<p>homebrew your own biodiesel & you can too!
[Dr</a>. Dans Alternative Fuelwerks](<a href=“http://www.fuelwerks.com/]Dr”>http://www.fuelwerks.com/)</p>
<p>and when I was a nanny, I used to take care of the sweetest little boy who grew up and started this company.
[Green</a> Car Company](<a href=“http://www.thegreencarco.com/]Green”>http://www.thegreencarco.com/)</p>
<p>
Ah, I watched the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car”. </p>
<p>Obviously, you didn’t watch it, Kluge.</p>
<p>“the increase in fossil fuels to make more electricity defeats much of the advantages”</p>
<p>It depends what your goals are. If you’re just concerned about global warming, then one fossil fuel is as bad as another.</p>
<p>If – like me – your biggest immediate concern is the foreign policy impact of oil consumption, and you want to stop giving money to sketchy countries that like to kill us, then there is a huge difference between types of fossil fuel. In my view, it’s way smarter to use American coal to power a plug-in electric car than to use Saudi oil to power a gas car…even if the carbon footprint of the two cars is identical.</p>
<p>think of the trillions of dollars we could have saved ( let alone the lives) if we didn’t stick our nose into the middle east to protect our oil interests</p>
<p>
Exactly! It is also better for our economy for money and production to stay in America than be sent out to other countries.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I worked for GM for awhile. I can tell you that they lost huge shares in the California market – which is the one that has historically led the nation’s taste in cars – by continuing to make cars to appeal to midwestern – i.e. Detroit – tastes. This is very well-documented; they had specific models of consumer behavior and typology. These decisions were supported by market research you are talking about which is much art as science and which needs to take into account imagining change vs. just sticking with old ways of doing things. The Japanese came in with smaller, more fuel efficient, extremely dependable cars and this is how they built their market share – and how they’ve taken over the American market.</p>
<p>GM – and by and large the rest of Detroit – were always backwards and they’ve always fought against their own enlightened self-interest. Regulation for higher fuel standards was pushing technological innovation which would have led to GM gaining back market share.</p>
<p>As I write this, I am driving an old car into the ground waiting for the technology on offer to shift and improve more than it’s done. If an American car company is there with something to offer me when I can wait no longer, I’ll consider what they offer. Chances are, though, I’ll stick with the imports. They did this to themselves and they say it’s because the market demands products when in fact the market was clamoring for cars that were very different.</p>
<p>Just so you know; the TOTAL import for the ENTIRE middle east, is only 19.8% of our oil imports. As of stats 2 years ago; the numbers of percentage of our import is:</p>
<p>Canada - 18%
Mexico - 15%
Nigeria - 12%
Saudi Arabia - 12%
Venezuela - 10%
Angola - 6%
Iraq - 5%
Columbia - 3%
Ecuador - 3%
Algeria - 3%
England - 2%
Kuwait - 2%
Norway - 1%
Equatorial Guinea - 1%</p>
<p>And, at an even smaller amount, the US also imported crude oil and/or refined products from Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Cameroon, Chad, Chile, China (both mainland and Taiwan), Congo (Brazzaville), Costa Rica, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Libya, Lithuania, Malaysia, Midway Islands, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, Oman, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Viet Nam, and Yemen.</p>
<p>If you want to complain about oil and gas prices, it’s not the Saudi or middle east problem. It’s more use from countries like China and India; and it’s the United States’ problem for not allowing access to more oil in Alaska and other reserves, More Nuclear power, more refineries, etc… Blame allowing the commodity brokers to buy/sell/trade crude oil as a commodity instead of allowing it to be sold as a regular consumable product.</p>
<p>Christcorp:</p>
<p>Four words: Local suppliers, global market.</p>
<p>One looks at how much the world is supplied by the Middle East, not how much of the US’ supply comes from the Middle East.</p>
<p>If you don’t understand this, there’s no reason to have further discussion.</p>
<p>Bedhead; Please, you don’t have to talk to me about global economics. But we can discuss reading posts in context. My post was in response to the number of posts mentioning direct animosity towards giving so much money for oil import, to the middle east. Or, as I can quote; “stop giving money to sketchy countries that like to kill us”; I was pointing out where our oil actually comes from. There is a misconception that the vast majority of our imported oil comes from Saudi and the middle east.</p>
