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Page added on March 30, 2018

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Kunstler: Not So Happy Motoring

Consumption

It hasn’t been a great month for America’s electric car fantasy. Elon Musk’s Tesla company — the symbolic beating heart of the fantasy — is whirling around the drain with its share price plummeting 22 percent, its bonds downgraded by Moody’s to junk status, a failure to produce its “affordable” ($36,000 — Ha!) Model 3 at commercial scale, a massive recall of earlier S Model sedans for a steering defect, and the spectacular fiery crash in Silicon Valley last week of an X model that may have been operating in automatic mode (the authorities can’t determine that based on what’s left), and which killed the driver.

Oh, and an experimental self-driving Uber car (Volvo brand) ran over and killed a lady crossing the street with her bicycle in Tempe, Arizona, two weeks ago. Don’t blame Elon for that.

There’s a lot to like about electric cars, of course, if, say, you’re a Google executive floating through life in a techno-narcissism bubble, or a Hollywood actor with wooly grandiose notions of saving the planet while simultaneously signaling your wealth and your “green” virtue cred. Teslas supposedly handle beautifully, ride very quietly, have great low-end power, and decent range of over 200 miles. The engine has something like twenty moving parts, is very long-lasting, and is easy to repair or change out if necessary.

Are they actually “green and clean?” Bwaahaaaaa….! Are you kidding? First, there’s the energy embedded in producing the car: mining and smelting the ores, manufacturing the plastics, running the assembly line, etc. That embedded energy amounts to about 22 percent of the energy consumed by the car over a ten-year lifetime. Then there’s the cost of actually powering the car day-by-day. The electricity around the USA is produced mostly by burning coal, natural gas, or by nuclear fission, all of which produce harmful emissions or byproducts. But the illusion that the power just comes out of a plug in the wall (for just pennies a day!) is a powerful one for the credulous public. The cherry-on-top is the fantasy that before much longer all that electric power will come from “renewables,” solar and wind, and we can leave the whole fossil fuel mess behind us. We say that to ourselves as a sort of prayer, and it has exactly that value.

There are at least a couple of other holes in story, big-picture wise. One is that electric mass motoring — switching out the whole liquid fuel fleet for an all-electric fleet — won’t pencil out economically. We probably started the project forty years too late to even be able to test it at scale, because economic events are now moving so quickly in the direction of global austerity that the putative middle-class customer base for electric cars will barely exist in the near future. Americans especially nowadays are so financially stressed that they can’t qualify for car loans — and that is mainly how cars are bought in this land. The industry has strained mightily to bend the rules so that these days it’s even possible to get a seven-year loan for a used car whose collateral value will dissipate long before the loan is paid back. Hard to see how they can take that much further.

The usual answer for that is that you won’t need to own a car because the nation will be served by self-driving electric Uber-style cars-on-demand, which will supposedly require far fewer cars in all. That really doesn’t answer some big questions, such as: how might commuting work in our big metroplex cities? Even if you posit multiple occupancy vehicles, it still represents a whole lot of car trips. Oh, you say, everybody will just work from home. Really? I don’t think so — though I wouldn’t rule out an end to corporate organization of work as we’ve known it, and if that happens, we will be a nation of farmers and artisans again, that is, a World Made By Hand. Also consider, if the car companies only need to make and sell a fraction of the vehicles they sell now, the whole industry will collapse.

Another hole in the story is the universal assumption that the USA must remain a land of mandatory car dependency, hostage to the fiasco of our suburban infrastructure. I understand why we’re attached to it. We spent most of the 20th century building all that shit, and squandered most our wealth on it. It’s comfortably familiar, even if it’s actually a miserable environment for everyday life. But none of those monetary and psychological investments negate the fact that suburbia has outlived its limited and rather perverse usefulness.

We’re so far from having any intelligent public debate about these issues that the events now spooling out will completely blindside the nation.

