Doesn't this reiterate how simple it is to cut our gasoline consumption? (global warming, Prius)

[HTY483]

Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy

I await your ideas.

Why not drive a CRV (26mpg) or a similar vehicle and tow your equipment in a trailer. I used to tow two 400lb motorcyles with my moms CRV. Does your equipment weight more than 800lbs?

[HTY483]

Originally Posted by QuietBlue

We shouldn't prop up an industry just to keep people employed if the market says otherwise.

No doubt!! Besides, you lose a few petroleum engineers here and you gain a few electrical, mechanical or biomechanical engineers there. It'll work itself out.

[HTY483]

Originally Posted by bradykp

EV engines are more efficient than ICEs,

That's not true. They have yet to develop an energy source that produces more joules/lb (or gram..cant remember) of energy than gasoline (other than nuclear energy....obviously). I'm not saying it cant be done and that we shouldn't continue to fund research, we should. But we just aren't there yet.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by 20yrsinBranson

It's ironic that the third-world countries are developing and the United States, is becoming a third-world country. Does anyone else see the irony in that?

20yrsinBranson

No one else even sees the truth in that, let alone the irony.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by bradykp

You're overstating the coal fire plant - it's more like one per 2 weeks. But you are also leaving out that China installs a new wind turbine every 2 hours. So in the two weeks it takes China to erect a coal fire plant, they've also brought online 336 new wind turbines.

By 2020, China will have DOUBLEd the world's wind capicity, and it's solar industry is 33% of the world market. China needs to do a lot, there's no doubt about that. But to pretend like they're not doing it is just silly.

To pretend the Chinese are combating pollution is silly, and takes an uninformed person. They are not.
You may want to google around and see how many of those wind turbines are connected to a grid in some way.
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/revolt/b...power-success/

Dealing with the amount of pollution, though:
Pollution in China Goes 'Off the Charts'

The stifling pollution currently plaguing much of northeastern China has reached levels so high it is beyond the measurements used in the U.S. to chart air quality.

“What Beijing is experiencing–and even worse in the provinces–is off the charts from anything we experience in the United States, and likely more than anything we’ve experienced in our country’s history,” said John Walke, the director of the Climate & Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group.

Pollution in China Goes 'Off the Charts'

[Mack Knife]

Originally Posted by Attrill

That is absolutely not true at all. Shifting to EV instead of internal combustion engines means that solar, wind, nuclear, or hydro power can be used - which means a significant reduction of carbon emissions. Even with our current mix of electrical generation natural gas fired plants produce much less carbon emissions than a car, and even coal plants with scrubbers are cleaner.

Right now we're seeing steady growth in solar and wind power, and over the next few decades our generation of electricity will be steadily getting much cleaner. A few decades is fine - this is a long term problem that we need to approach from every possible angle, and we can't dismiss ideas because there is no overnight impact. There is no set deadline of any year, just an increasing impact over time. The more we do and the sooner we do it, the better. That means we need to have a steady increase in fuel efficiency, a steady increase in cleaner power generation, a steady increase in EV and hybrid vehicles, and also a reduction in miles driven.

The next few decades? Keep believing that.

[20yrsinBranson]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

You have no idea what you're talking about, seriously. We have records of what the atmosphere was composed of from ice cores. They go back 800,000 years 800,000-year Ice-Core Records of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

We know that we've increased atmospheric CO2 by about 33% and also increased other greenhouse gases. By definition, that means more heat retention. So to say that we aren't changing the climate is just denying physical testable reality.

Science is obviously your religion. That's fine. But do not attempt to make it mine. The atmosphere of the earth has ebbs and flows just like all of nature. Everything is cyclic. If there is an increase in atmospheric gases or world temperatures or the number of grasshoppers in my garden, it is because of the natural cycle and not because I choose to have a V-8 engine in my Caddy.

20yrsinBranson

[RomaniGypsy]

Originally Posted by HTY483

Why not drive a CRV (26mpg) or a similar vehicle and tow your equipment in a trailer. I used to tow two 400lb motorcyles with my moms CRV. Does your equipment weight more than 800lbs?

No... probably about 250-300 pounds total. It's not a bad thought but here are the problems:

1) We perform in all weather conditions, including (this past winter at least) times when the outdoor temperatures are negative degrees Fahrenheit. I don't have a heated garage, so that trailer will be outside. Though I can bring the gear inside when we're not transporting it (and I do), if I bring it outside and put it in a trailer that's as cold as the outdoors, that could wreak havoc on my sensitive electronics and the wooden structure of my acoustic guitar. It's not wise to subject musical equipment to extreme temperatures.

2) Dragging a trailer will reduce fuel economy considerably, especially if you're going to drive the speed limit. Our Tahoe dropped from 18-point-something average MPG to 13 highway MPG when dragging a fully loaded 4,000-some pound U-Haul at 55-60 mph. With a smaller U-Haul it dropped to 17 MPG on the highway, again at 55-60 mph. Had we driven faster, it would have been much lower. And this is with a V8 engine designed for hauling torque. That little 4-banger on the CR-V may return excellent fuel economy but it ain't going to do well towing. I had a 1982 Dodge Ram with the 225 slant-6 engine. It got up to 18 mpg average, depending upon my driving conditions. However, that engine wasn't especially powerful. It was designed for efficiency. Towing a trailer that weighed approximately one ton loaded, I got 8 mpg. I imagine that'd happen with a CR-V, in similar proportions.

