Experts agree U.S. is addicted to oil, but differ on how to cur...

I think safe nuclear energy would be nice.
What happened to the cold fusion thing? A while back
it seemed that some chinese scientist found a breakthrough. I havent heard for a while.

<What if tell Ford and GM to "shove it" and just raise their CAFE by 20% or shut down?>

You can't just make it happen with a government mandate. The government doesn't know it's ass from it's elbow, let alone how to produce fuel efficient cars. If our Fat-Lipped Government demanded cars that get 60 MPG, the Auto Industries would comply. We would get plastic go-carts powered by Briggs & Straton engines. We'd all wind up driving these government mandated pieces of crap.

mgl wrote:

I think safe nuclear energy would be nice.
What happened to the cold fusion thing? A while back
it seemed that some chinese scientist found a breakthrough. I havent heard for a while.

Nuclear energy needs to play a role in our energy independence. The problem with round one of US facilities was that several different designs were developed simultaneously rather than developing a design through several generations. To many different plants, all one of a kind were built instead of coming up with one good design and building it over and over again not to mention the benefits of common maintenance items and other standardised equipment that would increase maintainability as well as significantly cut construction and operational costs.

Dave wrote:

<What if tell Ford and GM to "shove it" and just raise their CAFE by 20% or shut down?>
You can't just make it happen with a government mandate. The government doesn't know it's ass from it's elbow, let alone how to produce fuel efficient cars. If our Fat-Lipped Government demanded cars that get 60 MPG, the Auto Industries would comply. We would get plastic go-carts powered by Briggs & Straton engines. We'd all wind up driving these government mandated pieces of crap.

The Japanese seem to be able to meet our standards without breaking a sweat. Maybe because they spend there money on R&D instead of lobbying for extensions and lower standards.

It seems that the best efficiency we can get with internal combustion is about, 1/3 of the energy is waste heat going out the exhaust pipe, 1/3 is waste heat in the Engine itself, the remaining third is mechanical output, subject to frictional losses. So far we've not had much luck reclaiming the 2/3 waste.

Can't argue about the Japanese doing a better job.
They have definite advantages over their US competitors. Nissan and Honda don't have to contend with things like Affirmative Action, Hiring quotas, Trade Unions, Expensive Health and Retirement plans, environmental regulations etc. All these things reduce productivity and profit, and drive our industries out of the country. The Japanese plants in the US are located far away from inner cities, so as to avoid hiring problematic minorities.

I doubt even our best competitors could give us a 60 MPH vehicle without resorting to downsized engines, and substituting metals with Plastic's and other light weight materials, and essentially producing an expensive hi tech golf-cart, that no one could want or afford.

I see the day coming when the Gov will raise CAFE standards to the point where most of us will be driving little tiny cars and trucks.

Dave wrote:

I see the day coming when the Gov will raise CAFE standards to the point where most of us will be driving little tiny cars and trucks.

But wait!! Ralph Nader wanted the government to require us to have BIGGER cars!

Ralph Nader was the main instigator of the age of government regulation of automobiles. He made his name by attacking the Chevrolet Corvair as "Unsafe at Any Speed".

Nader also attacked the Volkswagan Beetle as a "death trap" because it was too small and light, and would not provide adequate safety in a collision with a bigger, heavier American car.

I'll bet that many of those who want the gub'mint to impose higher CAFE standards, and mandate smaller cars, were long-haired dope smoking fans of Ralph Nader in the 1960's.

The Respected Doofinator