Arguing on the Internet

I need to learn to stop arguing with the internet.  Until I do, here is my retort to one such misleading message I couldn't leave alone.

Wouldn't that be great!  But wait, Snopes to the rescue!

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp

This is long, so go ahead and delete it if you aren't interested in hearing things you don't already agree with.

The truth of global warming truly hit me on my trip to the Phillippine Islands.  On the front page of the paper was a story of how the newly elected leader of a Micronesian country was forced to make his top priority the full evacuation of his citizens.  The reason?  Global warming has caused sea levels to leave the highest point in his homeland only 20 feet above sea level.  In five years or less the entire country will be submerged and the population displaced.

This isn't a problem that only the Pacific islanders suffer either, although Hawaii is another good example of a location soon to be submerged beneath a combination of lava flows and sea water.  Beaches are eroding at the fastest rate ever.  New York is also battling rising sea waters.  International relations with Russia have been strained over the claim of the newly opened arctic shipping lane, created by the continuous degradation of our polar caps.

There are alternatives to "Drill Baby Drill" that will result in our independence from foreign oil.  Even better, they will move our country into an era of technological leadership in the world where we again create the products everyone wants and needs.  

Taking the hard protectionist list isn't a solution either.  Even if we determined to become independent of foreign oil, but failed to proliferate our technology abroad, we would still be in the same mess.  Consider Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRIC nations): fastest growing economies on earth, and fastest industrializing.  If every household in these nations had a car, even a modest 32 mpg car, our oil supplies would be sapped and our air unbreathable.  Don't think it is going to happen?  Indian conglomerate Tata has already produced a vehicle that costs less than $2,000 with the intention of getting the population on the road.

Returning to the thought of drilling, I have worse news.  Even if we were to start drilling EVERYWHERE we possibly could within the boundaries of the USA (and even extending our international waters) that oil won't be available for processing for a minimum of ten years.  This quote from planetforlife.com regarding the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve sums it up nicely:

ANWR has the potential to reduce oil imports by 5% for 2 decades beginning in 2015. Other sources of oil within the U.S. will be depleting during that time. There is no realistic way to reduce dependence on imported oil if oil consumption continues at its present rate.

Further reading materials:

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Chevy Volt

The Chevy Volt has piqued my interest. If you haven't heard of it, the Volt is the one-time prototype electric vehicle that GM has given the green light to convert into a production vehicle. The transition from prototype to production has sanded down some of the edginess in the original, but the most important features are still there. This is a 100% electric driven vehicle. It is loaded with a bank of Lithium-ion batteries to store charge, and has a range of about 40 miles on a charge. In addition, the vehicle has a flex-fuel motor that will charge the batteries and drive the electric motor once the initial charge is depleted. GM is saying this gives the vehicle hundreds of additional miles of range.

The Volt has me interested for a couple of reasons. I don't like that money paid for gas mostly gets sent overseas. I don't like being a contributor to the pollution problem. I'm a geek, and the Volt is a fantastic new gadget!

I'd love to have a fuel efficient car that is still a nice vehicle. I've been begging my wife to let me put the $100 deposit down on a Smart, but she isn't budging on that issue since it won't allow me to transport one or more of our kids. The Volt is a 4-seater, so that would be one hurdle out of the way. My drive to work is less than 10 miles. Even with my current 4-cylinder Toyota I'm barely getting better than 20mpg. According to information available on the web, the Volt will fully charge from a standard wall outlet in 8 hours, or from a 220V (dryer) outlet in 3 hours.

That got me to thinking though. What happens if I never run on fuel? If I use the vehicle only for my daily commute, and never exceed the range of the batteries, what happens to the emergency reservoir of petrol in the tank? Will the vehicle eventually recommend that I let it burn off? Is that even a problem?

The Volt will arrive sometime in 2010, and it could be a real shot in the arm for GM. I probably won't be an early adopter on this one, as I'm sure it will take a model year or so to work out the kinks. I am pretty excited for an everyman's electric vehicle though, and I could definitely see buying into one should it prove itself in production.