wgreer25 said:
I think it good for a person to make their small contributions, but there are BIG things that can be done. Noone here has posted anything about the most poluted country in the world. And every single person here has helped to fuel the polution in that country. This country's polution is so bad that is alone can effect the global climate. I would chalenge anyone not to buy products form this country. Having seen industrial manufacting in this country, I do what I can do aviod products from there. They don't care if they poison their employees and put pure toxins in the air. You all know who I am talking about.
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-6-10/42510.html
We try hard to avoid Chinese products, but unfortunately in some areas you have no choice. Many computer parts are only manufactured now in China, although sometimes I can find things made in Malaysia or Indonesia. My matrix goes USA, Canada/UK/Australia/Israel/Taiwan/South Korea/Philippines/Poland/Mexico/Brazil/Thailand, balance of Europe/Caribbean/balance of Central and South America/balance of Asia, everybody else, and China (African nations vary from month to month, but most are usually in group 2 or 3.) But as an example, who makes compact fluorescent lamps? Every once in a while I see Hungary, but 99% of the time it's three US brands all manufactured in China. Everyone wants us to transition to compact fluorescent, but the Wal-Mart Great Value incandescents are made in the USA whereas all the compact fluorescents are made in China. Frankly it leaves me conflicted.
Darth, good article. I agree with most of it, but my acquaintances' experiences with Prius (Prii? Proous? What the hell is the plural of Prius?) have been largely positive, good battery life and excellent mileage, up to 59 mpg. Plug-in hybrids make sense if your driving is almost all city driving, although I'm staying away from nickel-based batteries and waiting for lithium phosphate (preferably the ones which DON'T burst into flames), because you can charge them at home. Therefore you are somewhat insulated from fuel costs. With the Prius for example around town you can run only on the electric motor if you're careful, and braking recovers some of that energy. But hybrids won't really make sense until the combustion engine is isolated from the drive train, meaning the vehicle is driven by electric motors (preferably two or four) and the combustion engine only charges the batteries. That requires some pretty sophisticated DC/AC conversion and frequency generation, and we're not there yet, but has the advantage of removing the cost, weight, and losses of the differential and transmission.
Diesels have a difficult time in the USA because of their history, our pollution laws, and our fuel refining and distributing structure. Many older diesels gave off vibrations which made some people feel fatigued. Running at lower RPMs, diesels need more isolation from the passenger compartment than small, higher speed gasoline engines. Our pollution laws are also geared against diesels, being very strict on particulates. Thus exhaust cleaning costs more for diesels in the USA than in Europe. And our diesel is very expensive compared to gasoline. I'm not sure if that is a factor of the crude grades we import, more limited diesel refining capacity, or something else entirely, but it holds diesels back in the USA. If your fuel costs 20% more, your vehicle needs to be 20% more efficient just to break even.
I like diesels in general, but the last two factors need addressing before they'll really take off in the USA.
] Congrats dude, great argument.
