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That's incredibly optimistic on mass. All of the ICE-related hardware on the Volt, for example, is several hundred pounds. The engine alone is a couple hundred pounds. And it's still your standard ICE maintenance mess.

That's not to say that the Volt is "as light as possible" or anything of the sort. I've seen some companies pursuing Wankels, for example (although they burn oil and are slightly less efficient) to reduce mass. A couple car companies have made prototypes with gas microturbines - but microturbines are expensive, loud, and not nearly as efficient as their larger counterparts (half as efficient as ICEs). There's a few other options being pursued, but in general, there's no option on the horizon for a light, low maintenance, cheap, quiet, efficient, etc genset for a series hybrid. If you want a genset, be prepared for ICE complexity and hundreds of pounds of dead mass.

What crash danger are you referring to with genset trailers? They're not very large, so there's not going to be much jackknife risk, and there should be no discernable fishtailing even in the most extreme situations.

That's actually a pretty cool idea... *rushes to patent office*

Prior art

Worse than that, they crushed them all, except for a couple that ended up in museums.

Toyota, at least, allowed most of the customers of the original RAV4 EV to keep theirs - and most are still on the road, some with some serious miles on the odometer.

http://evnut.com/rav_owner_100...

.

I've always wondered how big of a generator you would need to keep an electric car running continuously, and whether it would be feasible to just tow it behind you on a trailer. Maybe make those available to rent so that people can make long trips on their electric car. It would probably be cheaper to rent than an actual car, and the money you'd save from using an electric car for most of the year would easily offset the cost of renting the generator once in a while.

Back when they first made the RAV4-EV there was a trailer that you could pull behind it to extend the range. It used a 500cc motorcycle engine and was not too big. I have been interested in this concept for a long time, it seems to be a great way to alleviate range anxiety.

See for yourself: http://www.evnut.com/docs/gasoline_msds.pdf

As soon as you start using political campaign contributions from existing power brokers to design the system, you've left sound engineering and real science behind. I have just described corn ethanol schemes in a nutshell.

Solar + Wind + Hydro would have worked back when Jimmy the Peanut wanted to do it, but Reagan-style governments (such as we have today) have wasted precious time and irreplaceable resources to the point where it's hard to imagine getting the infrastructure up in time to decommission the aging fission plants before they fail. The numbers are difficult - look how many wind turbines in remote windy areas you need to replace even one BWR sitting right next to a major population center. I'm all in favor of trying, but then I'm all in favor of pursuing LENR, too - I just wouldn't bet the entire bank on it.

As for batteries, honestly energy storage is a solved problem, despite Exide's suppression of the nickel-iron battery (happily, once again available due to Edison's patents expiring) and Chevron's purchase and suppression of many of Ovinshky's key NiMH patents. If you don't like batteries you can always run a turbine backwards and pump water uphill; it's been done for over a hundred years now and it works. It's an interesting subject, yes, and important, but I don't think we need fuss over the details of energy storage in discussions about scheduled-to-fail nuclear plants.

Your remark about the land area required for agriculture based energy production is very relevant, though; even more so if you live in England - there just isn't room in the UK to do the job without major technology advances. I imagine many other nations have this problem as well. However, in the USA we already pay farmers tax dollars not to produce food; we have vast croplands that are simply not used, and even vaster areas that are not suitable for growing food which could be used for algae tank biogas and biodiesel production at less tax investment cost than the current expenditures on foreign military adventuring and various forms of corporate welfare.

Fundamentally, US taxpayers really can't lose by making more investments in all forms of distributed sustainable energy production. However, the tax allocations are controlled by people who can lose - and lose big - if energy production stops being a militarized, government protected and insured racket like nuclear fission plants are, and becomes a widely distributed, reliable and sustainable system employing huge numbers of people profitably at local levels.

However that would also mean that the car can be recharged from 0% to 100% in 40 minutes - and that is not what happens in reality. Initial charging is faster, and as you say the last 5% may be not even desirable.

Like I said earlier, for longevity purposes Tesla actually has their system report it's full and stop charging at about 80% of the maximum charge it's battery pack could actually take. That avoids the 'last 5%' slow charge problem pretty much completely, as a LiIon battery pack will still be charging at a good rate until it's over 90%. Figures are approximate due to variability in chemistry, battery size, what's considered a 'fast charge', etc...

Wiki and other sources are quoting 'about an hour' for a full charge, with 50% being 20-30 minutes, but then Tesla's website mentions that they're upgrading(have upgraded?) their supercharger stations to make charging even faster, so the 30 minute references might be for the older stations. All figures are for the longer range 85kwh battery.

However EVs cannot pull a trailer.

They can't? I mean, google has all sorts of hits...

Once the manufacturer installs the hitch, they cannot control what kind of a boat, or a horse carrier, or a heavy trailer will be connected there. They'd need to come up with some nonstandard interface, that is guaranteed to only support the charging trailer.

Actually, they can. My light truck, for example, has a class II receiver(3.5k pounds), which is 2". On the open market I can only get class 1(2k pounds) or 2 ball mounts that fit my receiver. If I had had the tow package, I could have put a class III on(5k pounds). With a regular EV, you'd get one with a 1 1/4" opening, which you can only fit the smaller ball on, thus only the smaller trailers with that type of hitch.

If somebody goes through the effort to custom make a 1 1/4" bar with the larger ball in order to hook up a large boat to their EV, the damage is going to be warranty voiding obvious. Most of those things are designed to hook into a special hitch installed into the bed of a pickup or on an actual semi.

