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Do you believe world governments when they talk green about cars?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Do you believe world governments when they talk green about cars?
I don't - I think they all have a vested interest to keep us tied to our dinosaur juice powered cars .. and biofuels could be even worse for the environment then what we use at the moment as land used for food is set aside or forests cut down to grow plants to make biofuels...
Where else can a government such as the UK get away with charging so much tax (roughly for every £1 you spend on petrol - 65p to 70p is pure tax)
I think they have a vested interest only in technologies which keep us hooked to the pumps, whether it's petrol, diesel, or biofuels... basically only promoting solutions which we can't make ourselves.
Have a look at this video which is 2 years old now of a totally pollution free car (when combined with solar or wind power to pump it up) and let us know what you think.
http://tinyurl.com/yte73u
I think anything like this would get limited genuine government support as they know how much tax they would stand to loose.
I don't - I think they all have a vested interest to keep us tied to our dinosaur juice powered cars .. and biofuels could be even worse for the environment then what we use at the moment as land used for food is set aside or forests cut down to grow plants to make biofuels...
Where else can a government such as the UK get away with charging so much tax (roughly for every £1 you spend on petrol - 65p to 70p is pure tax)
I think they have a vested interest only in technologies which keep us hooked to the pumps, whether it's petrol, diesel, or biofuels... basically only promoting solutions which we can't make ourselves.
Have a look at this video which is 2 years old now of a totally pollution free car (when combined with solar or wind power to pump it up) and let us know what you think.
http://tinyurl.com/yte73u
I think anything like this would get limited genuine government support as they know how much tax they would stand to loose.
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Incidentally, in Japan a few years ago they displayed an entirely electric car that had a top speed of 200mph, a 0-60 time of about 4 seconds, and was completely silent. Of course I imagine the powerstations would have to start working overtime to charge everyones electric cars up, so we'd just be shifting the pollution elsewhere.
Biofuels for cars in northern Western countries though is a really rubbish idea which wont reduce CO2, will increase food prices and cause inflation.
Carbon neutral powerstations though are a much better idea, using coppice or other types of re-newables.
There's a simple additive they can put in Diesel fuel to give you 10% more MPG's - stagecoach are testing it on their buses. Of course 10% more MPG's mean 10% less tax for the government.
I think the governments in Europe MAY support this kinda of car when they move to taxing people per mile rather then on the fuel .. road tax right now is a fraction of what the average person must spend at the pumps.
Also a car like this is basically very simple - not a lot to go wrong with it - so Manufacturers would hate it as they loose their after sales business on spare parts.
The technology to make a greener car is so simple
if you look at their main website for the first guy they mention selling the car for 3,500 Euro's
http://tinyurl.com/3yfsbc
Why would they want to do that? Slow and steady would be great for them, they want the oil to last as long as possible, for many of the countries who supply it the money is the only thing keeping them in power.
hydrogen still needs electricity to make so it shifts the fume production away from cities generally
if they really wanted to solve problems they'd be investing more in the nuclear fusion option, yet still only a couple of billion has been put in by government, whilst they spent more than that on consultants last year
Given the current state of our nuclear plants its too late to invest too much in that, we need another couple of normal nuclear plants (now), some more hydro and wind and then some smaller biofuel cobined heat and power stations.
The first hydrogen filling station (in Iceland) is self sustaining. I'm not sure what they use to produce their electricity though, but I think it's green since it is a showcase after all.
On the subject of "green" cars, did you see that hybrid Lexus? A fuel cell linked up to 6 litre petrol engine that does less that 20mpg, yet allows you to avoid the London congestion charge. Genius.
the answer to your question is ... Because people don't live forever
If they did people might think more long term BUT since people die (and hold positions of power for even less time) they got to make their money ASAP
If you're a government you got to think in 4 year cycles .. i.e. from election to election ...
If you're head of an oil company you got to think in 12 month cycles i.e. company financial years - plus most will get profit related bonuses. And if they're not making the money they'll get booted out.
We probably still got a good 40 Years of oil left .. most people in a position to be concerned about that figure will be dead long before that date ever comes ..
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2656034.ece
http://www.parliament.uk/faq/pay_faq_page.cfm
The tax raised isn't going to politicians personally (or Civil Servants - my last pay raises have been under inflation), but on things Government provides such as Health, education etc. If they didn't tax fuel they'd tax something else to raise the revenue.
No-one's hiding fuel less alternatives - they're just not cost effective at the moment...
Care to explain how they're not cost effective?
And by cost effective - to whom are you referring?
The consumer.. the oil companies .. governments .. car manufacturers?
If the car manufacturers could sell them at a profit they'd make them. If the oil companies could sell other types of fuel at a profit they'd sell it.
The Government doesn't manufacture cars or sell petrol... nor is it some entity divorced from peoples lives - it raises taxes to pay for things the voters want.
