Jon Bergmeier: there is no such thing as sustainable transportation. Walking even has a net drag on the environment unles you live in a cave. The manufacturing process will always be a negative, even the fuels used make no difference.
Georgia Dees: What happens, Dax, is you sell your old gas car and somebody else drives it 'til it drops. That's the sad truth. Once a car is built, it WILL be driven until it won't run anymore. That's how things work. Back during the gas price run-up, I got to see F150 pickup trucks being built. Ford was really wishing they were building Ford Focuses instead :) ! But several years before, they had made the planning decision to equip that plant to build the F150. They were stuck. They had to make and sell those trucks because they had spent billions of dollars setting up the plant to do nothing else. Now, each of those F150s will (on average) burn 10,000 gallons of gas in its lifetime. That's about 2 tanker trucks full. When ! was the decision made to burn all that gasoline? Waaaaay back, when Ford decided to equip that plant to build the F150 instead of the Focus. Once they made that decision, it was INEVITABLE that the trucks would be built. It was certain that they would sell every truck (even below invoice, if that's what it took). And then it was certain that every truck would be driven (by somebody) until it died.Back when they made that decision, they had no idea what the future held. They didn't know about $4/gallon gas or the economy.That's why today's automotive decisions matter so much. The same thing happens in reverse sometimes... a longt time ago, when all cars had V8s, Chrysler was almost bankrupt. But they had just come out with a small car called the K-car. Suddenly there was an oil embargo! Nobody saw that coming. But lucky Chrysler, the K-car was the hot ticket and it saved them! They could really use one of those right now......Show more
Buddy Ardd: Sustainable! transportation is an interesting topic for conversation.A lit! tle over a century ago the world had sustainable or at least renewable transportation with the ubiquitous use of horses for transport. In many areas as much if not more land was used to raise animal feed as it was for human food. The industrial revolution supplied other transportation options reducing the number of horses needed. This allowed more land to produce food for people. There was another renewable form of transportation in the great sailing ships. However the time it took to ship things would no longer be acceptable....Show more
Carter Edstrom: I see the word "sustainable" meaning that something is worth what it costs. The 'worth' and 'costs' are not just money terms but also health etc. An example of something that failed the sustainability test was nuclear energy. Its problems (costs) weren't worth it. The US nuclear effort couldn't _sustain_ itself.When a technology is "worth what it costs", people can make money investing in it. In my opinion green ! vehicles should be green in the financial sense (the color of dollar bills) not just environmentally green. I believe that many of them are currently borderline, meaning they are financially sensible for people whose lives fit the EV's capabilities. Nobody (IMHO) should go out and buy an EV (Electric Vehicle) if it doesn't provide sufficient value for the buyer.Solar power is another example of a "borderline" technology. If you treat the purchase price of the equipment as an investment that, perhaps, you borrowed money to obtain, you could/should calculate the "time value of money". And the whole calculation _should_ work out in your favor. But it doesn't at present - unless the government provides "incentives" (rebates, tax breaks etc). They're wise to do that because it's necessary to get that industry large enough that the prices come down to where the investments make sense without govt assistance. The applicable buzzword here is "economies of scale", meaning that with ! a large enough volume of goods being made, the manufacturer can buy aut! omation which reduces the unit cost. In a competitive environment, these savings get passed along to the ultimate buyer. The lowered cost can make it affordable, sensible, sustainable.Some electric cars already make financial sense (Aptera); some don't (Tesla is a rich boy's toy). But I expect that industry to become healthy without govt help. The solar industry will take longer but there's some really exciting research being done on it. An interesting guy to google is Steven Chu.For more about the financials behind the current solar business, check out Don Lastcaster's website at:http://www.tinaja.com/He's a brilliant electronics expert who's been screaming for years that solar needed to make financial sense. His rants predate words like 'green' and 'sustainable'....Show more
Mozell Sponsler: hmm my guess would be something that glides. this would probably mean it would have an enormous wing span, and it would still need energy but it would be significantly more envi! ronmentally friendly. you are right in saying cars and planes are two large sources of carbon emissions btw. but they are not the only main cause. the other main ones would be industry and livestock, which not many people know about. as for what it would look like, i see a normal airplane of today, except a little more stream line with a longer nose like a jet, and a very large wing span, with maybe one small engine on each wing. the only issue i can see with this theory is having to limit passenger numbers, and takeoff. with a large wing span it would weigh a lot, and therefor something on the tarmac would have to apply the thrust. so then... there is my quick idea, hope i helped in your pondering!!!...Show more
Jacques Vaquera: The problem I see is we can al lchange to Hybrids but then waht will we do with the cars we have? Dump them in a landfill? Is this really going to help??
Lilli Kochel: Electric cars are as close as the environmentalists are goonna get! .about 200 miles a charge on a nice day 3/4 or an hour to charge the ba! tts up 75% and another 2 1/4 hour to pack the last 1/4 in. Most people never do more then 200 miles in a day. So its gonna be a 2 car world 1 for long ROAD TRIP!!! and the other for the usual daily driving. Nope to compressed air, solar, hydrogen, and all the other gimmic cars out there. Now if the big manufactures will just accept this and start building them and take the 85% loss of income the world would be a better place....Show more
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