Meanwhile, there's all sorts of instructions in my truck on how much I can tow. There's stickers on trailers as well, all I have to do is play 'equal to or less than'. Places like U-Haul are well used to educating users, and have a selection of light tow trailers that even smaller cars can haul. I figure they'd be the ones renting out the generator trailers anyways.

There is yet another issue. Most people do not know how to drive with a trailer - not just in reverse, but even forward. I guess they could learn, but the clientele that buys EVs is fairly demanding.

I learned in the course of a day. I wouldn't rate myself as expert, but some of these models are designed to help prevent jackknifing when backing, and you shouldn't be doing much of that given that you're only going to be using it(theoretically) on the highways. I learned with a 3k pound loaded trailer without fancy steering.

I priced that rental online, and it was more than $500 for a week.

The price I found was $320 for a SUV from Enterprise, like I said. Your dates might have been bad, or the area expensive, etc... *shrug*, rental prices vary a lot. As for snow chains, well, I own a set, they aren't cheap, but well, I live in Alaska, paranoia is professional for winter up here.

$20k would get you a pretty good older used SUV as long as you're careful. But transaction, registration, inspection, and insurance costs would eat up any savings from buying if your use is irregular enough. I'll note that you didn't bu

I never understood why they couldn't hitch up a trailer carrying a gasoline generator. BAMF, instant hybrid that could travel interstate.

Actually, Toyota did this years ago with the RAV4-EV

http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

I think it is fantastic, it immediately addresses the concerns people raise about long range trips. You can just do the normal charge cycle for daily commute/errands/etc. and hook up the trailer when travelling long distances. I think they ended the program because of the negative perception of having to pull/back up a trailer for people who are not familiar with pulling one, but it is certainly a great idea what deserves more attention. If a fully electric vehicle with a trailer like this were available on the market today I would immediately buy it. It's silly to haul all the weight of an engine as in a hybrid if you are not using it. Perhaps the aftermarket will come up with a solution like this for current electric vehicles.

http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

http://www.evnut.com/images/rav4/rav_longranger/rav_longranger01.jpg

Except that the true hidden cost of using coal for electricity "are probably even higher than the studyâ(TM)s worst-case estimate of more than $500 billion a year."
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/tallying-coals-hidden-cost/

And the true hidden cost of oil is probably in the same range:
http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/oil-price-fantasy-the-true-cost-of-crude/2730
"According to estimates, we spend nearly half of our entire $685 billion defense budget protecting and ensuring the free flow of the approximately 730 million barrels of oil that we import annually from the Persian Gulf. And given the realities created by such terrifically large numbers, this means we spend an additional $469.00 on each of these units in order to bring them safely to market."

Ironically, it may even take more energy to refine oil into gasoline using electricity and heat (from natural gas) than cars get from the gasoline:
http://evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

Renewables have been cheaper since the 1970s if you tally the true cost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study, and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current. [2]"

You're describing a genset trailer. EV DIYers talk about them all the time, but AC Propulsion no longer sells theirs. it's a hacker-only solution because of issues with emissions, high-voltage electricity at speed, power management, etc. I believe most EVs won't charge while moving.

There's also a pusher solution, enjoy this Frankenstein photo.

More likely a tow truck like the AAA EV Assistance Truck equipped with a portable fast DC charger comes to your EV and gives your car a top-up and/or a tow to the nearest public charging station.

Efficient in what sense? Who cares if half the heat is lost? Car engines lose like 90% of the energy value of fuel and we still use them (although electric cars are better and we will be seeing them -- and electric car batteries could help level the grid load from renewables in various ways).

By the way, just to make gasoline from oil it may take more energy from electricity and natural gas than the gasoline holds:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

Add on 90% conversion losses on top of that, and how is that for "inefficiency"? But look around you and there are probably gas powered cars everywhere (mostly for political reasons at this point):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

I'd generally agree with you that if you want heat energy, you are best off collecting solar as heat. However, you stated essentially there are no storage solutions, and I pointed out one that is obviously working and could be used further.

Also, solar electric can be a lot more convenient in a lot of places than solar thermal (like for air conditioning loads that peak with the sun, or charging electric cars during the day, or when you have limited space on your site, or when you want electricity, and so on), so efficiency is relative to what you want to optimize and other constraints.

Another storage medium is creating synthetic carbon-based fuels using solar power and some feedstock.

What does "efficiency" matter in that sense, if the alternative is more Fukushimas or Chernobyls or some Peak Oil Dark age? So, we produce twice as much solar panels to deal with 50% thermal losses. Big deal. PV Solar panels will be dirt cheap (or really, as cheap as leaves) in twenty years. Who cares about 50% efficiency loss in that sense? Even if more storage conversion efficiency would be nice, don't get me wrong, and I'm all for energy efficiency in use as well.

Yes, I know newer nuclear plants (Hyperion?) are supposed to be safer (although they may still have unsafe chokepoints with reprocessing plants), but the point is, there are lots of factors to consider. You said no storage solutions exist, but they do exist. That is a fact, like that solar thermal plant shows, and that has been knows for decades.

Which is more likely to be workable in the short term, using molten salt to store excess wind and PV energy (to smooth the grid) or inventing a whole new nuclear cycle (and even thorium reactors and the related bigger processing cycle are vulnerable to big risks).

