For a second there I thought you were talking about politics

 

From a firefighter perspective there are always problems with technolgy, for example, I mentioned the Ethanol transportation problem, pipeline is the best, safest way, ethanol fires are very nasty, to the point that the current firefighting foams are essentially innefective.
ref: Ethanol Fire Test Results

The hybrids have an extremely coorosive battery that, when the case is compromised, will react with the aluminum frame of the vehicle. I don't completely agree with tis article but here it is.
ref:Hybrids and Emergency First Responders | Hybrid Cars

Lastly, propane and hydrogen cars have about the same hazards which is known as a BLEVE, this is when the container (compressed gas cylinder) is involved in a fire and ruptures.
ref: BLEVE
which looks like this:
Pennsville Township Garage Fire with BLEVE
about the 6 minute mark there is a small propane cylinder explosion in a 2 car garage.

It's stuff like this that keeps me awake at night.

 

For the time being, why don't more auto manufacturers spend more time and money on R & D and produce more fuel efficient cars? Or just offer more of what they already have, like the Flex Fuel deal in trucks and SUVs.

Hell, take out the big ass V8s and put V6s with turbos and see how that works.

I know ford is supposed to be offering a 6 cyl diesel engine for the F150 soon, but it's only supposed to get low 20s mpg. At $4.60/gal, that's not even worth it. And believe me, I'd love to be driving a diesel! I love 'em!!

How about more public transportation? High speed rail? More promoting of carpooling? If the demand drops, so will the prices.

Honest to god, there's no fucking reason gas is over $1 or so a gallon. And diesel!!!! Christ! That's even more absurd! That shit should be CHEAPER than gasoline.

/rant.

 

It will happen, it's market driven, but look at Toyota and Nissan, when they started building trucks big enough to haul something, their mileage was worse than Ford and Chevy, so it's not like it's a domestic only problem. Some of the blame has to go to government regulations within the auto industry, you could really build a light car if you left things out like side guard door protection, laminated glass and crush structure, which is done in a lot of other countries where gas is even more expensive than here.
As far as hydrogen fuel goes, a lot of this was experimented with back in the first fuel crisis in the 70's. A couple of problems with hydrogen is that there's no infrastructure to get this highly volatile fuel to market, and even though the hydrogen likes to call it a "fuel cell" the fact is, it's a freakin' compressed gas bomb that you're riding around on. I'm still getting used to the rolling haz-mat incident known as a Prius.

 

I think we should take a page out of the Brazil hand book about making our own fuel. Until then lift the huge taxation of importing it from them and start shipping it over while we ramp up.

From what I can tell I think the middle east oil producers are starting to relize they woke a sleeping giant and it is going to hurt them in the long run. I wouldn't be suprised to see prices start falling around election time and also see our country moving away from middle east oil and into home produced oil.
On a side note we are one of the worlds leading oil producers but it cost so much to to buy our own oil because of the taxes that most of it is sold to other countries. We need to change that and build alot of new high tech refineries to deal with the heavy dark crude that we have in most of our country.

 

i would love nothing more then to c the united states become self sufficient.

 

IIRC the amount that we export is miniscule in comparison to the amount we import. Also in regards to opening up other drilling locations, it won't have the effect in prices that everyone thinks it will, the volume just isn't there short term to have an effect.. pretty much with others on this, it will be a combined effort of technologies to make the US more energy independent.

side note - wast watching "when we left earth" and it feels as if we've (corporate america) have just sold ourselves off to the cheapest labor possible with the only driving factor being the bottom line.. doesn't seem like we have the drive to be a "world leader in .. X" any more, we just offshore and put it on cruise control... not good.. someone or some country needs to kick us in the ass and get that revolution going again.. maybe this energy issue (because it's more than just oil) will do that...

just my .02

 

In regards tot he above, you're absolutely right, the major media outlets along with most educational centers have managed to raise at least 1 generation of "if it's made in America it's no good, or everything is global, we need to be global, or isn't the united Nations great?" I'm sick of it.
I'm more like Teddy Roosevelt.
BTW, I saw this..
NYT: Obama closely linked with ethanol - The New York Times - MSNBC.com

 

Teddy was the best.

 

Pig shit, like in mad max beyond thunderdome