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Go here for some information on the so-called hypercar. The hypercar concept is to wed a highly efficient gas/electric hybrid system (or, ultimately, a fuel cell) to a composite body and frame. By approaching the design as a systems-level problem, the efficiencies inherent in both the drive system and the lighter body can be made to work synergistically. (The Rocky Mountain Institute is really good at this kind of thinking.)

They are not building the vehicle themselves. Instead, they are doing design studies and sharing the results with all the existing automakers, and making it a point that they are doing so. In this way, they force the existing companies to re-evaluate "business as usual" because they know that if they don't, the competition will.

As far as fuel cells go, they are unfortunately not quite ready for primetime yet. But there is alot of work being done on them. Major automakers are talking about fuel cell powered cars by 2010 (which is about 10 years longer than I want to wait, but better late than never).

The Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado has done alot of good work on (among other things) the potential for a massive distributed energy generation system.
You can read one of their reports in this issue of their newsletter. More stuff is available here.

As fuel cells become more common, the approach becomes realistic.
Supplanting and replacing the old-fashioned power grid system makes alot of sense: You don't lose power in long distance transmission, and your demand and your production can track much more closely. It also has the potential to introduce a powerful market incentive towards conservation. Imagine: everyone has a fuel cell in their home and in their car. The grid is networked so that if you have surplus, you can sell it to the grid; if you need more power, you can buy it. On a hot summer day, you have the choice between paying (probably through the nose) for more power for your A/C, or just plugging in a fan and drinking icewater.

The Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado has done alot of good work on (among other things) the potential for a massive distributed energy generation system.
You can read one of their reports in this issue of their newsletter. More stuff is available here.

As fuel cells become more common, the approach becomes realistic.
Supplanting and replacing the old-fashioned power grid system makes alot of sense: You don't lose power in long distance transmission, and your demand and your production can track much more closely. It also has the potential to introduce a powerful market incentive towards conservation. Imagine: everyone has a fuel cell in their home and in their car. The grid is networked so that if you have surplus, you can sell it to the grid; if you need more power, you can buy it. On a hot summer day, you have the choice between paying (probably through the nose) for more power for your A/C, or just plugging in a fan and drinking icewater.

If you are interested in this sort of free-market, high-tech green-tech, check out The Rocky Mountain Institute. They are doing excellent work in developing and propagating technologies and approaches that are simultaneously good for the environment and good for the economy. In particular, they have done great work on green buildings -- I've been to their headquarters, and it's every bit as cool as they claim. It's something like a 4000 square-foot building, at 8000 feet elevation (Snowmass, CO), and the only active heating they need is a pair of small woodstoves. The rest is provided by passive solar. And they grow bananas and other things inside the building during the winter!
They are also some of the original proponents of composite-body, fuel-cell-driven cars. Neat stuff.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin

I think you have been reading too many Tom Clancy novels. How can the ordinary citizen know that the NSA is "essential" for "fighting terrorism" when the NSA's very existance was classified for years, and its budget and most of its operations are still classified? Your statement about the NSA's "necessity" is in the classic sense pure pseudo-science, because it is non-falsifiable. How has the NSA prevented any bombs from going off on American soil. "Sorry, sir, that's classified. But trust us, we're the government, and we have your best interests at heart." The American politicial experiment is based on the assumtion that we dare not trust that the government has the best interests of the people at heart, and so the government is supposed to be accountable to the people, and restrained by the rights of the individual.

The erosion of liberties rarely comes packaged with a label that says "here is a totalitarian control; please hand over your freedom now." It most often comes packaged as "there are Bad People(tm) out there! Let us protect you!"

If we "need" a secret police state to protect us from terrorists, we have already lost the real struggle. A wise teacher once said, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mark 8:36, KJV) The same question certainly applies to nations. What will it profit America if we become the new Roman Empire, able to enforce a pax americana at home and abroad, if we lose the very idea of what it meant to be "America" in the first place?

Evil and undemocratic means do not give real security

While I will no doubt offend the rabid secularists of /. with this, I would like to point out that the inscription on our currency of "In God We Trust" is a great and necessary viewpoint for the preservation of freedom. [Whether the USA is truly living up to this motto is another matter -- I think it is clear we do not.] If you don't like the word "God", feel free to substitute "Providence", "Fate", "the Universe", or what have you, according to your own tradition and belief. Regardless, the point is that one can try to create one's own security through strength and power, or one can simply try to do the right thing, and trust that it will all work out in the end. That is what "In God We Trust" ought to mean -- that as a nation, we are committed to the principles of liberty, and are willing to risk "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor" to live as if this mattered. Even in a dangerous world with certifiable Bad People(tm) out there.

The "security" offered by relying on power is no security at all. Totalitarian regimes fall. Empires crumble. Economies collapse. "Invincible" armies are defeated, "impregnable" defences are broached, and the wheel of history turns again. And really, power is not so absolute as all that. If the USA were to turn into a privacy-lost, thought-police-controlled Absolute Safety State tomorrow, do you really believe that we could make ourselves invulnerable?

If we are willing to send our young men and women to fight and die for oil in the Mideast, don't you think the rest of us ought to be willing to assume some risk to live and die for liberty?

(Of course, the sadly obvious answer is that most Americans would today gladly trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety.)

This is a bug, not a feature

If our society is so fragile that a few terrorists, or the actions of a minor rogue state, can bring us to our knees unless we adopt draconian security measures, I think we ought to admit that this is a bug in the system, rather than resign ourselves to it as a "feature". Slashdotters are quick to lambast the fragility of Microsoft products and praise the stability and robustness of Linux -- now apply this same criticism to the larger technical, economic, and political infrastructures.

Does the electrical power grid offer key targets of opportinity for terrorists? Well then, we should get serious about "negawatts" in the Amory Lovins sense, and look at distributed, locally-generated power rather than relying on a massive electrical grid with a few key failure points and modes. Or even be willing to contemplate the practice of certain Amish groups, which have the rule of "use as much electricity as you want, as long as you make it yourself and don't tie into the grid." Better this, than to live with a secret police.

For an example that's nearer to fruition, consider Richard Stallman. While I might quibble with his analysis of freedom and software (I don't think access to source code is quite as fundamental a right as RMS does), he has certainly done the correct thing with his analysis -- he determined not to allow what he considered to be essential freedoms to be bargained away for the sake of convenience and security, and did the work necessary to live freely. We are all reaping the benefits of his adherance to principle today.

Repeat this analyis with other points of vulnerablity as needed. There's certainly lots of room for debate as to the benefits and drawbacks of particular answers, be we certainly have more options than to be forced to choose between secret, unaccountable intelligence agencies and "a war zone."

For a start on considering this way of thinking, there are several essays by Wendell Berry that may be helpful. (Note: Berry is not a pacifist -- but he believes that our current strategies of "national defense" fail to defend our nation.) Try "Property, Patriotism, and National Defense" in Home Economics and "On Peaceableness Toward Enemies" in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community.

This is the huge modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the human soul. If soap boiling is really inconsistent with brotherhood, so much the worst for soap-boiling, not for brotherhood. If civilization really cannot get on with democracy, so much the worse for civilization, not for democracy. Certainly, it would be far better to go back to village communes, if they really are communes. Certainly, it would be better to do without soap rather than to do without society. Certainly, we would sacrifice all our wires, wheels, systems, specialties, physical science and frenzied finance for one half-hour of happiness such as has often come to us with comrades in a common tavern. I do not say the sacrifice will be necessary; I only say it will be easy.
-- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World