Posted on 01/16/2008 12:35:46 AM PST by Brian S. Fitzgerald
THE world's biggest car maker, General Motors, believes the global oil supply has peaked and a switch to electric cars is inevitable.
In a stunning announcement at the opening of the Detroit Motor Show yesterday, GM's chairman and chief executive officer, Rick Wagoner, said ethanol was an important interim solution to the demand for oil, until battery technology gave electric cars the range of petrol-powered cars.
GM is working on an electric car, the Volt — due in showrooms in 2010 — but delays in battery technology have slowed its development...
(Excerpt) Read more at energybulletin.net ...
Okay... Waggoner is attempting to get the greenies to buy his products by publically espousing their crackpot pet theory. Or he’s gone over to the darkside, in which case he needs to be booted before he can cause any further damage.
Only the eltie will be able to burn oil.
Pretty sad when we start burning food for fuel.
| General Motors Corp. 300 Renaissance Center, Detroit, MI 48265-3000 January 15, 2008 |
|
To: Vehicle Design/Engineering Staff Thank you, Richard Wagoner, CEO cc: Robert Lutz |
I live in NH, can’t wait to see those battery powered DOT trucks plowing snow.
I would love to see the cost of disposal on one Hybrid car battery reach 5k!! disposal and purchase fee is about the same. they cost new to install about 8k.
Plants that build these batteries pollute the ground worse than any oil well ever has.
The story says: "Mr Wagoner cited US Department of Energy figures that showed the world was using about 1000 barrels of oil every second and demand was likely to increase by 70% in the next 20 years." The direct quote from Wagoner is, "There is no doubt demand for oil is outpacing supply at a rapid pace, and has been for some time now .... As a business necessity and an obligation to society we need to develop alternate sources of propulsion.
That ain't peak oil, folks. Oil may or may not peak anytime soon, but the surging demand is going to drive prices up either way. Automakers have to adjust to that reality.
To the credit of this publication, someone called them on the misleading lede earlier and they cover it in an "editorial note." Read to the bottom.
We get most of our oil from the country to the north, our second largest source of oil is the country to the south. Doesn’t it stand to reason there is a mess of oil in the US itself? We cannot drill in Alaska or off of Florida or California and yet there is no oil in America. BS.
Regards
The guy makes cars. I’m a retired business owner and I say more then half the oil has yet to be found or developed as a resourse.
Prove me wrong.
Follows their decision to quit developing the next gen V8 (wonder how many jobs will be lost over this?)
http://www.caranddriver.com/carnews/14532/bye-bye-to-gms-v-8s.html
The debate is about to change in a big way. Corn ethanol is going to build out to about 12-15 billion gallons/yr. That much is in the pipeline now. There may be some growth beyond that as yields increase and/or more acreage shifts into corn, but the emerging story is cellulosic ethanol.
The first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plants are being built now. If they can hit their projected price points, the buildout will begin in the next couple of years. What the feedstocks will be a decade from now is anyone's guess; there are hundreds of potential feedstocks being investigated, and all involved recognize that we have barely scratched the surface in terms of investigating the biosphere for candidates.
The conventional estimate is that we have the biomass potential right now to supply 30% of our transportation fuel needs from currently identified cellulosic feedstocks: mainly current farm and forest wastes and some recycling. That is without the development of dedicated energy crops. This is an open door. There is some neat stuff out there. In hand -- no, of course not. Yet.
But biofuels are clearly a live option as are, further down the road, electric cars and hydrogen fuel cells, singly or in combination. Lots of options.
Especially when it's not at all necessary, practical or cost efficient to do so......
So, you don't think Jorge begging the Saudis to pump more oil is the answer? /sarcasm off
They are right to make flex-fuel engines.
They are wrong to tout ethanol as the fuel to burn in them.
They should burn Methanol, a product that can be made economically from our vast coal reserves. We are correct to turn to the flex-fuel engines.
There is no doubt in my mind that the cost equation for petroleum should include the cost of fighting wars against Islam. Every dollar we are spending in Iraq would not be necessary if these folks weren’t enriched by oil money with which they can engage in their idiotic, religious jihad against the world.
Every single dime we spend on defense and diplomacy regarding Islam should be added to the cost of oil.
That makes ethanol fare better by comparison, but the real answer is Methanol.
Hurrah.
About time Detroit got rid of the V-8.
Now, if they’d get rid of the V-6 and rediscover the merits of an I-6, we’d be in even better shape.
Canada is the largest imported crude oil supplier to the US. That is not the same as saying they supply most of our need.
We use 20.7 MMBPD of Petroleum. Canada supplies 2.5 MMBPD or 12%.
U.S. Crude Oil and Petroleum Products Product Supplied
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbblpd_m.htm
Total U.S. Total Crude Oil and Petroleum Products Imports From Canada
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mttimusca2m.htm
Actually, there’s a better alternative than either ethanol or methanol: butanol.
Butanol has:
1. A higher energy density (ie, more BTU per gallon) than either ethanol or methanol. Methanol has a lower heat content per unit volume than ethanol, so going to methanol is moving in the wrong direction there.
2. The ability to be transported by existing petroleum product pipelines.
3. A better blending ability with gasoline or diesel fuels.
4. Lower octane than ethanol, so we lose something there.
5. The ability to be made from the same feedstock & fermentation plants as ethanol.
Some more research needs to be done on yeasts for butanol production to allow the microbes to survive higher levels of butanol in the mash to reduce the energy requirements in fermentation processing.
You may be on to something. Wasn’t it corn that the gubmint was paying farmers NOT to grow???
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