Comments on: The Green Picture: Carter Jenkins Plugs Into A Chevy Volt

By: From MN, with hope...

From MN, with hope... — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:23:38 +0000

At this point, nuclear energy sounds like the next best thing to tell you the truth. The next best thing to hit energy creation since coal, but they may be targets for terrorists. The world is constantly evolving, and things are being discovered every day, so who knows! Maybe in 30 years we’ll be driving cars powered by garbage!

By: herwin

herwin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:11:06 +0000

thanks for your post. yes, there are many alternative energies out and they are being researched if they can be commercially valuable. but i think changes are much bigger that a shortage of electricity will (and already is) be a strong reason to promote and build nuclear powerplants and coal power plants, because these, unlike the alternative energies, have strong and powerful lobbyist and are a guaranteed way of making serious money.
look at india and china and where they get their growing thirst for electricity from, its not comeing from tidal waves or biomass, but from coal and nuclear.
hydrogen sounds nice but to make hydrogen it costs a lot of energy, and ultimately that has to come from where ?
okay, i agree electric cars are less polluting so its better to have these, it fits good in the reduce strategy…

By: From MN, with hope...

From MN, with hope... — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:15:13 +0000

I do agree that what I said is vague, but mainly because there are so many forms of alternative energy that are out there, or are being developed. Biomass, hydro, solar, wind, waves, tidal, geothermal, natural gas, and many others. Electric cars still pollute less than a 4cyl FWD compact. Electric cars are a springboard because hydrogen cars are electric cars that use hydrogen to generate electricity. Unfortunately, its very expensive, so for now electric cars/biodiesel/CNG/and hybrid cars will have to do, but electric cars are the springboard because they are affordable, dependable, and would require very little to be converted to hydrogen, so automakers would have a platform to test affordable hydrogen powered cars. The bad part about your theory, is that not everybody is willing to give up their cars, or cut down on trips to the grocery store for a lemon. Personally, if we need something simple like a coffee, we make other trips after we get the coffee, and take a more efficient vehicle. Or another way, that I really like, is to tax driving. Road tax, like many Europeans have. That would cut down on driving. Or maybe slow the speed limit to 55MPH, which is where cars get the best fuel economy. The obvious choice, though, is to cut down on driving your gasoline car. The electric allow you to drive those short trips on little electricity. The amount of power the EV-1 took, was 18.7kwh. It took about 9 pounds of coal to charge an EV-1. Very little compared to the mass output of todays modern power plants. But I do agree with you, cars have all those plastics, arent green, but are powered in a green way. That is what automakers imply.

By: herwin

herwin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:40:36 +0000

greenwashed clean coals are fossile fuels and they simply arent green. at highest they can be described as “less poluting”, which of course isnt a bad thing.
“alternative energies are being investigated”, can you agree with me thats rather vague ?
and why should electric cars be a stepping stone to futuristic use of hydrogen as a fuel.
electric cars, after the gasoline cars will be just the next generation of polluters together with the eco desastreus vehicles that run on veggie oils.
for your last question, we can reduce cars. i myself never had a car and never missed one. We can re arrange the infrastructure of our future modern cities so all will be more friendly to short distance travelers when it comes to supermarkets and less “need” to use a car, etc. instead of promoting greenwashed electric cars better promote public transport, i would say. its a change of attitude and thinking, less of a change of fuels. a change of one’s traveling patterns, etc. you would be surprised how many cartrips are just done out of convenience (or should i say lazyness) for a quickie to the supermarket or drive in the innercity for shopping, many cartrips are so unnecesary, lets reduce using our cars, i would say.

anyway, any idiot who can count can predict the effects and needs in terms of electricty when everybody would start driving an electric car.

you just cant label cars as “green”, thats a hoax and misleading people thinking cars donbt polute, which is not true.

By: From MN, with hope...

From MN, with hope... — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:13:12 +0000

Not every power plant in the world is coal powered. Somewhere in MN there are a few natural gas plants. Clean coal and other alternative energies are being investigated. Dont be closed minded when it comes to electric cars. They get us away from gasoline, and will lead us to the eventual future of hydrogen powered cars. Electric cars still pollute less(from the 3rd party: power plant) than gasoline cars.

If we cant use electric cars as a springboard into the future of hydrogen powered cars, than what can we use?

By: herwin

herwin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:15:31 +0000

electric cars arent green, they need electricity. can you imagine everybody driving a “green” elec car ? it will be not be electr from windpower that feeds these cars, but rather coal and nuclear energy.
Cars NEVER are green.

By: From MN, with hope...

From MN, with hope... — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:00:30 +0000

GM isnt doing the limited leasing thing again, they are selling the Volts. Why would they bank success on a car thats lease only? They are selling, and at a decent price too. Maybe in the low $30Ks plus the $7500 tax rebate.