Or Pet Rocks. Remember?
Well today we have continued our faddish ways.
Hybrid Cars. FAD!
I pronounced hybrid vehicles a hula-hoop over a year ago. They were inefficient to build, got marginally better mileage, poor performance, high upkeep and without tax breaks would fail in the marketplace.
But, people are sheep. All we like sheep trot down to the Toyota dealership and plop our money down to buy a hybrid. Why? Cause it makes us feel better. We're doing something to save the environment. We're being responsible. All of which is absolute balderdash. But it comes under the category that “We have to do SOMETHING, don’t we”. Burn a candle to the oil gods. It’s just as effective and you can still feel like you did “Something”.
All this is part of the big lie and if you drive a hybrid you bought it. Sorry to break it to you. But it's a fad and all the “in” folks on the bandwagon have been had.
Hybrids are quiet. They make you feel trendy. But they’re a waste of natural resources, your money and tax incentives that might have been better directed.
It's not just my opinion, Betsy Hart (No engineer she) is a social observer as I am and she has made the same pronouncement.
In part she says in this article from today’s Sun Times:
The well-respected auto research firm, CNW Marketing in Brandon, Ore., recently found after a two-year study collecting data on the ''energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose'' of the cars, that the hybrids don't stack up well.
CNW found that hybrids use more total energy in their lifetime than their gasoline-powered cousins. Even a Hummer, the ultimate bane of the environmentalist world -- uses less total energy over its lifetime than any hybrid (including the halo special, the Prius), Car and Driver magazine said.
When I first saw hybrid cars come on the market I knew this. I said so and was ridiculed. I always get the last laugh.
Just so you know, back in the mid 70's my brother Steven and I went to the World Electric Car Conference for 4 days. I was convinced that there were breakthroughs coming in Electric Cars. I am still convinced that for short distances there are viable breakthroughs coming.
But, the question is asked Who Killed the Electric Car? in this movie. I plan to see it. I still believe that the plug-in car is still part of the energy solution. Not hybrids.
And, in case you need one other prescient pronouncement: Ethanol is a hula hoop. A waste of resources, land, and tax incentives. But we'll use those abandoned plants to produce real bio fuel when the technologies are ready. Ethanol is a loser in every way if it ever has to compete on the market. Crude oil at $50 is a break even gallon for gallon with Ethanol. The dirty little secret is Ethanol is only half the energy content of oil. So really crude oil has to sell for $100 per barrel for there to be equivalence. My source for all the information following is a long long article in today’s Chicago Tribune outlining these issues.
Biodiesel is not much better. I have hope for biodiesel. But not right now, not right yet. Biodiesel has about a 1-1 energy output with oil. But it takes a stable price of $70 to make biodiesel economically effective. There are better things coming. Genetically engineered microbes that break down anything lignose based (Cellulose, paper, wood, waste grass clippings you name it) and produce long chain –OH compounds that burn just like gasoline. That will work. It’s on the horizon. Right now they are about as expensive as biodiesel. This is a technology that will drop in price after it works.
Coal source Diesel. Coal to liquid fuel conversion. That makes sense economically and technically. It competes with a steady world price of $45. The state of Colorado alone has more heavy oil (Tar Sands) and Montana has coal than the whole oil supply basin of the whole Middle East. It is converted directly from it’s solid form into Diesel Oil.
The biggest fear I have and the one I think will happen soon are when things start settling down in the Middle East and crude production takes off, and we have a world price of $45. Research will stop. Big oil profits are our only hope.
We (USA) currently use 21 million barrels of oil per day. We (USA) currently produce 9 million barrels per day. That is more than Canada, Mexico and Venezuela combined. IF the world cut us off we would have to halve our consumption. Doable? Maybe. So relax. We’re not running out of oil.
So, pay that big money at the pump. Just maybe Exxon will use that money for exploration and research rather than a new bathroom in the CEO's house.
One can only hope.
We have no alternative unless you want to fund government to do this. Like that’ll ever get anything done.
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