Compressed air stored in salt caverns is another solution that has been in use for decades in one location.
http://web.ead.anl.gov/saltcaverns/uses/compair/index.htm

If we invested any significant amount of money in refining these ideas, on the order of the scale of the energy problem, so trillions of dollars of investment, we would have amazing solutions. That we have the solutions we do is a tribute to the human spirit of continued innovation despite most energy-related financial resources going to prop up the oil, gas, and mainstream nuclear industries as well as the wars and mining that support them -- either directly or by ignoring externalities like health issues from mercury pollution or defense taxes or nuclear meltdown risk assumed by the government and so on.

There has also been a lot of progress on both hot and cold fusion, even on relatively small budgets, so it may be a lot closer than you think, as may other innovations (many may be BS but it only takes on success -- Hydrogen doing something interesting in Nickel matrix looks interesting, for example):
http://newenergytimes.com/
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

With that said, it is a shame that we did not develop thorium reactors in the 1940s. Peo

There already is a DC quick charge standard that is used on the Nissan LEAF and other EVs. It's called CHAdeMO. There are some stations already installed that use this standard.

This standard is widely adopted in Japan and the UK but the US auto makers don't want it. They are working on a single plug monstrosity. It is believed by many, myself included, that the people fighting the adoption of the existing standard would like to delay or kill the adoption EVs.

Lots of agreement up until the bit about transportation fuels; see:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

That's just one estimate, and the author there says it is a guestimate, but the point is, we probably don't need the oil at all.

Also, not sure why you wrote "UNconstitutional"? Seems constitutional to me, even though the same thing happened to Kennedy when he started printing money instead of borrowing it.

Also, if accounting for externalities, renewables have probably been cheaper than fossil fuels for decades. See:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
    http://warisaracket.org/semperfi.html

Agreeing, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Taxes, subsidies, and regulation are all ways of dealing with externalities through government planning affecting the market.

US Republicans are the worst sort of regressive "socialists" -- they regularly privatize profits but socialize costs.

Renewables have probably been cheaper that fossil fuels and nuclear, accounting for externalities, since the 1970s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

The total is problematical, but interesting links on the true costs of oil: http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461

On the odd energetics of gasoline made using natural gas and electricity vs. plain electric cars:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

Why safer electric cars should be free:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/6cdc99eaaba91855/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en#09eb7f4c973349f2

See also my presentation here on five interwoven economies (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

Remember, the USA helped create bin Laden by funding and training and arming him to fight against the USSR...

Yes, I agree on the need to switch to alternative energy and energy efficiency. The total US military budget is somewhere around US$1 trillion per year (or more with interest). That's a lot of solar panels and wind turbines and home insulation. Amory Lovins (IIRC) suggested decades ago that just the operating cost for two years of the US Persian Gulf deployment force would be enough to imporve US energy efficiency to the point where we did not need the oil from the Persian Gulf. So, yet more irony. On that, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

The state of the art in Germany is now to build houses without furnaces, they are so well-built, well-insulated, and have air-to-air heat exchangers for fresh air without much energy loss.
http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/38940

Electric cars apparently use less energy per mile then it takes just to refine the oil into gasoline to go the same distance:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

Another irony is that in the 1940s and 1950s nuclear physcisits realzied the thorium-based nuclear power would be inherently safer and more abundant than uranium and plutonium based nuclear power (you can't easily make bombs from thorium and it can't melt down easily because it is used already in the molten state and can be drained easily into cooling tanks) but thorium power was discarded precisely because it was safer (you could not make bombs from it). So, instead of cheap, abundant, safe thorium power, we got lots of nuclear bombs to fight over middle east oil fields and other resource rich areas we would not need to access if we had cheap power.

I wonder that will come out of this press conference tomorrow (still not sure if it is a scam or confusion or not):
http://pesn.com/2011/06/17/9501849_Defkalion_Announces_Energy_Catalyzer_Press_Conference/
"By now, most people following exotic energy breakthroughs have read about Andrea Rossi's E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) cold fusion technology. It utilizes nickel powder, hydrogen gas, an undisclosed catalyst, heat, and pressure to produce large amounts of energy. The technology is capable of producing over 4 kilowatts of thermal power from a reactor vessel only fifty cubic centimeters in volume (about he size of your fist). Cold fusion research has been ongoing for two decades, and there have been thousands of successful experiments. However, Andrea Rossi's technology is the most promising cold fusion technology yet to emerge.
Andrea Rossi's company Leonardo Corporation has licensed the technology to the Greek company Defkalion Green Technologies Inc., with sole purpose to sell, license, and manufacture industrialized commercially applicable products using the Andrea Rossi Energy Catalyzer with global exclusivity rights; except the Americas. Defkalion has recently sent out invitations to certain individuals to attend a press conference about the technology on June 23, 2011. The invitation is self explanatory, and is posted below. "

But in any case, we'll probably have dirt-cheap solar panels in twenty years through nanotechnology or similar improvements in materials. We'd have had cheaper solar a lot sooner if either we had more government-funded R&D on them or if US consumers had to pay the true cost of fossil fuels up front (including defense expenditures and health costs and pollution costs and war risk).
http://www.iags.org/costofoil.html
http://www.energyandcapital.com/article

Interesting points. You'd probably like Julian Simon's writings:
    http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

And this:
    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php

Long term though, if we expand into space, we can get plenty of soalr power using big mylar mirrors.

