Your five Step Program is excellent! But there are a few Steps you’ve left out:

6) Any who resist relocation to cities go to labor camps in cold, arid areas.

7) ANY production of CO2 must be outlawed. This would first require making soda, beer and wine illegal. And to eliminate the exhalation of human CO2, absorbent masks must be worn in public at all times.*

8 It will be allowable to purchase a second child at a rate tied to a multiple of aggregate commodity food costs and a derivative of CO2 credit costs.

* Masks to be manufactured by Shortbreth LLC. a division of Algor Enterprises.

Why I would be okay if it happened: It is better than oil, especially oil imported from countries that cause political unrest like Venezuela and the middle east.

Why I don’t want it to suceed: It still conttributes to global warming and I don’t have enough trust in the car companies to use this as a temporary alternative while the car is being electrified. Plus, biofuels are more net zero, home grown and will not intefer with home heating costs (and no, the cost of food is going up because of shipping cost, not biofuels!!!).

I agree, we need to get off of fossil fuels, and Natural Gas IMO not an option. Why? I called my utility company, and got the skinny on my current bill. Our Natural gas bill has gone up 80%……. I don’t want to spend an arm and a leg, and now my 1st and 2nd born child to fuel my car, come on guys, For those who live down south where you don’t use Natural Gas, consider yourself lucky!

1) No nuclear power, PERIOD. Using nuclear power should be a capital crime, punishable by death.

2) No burning ANYTHING – no CNG, no E85, no hydrogen, no gasoline, no diesel. If heat is needed, use electricity.

3) One child per family, enforceable by forced abortion – NO exceptions. There are too many people demanding energy. Further decreases in population would also be caused by normal accidents and violent crime.

4) Only wind or solar power production should be allowed – any production of energy that produces carbon dioxide should be illegal.

5) Forced relocation to cities should be allowed. Instead of inefficient surburban sprawl, cities can easily be serviced by electrically powered mass transit.

The need for private ownership of motor vehicles would end. (You could still own a car as a museum piece, after the destruction of the drive train has been certified by the government). By using the above steps, we would be well on our way to a bright, enviromentally-sustainable future.

There are always those who care more about themselves than the enviroment. The goverment would have re-education centers where the mental problems of these people could be addressed, so they could be cured of their self-centered view of the world. After all, not caring about the enviroment is ultimately suicidal – and suicidal people need help.

There’s only one man I would trust with ther fate of our enviroment and our country – Obama. No oil, no blood for oil, no nukes, and no C02 – let’s get back to nature again and use renewable solar, wind, and tidal power. Our lives depend on it.

President Obama in 2009 ! Obama ! Obama ! Obama ! Obama ! Obama !

The Honda sales rep told me that Honda mainly sells the Civic CNG to fleet operators. This in part was due to the fixed daily driving needs of fleet vehicles. He mentioned that the CNG carbon-fiber tank holds 3,600 psi and gets very hot if filled at a station, (as opposed to the 5 hour overnight top off or an 8 hour complete fill). In Texas Summers, quick filling at a station may add significantly to heat load on the AC inside the vehicle,
But in attempting to calculate how much electricity that it would take to compress the 1 and a half PSI Natural Gas available at home into the 3,600 psi of the tank, an Electrical Engineer friend of mine estimated that it may take one to one and a half kilowatts to fill it if the garage were at the typical 110 degrees on a typical Texas Summer evening. Typical Texas Summer evenings tend to happen 6 months of the year.
Also, the 5 to 7 thousand dollar compressor system which hangs onto your garage wall to fill it has a 3 year warranty, and is the cost of ownership which is essentially rebated back to the home owner via the Gas Company here.
(But it is an expensive piece of equipment were it to break down).
As a range extender for the Volt, well, the combined complexities and issues are inviting Murphy’s Law a little too much, it seems to me.
As far as Wind Turbine blade stress, research is going on currently regarding carbon fiber blades. Carbon fiber can be generally 3 times stronger than steel, and, since the weight of the mass is far less, Wind torque may likely be the only factor in their stresspoints at the hubs. Research centers are being built in or near Corpus Christi I believe.
The only constant in the Universe is Change. Economics usually changes things for the better. When something turns out to have a flawed design, the option is not to take it all down, it is to make improvements, to use your brain, to enjoy an aggressive attack on the problem, which we all need to do.
Even if you believe we may be “well past the tipping point” for climate change, our responsibility would then be to work as hard as possible to remain in a position to stay in control to not go past the “adaptation point”.
The dinosaurs had no option when the meteor suddenly struck.
But unless we use our brains, our open mindedness, and cut the the politics, we are no better off than yeast placed in a bottle of wine in order to make it champagne. Yeast organisms merrily producing bubbles of carbon dioxide to their ultimate poisoning and their ultimate deaths.
We have no choice but to succeed.
Dan Petit Austin, TX.

The tariff would have to encompass all (or most) liquid petroleum products.

Yes, setting a floor would have a huge positive impact on bio-fuels and plug-ins. Also, in the near term, if people know for sure gas prices will never go back down to what they were 8 years ago, that would discourage the purchase of huge gas guzzling cars.

Yes. If gas prices go way down, that would tend to kill the electric car, again.
In the movie “Who Killed The Electric Car?”, did they ever blame OPEC? In late 90s, OPEC increased production dramatically, which lowered gas prices to less than $1/gallon. And by the way, OPEC also lowered gas prices in the late 70’s to kill ethanol, and then again in the late 80s to kill small cars that were becoming popular. In every case, the low prices lasted just long enough to kill the competition, and then went back up. So how can we imagine they won’t do it again?
I believe the U.S. should set a minimum price on oil. If prices fall below that point, import tariffs should be raised to hold that minimum price.
This would not only keep OPEC from killing the Volt, but it will also promote new investment in alternative fuels in general.
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Dave G:

I agree whole heartedly with you on this point, but I will add that the floor must also include refined petroleum products (gasoline). If the floor is only applied to imported oil, then oil companies would move to import refined petroleum products to avoid the tax and thereby increase profit margins, assuming a world market price for petroleum below the floor at some point due to reduced demand.

I also think PHEV’s will have a huge impact on oil demand as they penetrate the market, which will also serve to suppress oil prices. At the very least, they will serve to increase OPEC’s ability to manipulate oil supply, as the net effect of reduced demand will be to give OPEC more excess capacity. I believe the lack of a floor will spell the doom for alternative fuels like cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel and algae. A floor would help these alternative products get established and recover their capital expenses – and that’s the key to getting them into the market, so that we have a real market in “refined energy products suitable for automobiles”.