<p>But I am quite well versed in global economics. I’m also very familiar with the oil reserves, usage, and import/export of such. I’ve also lived in quite a few of the countries I listed. I am sure we can discuss this deeper if you would like. However, my previous post was not designed to discuss global and local macro-economics. It was designed to educate some that Saudi and the middle east is not our biggest import, and therefor their usage or non-usage of oil/gas isn’t as directly an impact to the Saudi’s as they think it is. Plus, if our country produced more and other alternative forms of energy, thus reducing the demand, we’d have a bigger impact on our importation.</p>
<p>If you want to talk about GLOBAL prices and such; let’s talk about truckers and trucking companies on our border states of Cal, Arizona, and texas who are crossing the border to buy diesel fuel for their trucks. Diesel in mexico today is right close to $2 a gallon. [Now:</a> Cheaper diesel in Mexico a draw for truckers on both sides of the border | border, reynosa, cheaper : TheMonitor.com](<a href=“http://www.themonitor.com/articles/border_10824___article.html/reynosa_cheaper.html]Now:”>http://www.themonitor.com/articles/border_10824___article.html/reynosa_cheaper.html)
The price of gasoline and diesel go way beyond what the Saudi and other countries pump and sell crude for. By all means, lets talk global economics.</p>
<p>“Or, as I can quote; “stop giving money to sketchy countries that like to kill us”; I was pointing out where our oil actually comes from.”</p>
<p>When we buy gasoline, we are putting money in the pockets of people who are very dangerous to us. I don’t think the manner in which the purchase lines their pockets is relevant to the issue I was trying to raise, which is that some fossil fuel use makes the Saudis richer, and other fossil fuel use does not. We’re giving aid and comfort to our enemies when we pay at the pump, period, and we should stop it, period.</p>
<p>“In my view, it’s way smarter to use American coal to power a plug-in electric car than to use Saudi oil to power a gas car…even if the carbon footprint of the two cars is identical.”</p>
<p>It’s not just carbon footprint (though that’s big enough a deal), it’s also the horrendous degradation of the environment of millions of people who live in coal country, and the air quality for anyone east of it.</p>
<p>Better to find permanent solutions which are safe all the way around (and Christcorp, I disagree that nuclear is either safe or necessary, but I don’t have the energy to hash that one out, now.)</p>
<p>First of all; Saudi Arabia is an ally and not our enemies. Not matter what you want to believe about fringe individuals. </p>
<p>garland; a lot of people love comparing economies, ecology, etc… of Europe to the United states; as if they are a much better society. France, which many love to quote, MORE than 80% of their electricity is produced with Nuclear Power. With new power plants going in all the time. We don’t really have to argue it, but if you want to answer certain questions some time, try these.</p>
<ol>
<li>How many people have died because of a nuclear reactor?</li>
<li>How many people have died in coal mines, oil rigs, mining, etc…?</li>
<li>How much of our environment has become harmed by fossil fuels?</li>
<li>How much of our environment has become harmed by nuclear energy?</li>
<li>How long has our Navy been using nuclear power to operate their fleet?</li>
<li>How many nuclear accidents has the navy had?</li>
<li>How many nuclear accidents can you find? How many had deaths?</li>
<li>With current technology, how much nuclear waste comes from a reactor in a year? (Hint: you could hold it in your arms and it’s less reactive than when the uranium was mined)</li>
</ol>
<p>Anyway; research and answer these questions when you have time, and a discussion or argument won’t even be required. And as far as it not being needed as an energy source, except for Hydro, there isn’t enough space or real estate to try and do Solar and Wind to replace fossil fuels. You couldn’t put up enough panels or wind turbines.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not at all settled, and especially not when you realize you don’t need to rely on just one source of energy. I am very interested in Socolow’s wedge approach to carbon mitigation. Nuclear’s on the list, but not a necessary source:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/news/CMIinBrief.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/news/CMIinBrief.pdf</a></p>
<p>We’ve had one nuclear reactor blow up leading to deaths (Idaho, 1961–back in 1978 I had a letter printed in Newsweek refuting George Will’s assertion that there were none :)). Much illness/death connected to Hanford here in US, and of course Chernobyl. Nuclear waste has become a huge problem in France; we haven’t figured out where to store it here, and they have much more waste, much less space. Insecure storage can also become a security issue.</p>
