"Moto2" 600cc Four-Stroke

Ok guys, this thread, although massivley OT is great. I have tried to catch up on it all but have skipped a bit so sorry if I impinge on a previously stated point.

I think the thread is common, weather it be global warming, hybrid cars or whatever...decisions are driven by $$.

Hybrid cars are a great idea comapred to what we have now but does anyone here know of the now non existant GM EV1. It was developed, produced and then leased in the mid 90's. It was a purley electric car. No fuel what so ever. basically it ran 100 miles on a single charge, did 0-100kph in like 7 seconds and was just a 2 seater.

There is a doco about it called 'who killed the electric car', you can watch it all on youtube. basically GM only ever leased it out and then when the hummer was imported GM called in all leases and crushed every last one of them. The clients who leased the cars requested to buy them for their original stated price but GM refused.

Basically this is over 10 years ago! we should have had the option to purchase an all out electrical car for the last 10 years. That would have robbed the governemnet of huge money with fuel excise. Also it would have put millions out of work..electric cars dont need mechanics etc... but its the contrite attitude that the governments have that annoys me.

They make carbon targets and emission standards etc... when they could be making a car that 10 years ago was getting 100miles a charge (technology would now mean much more) that had no emissions, being charged by electricity from neuclear power stations whos bi product is not co2 but pure water!

I mean think on this..i live in South Australia..that is the driest state in the driest country in the world! We dont have that much water. We are also very very Uranium rich. My governement is investing in a 2 billion dollar de salination plant. This will provide us with more drinking water. In europe they are creating fully functional neuclear power stations for this money. Creating clean power and the bi product is drinkable water!!!

The most disapointing thing is not that the technology is there for us to be having cars that basically have no running costs but that the government will not even allow us to have the choice of it, and even making out it does not exist.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (is200 @ Dec 23 2008, 05:08 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Ok guys, this thread, although massivley OT is great. I have tried to catch up on it all but have skipped a bit so sorry if I impinge on a previously stated point.

I think the thread is common, weather it be global warming, hybrid cars or whatever...decisions are driven by $$.

Hybrid cars are a great idea comapred to what we have now but does anyone here know of the now non existant GM EV1. It was developed, produced and then leased in the mid 90's. It was a purley electric car. No fuel what so ever. basically it ran 100 miles on a single charge, did 0-100kph in like 7 seconds and was just a 2 seater.

There is a doco about it called 'who killed the electric car', you can watch it all on youtube. basically GM only ever leased it out and then when the hummer was imported GM called in all leases and crushed every last one of them. The clients who leased the cars requested to buy them for their original stated price but GM refused.

Basically this is over 10 years ago! we should have had the option to purchase an all out electrical car for the last 10 years. That would have robbed the governemnet of huge money with fuel excise. Also it would have put millions out of work..electric cars dont need mechanics etc... but its the contrite attitude that the governments have that annoys me.

They make carbon targets and emission standards etc... when they could be making a car that 10 years ago was getting 100miles a charge (technology would now mean much more) that had no emissions, being charged by electricity from neuclear power stations whos bi product is not co2 but pure water!

I mean think on this..i live in South Australia..that is the driest state in the driest country in the world! We dont have that much water. We are also very very Uranium rich. My governement is investing in a 2 billion dollar de salination plant. This will provide us with more drinking water. In europe they are creating fully functional neuclear power stations for this money. Creating clean power and the bi product is drinkable water!!!

The most disapointing thing is not that the technology is there for us to be having cars that basically have no running costs but that the government will not even allow us to have the choice of it, and even making out it does not exist.

I've read about the EV1 and it's a shame it was destroyed the way it was. Unfortunatly Battery technology for large capacity has not advanced as much and as quickly as you suggest.

