Actually you were there to prop up the US dollar by keeping it the sole currency for oil purchases and sales. Saddam's only "crime," as far as the US govt. was concerned, was accepting only euros in payment for the oil he was allowed to sell. Click here for confirmation. That's also why the Yankee Empire is now threatening Iran -- that country is preparing to open a euro-denominated international oil exchange. If the euro or any other currency gains traction as a means of buying/selling oil, the dollar will collapse and America's borrow-and-spend orgy will come to a screeching halt.

Katrina took out a bunch of offshore oil wells and several refineries. All the oil in the world is useless if you can't refine it into gasoline, heating oil, motor oil, etc. And no new refinery has been built in America in ~30 years!

Oh man, thats one thing hybrid websites could do without...crazy conspiracy theories. Prisonplanet is a joke but hey if you want to subscribe to get their members only benefits and buy things off the store on their webpage then by all means go ahead and make alex jones rich. In Iraq to ensure cheap gas, no one with even quasi common sense can take a statement like that serious, all they have to do is look on a timeline at gas prices. Saddam's "only crime" was trying to use euros, riiiight.... I'll believe that when me s*** turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet.

Solar electricity costs about 30 cents/Kw/h. The prices are falling, but not much. A few percent per year. It probably won't be cost effective within our lifetime. Once you factor in the electoyzer, high pressure hydrogen storage tank, etc you are talking about hundreds of dollars per fill-up.

People rarely talk about nuclear power as an option. It is really, truly, the best option out there, and FOR SURE the only solution that is better than petroleum.

Why? It's all about energy density folks. How much energy can you get out of a pound of "whatever"?

Pound per pound, you can't beat gasoline. It's a fantastic fuel. That's why we will be wise to make it last as long as possible.

Solar is a joke. The Max. Power from solar... the physical limit, based on how bright the sun is, is about 1500 watts per square meter of surface area.
So if your car's roof were COVERED with solar cells, the most you could get...EVER is 4 horsepower.

Now, as soon as the general public is ok with driving 4 Horsepower vehicles, solar becomes possible. ( still won't work at night, cloudy days, etc. )
This will also make pure battery PEV's very possible also.

Hydrogen is great, you have an unlimited source, and it is the most common element in the universe, but you need electricity to break it down. That's where nuclear will come into play down the road. It's very cheap, very clean, and very safe, and can be made as safe as you want, if the price is right.

A few tons ( One boxcar ) of nuclear fuel will fuel an entire city for 25 years.

Having a nuclear power plant in your backyard is safer than drving 5 miles to work every day. Do you freak out about the dangers of driving every day?

Right. And current solar technology is only slightly higher than 10% efficient.

So cover the roof of your house in PV panels and charge your PHEV with them

Most PV panels are around 15% efficient. SunPower has a 20% efficient cell right now. Triple junction PV cells are around 35% or so and will be used in the Sunball PV concentrator appliance.

Solar is more than viable if you apply the technology correctly.

I don't see nuclear powered *cars* anytime soon, but I agree that our country should generate more of its *residential* power from nuclear fission.

When you burn a conventional fuel, you're breaking the electron bonds in the molecules. The electromagnetic force is the 2nd most powerful of the Four Fundamental Forces (gravity, nuclear-weak, electromagnetic, and nuclear-strong).

Nuclear fission breaks the nuclear-strong binding that pairs protons and neutrons together in in atomic nucleus. Breaking a stronger force releases more energy -- a LOT more energy.

Of course, in the *very* long term, our country will run out of fissionables too. But hopefully by then we'll have fusion or zero-point energy reactors!

You've been watching way too much Stargate SG-1/Atlantis

/RDA all the way
//Amanda Tapping is one hot MILF
///Michael Shanks - Master of Sarcastic Remarks
////Raises eyebrow - Indeed
/////Slashies!

Guilty as Charged!

Of course, SG1 did get the zero-point energy concept from a real theory in physics. They just extrapolated what such a device could do.

The great thing about sci-fi (and Star Trek in particular) is that the fantastic things in those shows actually end up getting *built*.

-- We've got compact flip phones (aka Communicators)
-- We've got computers that can do voice recognition and can scan retinas or thumb prints.
-- We've got handheld computers that accept handwriting (like the Star Trek data pads).
-- Antimatter is already being used for nuclear medicine (PET scans).

So I'm sure we'll be able to have cheap, guilt-free energy someday. If a sci-fi writer concieves it, some clever physist or engineer will eventually figure out how to build it. But hey, I'm an optimist!

There was a book a few years ago, The Physics of Star Trek, detailing what technologies on the show might ever happen. Most of it could happen, although faster-than-light travel will take several quantium leaps in technology, and holodecks will not have real things in them. The book comes very close to saying transporters for humans and large cargo is very nearly impossible.

That would be a very interesting off-topic thread: "What if we had a global Network of Transporters Instead of Highways?".

61.5mpg lifetime - 82mpg in recent months

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www.cleanmpg.com

"fanatic" is what the lazy call the dedicated