$4 gas coming by spring? Analysts think so

I'm all for this. The purpose of a patent should be to use it to make money, not to deprive others from the technology. Make it a national security issue since a solid economy *is* a national security issue.

 

Easy way around that type of law, make a car a year with the technology and offer it for sale in some backwater nation. Can't say the technology isn't being used.

Better than that, how about the most advanced rechargable torch (flashlight)? You could use the technology in a way that has no influence on the motor industry.

 

Patent law is just another aspect of the US that is totally screwed up now. It was originally intended to promote innovation by allowing the principle inventor to profit from his/her invention for a set period of time(17 yrs). Then the invention would be in the public domain so that anyone could use it.

Now patents are used to stifle innovation or they are bought by Intellectual Property firms which wait until the invention hits the market and then sue or extort money from the company trying to produce the product.

 

actually the comment was not intended to question your purchase decision. it was aimed more at the discussion between the difference between ion and phosphate battery chemistries. i also do not believe that phosphate battery chemistry and licensing is controlled by any patents on Li-ion chemistry.

 

The writing is on the wall. Oil demeaned is going up world wide, and who really knows how much of this stuff is in the earth.
Consumers want energy independence from foreign oil countries.
So I think the oil comprise know with-in 50 years cars will not use gas. So how do the oil companies react? You resist change and rise prices to squeeze as much money out of the market for the product before it’s obsolete. Sound filmier?

:brick:

 

With the rapid advances genetic research, a couple of scientists have patented the concept of human animal hybrids. Not to make, but to keep others from rushing into it before we could have a public discussion on the ethics of doing so.

I know that doesn't apply to the discussion here, but patents weren't just invented for the purpose of making money. They also broke the monopolies of trade guilds, and increased innovation by allowing people to share their ideas without losing control of it.

Chevron may not be allowing people to make car batteries of a certain size, but you still have them in flashlights, and maybe backups to solar systems.

 

Actually, geology IS a precise enough science that experts CAN predict WHERE oil is, or at least where it MAY be, in theory, if you drill enough. We're going full bore on them right now, with the exception of some on the bottom of REAL deep oceans, or up towards the polar regions. Even those don't guarentee 50 years, as demand from us, Europe, Asia, and India are on the exponential increase. That means, we will no longer meet our demands. Only higher prices (supply and demand) slow down use. You hear rants, "no worries, tons of oil/tar sands ... it'll keep going for a long time". Wrong. The reason being, it costs a lot more to refine from those poorer sources, just like it costs a lot more to drill miles deep, or in frozen tundra. To muddy the scenerio even worse, the giant fields around the world that have been pumping for (in some cases) over a HALF century, will be coming off line, because the cost of energy to pump high pressure into a well, to get crude out, eventually outweighs the energy you get out. Many experts predict that in less than four years, we'll all be in for a wild ride ... what many refer to as a paradigm shift, in the way we all exist. 50 years? Even many experts that do PR spin for petro chemicle companies don't try and pass that off any more.

 

Are they mild hybrids or full hybrids?

 

Today on CNBC the head of Shell and AutoNation said that even they both feel that by the end of June or the early part of July that we will be well over $4.00 per gallon.

They both said that it's basically because of policy here in the US that forbids us from drilling in our own backyards that keeps us strangled by the OPEC cartel in the Middle East.

So we need a policy change as well as an alternative fuel source beyond petrolium.

 

Nah. None of those fields are big enough to create a meaningful production rate. That's what really matters. That's why the tar sands aren't really a solution. You can't produce the stuff fast enough to keep up with demand. The fields that we could exploit wouldn't hit their peak production for some time (years) and would take a few years to get into production so they'd have no immediate effect. By the time they came on line our domestic production would have dropped off a little more so some of the new gains would be offset by what we'd lost.

That said, we might want to produce those fields at some point, but they're not some panacea that will solve our problems and make oil cheap again. Those days are gone. There's simply too much global demand for that. Instead, we need to adopt strategies that REDUCE the amount of oil we consume. There are several ways to get there: efficiency, urban planning, public transportation, and disruptive technologies like EVs or alternative liquid fuels to name a few. The market is now starting to help push us in the right direction, but we need better policy to ease the pain. The market is too short sighted to be relied on to smoothly transition us from one for of energy to the next.