Posted on 09/19/2009 4:38:49 AM PDT by iowamark
America, are you ready for Rush Limbaugh in an electric car?
The conservative talk show host has agreed to take Jay Leno's "Green Car Challenge."
In the segment airing next Thursday on NBC's "Jay Leno Show," Limbaugh will race an electric Ford Focus around a custom-built track beside Leno's studio, the show's representative confirmed.
The "Green Car Challenge" segment makes its debut on the primetime show tomorrow night. Celebrities who participate drive two times around the twisty track, which takes a little less than a minute to complete.
By the time Rush gets behind the wheel of the zero-emission vehicle, Bob Costas, Al Michaels and Drew Barrymore will have set times to beat.
Limbaugh is not a fan of hybrid and electric cars. Last March he criticized such vehicles -- including Ford's.
"Nobody's buying 'em. Nobody wants them. The manufacturers are making them in droves to satisfy Obama. ... People are going to buy [hybrids] because Obama's going to see to it the price [of gas] gets back up to four bucks, since that is the tipping point … Ford and Toyota are manufacturing all kinds of new hybrids to keep politicians happy. Politics. You want to know what killed the auto industry? Politics.”
Leno has been interested in getting more newsmakers on his new program than on "The Tonight Show." On his second night he welcomed Michael Moore into the studio.
The advertiser-friendly "Green Car Challenges" allows NBC to work product sponsorship into the program, though some critics have wondered whether the segment will also be entertaining.
I'll be happy to look at a hybrid when they save money as well as gas :)
Furthermore, I would buy an electric car in a minute if it was fast, sporty and fun. I have a 5 mile drive to work over city streets, averaging 30 miles per hour. Even a 50 miles range would let me commute all week without plugging in.
This won’t work for most people, who have much longer commutes. As I said above, we need nuclear power plants and a delivery infrastructure before this can be widespread. But my unique conditions mean I could use an electric vehicle to commute in and if it was affordable, fast, sporty and fun, I would have no problem giving up my Chevy pickup for a fast, quiet, reliable alternative. No motor. No tranny. No clutch. These cars have to be dirt reliable, long lasting, and cheap to maintain.
Bring it on, I say. Just don’t FORCE people to buy them. That is where the lunatic fringe liberals and the communists like Obama go wrong. They don’t offer a choice, they issue commands.
And keep in mind that coal is a lot “dirtier” than gasoline or diesel - it’s relatively easy to refine out sulfur-containing impurities from liquid fuels - you just boil them and do it by fractional distillation.
But cleaning up solids is a much bigger problem - so even the low-sulfur coals still contain a bunch more sulfur than gasoline (and that sulfur, after combustion, ends up a SO2 and SO3 which have to be scrubbed or emitted).
I would use new technology if I can afford it, but, for everyone to be forced to is not productive.
>>as they try merge into the right lane
Merging into traffic?? That’s sooooo 1970! Most people I see around here think that a cell phone in your hand gives you the right of way and that the cars going 20 mph faster will just find a way to go around or slow down.
Bingo! If electric cars are green, zero-emmission machines, then so are incandescent light bulbs and air conditioners.
“They concluded that hydrogen car will replace the gasoline for general use...”
Again, more fantasy until somebody comes up with a useful source of hydrogen. Right now, if you want levels of H2 sufficient to dent our transportation needs, you’ll get it from . . . petroleum. There’s a brilliant thought - convert oil to CO2 and H2, and burn the H2, instead of just burning the damn gasoline.
Hydrogen will become a major player, and solar will matter for things like transportation, when we learn to use the energy of sunlight to cleave water to hydrogen and oxygen (which could then be recombined to give water and electricity).
Photochemical (solar) cleavage of water is hypothetically possible, but it’s hellishly difficult to make the process practical. There are numerous researchers working on that technical problem - that’s where we need to put some serious funding.
aha bump
Good opportunity for Rush to get his point across!
NBC is gambling heavily on this format since it’s cheap to produce - gee, it’d be a shame for GE if it tanks, after spending a gazillion bucks to promote it endlessly.
/s
Hydrogen as a fuel is a farce. Hydrogen is more akin to the acid in a battery than gasoline in a tank, that is, it is an energy storage medium, not an organic or refined fuel.
Hydrogen exists in nature almost exclusively as part of chemical compounds (hydrocarbons and water). In the case of water, you have to separate the Hydrogen atoms from the Oxygen atoms, only to then combine them into water again through combustion. Thermodynamics says this will never net an increase in energy, in other words, with perfect efficiency, you would only get out of the Hydrogen "fuel" the energy you used to make the "fuel".
Like charging a battery.
Do you have to charge the battery? How and where?
I like how the story says Limbaugh is not a fan of the cars because he says people arent buying them. To me, it sounds like Limbaugh is not a fan of the plan to have these cars be the base fleet for an auto company.
It both amuses and irks me that when they talk about these “clean” electric cars, they never talk about where the electricity comes from, as if it comes from a leprechaun’s pocket.
>>it’s very hard to stop or slow down 80,000 pounds of weight
I really think that people don’t understand that anymore. They think, “I could stop that fast, so anyone can”. As you said, they think the world revolves around them and and I’ll add that they think that even laws of physics are just guidelines.
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