and the poll only allowed on choice, I went with bio-diesel. Most BTU per acre from what I've read. Could we grow enough soybeans or such to fuel the U.S.? I'm sure the answer is no. The only one that would run all the cars is gasoline, but the glass is about half empty there. Hydrogen right now is a short range option like an electric car. Fuel cells are currently too finicky. 100% electric cars would require a lot of new power plants and electrical infrastructure. What we need is a comprehensive energy policy, which neither the President or Congress have given us. I think we should vote all new people in...Independants, Libertarians, Greens, give them all a chance, they can't do much worse and change is slow in Washington so they can't do the horrible things people imagine.

Ethanol is a loser all right, but I think agro corporations like ADM might have had a say in that choice, rather than it being chosen because it was of of maximum benefit to the public.

But hmm, ozone holes were "discredited", huh? I don't think so. I think they were reversed by the ban on chlorofluorocarbon production and use, which wasn't an evil liberal ploy to sabotage your sacred CF-dependent lifestyle.

Don, I don't think that I'm the one who is responding emotionally. The plain fact is that it was the "free market" that created the current oil dependency situation. Between the auto/oil industry alliance that has held down mileage efficiency while selling gas guzzling SUVs, or the oil speculators that have repeatedly driven up oil prices, the "free market" is the real culprit. If our govt had put the interest of the country ahead of "free market" read oil lobbyists, it would have reigned in these practices before they became a problem.

Regarding "bad choices", the free market has made some bad choices too. Betamax v. VHS, Mac v.PC? Or what about such great market innovations as DDT, lead paint or tobacco for that matter?

As for govt involvment in our lives, Bertrand Russell showed 80 yrs ago that the citizens of countries with active regulatory govts were better educated, healtier and wealthier than their counterparts in laize faire countries. Even today, compare Europe with the U.S. By whatever measure you choose, infant mortality rates, drug dependency, life span, education levels,whatever standard you use, Europe beats the U.S. hands down.

All in all "free market" is just a catch-phrase for giving business free reign to put profit over common good.

Take care,

Les

To give the devil his due, it's always been possible for Americans to buy higher mileage vehicles if they wanted to. Most of them haven't wanted to. Thus manufacturers were all too happy to sell them the high-profit land barges.

Well, at least antimatter wasn't one of the choices listed. Who knows how many votes that would have gotten?

Who said it wouldn't work? Nobody. The man said that the energy you need to put in to produce the hydrogen greatly exceeds what you get out of it. I realize that's a subtle distinction to some, but it's an important one. That's why your hydrogen car isn't really powered by hydrogen. It's ultimately powered by whatever energy source you use to produce the hydrogen.