While intrepidly exploring the bowels of USENET on Monday, August 11,
2008, rolled initiative and posted the following:

> On Aug 11, 12:08*pm, Derek > wrote:
>> While intrepidly exploring the bowels of USENET on Sunday, August 10,
>> 2008, rolled initiative and posted the following:
>>
>>> On Aug 10, 1:41*pm, wrote:
>>
>>> Oh yeah, make sure the air you breathe is clean. Very important. Live
>>> upwind from cities. We must go gas-free. I hope gas climbs to $1000/
>>> gallon to speed things along.
>>
>> I feel compelled to delurk and counter this hope. At that cost for
>> fuel, water quality for tea won't matter as I won't be able to afford
>> the leaf. Not a lot of tea is grown in the US.
>
> You've sidestepped my point. I'm actually with you. My hope is for gas
> free ($0/gallon) vehicles to be mass marketted. Driving the cost of
> gas up is the means for this goal. And it is already working. More
> people drive hybrids today. Car companies are finally getting around
> to being motivated to explore the idea of cranking out gas free cars.

And, in the process, they pollute more - just not around here.
Electric vehicle production creates more waste, and more toxic waste,
than production of typical cars. The toxic production just tends to
happen "over there" rather than in our back yards.

I recognize that you've said "gas free," but I'm guessing you also
mean "zero emission vehicles" which rules out diesel as well. However,
electric cars won't take off unless supercapacitors replace batteries
so that the vehicle can be charged in the same amount of time it takes
to top off a tank.

(I'd like to have a nice little diesel that runs on switch grass bio
fuel, gets 70 miles to the gallon and is a lot of fun to drive,
myself. VW's going that direction.)

>> And I seriously doubt that the claim can be substantiated that
>> schooners and tall ships will be able to replace existing fuel oil
>> cargo ships to the point that prices don't skyrocket.
>
> Cars. Not ships. One step at a time. Cars pollute our surroundings
> about a zillion times more than ships.

Depends on where you live. Cargo ship in the LA/Long Beach area
produce about as much pollution each day as an oil refinery.

But you're missing the point. If gasoline is $1000 a gallon, it will
be because oil is similarly expensive. Now, if you want to mandate
nuclear powered cargo ships...

>>> BTW this is how the earth got its air: water flowed onto lava. At
>>> least that's my current personal view.
>>
>> That gives you some H2 and some O. Now, where'd the N2, that makes up
>> 78% of our atmosphere, come from?
>
> Soil. Lava. God. Obviously one or more of these sources. Where else?
> Where did anything come from?

Speaking of side-stepping... (heh.)

Beyond the ultimate source for matter in the universe, boiling H2O
will not produce nitrogen. Neither will it produce free standing
hydrogen or oxygen. Water hitting lava boils, it does not undergo
electrolysis.

The confluence of H2O and magma cannot have produced our atmosphere.

--
Derek

"The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them." -- Samuel
McChord Crothers ("The Gentle Reader")