And consider even this for current needs (though it perhaps questions your point on increasing energy use when better design sometimes outpaces growing demand):
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!). So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

The primary problem with our current system is externalities. If users of fossil fuels were paying the true cost of pollution, disease, defense, and risk, solar and wind would have been cheaper since the 1970s...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Still, ironically, people have known since the 1940s or so how to make safer thorium nuclear power, but it was not developer precisely because it was safer (you can't easily make bombs with it).

As for the question you pose on moving forward socially, James P. Hogan had some ideas in "Voyage From Yesteryear":
    http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
"The book has an interesting corollary. Around about the mid eighties, I received a letter notifying me that the story had been serialized in an underground Polish s.f. magazine. They hadn't exactly "stolen" it, the publishers explained, but had credited zlotys to an account in my name there, so if I ever decided to take a holiday in Poland the expenses would be covered (there was no exchange mechanism with Western currencies at that time). Then the story started surfacing in other countries of Eastern Europe, by all accounts to an enthusiastic reception. What they liked there, apparently, was the updated "Ghandiesque" formula on how bring down an oppressive regime when it's got all the guns. And a couple of years later, they were all doing it! So I claim the credit. Forget all the tales you hear about the contradictions of Marxist economics, truth getting past the Iron Curtain via satellites and the Internet, Reagan's Star Wars program, and so on."

Other ideas:
    http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science.html

"When fossil fuels are exhausted, there may be a mass die-off event within the human species, due to the massive reduction in possible food production and transportation. "

Baloney. Who is feeding this to you? Why? Who profits from your fear?

We have centuries of coal (but it is polluting). Thorium can power our civilization for thousands of years. We have an effectively infinite supply of solar energy. People are working on zero-emissions manufacturing. We can grind up rock to make fertilizer. And so on.

References off the top of my head:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/09/surface-area-required-to-power-the-whole-world-with-solar-power-wind.php
http://nanosolar.com/nanosolar-technology-overview
http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/993314-thorium-reactor-talk-at-ted/
http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/dpg/slim.cfm
http://www.remineralize.org/

We may even have cold fusion thanks to one of the many people you perhaps wish was never born as he took up to many resources?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer

Who has infested your mind to what end with so much negativism so that you are less likely to have kids? Who is making money off of that? Are there much uglier imperatives at work in the people who tell you this? Example:
"The Greening of Hate"
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2005/09/106-greening-of-hate.html

Did the world end when we went through "Peak Whale Oil" a century or so ago? You're still here, right?

Now, we may still blow ourselves up fighting over mis-perceived scarcity. But that is a different problem.

Resources do not exist before the human imagination looks at the universe and turns things into resources. Otherwise, say, we would not have aluminum, produced because some imaginative people figured out how. We would not have solar panels without people figuring out how to make them. And so on.

Here is a quick comparison of the beliefs of say, William R. Catton (who wrote "Overshoot") and Julian L. Simon (who wrote "The Ultimate Resource").

Catton:
* People are the problem
* People consume resources
* People take up space leading to overcrowding
* There is a fixed amount of material resources on the Earth

Thus he predicts (with some glee?) a big die-off.

Simon:
* People are the solution
* People produce resources
* People create spaces worth being in
* The human imagination creates new resources

Now, there is truth to what both of these authors say. But ultimately, you can decide for yourself which path leaning more to one or the other is more likely to produce a future more worth living in, given the truth about solar power, thorium power, grinding up rock, and so on.

Our electricity and natural gas consumption might even go down if we switched to electric cars, by the way:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
*Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 30

"Oil is likely to run out or become very expensive during the next few decades, if plug in hybrids and electric cars is the most likely replacement for gasoline ( and it seems to be the case at the moment ) then much more electricity will be needed."

Sounds plausible, but essentially that is misleading/wrong. See:
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"How much electricity does it take to make a gallon of gasoline? We don't know - but here's one stab at it. Ballpark figures only, and NOT a supportable conclusion. The most important message to take away is that it is not trivial! This part of gasoline is ignored by the folks who are concerned about the big impact on our electrical grid if we were to suddenly shift all transportation from gasoline to electricity.
To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy (maybe not all in the form of electricity*)
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
*Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

This is all part of why, to lower our taxes: "Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user "
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/browse_thread/thread/6cdc99eaaba91855/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en#09eb7f4c973349f2

Do you really care what the station looks like?

yes people care what the station looks like. This is why it will never work.

when people think of getting gas, they think of going to the clean shell station on the corner with the TVs and candy bars. A level III charger is like parking at an electrical substation and plugging in. it's not going to be adopted, even in pilot phases.

Have you seen a Level III charge station?

http://www.hybridcars.com/news/coulomb-promises-gas-pump-style-ev-rapid-charging-26436.html
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/4092-TEPCO-CHAdeMO-Level-III-quot-quick-quot-charging-station-connector

Is it really any worse than a modern gas pump?: http://travis.kroh.net/archives/003205.jpg

During normal EV use, you'll never have to visit a charging station

I agree with you that level III charging is as unneccesary as it is impractical. Everybody will charge at home, and nobody will buy an EV unless they have the capability for home charging.

I completely agree that everyone with an EV will charge at home (or work).

However, the fast-charge stations will still be necessary for longer trips. 90% of my trips are less than 100 miles (probably 80% are less than 12 miles). But for those occasions when I want to make the 150 mile trip to grandma's house, I'd like the ability to charge up on the way there. a 20 minute charge stop on a 3 hour, 150 mile trip is just an extra 10%. And while I'm at grandmas, I can plug into her 120VAC outlet and charge up overnight.

