Battery station.

 

Battery station.

 

Battery station.

 

No battery stations and no quickly swappable batteries totally ruin the entire notion of the automobile and truck with mandatory extended downtime. Any trip that's not a simple daily commute is destroyed by downtime.

I've got a certain amount of money in Tesla Motors that says you're wrong.

That's a popular hobby stock, but be aware that most institutional investors have divested themselves of the company because they feel it is overvalued. They've already made their money. You should go to the shareholder's meeting and push them to work on a standardized form factor and swapability for the batteries so that the company is actually able to reach the potential you see in the stock.

>Battery station.

 

I don't have a driveway or garage.  Hard to picture on-street parking in a residential area with dozens of cars plugged into regularly spaced outlets installed for that purpose. 

what if solar comes along so that you could have solar lights (replacing gaslights) that could have just the right out put to also charge 1 or 2 cars parked next to it. you could have solar lights every 25-30 feet or so along every street(now that would be a company worth investing in).

 

Admittedly I haven't followed this thread incredibly closely over the months, but has there been any in-depth discussion about nuclear energy?  Unfortunately the growth of nuclear has stalled since some of the disasters over the years have really scared the public, but from what I've read I believe that with appropriate safety measures, it could also be a big part of weening us off of fossil fuels.

 

And for the record, to clarify an earlier remark, although I do believe that energy abundance will come about at some point in the next generation (or two), I do not believe that that is an excuse to needlessly waste the finite resources we have now or abuse the environment.  Just because cleaner/renewable sources of energy may be found at some point down the line does not mean that reversing serious environmental damage will be possible.

>you could have solar lights every 25-30 feet or so along every street(now that would be a company worth investing in).

 

Solar is a mess. Perhaps car chargers make sense on company lots covered by a solar array like what exists at the Cincinnati Zoo.  But I don't see how it can happen on a residential street without "neighborhood" solar arrays located on empty lots or unbuildable land. 

I don't have a driveway or garage.  Hard to picture on-street parking in a residential area with dozens of cars plugged into regularly spaced outlets installed for that purpose.

 

Perhaps, perhaps not.

 

Of course, in a more urban development, I think it's really not that difficult to imagine standard or back-in parking spaces in which you pay for charging time at the same time that you pay for parking at the meter.

 

And in more suburban developments, it's true that not everyone will have garages or driveways, but enough do, and enough will.

 

Solar is a mess. Perhaps car chargers make sense on company lots covered by a solar array like what exists at the Cincinnati Zoo.  But I don't see how it can happen on a residential street without "neighborhood" solar arrays located on empty lots or unbuildable land.

 

Over time, I think you'll see more entire roofs covered with thin-film solar panels.  I admit that many modern roofs, including commercial ones, are incapable of bearing that extra load.  The structural load of covering entire rooftops with solar panels may mean that developers will need to stop making roofs out out of tinfoil and cardboard supported by kindling twigs.  That would be a tolerable development.  (I formerly inquired about why Wal-Mart or other big box retailers didn't blanket the immense flat roofs of their stores with solar panels, for example.  I was expecting that the generation economics weren't quite there yet.  The answer I got is that the standard building specs of big box stores don't provide for roofs capable of supporting the weight.)

Sprawl would explode if you brought in cheap solar powered or battery powered efficient vehicles. There is the problem with exploding batteries.

Such vehicles would address only part of the costs of sprawl; road and infrastructure maintenance is another major part.  But yes, it would make it easier on the people who live there, and since poverty has begun to spread to the suburbs in much more noticeable amounts, that would be a welcome development for such people.

 

The "exploding batteries" line has so far proven to be unsubstantiated.  Tesla is basically the only game in town right now, and the only battery fire recorded so far caught fire in a very serious accident that could easily have killed someone in a less safe vehicle (the Model S has 5-star safety ratings in every government category).  And that's with a large and growing number of such cars on the roads.

Sprawl would explode if you brought in cheap solar powered or battery powered efficient vehicles.

 

Sort of like "giving an idiot child a machine gun?".

Admittedly I haven't followed this thread incredibly closely over the months, but has there been any in-depth discussion about nuclear energy?  Unfortunately the growth of nuclear has stalled since some of the disasters over the years have really scared the public, but from what I've read I believe that with appropriate safety measures, it could also be a big part of weening us off of fossil fuels.

 

And for the record, to clarify an earlier remark, although I do believe that energy abundance will come about at some point in the next generation (or two), I do not believe that that is an excuse to needlessly waste the finite resources we have now or abuse the environment.  Just because cleaner/renewable sources of energy may be found at some point down the line does not mean that reversing serious environmental damage will be possible.

 

No one believes in "needless" wasting, though "need" may be in the eye of the beholder.

 

Nuclear energy is indeed the 800 pound gorilla in the room when "greenhouse gas" reduction is discussed.  It emits basically no CO2.  Opposition is based upon fears with very low likelihoods of occurrence.  When I was in college (early 80s) some of the science professors opposed it, but approximately 0% of the engineering profs shared their fears.

 

Opposition is largely political.  Many fear not the production of the energy, but how it will be used.  I see it as a good touchstone for how seriously concerned an advocate is about "globa....".....excuse me  "climate change".

Nuclear energy is indeed the 800 pound gorilla in the room when "greenhouse gas" reduction is discussed.  It emits basically no CO2.  Opposition is based upon fears with very low likelihoods of occurrence.  When I was in college (early 80s) some of the science professors opposed it, but approximately 0% of the engineering profs shared their fears.

 

This has generally been my experience as well.  And I would bet that even the science profs had less opposition to it than people without any science background.  Lots of people don't think beyond the word "nuclear" and the immediate image of either a mushroom cloud or Chernobyl.