Kunstler



287 Comments on "Kunstler: Not So Happy Motoring"

  1. MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 10:48 pm 

    Madkat

    Do I have any facts? Look above at all my posts.. I always cites reliable sources. You just dont read them because you can’t handle the conclusions because you are a weak minded. These subjects I talk about are not for the faint of heart. If I was you I would go find a coloring book..The reason had to work construction is because you are not bright enough to make money using your mind. You are like an illegal immigrant. The scum of society.

    Hey Madkat Did you bring your own toilet paper to work everyday. So you could take a big shit in the porter potty at the work site? LOL

  2. MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 10:49 pm 

    How to spot Putin’s Fake news

    China can succeed with petro-yuan where Gaddafi failed – killing the US dollar in oil trade
    https://www.rt.com/business/422838-petro-yuan-dollar-gaddafi/

    Here is what the IMF holds in their reserves..see that little sliver that is China’s yuan..
    https://imgur.com/a/Pb6uZ#IFfzvGM

  3. MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 10:58 pm 

    They better start nuking some countries real soon to knock off some oil demand! That should keep the supplies flowing to America! And kick the can a few more decades! They should kill around 2 billion people!

  4. makati1 on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 10:58 pm 

    MM, You are a clone of Delusional Davy, nothing more MM. I have chosen to ignore arrogant fools. My time is better spent debating intelligent, rational, mature contributors here.

  5. MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 11:08 pm 

    Madkat

    You can run but you can’t hide! Look how I pulled your bitch cord! LOL What a chicken! Now get out of here boy! Skat!

  6. MASTERMIND on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 11:11 pm 

    Madkat

    You going to ignore me because you can’t win the debate. I use facts and evidence. You just argue insults or zeroheadge fake news! You are going to shit your depends real soon!

  7. makati1 on Sat, 31st Mar 2018 11:52 pm 

    Stupidity runs heavy in MM & Davy. They cannot accept defeat. Too bad! They deserve what is coming in spades, and soon.

  8. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:09 am 

    Madkat

    Well see who gets the last laugh! You dont see me backing down like you are! Who is the bitch now? Who has science and facts to back up his claims? Little old man…Die slow…All by yourself..

  9. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:22 am 

    Millimind should not be ignored but relentlessly attacked around the clock:

    “They better start nuking some countries real soon to knock off some oil demand! That should keep the supplies flowing to America! And kick the can a few more decades! They should kill around 2 billion people!”

    https://goo.gl/images/hxRSDk

    Millimind/apneaman is a perfect representation of the Khazar trash that is running Washington and trying to push the world into WW3.

    Europe, China, Russia and Islam need to prepare to thoroughly deal with f*. Targets: KSA, Israel, most top-politicians in Europe and America like Merkel, May, Clinton. And of course the Sanhedrin:

    https://youtu.be/FIQe9N5cH38

    The whole rotten edifice that is in place since 1945 or even earlier: NATO, CFR, FED, media, Wallstreet, all these institutions that at the same time try to wipe out the original populations in Europe and America through encouraging mass migration under the refuge pretext…

    http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/03/30/caravan-1500-central-american-migrant-familes-crossing-mexico-reach-u-s-border/

    …and at the same time try to overthrow regimes in Russia and China in order to “integrate” them in the NWO, that is bring them into the loving care of the Soros bunch, so they can create a mongrelized world of despized “goyim” totally under control of the self-chosen.

    Millimind and his tribe want to kill 2 billion. Really killimind. Ever heard of blowback? The next pogrom could be global. And everybody who matters knows who runs America…

    http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/167289/nanjing-jewish-studies

    Now come on Millimind, throw your clueless Anglos against Iran and start some real drama. The world won’t get rid of America, Anglosphere and its behind-the-scenes rulers without WW3.

  10. makati1 on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:35 am 

    Blow-back is what is coming to America in ways that even my imagination cannot conceive. Wait and see. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving country.

  11. makati1 on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:38 am 

    A trillion dollars per year on the military security system and they cannot even maintain the stuff they have now. lol

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-28/air-force-risks-losing-third-of-f-35s-if-upkeep-costs-aren-t-cutc

    Us collapse is coming…

  12. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:50 am 

    Madkat and Clogg

    The only way to get rid of temptation. Is to yield to it.

