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BAR[_2_]

In article ,
says...

On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 10:30:00 -0500, BAR wrote:

Drilling in all of Alaska, off the coast of Calif., the Gulf of Mexico
and the Eastern Seaboard will solve the price problem.

At best you might be able to kick the can down the road another 10
years or so. Long term we need policies that encourage the switch to
other forms of energy.

What are those other forms of energy? Electric? Where does the
electricity come from? In the US 90% of our power comes from coal,
natural gas, and oil.

Wind? What do you do when the wind dies off? Do you have enough
batteries to store the power for several days worth of use?

Solar? What happens at night? Again, you still need batteries? And, the
process of creating photo-voltaic cells is a very dirty one
environmentally speaking.

Fuel Cell? Let's go with hydrogen fuel cells. How doe you get the
hydrogen into the fuel cell? You need electricity to crack the hydrogen.

Nuclear? Excellent choice. Let's start building them now so that they
can be in operation 10 years from now when you say the oil runs out.
Then maybe we will have the capacity to charge up all of those hundreds
of thousands or millions of electric cars.

What happens if we outlaw gasoline powered cars and only allow electric
powered cars. Can our electric grid handle the increased capacity?
People will need to top off their batteries during the day while they
are at work so that they can get home. The fallacy of only needed to
plug in over night is a denial of how people use their vehicles. Will
there be charging stations at the mall, grocery store, restaurant,
opera, movie theater? What type of strain will that place on the
electrical grid? How will people pay for these electrical top offs of
their batteries?

Is there a common charging system for electric cars? Is there a standard
voltage? Standard internal electronics in the wall mounted unit or do
you just hook up the 240V to the car directly? What happens if Toyota's
charging system is different from Ford's? Is Ford's codified into law
and Toyota forced to change in the USA? Will Toyota abandon the US
market for the Indian and Chinese markets where there is a potential for
greater profitability? Why would Toyota care about selling a couple of
million cars in the US when they can sell hundreds of millions of cars
in India and China?

What are these other forms of energy that we need to be encouraged to
move to?

Will the US be in a position to dictate or encourage one form of energy
vs. another form of energy.

I said it before and I'll say it again the governments are becoming less
and less important. It is the companies who will be deciding what is and
what is not happening.