The nice thing about EV charge stations is that they don't have to be limited to gas stations since there are no big tanks of flammable fuels to store - anywhere that can handle a high power electrical feed (Shopping centers, business parks, etc) can put in a charge station. McDonalds could put in a few Level III chargers to let patrons charge while they eat. Shopping malls could put in dozens of Level II chargers to let shoppers charge for a few hours while they shop.

Another solution that I've seen proposed is to come up with a standard "generator pod"

I've never heard of this. Sounds like weasel words. I imagine one of those uhaul tows, except with a diesel generator inside! The idea is essentially the same as a Chevy Volt - a plug in hybrid or extended range EV. a gasoline engine maintains state of charge after 40 miles.

Here are some home made examples:

        http://evmaine.org/html/ev_trailers.html

And one commissioned by Toyota:

        http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

And you're right, it's exactly like a u-haul trailer with a generator inside. Why should I pay for and maintan an Internal Combustion Engine when nearly all of my trips are short enough to run on batteries alone? I'd rather rent an engine when I need it. I don't understand your "weasel words" comment?

http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!). So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

Well said!

See also:

Plans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Cars:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Agriculture:
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

But, with all that said, the same sorts of reasons solar energy is getting better (better materials, better designs, better discussions, better insights into physics) is the same reason small scale nuclear is getting better (even as I would agree solar is safer and more decentralized than conventional nuclear). And example of small nuclear:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

Related case for nuclear power:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/

Let's say, in a moderate worse case in Japan that 100,000 people die from some nuclear radiation accident and the clean up cost a couple trillion dollars. Nuclear power still might have been cheaper in Japan, all things considered, than coal which causes a lot of pollution and related illness.

Would it have been cheaper in that sense than solar and wind? Probably not...

Still, given this is the worst quake to have hit Japan in a century, and the nuclear plants are not being talked about as having total meltdowns, this event itself might prove how safe they can be in some situations.

Of course, dealing with direct terrorism intended to cause them to malfunction may be a different issue, but many major industrial facilities, like at Bhopal, have that risk. And ideas like Hyperion help reduce that risk. Ultimately, if we try harder to make our global economy work for everyone, we might have less fears that people will commit terrorism because the hate us because we support their oppressors for various reasons...

On economic transformation, see:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

BTW, an example of perhaps cold fusion (still needs more confirmation):
http://pesn.com/2011/03/07/9501782_Cold_Fusion_Steams_Ahead_at_Worlds_Oldest_University/

Personally, I want to be able to print solar panels in a solar-powered 3D printer. :-)

http://remineralize.org/

And such fertilizer produces healthier plants that need less pesticides.

"Biodegradable plastic made from plants, not oil, is emerging"
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/manufacturing/2008-12-25-biodegradable-plastic_N.htm

"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

"More energy goes into making gasoline from electricity and natural gas than it would take to make electric cars go the same distance"
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study, and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current. [2]"

Other approaches to all renewables:
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

Given the exponetial growth of renewable energy, and how PV solar panels are about to reach grid parity and the prices will continue to drop, I think we will be all renewables by about 2030 from market forces alone at this point. (Unless cold fusion pans out, or if small scale nuclear like Hyperion gets popular.)

Three quarters of US agricultural production also just goes to produce livestock, and the health consequences of too much animal products are harming people's health, too, so we really don't need most of the fertilizer we produce.
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html

How to deal with the economic consequences of all this increased efficiency:
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=360&cpage=6#comment-20270
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/more-on-the-future-implications-ibm-watson-technology/#comment-534

Thanks.

By the way, a bit unrelated, but on cars and oil, :-) here is a post by me on why luxury safer electric cars should be given out free to everyone in the USA in order to lower taxes (so, sometimes redesign of a magic bullet is cheaper: :-)
"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

And that does not even take into account using the cars as part of a smart grid, or the possibility our electric and natural gas use might go *down* if we stopped refining oil into gasoline:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

The question is, why did mainstream academics ignore or laugh at someone like Amory Lovins for so long?
http://www.oilendgame.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current."

So, basically renewable have been *cheaper* than fossil fuels since the 1970s when you include all externalities (pollution, health consequences, military, risk), but those costs are not paid at the pump, but on your taxes, your health care bill, or paid by ongoing suffering or problems faced by future generations. But instead we have endless economists parading about for decades shouting at us that renewables (solar thermal, wind, geothermal) are too costly, when it turns out that is actually a total lie (it's like saying that not changing the oil in your car is cheaper because it costs $20 for an oil change and you don't need it *today* and your rich uncle will buy you a new car anyway if the engine dies in this one). Meanwhile, Portugal just does renewable energy anyway:
"Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/science/earth/10portugal.html
As does China:
"Our One-Party Democracy"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html
But I know of someone who said she helped design a totally solar house in NJ that got bought and bulldozed by an oil company decades ago...

Science and technology is shaped in large part by strong economic interests. A book about the politics of the telephone including how companies fought municipalities that wanted buried cables instead of telephone poles everywhere:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0yE-CP4SmlYC
A professor who writes about these sorts of things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdon_Winner
An essay in the Atlantic on "The Kept University":
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/03/press.htm

Still, the original article on Alzheimer's researchers cooperating bucks the trend, so I can hope for

http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."