<p>Reactors here in NJ have insufficient safety systems, are aging, and harm the environment around them. And like I said at the start, we don’t need them. Combinations of wind, solar, hydro, cogeneration, conservation, etc etc can cover our needs. </p>
<p>We just need to stop saying “we can’t.”</p>
<p>“Saudi Arabia is an ally and not our enemies. Not matter what you want to believe about fringe individuals.”</p>
<p>You mean like the Sep. 11 hijackers and Osama bin Laden? So you’re saying that their connection to Saudi Arabia is too tangential to justify any distrust of the Saudis? Let’s remember that when we’re talking about the Iraq war and the kind of dental-floss connections between Saddam and Sep. 11 that were used to justify an INVASION of a whole different country. I’m not advocating an invasion of Saudi Arabia here…I’m advocating recognizing the truth that the Saudis are not friends to us.</p>
<p>The pusher who sells heroin to my kid is not her “friend,” no matter what she may want to believe.</p>
<p>That’s pretty much exactly what I’m saying. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an ally. Yes, they have individuals that are terrorists. And yes, they could even have relations with some other countries that we wish they wouldn’t. But that’s not for us to dictate. Saudi Arabia, as a nation, is an ally. They allow and have allowed our military to base in their country as a staging area during the gulf war, iraq, etc… They have open trade with our country and imports a lot of our goods and services. Politics and economics are a very complex issue. They can’t be discussed with finite answers. You can’t say we shouldn’t trade with a certain country if you need that country for other things. Again, a very complex issue. We can talk about specific issues, but not as a country as a whole. It doesn’t work that way.</p>
<p>Garland and Christcorp - it is correct that a battery powered electric car is responsible for pollution at the source of generation of its electricity - it is not accurate that there is equivalency between that and the pollution generated by auto-mounted gas or electric engines. This issue was studied rigorously in England, comparing the CO2 and other pollutants on a per-mile traveled basis for all phases of electric cars (busses, actually, in the study) vs. the most efficient on-board gas and diesel engines. Even with 100% coal powered electric power plants there’s less net pollution created by generating electricity with coal, transmitting along power lines, charging batteries and using that power to travel, than is released from the tailpipe of a similar gas or diesel vehicle travelling the same distance (and that ignores the cost of drilling, pumping, transporting and refining the fuel.) Large, fixed site power generation is simply so much more efficient and the pollutants so much more controllable that even the losses of generation, transmission, storage and use at the far end result in less waste than even the most efficient vehicle mounted engine. (This is above and beyond solar, wind, hydro and geothermal energy sources. Even the “dirtiest” power sources are cleaner than gas powered cars on a per-mile basis.)</p>
<p>Your theory is correct; your conclusions are not.</p>
<p>
But of course I did - after driving to the theater in my home-converted battery powered pickup truck. 
But seriously - the only evidence that there has ever been a lack of consumer demand for electric cars is GM’s repeated claim that that is true. </p>
<p>Here’s your decision: Large corporation’s PR department’s utterly unsupported claim of consumer lack of interest vs. actual proof of waiting lists to buy. Which do you believe?</p>
<p>garland: Actually, it’s been fully figured out where in America to store it, it’s just that the state in which the most obviously excellent location lies is displaying a disgusting level of NIMBYism in trying to keep it out.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But… crude oil IS a commodity. It’s a perfect example OF a commodity. </p>
<p>The problem isn’t that crude oil is what it is. It is, like you said, that demand increased while supply has remained flat. But even assuming we drilled Alaska and every last drop of oil remaining, that’s only a short-term solution. Demand will continue to outstrip supply no matter what we do, short of cutting off the developing world.</p>
<p>Post #15, Alwaysamom: I am basing my comment on the motels I have stayed at when skiing in Canada. They have plug-ins for diesel engines in the motel parking lots! It’s been that way ever since I can remember.</p>
<p>
I find a current Ford commercial amusing - they’re proudly stating that their ‘quality’ now matches Toyota’s yet the head of Toyota has been publicly acknowledging that Toyota’s quality has dropped in recent years (they’ve had quite a few issues and recalls). I guess Ford is hoping no one knows this.</p>