T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Re: Regeneration Free Lunch

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Re: [Electric Boats] Re: Regeneration Free Lunch

I'm with you on this, but I favor something that is really doable. Something
like a 50% or 100% tax on fuel. This occurs today in Europe, which, by the
way has a really good public transportation system. You can go pretty much
anywhere without a car.

As far as politicians go, it doesn't take balls or brains to get them to move
on issues like this. It takes making it an issue they MUST address in order
to get re-elected. That means WE need to inform them that their success
depends on "being green". I don't believe politicians are intrinsically bad;
they just respond to what gets them elected. Similarly, I don't think
corporations are intrinsically bad, they just respond to what makes them
money. Therefore, we need to make green issues critical for re-election of
politicians, and make it economically viable for the corporate world to go
green.

------ Original Message ------
Received: 08:29 AM PDT, 06/17/2009
From: "dennis wolfe" <dwolfe@dropsheet.com>
To: <electricboats@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Electric Boats] Re: Regeneration Free Lunch

> Mark,
>
> Amen.
>
> Both my son and his wife are in the middle east fighting for our right to
keep unlimited supplies of cheap oil flowing. Too bad our politicians don't
have the brains and/or balls to pay for the war with a crude oil use tax. You
are right that our choices are based on prices that ignore so many external
costs.
>
> There would be no war if there was no market for crude, the cost of crude
should reflect the cost of the war. Ten minutes with google shows the cost of
the GWOT in 2008 was $20 per barrel of oil consumed in the US.
>
> What's the per barrel cost of global warming???
>
> Denny
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mark Stafford
> To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 11:00 AM
> Subject: [Electric Boats] Re: Regeneration Free Lunch
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks all for hanging in there with the regen conversation. I like the
marginality of regen; I like how that slim slice of speed energy we are
required to sacrifice and trade for gathering more electrons encourages the
recognition of how precious those stored electrons are. We really have to pay
through the nose to gather/store electrons with current technology.
>
> The 800 pounds of lead battery to 1 gallon fuel ratio could effect the
same recognition, but it usually has the opposite psychological impact: since
we horrendously under-value fuel, we end up devaluing batteries.
>
> What do I mean, "under-value fuel"? When Americans think of a gallon of
gasoline (we never think about petrol), we do not consider our amazing
transportation infrastructure, our failed health-care system, our dead
soldiers, other country's dead civilians, our expensive and inflammatory
self-perpetuating arms-race, our opportunity cost of nearly 70 years of dying
for oil, and the potential extinction of humanity. We are a blind petroleum
economy, and the corporations making billions on our backs would sooner us
disappear than transition to a non-petroleum economy.
>
> If we really considered the long term effects and affects of using
petroleum gasoline, we would be paying at least $100 USD per gallon.
Corporations have so thoroughly externalized those costs (securing supply,
building roads, and mitigating environmental impact), that to even suggest we
pay a dime more, sends the world into a tizzy!
>
> Cognitively, this is hard to actually consider. It is easier to
emotionally react, to brand me kooky, laugh at my stupidity, and continue on
your merry way. I invite you instead to consider the possibility that we
really have been blind, that our extraordinarily delightful lives have costs
that others have been paying, and to begin to recognize and appreciate those
payments.
>
> There is no free lunch. Someone else is paying the rest of that $97 per
gallon. Sure the US Taxpayer gives another $10. Our children (debt) give
another $20. Our health gives another $5. Ours and others' attendant
fatalities give another $30. Our opportunity cost gives another $20. That
leaves $12 gambling that we as a species survive. Give or take.
>
> This is why I advocate for green(er) boats. Let's start walking towards a
brighter future. Keep up the regen dream, the X-prize 10:1, the patience with
newbies like me.
>
> Mark Stafford
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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