Anyway, nowhere else is the saying "there is no such thing as a free lunch" truer than when it comes to energy.
Oil - Not renewable and maximum production capacity is on it's way down. It will be the lack of oil that limits CO2 emissions from it rather than regulations. In that regard CO2 limitations are quite useless as they soon enough will limit them selves.
Neclear plants - Water is not a bi produkt but rather used in large quanteties for cooling. Radiactive waste are a by product. And there is allways the chanse of an accident. Not ideal but probebly the best high desity energy source of today.
Electric power: It would be nice to think that you are using power from a clean neuclear plant of even from hydro electric power or solar power but when ever you plug something new, something added into a socket you must actually cosider this consuming electric power from the sources that should be phased out or are started up as extra source, very often we talk about oil or coal power pants even with old technology and a bad quality fuel. I.e. extreemly polutive energy source, both local and global.
Bio Fuel: What do you think caused the rising food prices this spring? It was speculation and bio fuel. Besides it's just another accelerant for the chopping down of the last rain forests in the world. Huge areas has been cut down this year for the sole purpose of starting bio fuel production. Eviromentaly fiendly?
Hydrogen: Produce water only. No polution at all, right? Producing Hydrogen is extreemly energy intencive and consume huge amounts of electic energy, much more than cars are able to produce with hydrogen as fuel.

All known eviromentaly fiendly sources for electric power:
First of all there is a huge hit in their fiendlyness both in producing the actual items, and they will have a huge impact on the local environment they are installed in because of their inefficiency.
We will see huge areas covered with solar panels and wind mills but it wont be pretty and it won't be friendly for the local environment. Add in algea plants in the ocean, wave plants and so on. They are low density energy prodution pants, producing "power" that need further refinement (read energy consuption) that need huge areas.

So there you are. No free lunch. On the other hand the big thing to invest in is energy companies as energy will become very expencive
Nuclear palnts are probably the way to go as these produce high amounts of energy with no pollution except for the nuclear waste that can be handeled relativly safe and just hope we dont get to many Tsjernobyl's. But then again, we are running out of uranium.

You don't have to be a tree hugger to worry about the future, but if you live in the states you should be really worried for the energy situation as nowhere else do people use energy by the rate you use it, and that's by a huge margine. Going there it's easy to see why:
The number of cars on the road, the air conditioning cooling down inefficient energy consumers. Water and light consuption in areas where both are in short demand.
But most of all, how the whole infra structure, the whole socity are buildt with the asumption that the cars and huge amounts of electic energy will allways be there. You depend on it like no one else.

I guess I'm a tree hugger in the eyes of many here allthough I'm far from considered that back home. But I am worried about the energy situation and that is in addition to any environmental worries I might have because it will hit us in the face regardles of how mother earth decide to act the next few decades.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Babelfish @ Dec 23 2008, 03:26 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I've read about the EV1 and it's a shame it was destroyed the way it was. Unfortunatly Battery technology for large capacity has not advanced as much and as quickly as you suggest.

Anyway, nowhere else is the saying "there is no such thing as a free lunch" truer than when it comes to energy.
Oil - Not renewable and maximum production capacity is on it's way down. It will be the lack of oil that limits CO2 emissions from it rather than regulations. In that regard CO2 limitations are quite useless as they soon enough will limit them selves.
Neclear plants - Water is not a bi produkt but rather used in large quanteties for cooling. Radiactive waste are a by product. And there is allways the chanse of an accident. Not ideal but probebly the best high desity energy source of today.
Electric power: It would be nice to think that you are using power from a clean neuclear plant of even from hydro electric power or solar power but when ever you plug something new, something added into a socket you must actually cosider this consuming electric power from the sources that should be phased out or are started up as extra source, very often we talk about oil or coal power pants even with old technology and a bad quality fuel. I.e. extreemly polutive energy source, both local and global.
Bio Fuel: What do you think caused the rising food prices this spring? It was speculation and bio fuel. Besides it's just another accelerant for the chopping down of the last rain forests in the world. Huge areas has been cut down this year for the sole purpose of starting bio fuel production. Eviromentaly fiendly?
Hydrogen: Produce water only. No polution at all, right? Producing Hydrogen is extreemly energy intencive and consume huge amounts of electic energy, much more than cars are able to produce with hydrogen as fuel.

All known eviromentaly fiendly sources for electric power:
First of all there is a huge hit in their fiendlyness both in producing the actual items, and they will have a huge impact on the local environment they are installed in because of their inefficiency.
We will see huge areas covered with solar panels and wind mills but it wont be pretty and it won't be friendly for the local environment. Add in algea plants in the ocean, wave plants and so on. They are low density energy prodution pants, producing "power" that need further refinement (read energy consuption) that need huge areas.

