Electric Cars: Chev Bolt seems to be the first practical one.

[buickanddeere]

Did you think someone was advocating ending base-load plants?

there is a long line of greenies that believe that solar, wind, tidal and geothermal can eliminate coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy production.

 

[buickanddeere]

Just remember that your beloved electric grid, all the wires, poles, right-of-way, etc... was made 99% possible by eminent domain, comrade. So I've about had it with folks complaining about subsidized this-and-that.... for solar, wind, etc... the power companies have had a monopoly at private land owners' expense for over a hundred years. It's someone else's turn.

The general public wanted land line electricity for lighting and reduction of manual labour. We already have low cost reliable long range, comfortable transportation with ICE. Why purchase a smaller vehicle for more money and have to plan you trip between charging stations and wait for the charging process.

 

[California]

there is a long line of greenies that believe that solar, wind, tidal and geothermal can eliminate coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy production.

See that's the problem with the alt-right. Alex Jones or KellyAnn Conway or someone paid by Exxon proclaims some alt-facts and their believers jump onboard to parrot the lies without questioning them.

There is no long line of greenies who believe that!!! It's a figment of your warped imagination. You or somebody made that up for use as a debating point - with no regard for truth.

Are you a robot?

 

[hawkeye08]

We need to continue to invest in new technologies, but it is important not to just throw money at it (and make investors rich). Ethanol is an example. We needed to subsidize it to get it going to see if it would help. It has proven that it is not viable but the subsidies continue. We should stop subsidizing it and move on to something else that looks promising (even Al Gore says enough with the ethanol subsidies).

We will always have some transition pain, subsidies help us determine if it makes sense or not, but we need to get much better at moving on.

 

[California]

Ethanol is the perfect example of how the largest corporations lobbied for huge subsidies - to grow corn profitable to them but, as it turned out, not very helpful to the public at large. I hope this example illustrates the power of corporations to influence public policy for their own benefit -not some imaginary power of hypothetical 'greenies'.

 

[hawkeye08]

Ethanol is the perfect example of how the largest corporations lobbied for huge subsidies - to grow corn profitable to them but, as it turned out, not very helpful to the public at large. I hope this example illustrates the power of corporations to influence public policy for their own benefit -not some imaginary power of hypothetical 'greenies'.

Agree, and the money went to investors in those corps, not so much in the ethanol plants..

..but those greenies jumped on the band wagon and before you know it, a bunch of gullible people think that ethanol is going to save the planet.

 

[California]

Agree, and the money went to investors in those corps, not so much in the ethanol plants..

..but those greenies jumped on the band wagon and before you know it, a bunch of gullible people think that ethanol is going to save the planet.

Not sure that's correct, but if so it illustrates the profitability of paid alt-facts propaganda.

 

[Redneck in training]

We need to continue to invest in new technologies, but it is important not to just throw money at it (and make investors rich). Ethanol is an example. We needed to subsidize it to get it going to see if it would help. It has proven that it is not viable but the subsidies continue. We should stop subsidizing it and move on to something else that looks promising (even Al Gore says enough with the ethanol subsidies).

We will always have some transition pain, subsidies help us determine if it makes sense or not, but we need to get much better at moving on.

Ethanol was added to gasoline as an oxidizer to make the engines run cleaner. But the farmers' lobby seized on it as an opportunity for farmers to raise prices of corn.

 

[buickanddeere]

We need to continue to invest in new technologies, but it is important not to just throw money at it (and make investors rich). Ethanol is an example. We needed to subsidize it to get it going to see if it would help. It has proven that it is not viable but the subsidies continue. We should stop subsidizing it and move on to something else that looks promising (even Al Gore says enough with the ethanol subsidies).

We will always have some transition pain, subsidies help us determine if it makes sense or not, but we need to get much better at moving on.

What new energy source , energy storage device and energy transmission device do you propose ? There are no new fossil or nuclear fuels. There are no new chemical elements to make batteries from. There are no room temperature super conductors. There is a percent or two here and there however the exotic materials, complex manufacturing process and higher costs outweigh the marginal improvements.
If the price of oil went several times higher then oil yielding algae and breaking down biomass into "oil" could be a possibility.

 

[vvanders]

What new energy source , energy storage device and energy transmission device do you propose ? There are no new fossil or nuclear fuels. There are no new chemical elements to make batteries from. There are no room temperature super conductors. There is a percent or two here and there however the exotic materials, complex manufacturing process and higher costs outweigh the marginal improvements.
If the price of oil went several times higher then oil yielding algae and breaking down biomass into "oil" could be a possibility.

3% gain in capacity year over year is nothing to sneeze at. Compound interest is a heck of a thing. Batteries are a technology not a resource and so they follow a fundamentally different curve.