3) If we have a trailer, that makes it much more difficult to park. I would imagine that it would be as hard as it was to park when we were touring in our 29-foot motorhome... a CR-V (or similar SUV) dragging a trailer large enough to haul our gear would probably end up being at least 29 feet long for the combination.

4) Pulling a trailer makes bad-weather driving very treacherous. If we slide on a snowy or icy surface and have to engage the car's ABS or do some hard correcting to make sure we don't lose control of the car, the trailer (which, if small enough to be minimal drag on fuel economy, will not have its own set of brakes, not like they'd be anti-lock brakes even if it did) would probably jackknife. It's a safety hazard, for sure.

5) Trailers are rather expensive to operate. A set of trailer tires is shot after 10,000 miles or so... learned that one the hard way a few years back... and they're much more expensive than what you'd think a trailer tire would cost. A pair will set you back $150-200 depending upon what you buy and whether or not you have to have someone else install them. So essentially you have to add the opportunity cost of the trailer (meaning the interest we'd save on our current debt load if instead of buying a trailer, we put that money toward paying down the debt), the annualized registration and insurance costs for the trailer, the extra maintenance cost of the trailer, the extra maintenance you'd have to put into your towing vehicle (because surely for a small SUV like a CR-V, towing a trailer would qualify as "harsh driving" in the maintenance guide), and the fuel for the towing vehicle. I really don't think there'd be much savings.

I had a diesel Silverado 3500 that averaged 18 mpg highway and when I used it to pull my 6'x10' single-axle cargo trailer (2,800 pound GVWR), it dropped to 12 mpg mostly due to air drag on the trailer. I just don't think that idea is feasible for us.

It's issues like these which make it difficult for anyone to reduce fuel consumption. Would I love to be able to make a living without having to drive? Absolutely. Truth be known, I hate driving. However, I would imagine that the only feasible way we could live this life without driving would be if we lived in a huge city where sufficient performance locations would all be close enough to our home that we might be able to fashion a bike trailer to haul the gear... but I hate big cities more than I hate driving. (Not to mention, it's hard enough contacting the necessary people at the places where we play, in rural areas... it's nigh unto impossible in urban areas where they are deluged with such contacts.)

If we reduced the amount of gear we haul, we would also reduce the quality of our show. Any professional anything is going to have certain "tools of the trade" that he/she thinks are worthy of him/her, and anything of perceivedly inferior quality will be shunned if possible. Such is the case with me. Could I downsize from the 88-key weighted hammer-action keyboard, to a 61-key non-weighted keyboard? Sure, but my playing would suffer. I refuse to allow that, as long as I am still physically capable of hauling that big keyboard. Could I downsize to a 3/4 size guitar instead of a full size? Sure, but again, my playing would suffer because I have long arms and big fingers. I've already reduced the size of our setup as far as I can without it taking away from the performance.

And that, I think, is a parallel to how it's been for many Americans. In 2008 when gas rocketed up to heights never before seen by Americans, the two best-selling vehicles in America were the Ford F-150 and the Chevrolet Silverado. You'd think it'd be little fuel-sipping cars... nope... big trucks with big engines that haul big things. The reason for this is not because Americans like spending three-figure sums of money to fill their tanks... it's because they NEED those trucks. Someone who has owned a pickup truck needs no explanation of this - there is nothing that matches the all-around utility and versatility of a pickup truck. Once you've had one, and used it the way a truck is meant to be used, you can never go back. Trade your truck in on a Prius and you will be thinking, inside of your next one month of good weather, "Man, I wish I had my truck so I could [.......]".

The only real way to get Americans' fuel consumption down is to re-structure the economy so that it is not vehicle-dependent. Let's face it... America had an economy that operated and thrived when there wasn't a single petroleum-fuel-burning vehicle on the road. America had an economy that operated and thrived before the steam engine. It CAN be done. But it would require a mass shift back to small-town operations and independent living. In this iGeneration, I don't think that many people would want to sign on to THAT notion. Thus, it will be a difficult sell, for sure, reducing fossil fuel consumption by "that much".

Frankly, the government, if it wants to reduce fuel consumption, should provide more windmills and solar panels for buildings in America. I read, once, that a 100 mile x 100 mile solar array could power the entire United States of America. Even if it would be prohibitively expensive to fire up an American factory and tell it to build 10,000 square miles of solar panels, we could make a significant dent in our fossil fuel demand by going solar, or wind, or geothermal.

Why don't we do that?

Because the government rakes in 48 cents in taxes for every gallon of gasoline sold.

In 2012, we gobbled 133,000,000,000 gallons of gasoline. (How much gasoline does the United States consume? - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA))

Multiplied by 48 cents per gallon, we have that the government raked in 63.84 BILLION DOLLARS in tax revenue from gasoline consumed in the US... in ONE YEAR.

If YOU were making over sixty billion dollars per year from the operation of a certain industry, would YOU want to kill it?

[pvande55]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

And then gas taxes will have to increase to make up for the loss of revenue engendered by lower sales.

As it is, gas taxes fall far short of the cost of maintaining the roads. A mileage tax will become necessary. Not just in California.

[NickB1967]

Originally Posted by pvande55

As it is, gas taxes fall far short of the cost of maintaining the roads. A mileage tax will become necessary. Not just in California.

And yet, time and time again gas tax funds have been raided to pay for items unrelated to roads, or even mass transit.