Quote:
Originally Posted by Dollarmansteve
No such thing as a free lunch.
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You make a few good points Dollarmansteve, but your ideas are much more radical than my own, which is no easy accomplishment.
Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof, and offered tax credits to anyone who purchased solar energy systems. When Ronald Reagan took office, one of the first things he did was remove the solar panels from the White House and terminate the tax credits.
As long as big oil runs the government (especially the republicans, but both parties are guilty), then the idea of harnessing the power of the sunlight for energy is a major obstacle. Not because it is not possible, but because no one can sell sunlight (or wind, or many other safe, clean renewable sources of energy).
The solar panel solution is 100% do-able as long as the technology is mandatory. For example: no new building can be built without solar panels (again, probably not gonna happen).
Chevron purchased the battery technology patent from the EV1. Does Chevron sell batteries? No, of course not, but that just shows you how scared big oil really is of solar energy.
If all parking garages areas were covered with light roofs covered with solar panels, then each meter could provide a plug for our vehicles which we would pay for in coins, like we currently do now at parking garages and parking meters. That is just one of MANY ideas that answers the question regarding how to charge your vehicle when needed. Solar powers on the vehicle itself would solve another, as would wind turbines that charge your car batteries while you are moving as yet another!
If there was no such thing as oil we would still be driving and flying as we do today... we just wouldn't be using oil to do it.
It is already late in the game, but we really need to make huge changes in this world, and since big oil has been screwing us for so long, and running interference with regards to squashing new and better technologies, then maybe we need to say the hell with big oil and GM, and other car manufacturers, and band together towards a better future.
Where there is a will there is a way. I refuse to buy into the idea that change is too tough, and that oil is still the way to go. Oil sucks, ethenol sucks, hydrogen sucks, hybrids even suck. As far as I can see, all of those solutions continue to line the pockets of big oil (for many many reasons, too long to list right now), so the electric car, powered by reuseable batteries, charged by the sun and wind, is absolutely the radical and clean move ahead.
Oddly enough the electric car actually predates the gasoline powered combustion engine, but that is another story...