And that was without even including the benefits to load balancing the electric grid with electric vehicles when they are plugged in, or all the new jobs created in making them.

Or this person's amazing point:
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"""
To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy.
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.
    Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).
    So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!
"""

Fossil fuel costs for defense and pollution easily rack up into hundreds of billions of dollars per year. As suggested in the book Brittle Power in 1982, renewable energy has been cheaper for decades than fossil fuels (or nuclear) when you include *all* the externalities.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

We just pay for fossil fuel use through our taxes and national debt for the military, and through health costs from mercury pollution and other forms of pollution that lead to health problems (even wonder why much fish is now unsafe to eat from mercury?), systemic risk like of economic disruption or global war over oil, and so on.
        http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461

By the way, it takes more electricity and natural gas to refine a gallon of gasoline from oil than an electric car would need to go the same distance, so all that oil is completely wasted -- except it is profitable for some to fleece the public treasury.
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

GE had a cost-competetive production ready electric vehicle built from off-the-shelf parts built in the late 1970s -- you can see it in the Schenectady, NY science museum.

That our elected officials have allowed this public fleecing using fossil fuels, including the destruction of the health of our rivers, oceans, and humanity through smog and mercury, to go on since the Reagan years is an unspeakable tragedy of widespread corruption and ignorance which wider access to pubic records might help some with.

For the cost of less than one half-year of US defense spending the USA could shift to all renewables, eliminating the need for much of the defense budget.
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
    http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

As Jimmy Carter said in 1979:
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html
"""
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
    All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.
"""

A basic income would eliminate poverty (and was endorsed by Nobel Prize winners):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://www.usbig.net/
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
The right amount of vitamin D would reduce sick care costs by maybe a third in industrialized countries:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi111.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
A good diet, occasional fasting, and moderate exercise would reduce another third or so of sick care expenses by helping people break out of a pleasure trap from supernormal stimuli:
http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Mastering-Undermines-Happiness/dp/1570671508
http://www.amazon.com/Supernormal-Stimuli-Overran-Evolutionary-Purpose/dp/039306848X
Single payer health care in the USA would reduce expenses (for paperwork) by a third as well (these are not all additive, of course):
http://www.pnhp.org/facts/what-is-single-payer
Reinstating regulation on children's TV might help prevent damage to kids:
http://www.amazon.com/War-Play-Dilemma-Childhood-Education/dp/080774638X
http://www.amazon.com/So-Sexy-Soon-Sexualized-Childhood/dp/0345505077
A more vegetarian diet would also free up three-quarters of agricultural lands in the USA:
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
Renewable energy has been cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear, when you factor in the externalities, like pollution, defense spending, and risk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
Switching to electric cars would probably reduce our electricity use, and eliminate the need for much oil (since it takes more electricity to refine the oil into gas than it would to run electric cars the same distance as a gallon of gas in an ICE car):
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
We can develop the technology of being able to produce almost anything from commonly found raw materials:
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
We know how to make healthier communities:
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about
http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Americas-Depression-Epidemic-Community/dp/1933392711
Nuclear weapons and military robots are ironic because the same technology could produce abundanc

Many people have written on the causes of war from various points of view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War#Motivations
Often wars result from some back and forth of economic and military aggression (when they are not about policital power or some notion honor).

While what you say about the first Gulf war was what the media portrayed, what it leaves out is that Kuwait had started using slant drilling techiques to take Iraqi oil:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Iraq_CIAHits.html
"""
The whole dispute started because Kuwait was slant-drilling. Using equipment bought from National Security Council chief Brent Scowcroft's old company, Kuwait was pumping out some $14-billion worth of oil from underneath Iraqi territory. Even the territory they were drilling from had originally been Iraq's. Slant-drilling is enough to get you shot in Texas, and it's certainly enough to start a war in the Mideast.
Even so, this dispute could have been negotiated. But it's hard to avoid a war when what you're actually doing is trying to provoke a war.
The most famous example of that is the meeting between Saddam and the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, five days before Iraq invaded Kuwait. As CIA satellite photos showed an Iraqi invasion force massing on the Kuwaiti border, Glaspie told Hussein that "the US takes no position" on Iraq's dispute with Kuwait.
A few days later, during last-minute negotiations, Kuwait's foreign minister said: "We are not going to respond to [Iraq]....If they don't like it, let them occupy our territory....We are going to bring in the Americans." The US reportedly encouraged Kuwait's attitude.
"""

There is more there.

So, with the first Gulf War, we had a ping-pong effect. Kuwait committed economic aggression against Iraq, but the US accepted that (having sold them the equipment). Iraq retaliated with violence, and the US moved in. But, the US media painted this in the way you just did -- as a sudden violent attack by Iraq on Kuwait with no reason other than greed for the Kuwaiti's oil -- ironically, the total opposite of what started it (Kuwait's greed for Iraqi oil).

Aspects of that also happened with WWII, economic agression by the USA leading to military agression by Japan at Pearl Harbor (this is not to defend Japan's attack, or its invasion of French Indo-China that the US retaliated for, just to show this ping-pong effect again of economic aggression begetting military aggression, and it being painted as out-of-the-blue violence):
http://askville.amazon.com/WW2-government-restrict-trade-Japan-blockade-countries-Pearl-Harbor/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=5936557
"The U.S. stopped selling oil to Japan in July of 1941, which was part of the motivation for the attack from Japan's perspective. We were their major oil supplier, and the shipments were stopped in protest of Japan's invasion of French Indo-China. This embargo would've ground their economy to a halt in fairly short order, forcing them to find oil elsewhere. But before they could do that, they had to make sure we wouldn't be able to interfere with their expansion."