So there you are. No free lunch. On the other hand the big thing to invest in is energy companies as energy will become very expencive
Nuclear palnts are probably the way to go as these produce high amounts of energy with no pollution except for the nuclear waste that can be handeled relativly safe and just hope we dont get to many Tsjernobyl's. But then again, we are running out of uranium.

You don't have to be a tree hugger to worry about the future, but if you live in the states you should be really worried for the energy situation as nowhere else do people use energy by the rate you use it, and that's by a huge margine. Going there it's easy to see why:
The number of cars on the road, the air conditioning cooling down inefficient energy consumers. Water and light consuption in areas where both are in short demand.
But most of all, how the whole infra structure, the whole socity are buildt with the asumption that the cars and huge amounts of electic energy will allways be there. You depend on it like no one else.

I guess I'm a tree hugger in the eyes of many here allthough I'm far from considered that back home. But I am worried about the energy situation and that is in addition to any environmental worries I might have because it will hit us in the face regardles of how mother earth decide to act the next few decades.

Great post babelfish, very good points.

Yeah your probably right, there is no single answer but i guess my concerns probably mirror yours in that forrestry needs to be stopped. Removing habitat as we do can no longer be tolerated.

I did read something lsat night, details will be very sketchy, where scientists were talking about having a cube that is 1cm square. If you create a vacum in this cube that removes every bit of matter there is still a form of mass in there that is actually hugley powerful. They are studying how they can harness this energy as it exists but is very difficult to capture and manipulate it.

An rough example of this is the power created by splitting a single atom. Im no way near smart enough to really understand any of it but oits interesting none the less.

its freaking cold outside

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (is200 @ Dec 24 2008, 12:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Great post babelfish, very good points.

Yeah your probably right, there is no single answer but i guess my concerns probably mirror yours in that forrestry needs to be stopped. Removing habitat as we do can no longer be tolerated.

I did read something lsat night, details will be very sketchy, where scientists were talking about having a cube that is 1cm square. If you create a vacum in this cube that removes every bit of matter there is still a form of mass in there that is actually hugley powerful. They are studying how they can harness this energy as it exists but is very difficult to capture and manipulate it.

An rough example of this is the power created by splitting a single atom. Im no way near smart enough to really understand any of it but oits interesting none the less.

I've noted on several overseas eco friendly programs that recycling of wood is a very important issue but living in a country where paper and wood is a major export article there is no reason to stop that as long as it is done in a sustainable way. As forrestry as been a major buissiness for hundreds of years I have the impression that the scandinavian countries have developed very good regulations for this. In fact my house is heated with wood pellets in a 95% effecient oven and that's very clean burning, CO2 neutral heating and here this is considererd one of the more high tech eco friendly ways to heat your house.
Most people dosen't know that what ever you do with wood it remains CO2 neutral. Let it rot, cut it, brun it.... it all leads to the exact same amounts of CO2 emissions.

Forestry where you cut down old forests and in best case replant some fast growing pant with lots of oil in it is of course very different and I guess that's what you ment in the first place?

Very well stated, Babel.

Watch the world's final oil reserves get consumed even quicker as India and China's 2.5 BILLION people start sucking back the "texas tea" at ever increasing rates... The world will need new, cheap, reliable energy source(s) within the next century - if not sooner.

Unfortunately, we seem to be bound by the first law of thermodynamics, which states (essentially), that, "energy can neither be created, nor destroyed". A fuel source, use, and waste yield a zero sum gain in terms of potential energy so the earth as a system will have an almost infinite variety of energy sources until it dies - the problem is current human society requires very high yield energy sources to sustain its demands, while our ecosystem will be left with low yield energy.

Compare our energy requirements to those of only one hundred years ago (and from there back through human history) and you'll see exponential growth personified. As our population and overall development and industrialization continue so the exponential growth continues.

The time of transition between our current main high yield energy source, fossil fuels, to a new source will probably bring about a collapse and restructuring of all socio-economic structures and politics as part of society clings to past values and part adopts newer less "economical" options.

Well, no system exists without change, and we are not an exception... Humans seem to be infinitely adaptable, so let's see where the path leads us.