Obama: "Drill baby, drill"

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Well, until we have a feasible option, I dunno what we can do except drill. According to one study in 2009 found that 88% of Americans say that hybrids are important, but

...only 23 percent [ZOMG23!!!] of Americans are willing to pay extra for hybrids. 35 percent will only buy a hybrid if it costs the same as a comparable non-hybrid. Another 33 percent will only buy a hybrid if it costs less than a comparable non-hybrid.

And thats people buying new cars... the majority of Americans appear more likely to buy used cars, often cars 5 years old or older. So for hybrids to reach a point that it impacts our oil dependence, we either force cars off the road, like with leaded engines, or we drill for Oil.

I don't like it, but I don't see any current alternatives... "Fund new tech" is a good thing to do alongside drilling, but it doesn't replace it.

[Jenne]

I talked about liking the CONCEPT of hybrids to a couple of engineers out here and they laughed their asses off at me.  Saying instead that hybrids don't actually do much of anything for the environment if you do any sort of freeway driving, because it causes the same emissions that "normal" cars do.  The fuel efficiency of the gas-guzzling part of a hybrid can be made in any version of car, they've had the technology just not the ambition (coughgov'tkickbackscough) yet, but hybrids are not "the" answer to the problem, apparently. 

Or maybe those guys were just being dicks.

My  husband's looking at getting us the Nissan Leaf since for CAns it's only about $20K at the end of the year because of the subsidies for buying one.  We'll see if he bites the bullet and gets one.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Obviously the best answer would be cars free of oil and petrol products... but the delivery mechanism, the existing vehicle footprint and the stranglehold that big Oil has on our politicians will make that a loooong time in coming.

I'd think it was funny if we had an spare planet to move to...

[Remington]

Barack Obama is Iron Man:
http://www.indecisionforever.com/2010/04/01/jon-stewart-obama-is-iron-man/

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

Look. I know people think it's important to drill our own oil but do they have any idea how damn sensitive the friggin gulf is?
Keep your fucking rigs out of my damn gulf. Also the Atlantic.
This state sucks bad enough! I don't want that shit muckin up my view of the end of the Earth.

GET OFF MAH FUCKIN LAAAAAAAAWN!

[lemurdue]

Why do Republicans bitch so much? Isn't Obama one of them?

[Remington]

Why do Republicans bitch so much? Isn't Obama one of them?

I can't get an accurate reading on my sarcasm meter here. Your previous post history doesn't look promising, though.

[Cain]

I think lemurdue is referencing the "Obama is Bush's third term" meme, one which is fairly accurate when it comes to civil rights, executive privileges, secrecy and foreign wars.

[Remington]

I think lemurdue is referencing the "Obama is Bush's third term" meme, one which is fairly accurate when it comes to civil rights, executive privileges, secrecy and foreign wars.

Ah, okay. I suspected as much, but I didn't know him well enough to judge sarcasm.

[E.O.T.]

I think lemurdue is referencing the "Obama is Bush's third term" meme, one which is fairly accurate when it comes to civil rights, executive privileges, secrecy and foreign wars.

Ah, okay. I suspected as much, but I didn't know him well enough to judge sarcasm.

WELL,

          well

[Kai]

The drilling is going to be a waste of time in the long run. I just heard estimate yesterday that at most all the new offshore drilling will yield 1-2 million barrels a day. And we USE 20+ million a day, 4% of the world's population using the majority of oil. This isn't sustainable.

[Cain]

On a long enough timeline everything is unsustainable, but I take your point.

There was some take, as I recall, during the worst parts of the recession, where they were talking about a stimulus for "green" jobs.  I would've presumed that included things like renewable energy.  So far though, I've seen nothing around here except that the plans to put up wind turbines (which date back about...12 years) are still going ahead.  Maybe it's happening closer to London, but I look at the job openings there fairly frequently and I don't see anything along those lines.

I'm guessing things are probably pretty similar over there.

[Remington]

1. The US government just put through a deal to buy several thousand hybrid cars for federal use.
2. The Chevy Volt comes out in about a year, hopefully Plug-In Hybrids catch on.
3. Solar energy is getting cost-competitive fast (see Nanosolar), and some say it would be competitive already if it had the subsidies fossils fuels do
4. A new auto emissions law just passed for Canada and the US, mandating an average (or minimum, I forget) gas milage od 35 mpg by 2017.

There's progress, but nothing drastic.

[Requia ☣]

The 35 mpg bit is fleet efficiency, so the average for the car models a company makes.

Note that if 90% of the cars they sell are SUVs, thats fine as long as they keep a couple sub compacts on the lot.

Also, exactly what are electric cars supposed to accomplish?  Unless you live in a part of the country that doesn't use fossil fuels to get electricity, the extra electricity beyond what stable (solar, hydroelectric, nuclear etc) plants provide all comes from coal or oil, and electric is *less* efficient at using those fossil fuels.

[Remington]

The 35 mpg bit is fleet efficiency, so the average for the car models a company makes.

Note that if 90% of the cars they sell are SUVs, thats fine as long as they keep a couple sub compacts on the lot.

Point.

Also, exactly what are electric cars supposed to accomplish?  Unless you live in a part of the country that doesn't use fossil fuels to get electricity, the extra electricity beyond what stable (solar, hydroelectric, nuclear etc) plants provide all comes from coal or oil, and electric is *less* efficient at using those fossil fuels.

IIRC, using electricity derived from coal generators emits less GHGs per mile than standard internal combustion engines.

Also, electric cars, alternative energy development, and the smart grid kind of go hand in hand. Energy development feeds more raw power into the grid, electric cars create a demand for that power, and the smart grid minimizes transmission loss and compensates for the naturally fluctuating power output levels of most renewable energy sources.