    -Oscar Wilde
    –

  13. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:52 am 

    Madkat

    Which country owns all the worlds GPS satellites? How is Russia and China going to attack us with computer guided missiles? We can just turn off the all their technology you dumb idiot. WE RUN SHIT BITCH!

  14. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:53 am 

    The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.”

    – Dr Who

  15. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 12:57 am 

    https://altright.com/2018/03/31/a-day-in-the-life-of-dimitri-leonidovich-oblomov/

    French right-wing literature from 2010 about Paris-Berlin-Moscow, that is the essence of white survival, climate change and hyper-technology.

  16. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:03 am 

    “Which country owns all the worlds GPS satellites? ”

    GPS is old US junk.
    Europe has something much better:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)

    Already operational, next year for 100%

    Our Russian friends have Glonass:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS

  17. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:07 am 

    Clogg

    Russia is not your friend. You just want an authoritarian leader to worship. because you need to be lead because you are an imbecile.

  18. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:11 am 

    check out this nuke simulator..Look what a US W78 bomb hitting Moscow would do!
    http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

    Bye bye..Vlad the bad!

  19. makati1 on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:16 am 

    The Chinese have their own systems also.

    “In 2015, China started the build-up of the third generation BeiDou system (BeiDou-3) in the global coverage constellation. The first BDS-3 satellite was launched on 30 March 2015.[4] As of January 2018, nine BeiDou-3 satellites have been launched.[5] BeiDou-3 will eventually consist of 35 satellites and is expected to provide global services upon completion in 2020. When fully completed, BeiDou will provide an alternative global navigation satellite system to the United States owned Global Positioning System (GPS),[6][7] and is expected to be more accurate than the GPS.[8] It was claimed in 2016 that BeiDou-3 will reach millimeter-level accuracy (with post-processing), which is ten times more accurate than the finest level of GPS.[7]” WIKI

    Newer. Better. Chinese. LOL

  20. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:18 am 

    They know the oil is going to be running out in a few years worldwide. I hate to be the one to say it but a major nuclear war to depopulate would make a lot of sense..

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/03/23/is-the-world-sleepwalking-into-an-oil-crisis/#3dd6e74344cf

  21. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:20 am 

    Turn off, tune out, drop out.

  22. makati1 on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:20 am 

    BTW: ” There are also the European Union Galileo positioning system, and India’s NAVIC. Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.” WIKI

    The Us GPS system is 40 years old. LOL

  23. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:21 am 

    CLogg

    Coal cannot work without crude, crude cannot work without coal, natural gas cannot work without both oil and coal, Shale oil cannot work without any of those, and so on…

    Do you understand now why your idea of underground coal is nonsense…You uneducated retard.

  24. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:24 am 

    Here is a piece of advice, “Make a little space in your mind for the idea that things could go sideways. The people that think things can’t go wrong will be flipping out, you’ll have an advantage…”

  25. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:24 am 

    “Stupidity runs heavy in MM & Davy. They cannot accept defeat. Too bad! They deserve what is coming in spades, and soon.”

    What’s da madder billy 3rd world do you have 3rd world internet. I guess it is not as robust as it was in Manila. You are not packing the board with you anti-American spam. You are impotent these days with the new restrictions.

  26. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:25 am 

    “Russia is not your friend. You just want an authoritarian leader to worship. because you need to be lead because you are an imbecile.”

    It is not up to you to decide who the friends of Europe are. I want white survival, which excludes friendship with a certain oligarchy and fake democracy:

    http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

    You could redefine democracy as a country that is led by leaders that the population actually likes. In this sense Hitler and Putin and Orban and Trump are the true democrats, not these (((US bankers))) who bought all their politicians with fresh printed Fed-dollars.

  27. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:26 am 

    one of three things is going to happen in the next decade..

