Sanctimonious San Franciscans High on Hybrids
SG Gate columnist Arrol Gellner reckons as goeth San Francisco, so goeth America. Opposing the Vietnam War, spearheading ecological concerns, mandating energy-efficient buildings, banning smoking in public places, demanding equal access for the disabled and now, hybrid vehicles. Where would the United States be without "Berkeley radical thinking?" Gellner's self-congratulatory diatribe claims the large number of hybrids humming about Berkley signal "the beginning of the end for conventional internal-combustion-powered vehicles." Ignoring Ford and Chrysler entirely, Gellner says Detroit missed this boat "thanks to the monumental stupidity, shortsightedness and greed of General Motors executives, who preferred to wallow in the lucrative SUV trough while foreign competitors did their homework. Maybe those GM folks should've gotten out of the boardroom now and then, and taken a drive around Berkeley." Bong optional?
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“If fossil fuels are finite (most would agree)” They are not fossil fuel they are hydrocarbons created from water and carbonates under pressure and temperature. Seems like a lot of people think petroleum oil came from rotting dinosaurs and plants (where do they get this idea? From the broadcast media lying brigade!) Did all earths dinasours mosey on over to the middle east to die? Like older humans go to Florida. Try to explain the HUGE pockets of oil and gas deep beneath the ocean floor. How did it get there? Man can synthesize hydocarbons but there is sooo much naturally occuring hydrocarbons that it does not make economic sense to produce them (Even if there was nuclear power available). The Peak Oil scare has been going on almost as long as the oil-is-from-rotting-dinosaur myth. There has NEVER - In a 150 years - been a year that humans used more petroleum oil than was discovered. In total, man has burned about a trillion barrels of petroleum and there are more than 3 trillion barrels in known reserves…Go Figure. Oxidizing hydrocarbons for energy is kinda primative but there is no other *VIABLE* option right now…Not without nuclear power which ya don’t get better than that…Einstein - E=MC^2
Seems like the "well-to-do" are the early adopters of hybrids, as they're certainly not bargain-basement vehciles... but they're using their money to fund cheaper, better (plug-in) hybrids/EV's. This can only be good, as the technology cannot advance without funding -- along with other alternative tech, the future is being written to gradually free us from the past.
Well, it's not the first time that the self proclaimed "enlightened" have displayed a lack of common sense. Won't be the last.
The self-proclaimed "Enlightened" never seem to study Physics and Chemistry. Chemical-Electric storage has alway been-And always will be-Terribly inefficient...Non-Viable. Thermodynamics is a god that must be obeyed...One can choose to disregard reality but one cannot escape the consequences of disregarding reality.