On 15 Aug 2006 10:50:17 -0700, "Bret Ludwig"
wrote:


Robert M. Gary wrote:
Steve Foley wrote:
If they're burning oil to make this fuel, it makes no sense. If they're
something not easily refined into gasoline (coal, solar, nuke, methane), it
does.

As an engineer and an MBA this argument has never made sense to me.
Electric cars use power that may be produced using oil. The idea is a
large, centeral engine is more efficient (less oil, less expensive,
etc) than millions of individual CO dumping engines. Whether that
central engine burns oil or butter makes no difference, as long as its
more efficient than the individual engines.
Whether that centeral engine puts out electricity or ethanol make no
difference.


There is no reason to burn oil to make electrical power (for utility
use.) Even burning natural gas is wasteful. Coal and garbage are what
we should be burning for power, if anything at all.

Beech did a lot of work with LNG. It was, like all Beech designs,
expensive, complex and a pain in the ass to maintain.

Electric cars are actually going to be nuclear cars because the
electric cars will be charged at night, stabilizing the grid load from

That is one of the main fallacies of the electric car. They also need
to be charged during the day due to limited range.

peak to off-peak, and nuke plants do best at steady power output.
Nuclear is actually the way to go and is in my opinion inevitable. In

The technology already exists to build much better plants than we have
now.

the very long run, nukeplants may be built under the sea, in huge

land is probably a better place to keep pollutants down in case of a
leak. Salt water is good at becoming radioactive.

subterranean underwater canyons with a closed power cycle, and the
wastes glassified and buried. In the shorter run...who knows?
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com