Beyond Technology
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')lug-in hybrids, carbon-fiber composites, hydrogen fuel cells—a wide range of innovative technologies may make our future vehicles more efficient and less reliant on oil. But as David Greene of the National Transportation Research Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory* explains in this interview, technology alone will not solve the looming crisis we face with our petroleum-powered fleet. We also need smart government policies.
Q: So how do we begin to make the changes we need in our transportation system?
Greene: Most likely, we want to focus first on the fuel economy of the vehicle itself, as we have in the past. After the first oil crisis in 1973-74, we made enormous progress in improving the efficiency of vehicles, almost doubling the fuel economy of passenger cars.
Over the next 10 or 12 years, we can increase new vehicle efficiency by another 50 percent without having to make smaller vehicles, just by making more efficient engines, more efficient transmissions, slipperier shapes, reduced rolling resistance, and taking some weight out of cars with material substitution.
The road ahead
Q: How hard will it be to really solve the big problems looming ahead with our current transportation system?
Greene: To really solve this problem of climate change, to solve the problem of sustainable energy for transportation, will require technology we don't have. So in a way, we are on an unsustainable path with our foot on the accelerator. And we're counting on technology to solve the problem. You know, this is not prudent behavior. [laughs]
While we do not yet have the technologies we need to solve those problems, it really only makes sense to use the technology we do have. What is most irresponsible is that we are not requiring fuel-economy improvements, that we are not making more use of renewable energy. We need to do what we can now, one, to reduce the size of the problem we're going to have to solve in the future, and also to help generate the technological change we're going to need.
Q: But technology alone won't be the answer.
Greene: The problems we're trying to address are public problems. They're societal problems. And we will need societal action to address those. Just developing the technology alone won't be good enough. It takes collective action. It takes government action.
PeakOil is You
Beyond Technology
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Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
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Graeme - Fusion
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Re: Beyond Technology
by What2DO » Tue 25 Mar 2008, 22:05:13
YA YA YA YA the technology is'nt there blah blah blah what bullshit we have the technology. The problem is'nt in the technology it's in the GREED.
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What2DO - Peat
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Re: Beyond Technology
by cipi604 » Tue 25 Mar 2008, 22:14:51
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('What2DO', 'Y')A YA YA YA the technology is'nt there blah blah blah what bullshit we have the technology. The problem is'nt in the technology it's in the GREED.
Yup, you could eat only bananas! and never buy stuff, but you are greedy, aren't you?!
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cipi604 - Tar Sands
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Re: Beyond Technology
by What2DO » Tue 25 Mar 2008, 22:53:09
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cipi604', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('What2DO', 'Y')A YA YA YA the technology is'nt there blah blah blah what bullshit we have the technology. The problem is'nt in the technology it's in the GREED.
Yup, you could eat only bananas! and never buy stuff, but you are greedy, aren't you?!
Come back when you know what Im talking about.
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What2DO - Peat
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- Joined: Wed 19 Apr 2006, 03:00:00
- Location: Palmdale,Ca
