About 10 years ago, Chevrolet offered a vehicle that got 60 MPG and cost about $5,000.
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Transportation without the frills, the 3 cylinder Geo Metro was pretty zippy, but didn't produce the profit margin the widely advertised gas guzzlers did.
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As a Geo Metro owner, who watched the failure of Congress to increase CAFE for 22 years and the lobbying efforts to mandate improved fleet efficiency prevent progress, it was interesting that a regular reader sent the following:
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The VW 1L is so named because, in theory, it only consumes one liter of fuel per 100 kilometers traveled. For those of us in the US, this translates into about 235 MPG. Definitely far and above anything on the market currently. The concept, developed in 2002, actually got better fuel economy, scoring a sweet .89L/100km in VW testing. It’s likely to use more fuel in real world use, but with that kind of mileage in testing it’s unlikely that anyone would complain about an “unsatisfactory 200 MPG.”
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235 MPG?
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Our current energy crisis, that is more a matter of a wide ranging issue we have long ignored, has many solutions and options available. While I have offered the Pickens Plan as part of the solution, detractors are raising other issues.
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That means putting aside the media buzz and fawning articles and seeing the Pickens Plan for what it is: a resource power grab for a post-oil oil tycoon. Natural gas will not save us from environmental catastrophe, nor will it wean us off foreign oil. Wind farms are a great start, but they deserve to be more than leadoff pitchers for natural gas, whose implementation into our fleet will do nothing to kick-start the massive emissions reductions we are going to need. Everything from oceanic dead zones and bizarre storms to desertification and societal collapse are on the burner. And we need to cool it down, rather than heat it up.
In the end, the Pickens Plan will not make that happen, no matter what kind of deathbed conversion T. Boone Pickens is experiencing. LINK
In the end, the Pickens Plan will not make that happen, no matter what kind of deathbed conversion T. Boone Pickens is experiencing. LINK
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Regardless of your definition of T. Boone Pickens, he has opened the debate and provided some easy to understand information about energy and oil, including that we have reached World Peak Oil production and that many of the countries once considered major oil producers have declining production.
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Since each home is the rough equivalent of two vehicles in energy consumption, improved efficiency represents a permanent reduction, as well as the personal reward of money savings, I believe a major emphasis should be placed on conservation as posted elsewhere. And since the experts indicate that 20-30% of our consumption is simply wasted, it seems reasonable. Clearly, conservation alone will not wean us off foreign oil or dirty coal, but it will reduce the need for additional power plants and make alternatives more reasonable.
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1 comment:
The coments about water privitization and destroying an aquifer is scarry. TX partime legislaters and poor education allowed this. Pickens tells you we use 25% of oil but doesnt go further.
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