Still, ultimately it is all foolishness. While liquid fuels are convenient, it takes more energy from electricity and natural gas to create a gallon of gas than an electric car would require to go the same distance as a car that uses that gallon of gas.
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

So much ignorance, shortsightedness, narrow selfishness, and so on out there.
"A Christmas Carol -- Ignorance & Want"

Then, if there is possible resource contention, rather than pass laws about IDs, it would seem that the most essential thing to do is to help everyone to use their imagination as "The Ultimate Resource"
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
to address any potential scarcity problems and create material abundance for all. People have already been doing that for hundreds of years, for example, Benjamin Franklin who made the pot bellied stove and bifocals and refused to patent any of that.

By the way, fossil fuels are not cheap overall, they are just profitable to a few.
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
"According to a 2000 study for the Department of Energy, there is a significant cost attached to the mere fact of our dependence. Supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth suffered through the oil market upheavals have cost the U.S. economy around $7 trillion (1998 dollars) over the 30 years from 1970 to 2000. ...
Milton Copulus, the head of the National Defense Council Foundation, has a different view. And as the former principal energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a 12-year member of the National Petroleum Council, a Reagan White House alum, and an advisor to half a dozen U.S. Energy Secretaries, various Secretaries of Defense, and two directors of the CIA, he knows his stuff. After taking into account the direct and indirect costs of oil, the economic costs of oil supply disruption, and military expenditures, he estimates the true cost of oil at a stunning $480 a barrel."

Coal has huge costs in environmental damage and health costs (from mercury pollution and other things). It actually takes more electricity to make gasoline from crude oil that in would take to make an electrical vehicle go the same distance a regular car goes on one gallon.
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

It's been known since the 1980s that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels (or nuclear) when you account for external costs and risks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study, and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current. [2]"

Anyway, please name ten jobs you do not think could *not* be fairly easily automated over the next twenty years as robotics and AI continue to advance (at least to the point where one human can do the work of ten now)?

My take on that:
"60 jobs that will rock the future... (not)"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/004216.html

So, as I see it, the urgent need is to rethink the basis of our economy before then.

There is room for quadrillions of people in the solar system if we build space habitats, so IMHO talk of birth control based on resource constraints is premature. :-)
"The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps"
http://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Project-Colonizi

If you are worried about running out of charge while driving through rural areas or something, why not invest in an EV Trailer?

http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

It's a bit heavy, but it essentially temporarily turns your car into a hybrid when you need a gas engine for longer trips etc. They will likely become less useful as quick charge stations and battery swap stations become more popular, but it is a good temporary solution.

Solar panels replace hydrocarbons the same way fossil oil replaced whale oil for heating and lighting -- things change. You can produce as much electricity as you want with solar panels (or other renewable energy sources), and use some of that energy to make new panels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics#Energy_payback_time_and_energy_returned_on_energy_invested
"Thin film technologies now have energy pay-back times in the range of 1-1.5 years (S.Europe).[70] With lifetimes of such systems of at least 30 years[citation needed], the EROEI is in the range of 10 to 30. They thus generate enough energy over their lifetimes to reproduce themselves many times (6-31 reproductions, the EROEI is a bit lower) depending on what type of material, balance of system (or BOS), and the geographic location of the system.[75]"

Also, by the way, some people think "fossil" oil is self-renewing (though even then, it is too polluting to use IMHO).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
"The abiogenic hypothesis argues that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. The presence of methane on Saturn's moon Titan is cited as evidence supporting the formation of hydrocarbons without biology. Supporters of the abiogenic hypothesis suggest that a great deal more petroleum exists on Earth than commonly thought, and that petroleum may originate from carbon-bearing fluids that migrate upward from the mantle."

If you plot the exponential growth rate of renewable energy for the past few decades, within two to three decades, the world will be running mostly on renewables. And there is no sign of that exponential growth rate slowing, even with the recession/depression. Peak Oil is a non-issue in that sense -- even if our society will change, and should change, in various ways, because the true cost of fossil fuels between defense and pollution and corruption is enormous.
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
It takes more electricity to make a gallon of gasoline than it would take for an electric car to go the same distance, so if we switched to electric cars, our electricity use would go down (and we would not need the oil at all).
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
Taxes would even go *down* if the US government gave luxury safe electric cars away to everyone:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity. "

With energy and agriculture, you can grow feedstocks for industry on land or in the ocean to make plastics. Consider:
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/why-is-hemp-really-illegal/question-554401/
Is this true from the link? "Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fie

This is all very ironic, as I mention here:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005991.html

So, the US military, once again, in a tremendous burst of irony, is developing ways to create artificial scarcity on the network of abundance. And they are justifying this to have new ways to further harm the people upset about being harmed by the illegal and immoral US invasion of Iraq.
"Illegal, Immoral Invasion of Iraq to Carve up the Middle East"
http://www.mediamonitors.net/abdullahvawda16.html

So, one illegal and immoral act begets another. One artificial scarcity begets another. One arms race, fueled by war profits, begets another.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

How do we resolve this seemingly intractable problem?