    1. The global econony and stock market collapses due to exploding debts and cascading defaults.

    2. There is a worldwide oil shortage and price spike and then the global econony and stock market collapses.

    3. There is a major war or conflict between powerful nations that ends up collapsing the global economy and stock market.

    There is no way to avoid all three..And when one happens its game over…

  28. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:27 am 

    “Europe, China, Russia and Islam need to prepare to thoroughly deal with f*. Targets: KSA, Israel, most top-politicians in Europe and America like Merkel, May, Clinton. And of course the Sanhedrin:”

    What kind of slop is that nedernazi? You are sounding deranged. You might want to be careful talking like that you might end up on a list in your little dutchy.

  29. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:29 am 

    “Coal cannot work without crude, crude cannot work without coal, natural gas cannot work without both oil and coal, Shale oil cannot work without any of those, and so on…”

    I am saddened to hear that. And now we are all going to roll over and die, right?

    Sad.

    /facepalm

  30. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:30 am 

    “Blow-back is what is coming to America in ways that even my imagination cannot conceive.”
    Explain that one billy 3rd world, “blow back?” from where and who?

    “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
    That means Asia is done for. You just told on yourself dummy

    “Couldn’t happen to a more deserving country.”
    Do you tell your family how much you hate them?

  31. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:30 am 

    Clogg

    Who just gave the bankers a huge tax cut? Who hired the former Head of Goldman Sachs as his treasury secretary? And is a Jew? And like I said. Putin is not some white supremacist. You just want an authoritarian wannabe dictator to worship. Because you want to burn the place down because you are ugly and unsuccessful/stupid.

  32. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:31 am 

    “And when one happens its game over…”

    So the US isn’t going to win after all?

  33. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:31 am 

    “A trillion dollars per year on the military security system and they cannot even maintain the stuff they have now. lol”

    We are still in the top of military rankings in the world. I challenge you to find somewhere that differs.

  34. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:33 am 

    clogg

    There will be no rolling over, there will rape, murder and anarchy!
    http://www.energybulletin.net/sites/default/files/Peak%20Oil_Study%20EN.pdf

  35. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:33 am 

    “Paris-Berlin-Moscow”

    LMFAO, what a delusional old man fantasizing about something that isn’t.

  36. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:35 am 

    Poland signs $4.75 billion deal for U.S. Patriot missile system facing Russia

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-raytheon-poland-patriot/poland-signs-4-75-billion-deal-for-u-s-patriot-missile-system-facing-russia-idUSKBN1H417S?il=0

  37. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:35 am 

    “GPS is old US junk. Europe has something much better:”

    GPS, works just fine and it’s paid for. It is being updated all the time.

  38. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:37 am 

    Davy

    I know right..Clogg is in a “Deep State” of paranoia….

  39. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:40 am 

    “The Us GPS system is 40 years old. LOL”

    Dummy, you do realize it is constantly updated right, or you just being your usual stupid?

  40. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:41 am 

    The global economy is having a Wile E. Coyote moment

    Still, the groupthink on the synchronized global growth upturn is so pervasive that nobody seemed to notice that South Korea’s GDP contracted in the fourth quarter of 2017, partly due to the biggest drop in its exports in 33 years. And that news came as the country was in the spotlight as host of the winter Olympics.

    Because it’s so export-dependent, South Korea is often a canary in the coal mine of global growth. So, when the Asian nation experiences slower growth — let alone negative growth — it’s a yellow flag for the global economy.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-09/the-global-economy-s-wile-e-coyote-moment

  41. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:41 am 

    No worries Eurasia… we have millimind and his water carrier and “Last Soviet Standing” Davy destroying America for us with third world immigrants. We have to do nothing! Let them shout “racist” and “natzi” 24/7, all they achieve is creating a country of “functional illiterates” and ticking social time bomb. In the end we only have to pick up the pieces.

  42. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:42 am 

    “You could redefine democracy as a country that is led by leaders that the population actually likes. In this sense Hitler and Putin and Orban and Trump are the true democrats”

    “NAZI” scum

  43. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:44 am 

    “No worries Eurasia… we have millimind and his water carrier and “Last Soviet Standing” Davy destroying America for us with third world immigrants. We have to do nothing! Let them shout “racist” and “natzi” 24/7, all they achieve is creating a country of “functional illiterates” and ticking social time bomb. In the end we only have to pick up the pieces.”