Well if a car runs on fresh air what are the fuel companies gonna sell?
car companies derive a lot of their profits AFTER the sale - spare parts, etc
I'm afraid your - if X can make a profit they will do Y is too simplistic ...
what about of X can sell Z for more money then Y - then why build Y in the first place.
Have you seen this documentary? This is only a trailer - these cars were built ONLY because Californian law required them to be made 10 years ago but they were never sold - only leased so people could never own them - and once the leases ran out - all of them were taken from the people that leased them and they were taken and crushed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJAlrYjGz8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHQ4cEr5Wao&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J5f9x_RfHI
Governments don't JUST collected taxes - they send people to war - strangely enough, often in some of the most fortified oil reserve enriched countries in the world .. :chin:
No, we don't.
Evidence?
What's that got to do with the price of cabbages in Uzbekistan? Do you understand what an Ice Age is and how they come about?
OPEC have been rather good at restricting their collective greed because they know that over supply with fast sales is bad for business. It may have cost us more but they have given us more time to find alternatives.
Of course its simplistic argument - not as simplistic as yours but hey.
Do you have any evidence for cars running on fresh air because otherwise we're talking about some sort of fuel which needs to be gathered and then refined into a fuel, and it to be likely that this can't be done by Joe Bloggs in their back garden.
And unless these new energy efficient cars don't need spare parts and never break down the argument about manufacturers making money from spare parts is irrelevant (and frankly the money made from spare parts is nothing compared to the money made from building and selling the car in the first place).
wouldn't put it past the people doing the showcase to use typical mains source
silly aint it
the best short/medium term options are to cut pointless consumption, and stop deforestation imo
solat water heating is really good, and just requires a slightly warm temperature
photovoltaic is erm not very good, if you look at the silicon purification technique, it's a very energy intensive manufacture
hydro normally tears down green patchs of land and isn't THAT good
tidal is pretty good, so is wind power
on the topic of 'oh they arent cost effective' the only reason oil based fuels are cheap is because we've spent a century mastering the refining process and improving the internal combustion engine in regards to valve timings etc - you need to give other methods a chance to improve their economies of scale
the only real option short term is cutting consumption, opec's oil production is down on last year, however consumption cutting isnt in anyone's interest, well anyone important that is, neither is intervening to stop deforestation
and stargalaxy the guy who say global warming is caused mainly by the sun is wrong, the sunspot activity has fallen yet it still rose, and he gets caned by peopel who make the same observations and say he's wrong as he concludes before using all the evidence ie he wants attention and is a poor scientist
ps read the single 'orignal' best method the other day, using all the plastic bags we chuck away to make a giant surface and put it to sea once every few months to reflect a big chunk of sunlight
Nice idea, but everyone knows thats plain not going to work, of course we should encourage everyone to use less power, but people still want TV's and people still want jobs in factories and offices to go to.
Its a mixed picture, the UK must do something about its power supply and very quickly otherwise we are going to have to slap up a coal or oil plant or face a black out.
The Seven tidal barrier should go ahead as well as a couple of new nuclear plants.
As for the wider picture, the carbon trading scheme could be made to work, if it wasnt totally corrupt and the credits WAY over the top.
yeh we need to replace the current nuclear power plants, and shut down the old ones, also when making the plants, making breeder reactors to go with them
nuclear fission, if everyone used it instead of oil/gas, we'd run out of uranium(well the right isotope) in 30 years
Possibly, but that at least gives us another 30 years to tinker with fusion.
Do you actually know all this for sure or just guessing?
As for myself I know people that work in both the car industry and spare parts industry as well as people who have known people who have come up with new technologies that would save fuel only to be bought out by big oil companies who didn't want to see their sales of oil decline.
As for evidence of cars that can run on air - did you even bother to see the first video? That's your evidence right there.
I also have the ability to think critically and not accept any old conspiracy guff from the web...
Cool, so I've posted various links to video, etc to show one point of view - you got any interesting links you want to point the rest of us to to support your point of view?
yeh, but better early than late, there is research going on ofc but nowhere near as much as there should be
this is the current prototype test model which will need 20 years of operating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Thermonuclear_Experimental_Reactor
it is still 8 years off being built
people forget, almost every drug they take for any illness or disease they get, as well as normally having a plant or animal source, has compounds that come from oil
also in regards to fusion
Car & DVD Player's are hardly the same ...
You're comparing for what most people is the 2nd most expensive thing they're likely to purchase (after a house) and one of the items most expensive to keep, maintain and run to one of the cheapest consumer items there is.. not mention an item where the consumer quickly starts to spend more money on the media rather then the player (i.e. how many DVD Disc does it take before you've spent more on the movies then on the actual player? .. not many these days)
Also if your VCR breaks do you go for spare parts + the labour costs involved in having it repaired or do you just buy a new one from any manufacturer out there? I susect most people throw it away and buy a new one and probably from another manufacturer. Not many people throw out a entire car if something breaks.
you picked a really, really poor comparison (cars vs DVD players / VCR's) ... got a better example?