Thanks, Obama.
The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
91–100 of 259 posts
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much range do people need before there's no longer range anxiety? People used to complain about 200 miles not being enough then Tesla released 300 miles then they said that's not enough either.
It's not about distance for me, really. It's about availability and convenience of fuel. Gas stations are EVERYWHERE and it takes 3 minutes to fuel. Electric fueling stations require route planning, and takes 30+ minutes to fuel. For people who can get away with charging at home & work, it's fine. For people like me who do stuff like 170 mile trips to Tahoe often, I won't be able to have an electric car without "rang…
While I'll concede your point about the time it takes to charge, I think most non-electric drivers would be surprised how many charging stations there are.
I don't have an electric car, so I was surprised when I recently discovered that one of the local gas station chains has an electric charging station in the rear of every one of its stations. That's probably 30-40 locations in this small city from just one outfit.
Another odd thing I see more and more of is mobile EV charging stations in strip mall parking lots. They're these long trailers topped with solar panels that show up at Target and supermarkets and stuff at the far end of the parking lot, where you can hook up your vehicle.
They seem to be itinerant, so I'm not really sure how that business model works.
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much range do people need before there's no longer range anxiety? People used to complain about 200 miles not being enough then Tesla released 300 miles then they said that's not enough either.
For me, it's not really the range at all, it's what you do at the end of the range. Charging stations are rare and slow, fuel stations are common and quick. I don't see why gas-electric hybrids, with say, 20-50 miles of electric-only range aren't more popular. That would eliminate the vast majority of fossil fuel usage [1], and avoid this problem entirely. It also seems a lot cheaper than loading a car with hundreds…
The public is always reluctant to change established behavior and expectations... mass adoption requires revolutionary change that overcomes perceived functional and financial costs of switching, or evolutionary change with no perceived cost.
So EV will see mass adoption as soon as people can top up at a "charge station" in under 3 minutes and get 200+ mile range - because that's what people expect from "a car". The public doesn't care about the evolution of implementation details like gas vs electric.
The beautiful part is that once home charging is no longer required, people will be happy to charge at home! We are an adorably irrational species.
Alternatively, there is a revolutionary path: autonomous vehicles. If AI-EV offered completely hands-off transportation, no driving or maintenance required, people would happily ignore any perceived transition costs. However, this path seems unlikely in the near future.
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#94It's been fascinating to watch Saudi influence wane over the last few years as this sinks in as the new reality. We live in a completely different power structure now from 20 years ago. They're certainly still obscenely rich, but the power they had over geopolitics via OPEC is effectively gone at this point due to tar sands, renewables, and natural gas.
I wonder what the next 20 years will bring, especially with the shift to electric vehicles.
China. Only they have all the rare earthes needed for those batteries.
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#95As much as I hate to admit it, a lot of the credit for that goes to George W and Dick Chaney for pushing for local production.
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people I talk with in my peer group wouldn't even think of getting an all-electric car (except maybe as a secondary vehicle), due to range anxiety. However, what I think will happen over the next 20 years (with battery improvement, etc) is more and more hybrids and plugin hybrids. For example, see Ford's plans starting in 2020. But the plugin hybrids won't be sold as "fuel efficient", but sold as "more powerful"…
For my part, I'm not anxious about range; price is the main issue. The car purchases over my lifetime have been $5000, $2500, $1, $4000, $11000, $8000, $12000 ... and I have never bought new. I do not see a viable electric vehicle for me. Tesla looks awesome, and I cannot find an affordable one near me. Hell, there are TWO (count 'em, 2) used Model-3's within 20 miles of me, and they're selling for $50,000. LOL and M…
For Teslas, wait a bit, you'll see them coming in some years
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#97This is a political disaster. Fracked crude is only profitable because the externalised costs of the catastrophic environmental damage are born by others. This is another direct wealth transfer from the general population i.e. 99% to the 1%. If instead of allowing fracking we invested massively in renewables we'd have more jobs, a path to much-cheaper-than oil energy, and we wouldn't be leaving toxic residue all over…
If it weren't for fracking, we would not have hit peak CO2 output http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/project_syn...
Also, abundant cheap energy is wildly important to the 99%. I can't believe that even needs to be pointed out. Thats why we deal with the pollution externalities the way we do.
Its a bridge from dirtiest energy (coal), hopefully to better things, but an important bridge it has been. The real mistake was letting nuclear go under if we cared about pollution and carbon.
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much more room for improvement is there in gas and diesel?
consider the expansion of plug in hybrids, similar to the Volt, Clarity, Prius, and Kona, all extend the viability of the petrol engine. In many cases it moves into the roll of a range extender because its weight combined with fuel is drastically less than what battery technology can accomplish; an example is the Model 3 which has nearly 1100 lbs of batteries for 310 miles. engines directly? variable valve timing wil…
Without abandoning piston engines entirely and going to turbines or something, modern auto engines are approaching maximum practical thermal efficiency for the conditions under which they must operate (being primarily horsepower-oriented rather than torque-oriented). You can get maybe 50% better if you're powering an oil tanker rather than a car, but you're not powering an oil tanker, but rather something that has to accelerate and decelerate and idle in unpredictable ways.
Hybrid was the last big improvement. Barring a radical new technology (and variable valve timing ain't radical), we might squeeze, what, 10% better thermal performance out? Get 40mpg rather than 37? Big deal.
And really, this is all driven by energy costs in the end. We're already hitting a point where commodity solar/wind electricity is cheaper than commodity coal, and much cheaper than commodity gasoline. This creates a tremendous market incentive for purely electric vehicles. And that tech has much more room for improvement than any gas engine - batteries will keep getting cheaper and more efficient for some time to come.
When my options are a $25,000 Ford or a $90,000 Tesla, an electric car seems like a dream. But when it turns into a $25,000 Ford or a $30,000 all-electric car (maybe from Ford!)... TCO starts becoming a very attractive argument, on top of the feel-good factor.
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#99Good on them. But what a sorry state to be in, when global warming and sea level rise related problems already are a reality in Miami or - of all places - Norfolk's naval base.
IIRC, the Norfolk situation isn't really a global warming issue. The entire region is sinking because of geologic issues.
Unless I'm thinking of another coastal Virginia city. Anyone from VA know?
Re: The United States Is Now the Largest Global Crude Oil Producer
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people I talk with in my peer group wouldn't even think of getting an all-electric car (except maybe as a secondary vehicle), due to range anxiety. However, what I think will happen over the next 20 years (with battery improvement, etc) is more and more hybrids and plugin hybrids. For example, see Ford's plans starting in 2020. But the plugin hybrids won't be sold as "fuel efficient", but sold as "more powerful"…
Another way to think about it is owning an electric as a primary vehicle (most trips are under 50 miles or whatever) and the gas car as as secondary, long range vehicle. This makes way more sense than hybrids for two car families. We own a Nissan Leaf and its definitely our primary vehicle, it gets 10x the miles/day as the gas car at a fraction of the maintenance cost. We pull the gas car out for the weekends or trip…
At which point just renting a gas vehicle for long trips starts sounding really good.