    You are sounding screwed up today nedernazi you doing drugs?

  44. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:44 am 

    “Dummy, you do realize it is constantly updated right, or you just being your usual stupid?”

    Perhaps you can send a software update to repair bugs, but the seventies hardware is definately NOT updated.

    GPS, that’s like the Commodore-64.lol

  45. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:45 am 

    “GPS, that’s like the Commodore-64.lol”

    WTF, do you know about navigation systems? LOL

  46. Davy on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:52 am 

    “Is Lockheed Martin working on a nuclear fusion-powered fighter jet?”
    https://tinyurl.com/y9tctbho

    “As Dr Thomas McGuire, head of Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Project, detailed in a 2014 report, the smaller reactor is more feasible than a large-scale one. If the system functions as expected, the CFR could take 11kg of fuel in the form of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, and run the reactor for an entire year without needing to stop. Throughout that time, it would be consistently pumping out 100MW of power, enough to power up to 80,000 homes. When discussing how it could impact aircraft design, Lockheed Martin said that this amount of power would allow it to fly indefinitely and would only be hampered by the crew’s need for food and water on the ground. The likelier option is that this would translate extremely well into drone aircraft used to patrol the skies for years at a time, which, admittedly, sounds a little terrifying.”

  47. MASTERMIND on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 1:58 am 

    What third world immigrants?

    Illegal immigrants have dropped 80 percent since 2000. – Source: US Border Patrol
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2017/12/05/wheres-the-immigration-crisis-u-s-border-patrol-reports-illegal-border-crossings-at-record-low/#21deecfc4b73

    And we are adding legal one new immigrant for ever 300 people..
    https://imgur.com/a/1lNo4

    Losers are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, study finds
    http://www.psypost.org/2017/09/losers-likely-believe-conspiracy-theories-study-finds-49694

  48. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 3:34 am 

    WTF, do you know about navigation systems? LOL

    I paid 1000 euro twice from my own pocket to attend this conference:

    https://www.munich-satellite-navigation-summit.org/

    I’m a physicist remember, not a goat shepherd.

  49. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 3:55 am 

    Illegal immigrants have dropped 80 percent since 2000. – Source: US Border Patrol

    Illegal immigrants are only a small part of the problem. The largest third world contingents arrive LEGALLY, within the framework of anti-white diversity programs. That’s what you get if you don’t put them on the train to the East, back where they came from:

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/1538103427?tag=viglink21145-20

    They take over your country and destroy you from within and sick you into wars against everybody else.

    The situation is roughly the same as in 450 AD when Europe was terrorized by the Huns, also originating from the depths of Asia:

    https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Map-of-the-Hunnic-Empire-under-Attila

    At some point their leader died and the empire disintegrated, never to be heard of again.

    It is the same with these Khazars like millimind. They moved west to Europe and the United States from Ukraine and Russia around 1850…

    https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_sociopol/khazar03_03.jpg

    Unlike the Huns they were not armed with horses and swords, but with excess IQ-points, resulting from a Talmudic survival strategy. And they were armed with the conviction to be “Gods Chosen People, destined to take over the world”, with any means. If 2 billion people need to be killed (see millimind’s statement above), or white women should be raped, no problem in their view. They are completely unrestrained by any sense of Christian compassion. They are sadists pure and simple, just study their slaughtering practices.

    Normally criminals like millimind shouldn’t be allowed to threaten society with these views, but spineless whitey has meanwhile arrived at depths of moral depravity that beggars belief, most of all in Anglosphere.

  50. Cloggie on Sun, 1st Apr 2018 4:11 am 

    “Is Lockheed Martin working on a nuclear fusion-powered fighter jet?”

    I hope fusion never works. It is too much energy in the hands of humans.

    No guarantee it won’t work though.

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