<html><head><base href="x-msg://46/"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">This is fantasy, pure fantasy. I never thought I'd see such pie-in-the-sky nonsense coming from Beyond Zero Emissions. <div><br></div><div>I have added below a couple of clips from James Kunstler which, I hope, will cool down the overheating Matthew Wright.</div><div><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>-----------------------------</div><div>Keith Thomas</div><div><a href="http://www.evfit.com">www.evfit.com</a></div><div>-----------------------------</div></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></span>
</div>
<br><div><div>On 15/01/2011, at 2:13 PM, Jenny Goldie wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div bgcolor="#ffffff"><div><font size="2" face="Arial"><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/electric-cars-should-drive-our-dreams-20110113-19pv7.html">http://www.theage.com.au/business/electric-cars-should-drive-our-dreams-20110113-19pv7.html</a></font></div><div><font size="2" face="Arial"><h1 class="cN-headingPage prepend-5 span-11 last">Electric cars should drive our dreams</h1><div class="push-0 span-11 last"><div class="cT-storyDetails cfix"><h5>Matthew Wright</h5><cite>January 14, 2011</cite><ul></ul></div><bod><div class="articleBody"><p><strong>The Australian car industry faces a big drop in demand.</strong></p><p>... The upward trend in electric vehicle production and demand - which will increase along with oil prices - is the key to future-proofing the Australian car industry.</p><p>The first Chevy Volt electric vehicles rolled off GM assembly lines in Michigan last month. The US car maker has made the electric vehicle (EV) a key plank in renewing its brand.</p><p>....If we want to avoid being left with an increasingly weak car industry, we have to move ahead with manufacturing pure electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars in Australia.</p><div>================</div><div><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">From 2 August 2010:</span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">I'd like to know how many Americans believe that </span></font><span style="color:
red"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">electric cars</span></font></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"> run on virtually free energy (but I don't have
pollsters on my payroll). I'd bet a lot of them do, including President Obama.
Sorry to rain on this uplifting parade. At best, such a car fleet would run on
coal -- that is coal-fired electric power plants -- but even that is a
ridiculous fantasy when you actually pencil-out the details. Not to mention
that a nation full of people with dwindling or vanishing incomes won't be in a
position to fork over forty-grand for one of those new pseudo "green"
vehicles. Also not to mention -- wait for it -- that due to rapidly vanishing
capital there will be far fewer car loans available. The only thing growing in
this part of the picture is the number of Americans who cannot possibly qualify
for a car loan under normal terms that would require regular repayment of
interest-and-principal. (Plenty of Americans qualify for the new
"innovative" kind of loan -- the kind that you never have to make
payments on, but for the moment, the banks are choking to death on them, so
additional approvals may lag for a time.)</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">It's instructive that so much current hoopla about economic growth
revolves around the issue of cars. For, if anything, reality is telling us very
clearly that the mass motoring paradigm is near its end. Our determination to
prop it up at all costs, despite the grave impairments of available capital and
energy resources is a symptom of our detachment from reality. It's also a fine
illustration of the psychology of previous investment, which prompts a
desperate society to squander its scarce remaining resources on the very things
that are putting it out of business.</span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">We don't need more highways. We're about to find out that we don't have
the money to keep up regular repairs on the highways we already have. The
hundreds of millions of "stimulus" dollars that President Obama flung
into "shovel-ready" highway projects was among the more tragically
dumb mistakes he made early on, and he has apparently learned nothing along
these lines since then.<o:p></o:p></span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"> ==========</span></font></o:p></span></p><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">From 13 July 2009</span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br></span></font></div><div><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"> A genuine reorganization of the US economy seems beyond the ken not just of all
US politicians but of the entire US news media and business leadership. A
wonderful example last week was the idiotic press conference by General Motors
marketing chief, Bob Lutz, who thinks he can revive the American Dream with
</span><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#FF201A">electric car</font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">s. (By the way, this is pretty much the same thinking I encountered
at the Aspen Environmental Forum among the Green celebrities.)</span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">
From a purely practical standpoint, the electric car is absurd. If they
were produced on a mass basis, they would crash the electric grid -- assuming
that the masses could afford to buy them, which assumes a lot. We simply don't
have the electric generating capacity to run even one-quarter of the current
car fleet on volts, and building the necessary nuclear or coal-fired power
plants in five years is also an absurdity. (Don't expect wind, solar, biomass,
or anything else to pick up the slack.) If electric cars were produced as just
a niche product for the elite (e.g. Goldman Sachs employees), they would soon
provoke the resentment of the non-elite left to the mercy of the oil markets.</span></font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">
Anyway, America's motoring dilemma has gone beyond the issue of how we power
the cars -- and even beyond the insanity of blindly maintaining our extreme car
dependency per se. The continuation of Happy Motoring now hinges on two
other big quandaries: 1. the likelihood that there will be far less capital
available for car loans, and 2.) the likelihood that there will be far less
government money for road maintenance. The problem of Peak Oil -- and the
prospect of price-jackings and shortages -- is just the cherry on top.</span></font></span></p>
<span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">
By the way, for practical purposes Bob Lutz of GM is an employee of the US
taxpayers now, since the US owns 60 percent of the "new" General
Motors, so he must be considered a spokesman for national policy. Since a
transformation of the US car fleet to electric vehicles is absurd, what would
be an appropriate response to profound economic contraction? How about walkable
communities connected by public transit? Why is that not a focus of the
"new" General Motors? In 1941 the company made the
transformation from cars to armaments in a matter of months</span></font></span><b><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">;</span></font></span></b><span lang="EN-US"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"> why can't it produce the
rolling stock for a renewed passenger rail system? Or trams? Is
this not enough of a crisis?</span></font></span><!--EndFragment-->
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->
</div><p><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></span></font></p></div></bod></div></font></div></div></span></div></div></body></html>