Mutual security?
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430

Intrinsic security?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Humor? :-)
http://www.humorproject.com/doses/default.php?number=1

Jacque Fresco comments on some of this, as far as the problems of way being profitable, as I note here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/3b7889054e4b4317

So, after the US military gets all these shiny new cyberweapons, who are they going to use them against next? Who will be the next people labeled "insurgents"? Or goaded into it by suffering from other military-enforced artificial scarcities?

Anyway, people ask me why I don't just post to a blog, and prefer to use email, and that's part of it. All web archives and other websites may be taken out once that "arms race" really gets going and military doctrinal TINA rules: "There is no alternative (but to destroy everything)".

Generally, a core theme of what I write is the irony of post-scarcity technology like computers and robots or nuclear power in the hands of people still thinking in terms of scarcity, like fighting over products or oil instead of producing products with robots and producing energy with nuclear power or solar power made using advanced materials. Example:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005929.html
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/005498.html

As I mention in that last one, for an example of post-scarcity thinking, I think our taxes would go *down* if as I proposed here, everyone in the USA who wanted one was given a "free" safer luxury electric car:
"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en
Basically, defense costs, pollution mediation costs, and medical costs would all go down enormously, thus lowering taxes.

More ironically, it turns out, it takes more electricity to make a gallon of gas than for an electric car to go the same distance, according to this:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that g

Someone up above provided it, and I have said this for years as well: the solution right now for extended range with the electric vehicle, for the occasional longer trip, until batteries or ultracaps get a lot better, is the "modular hybrid" approach, just like this

http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

Problem solved, no need to worry about long recharge scenarios or that tarded battery swap out idea. And just a ton of suburban guys who commute and *could* do that in an electric car with even just a 50 mile range, also want (and buy today) a home generator for the occasional use when the power goes out, so this is double plus good there. And for city boys with no garage who live in apartments, who want an electric, these genny trailers could be *rented* for that trip to grannys.

The only thing I would do different with those trailers is make them a scosh bigger with some additional cargo room for that long trip, for your luggage and camping gear or whatever.

One of the really big expenses for adoption of the all electric at a more normal non millionaire pricing level is the insane battery prices. Reduce the needs from a 30 grand battery pack to 5 grand (something like that), be content with just a 50 mile day to day range, with the genny option, bought or rented, and the actual car can be made loads cheaper, and smallish gas gennys just aren't all that expensive (especially if they were to become common for this purpose and mass produced), and most likely only being used half a dozen times a year they would last a really long time.

I think on board hybrids are a dead end, that's just too much weight and complexity having to haul around two different styles of drivetrains all the time on the same axles. All electric + the modular "makes it a hybrid" genny trailer is the way to go.

You mean like the Long Ranger?

Personally, I think that's the perfect solution. Too bad most upcoming EVs don't have trailer hitches. Why shove an engine into the vehicle when you only need it on long trips? Such trailers would be perfect for sharing and for rental, too.

Except you completely ignore externalities, systemic risks, and equity, which is what got us in various messes already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Consider the "True cost" of oil from various perspectives:
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
"""
Milton Copulus, the head of the National Defense Council Foundation, has a different view. And as the former principal energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a 12-year member of the National Petroleum Council, a Reagan White House alum, and an advisor to half a dozen U.S. Energy Secretaries, various Secretaries of Defense, and two directors of the CIA, he knows his stuff. After taking into account the direct and indirect costs of oil, the economic costs of oil supply disruption, and military expenditures, he estimates the true cost of oil at a stunning $480 a barrel. That would make the "real" cost of filling up a family sedan about $220, and filling up a large SUV about $325 (when oil was $10 a barrel cheaper than it is now!).
"""

By the way, I've read it takes as much *electricity* to produce a gallon of gas as it would take an electric car to go about the same distance. So, all the external costs of gasoline are totally for nothing energywise.
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
"So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!"

Depending on other regions for energy creates a systemic risk. Pipelines are inherently indefensible and so require a police state to protect because one small group could do vast damage to the society by damaging just one oil pipeline. Solar panels on your roof do not require a police state to protect, just regular police; if someone vandalizes them, the entire economy does not collapse.

Concentrating wealth in the hands of a few who control oil companies also creates a wealth dispartity that damages democracy as well as the economy (because few can start small businesses without loans or investments from big organizations). One reason we have oil pipelines instead of solar panels everywhere is that it has been more profitable to a few people to do that, while the rest of us pay huge taxes for a military to defend those pipelines at home and abroad.

I could go on, but basically, you need to look at issues like externalities, systemic risks, and concentration of wealth to see the various ways that markets can and do fail regularly in practice unless they are taxed and regulated. Taxes and regulation have their problems too, of course:
http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/

Ideally, we need to move beyond markets and rationing for most things. So, your enthusiasm is great. You're right that cheap energy would help with a lot of things (as long as it was also relatively clean, inherently safe, and long lasting -- like wind and solar and many other renewables). Ideally, we want an energy infrastructure that is inherently secure, not brittle and requiring now about a trillion dollars a year to secure extrinsically with soldiers and bombs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Still, if all the benefits of cheap energy or any other major innovation go to a few people, then we just have another problem. See Marshall Brain's short story on this:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

You're right that a left that focuses on rationing and scarcity is dysfunctional; that has historically b

What's wrong with something like the AC Propulsion Long Ranger? You wouldn't even have to own one; something like that readily lends itself to low-cost rental or sharing.