OK Greenfly, this one doesn’t look like a ‘bot.

The question is, what IS it. It looks like a real person pushing on the thread, the link on the name is to a travel web-site. The opinion stated is little more than a grammatically correct summary.

Travel Guru – tell us who/what is your purpose here?

BJ

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>>first they have to understand the facts.

They need to understand that cars don’t require oil to run.

But I fear oil is too much part of the earth religion for greens to talk any sense when it comes to transport policy….

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People are the market, Frog. The market is the sum of their decisions.

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How are people not the market?

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Optimist – Just where did anyone (except you) say that we were running out of oil? It is head in the sand cornucopians like yourself who say that. The Peak Oil crowd does not. It is a straw man that you fantasysts love to knock down. Peak oil means the end of the cheap and easy half of the oil. Nothing more. It also means that the market will struggle to find suitable low cost alternatives, particularly when those of you who regularly deny the laws of physics insist that there is no problem, and that the market will solve everything. The market will solve nothing. People will. But first they have to understand the facts.

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“Peak oil is a silly myth brought on my people who simply don’t understand the incentive that a high price gives to find more. ”

Optie,

Do you think the same is true of Peak Islands too? That the lack of undiscovered islands to conquer, which the europeans encountered around 1820, simply gave them enough incentive to find more, which caused there to be more islands?

Natural resources are not unlimited. You cannot *always* find more by merely increasing the demand.

35 years ago we had a petrol crisis. And the result was increase in oil supply. That’s because back then vast tracks of the world had never had a decent geological survey, and sudden rise in petrol prices gave an incentive to get out and get mapping. But it isn’t the early 70s any more.

Though “Peak Oil” is an oversimplification. The real question isn’t the amount of petrol supply. The problem is the diminishing returns – we’ve long ago found all the easiest to extract fields, and in the 70s we went after the less easy stuff (oil rigs in the cold seas off Scotland and Norway are *not* a cheap or easy way to get oil). We’re now onto much more marginal finds. If it costs vast amounts (of dosh and energy) to extract the oil then it’s not worth it.

“I’ll bet you $1000 oil supply will be higher in 5 years than now.”

What index would you use to measure that? I may be willing to take that bet.

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icehawk, It has taken a 100% increase in the retail price of petrol to eliminate per capita traffic growth. To be effective at reducing tha absolute amount of traffic a carbon tax will need to have at least the same impact on the retail price, not just add a few cents.

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…or a slightly more complicated Scheme…

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The difference in petrol used per kilometre by a SUV and by a Suzuki Swift is greater than the difference in petrol used per kilometer by a Suzuki Swift and an electric car.

My point is that we’ve had the technology to cut down on petrol usage for many years. What we lack are sufficient incentives.

Cue the carbon tax.

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The US is now in a revolution to hybrid and plug-in vehicles which will provide more than 4.1 times per passenger mile efficiency using electrical energy for propulsion than using a gallon of gasoline. That difference will increase as vehicles like the GM VOLT, which will get something like 100 mpg equivalent energy, come onto the market.

Here are some 2008 vehicle efficiency data in miles per gallon:
City Highway Vehicle
48 45 Toyota Prius Hybrid
40 45 Honda Civic Hybrid
34 30 Ford Escape Hybrid
33 44 Smart ForTwo by Mercedes
29 35 Toyota Yaris
21 22 Chevy Tahoe (SUV) Hybrid
SOURCE: Government Technology 2008 September issue

As vehicles become more efficient using electrical propulsion as shown above, the difference in cost per passenger mile will improve even more for passenger vehicles over the cost of public transportation.

Therefore, more and better roads will be needed and maintained, especially for places in the US, since places in the US with high rise buildings are comparatively sparse. Note too that hybrids are more efficient in city/suburb driving where most people live than for highway driving; however highway driving is still more efficient for hybrids than for most gasoline only propelled vehicles.

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“V8 petrol cars are the answer. What is the question?”

What kind of cars do the most selfish drivers drive?

Trevor.

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V8 petrol cars are the answer. What is the question?

Environmentalists are far too precious about transport. We are simply not running out of oil. In a decade the first world (of which we may be part) will look back on petrol cars as noisy, low performance and old-fashioned, a bit like an old computer. There will still be heaps of them around, but they will be like laptops without WiFi.

As cars become more automatic they will take more trips, but we may use less cars overall through automatic taxis, etc.

But transport is about getting people from A to B via the shortest and fastest route. The exception is tourism I suppose, so rail will have some value there. Maybe NZ could try to have the most antique rail in the world?

Buses will be for those who can’t afford cars and have plenty of time on their hands for stops, detours and changes. I didn’t say everything will change.

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I conclude that public transport is not the whole answer. No one thing is. PT is part of the answer. Electric cars are part of the answer. Electric trains are another part. Even the hydrogen economy may be part of the answer – although I am not sure just which part or how big a part

Trevor.

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“In 20 years you will look back on 2008 as a golden age of the car, before it got re-invented, and consumed a whole lot MORE energy.”

I can’t wait for 2001 when we will be travelling through the Galaxy on a Pan Am space craft.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/

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We have, and we conclude that public transport is not the answer.

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>>Your stance is religious.

>>In 20 years you will look back on 2008 as a golden age of the car, before it got re-invented, and consumed a whole lot MORE energy.

Faith in technology is also covertly religious. To my mind ‘religiousity’ is not erroneous per se. We just need to question the assumptions that our particular beliefs unearth. For instance, it seems reasonable to continuously consider the environmental and social impacts of both new and well entrenched technological activities and advances (eg cloning and motor transport, respectively) in the light of the forever changing current state of affairs.

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> “It is just that claims like ‘the car is here to stay’ seem to lack both a respect for both the environment and the hopefully synergistic advance of human morality and human ingenuity. ‘Transport is here to stay’ is infinitely more palatable. We need to move away from our worship of the car in its present form at least.�

Get ready for:

- automatic cars to ferry the kids around
- flying cars
- robot cars to fetch things

In 20 years you will look back on 2008 as a golden age of the car, before it got re-invented, and consumed a whole lot MORE energy.

On the other hand if you don’t want to drive a car, don’t. Leave the rest of us to our secular lifestyles outside your environmental world. We’re happy enough. This massive ball of rock doesn’t seem to care much about the cars either.

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“It is just that claims like ‘the car is here to stay’ seem to lack both a respect for both the environment and the hopefully synergistic advance of human morality and human ingenuity. ‘Transport is here to stay’ is infinitely more palatable. We need to move away from our worship of the car in its present form at least.”

Your stance is religious.

The car is an example of human ingenuity. Morality has nothing to do with. PT also creates an impact on the environment – in many cases more so than the car. Is it therefore immoral?

It is not about worshipping anything. It is about solving transportation problems.

The car solves most of those problems better than the alternatives.

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Imagine a windmill charging an electric car which struggles against the wind; it’s a bit like a hydro electric power station lifting water from a well.

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The Optimist Says:
September 28th, 2008 at 12:01 pm

jh the point is that developers don’t pay ANYTHING. They simply pass the costs on to the consumer. Just like any other regulation / environment initiative / etc.
……….
They can’t pass the costs on if the buyer finds the price too high. Suppose we set a point where we say that the existing infrastructure is fully utilised at point x and beyond that we will need to upgrade. There needs to be sufficient benefit to the existing population to justify building new infrastructure. Unfortunately our society is run by interest groups to a significant degree and those opposed to growth are ignored (except by Winston).

“Go live in the UK for a few years if you want to see what happens when demand outstrips supply on roads.”

In the UK the population keeps swelling and for whose benefit….. developers and associated business lobbyists.

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