Results 251 to 260 of 406
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January 6th, 2009 02:38 PM #252
and mura na ang gas
less reason to buy a hybrid
truck sales are doing better in the States than fuel efficient cars
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January 8th, 2009 12:42 AM #254
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January 8th, 2009 09:17 AM #255
the situation is not as simple as his statement implies.
trucks are used for personal, commercial and industrial purposes. the market is necessarily bigger than that of hybrids.
and a near $30k hybrid makes terribly little sense when you can buy cars like the Honda Fit for $13k that get 35 mpg.
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January 8th, 2009 09:59 AM #256
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January 8th, 2009 10:47 AM #257
Cheap oil prices lull the car buying public into a state of complacency. Without high gas prices to compel buyers to get hybrids and manufacturers to make them, we will forever be subject to the petrodictators of the middle east.
It's like an addict who somehow manages to stop buying drugs because it's an expensive habit. But then the price of drugs go down, so he falls off the wagon and starts being addicted again.
While ghosthunter very accurately said "going green takes a lot of green," it really takes a conscious (sometimes expensive) effort to wean ourselves off oil dependency. It's growing pains, but ultimately we have to do it to finally reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
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January 8th, 2009 11:07 AM #258
The analogy of drugs and oil isn't really accurate because drugs you can live without while we always need fuel to power transport and industry. That is unless you want us to going back living with the horse & buggy and bicycles as transport of choice.
Using "alternative" sources of power/fuel isn't as simple as most people will think. There are so much compromises and the cost is much much higher than using current fossil fuels like oil & coal.
Going nuclear is actually the greenest & cost effective BUT it is controversial because of safety issues & long term storage/disposal of waste nuclear fuel.
Going hydrogen as "fuel" isn't really solving anything because producing hydrogen requires power that has to come from somewhere. Solar isn't powerful enough. Hydro-power alters & destroys eco-systems permanently. Wind isn't dependable and massive wind farms can be an eye-sore and also kill birds. Fuel cells are still expensive to manufacture as well. Standard internal combustion systems modified to use hydrogen doesn't provide the same range as compared to gasoline due to lower volumetric energy density of hydrogen vs gasoline.
Going ethanol and bio-diesel on a limited scale is fine but scaling up also creates its own set of problems like using land to grow fuel crops instead of food crops. This leads to food prices going up. And the resulting fuel is still MORE expensive than petroleum based fuels. Not to mention a question if bio-fuels actually require more fuel to produce...
Going green does require a lot of green... for sure because it's not a sustainable "alternative" without government grants and funding. Otherwise, we would already have gone "alternative" on our own because it would be have economically viable.
In the end, what we really need is something that is economically viable to go green.Last edited by ghosthunter; January 8th, 2009 at 11:18 AM.
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January 9th, 2009 10:33 PM #259people here better check out and watch the movie The day the earth stood still i think it has a connection regarding this matter overall :D
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