 

That said, even I have limits beyond which I get jittery--e.g., the recently announced plans for a <a href="http://revolution-green.com/2013/10/20/thorium-powered-car-1-million-miles-8-gsm-fuel/">thorium-reactor-powered car</a>.  Running a nuclear power plant to charge electric cars makes sense.  Running a nuclear power plant--even a thorium one, which I know is far less volatile and radioactive than uranium or plutonium--within a car itself seems like inviting trouble.  Even though I understand that 8g of thorium is probably overall less of an environmental threat than 16 gallons of gasoline.

Nuclear energy is indeed the 800 pound gorilla in the room when "greenhouse gas" reduction is discussed.  It emits basically no CO2.  Opposition is based upon fears with very low likelihoods of occurrence.  When I was in college (early 80s) some of the science professors opposed it, but approximately 0% of the engineering profs shared their fears.

 

This has generally been my experience as well.  And I would bet that even the science profs had less opposition to it than people without any science background.  Lots of people don't think beyond the word "nuclear" and the immediate image of either a mushroom cloud or Chernobyl.

 

That said, even I have limits beyond which I get jittery--e.g., the recently announced plans for a <a href="http://revolution-green.com/2013/10/20/thorium-powered-car-1-million-miles-8-gsm-fuel/">thorium-reactor-powered car</a>.  Running a nuclear power plant to charge electric cars makes sense.  Running a nuclear power plant--even a thorium one, which I know is far less volatile and radioactive than uranium or plutonium--within a car itself seems like inviting trouble.  Even though I understand that 8g of thorium is probably overall less of an environmental threat than 16 gallons of gasoline.

 

I always took it as a function of scientists being all about possibility and engineers being about probability.  A one in a million chance can be an unacceptable risk to a scientist, while an engineer will look at the costs and benefits while finding ways to make the odds even more favorable.

 

This is not to denigrate scientists.  We need them.  They don’t really *need* us, except for the fact that we greatly increase their value to society.  Some of them seem to resent that, just as some mathematicians hate any effort to apply their musings to reality.

 

 

To put it bluntly, people tend to lack a deep understanding of how probability works and it's human nature to place too much emphasis on rare but sensationalized events.

^Of course, part of understanding probability is also understanding that the rare or unlikely not only can happen, but that given enough flips of the coin, it will happen.

^Of course, part of understanding probability is also understanding that the rare or unlikely not only can happen, but that given enough flips of the coin, it will happen.

 

Very true.  Which means that incidents like Fukushima Daiichi, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl may indeed still happen.  But remember that we're not talking about actual coin flips.  We're talking about odds that we can manipulate.  There are better and worse nuclear reactors.  There are better and worse maintenance and management protocols for operating such reactors.  We can talk about it like gambling, but it's a game in which we're invited and encouraged to stack the deck in our favor as much as possible.

 

I understand that even that can't stop everything.  Fukushima Daiichi was a product of a combination earthquake/tsunami/landslide right off the coast of a country that necessarily concentrates all its population and most of its industrial facilities on its extremely-exposed coastline, because its interior is inhospitably mountainous.  Japan could have mitigated (but nowhere near eliminated) the damage from the spill by not operating older reactors past their designed operating life, but even the safest, most modern French and German reactors would have been helpless against that natural onslaught (they just might have had a less severe spill).

 

I don't think you'll find too many modern nuclear power advocates blindly arguing that nuclear power is risk-free.  However, it's fair to balance those risks against the risks of (i) relying on fossil fuels, and/or (ii) operating without the energy at all.  The coal industry results in deaths every year, too.  And, while conservationists often stridently resist this point, a compulsorily low-energy lifestyle often has life and death results, too.  Heat waves in Western Europe in recent memory have killed literally tens of thousands that could have been prevented with nothing more than air conditioning.  Medicine is a more power-intensive industry than people appreciate, too.

^Of course, part of understanding probability is also understanding that the rare or unlikely not only can happen, but that given enough flips of the coin, it will happen.

 

Very true.  Which means that incidents like Fukushima Daiichi, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl may indeed still happen.  But remember that we're not talking about actual coin flips.  We're talking about odds that we can manipulate.  There are better and worse nuclear reactors.  There are better and worse maintenance and management protocols for operating such reactors.  We can talk about it like gambling, but it's a game in which we're invited and encouraged to stack the deck in our favor as much as possible.

 

I understand that even that can't stop everything.  Fukushima Daiichi was a product of a combination earthquake/tsunami/landslide right off the coast of a country that necessarily concentrates all its population and most of its industrial facilities on its extremely-exposed coastline, because its interior is inhospitably mountainous.  Japan could have mitigated (but nowhere near eliminated) the damage from the spill by not operating older reactors past their designed operating life, but even the safest, most modern French and German reactors would have been helpless against that natural onslaught (they just might have had a less severe spill).

 

I don't think you'll find too many modern nuclear power advocates blindly arguing that nuclear power is risk-free.  However, it's fair to balance those risks against the risks of (i) relying on fossil fuels, and/or (ii) operating without the energy at all.  The coal industry results in deaths every year, too.  And, while conservationists often stridently resist this point, a compulsorily low-energy lifestyle often has life and death results, too.  Heat waves in Western Europe in recent memory have killed literally tens of thousands that could have been prevented with nothing more than air conditioning.  Medicine is a more power-intensive industry than people appreciate, too.

 

One could say that engineering indeed is "a game in which we're invited and encouraged to stack the deck in our favor as much as possible.".  It's a matter of weighting the coin being flipped.  Some Malthusians forget this is the profoundest way that humans differ from animals (including other intelligent ones who have not developed engineering).

 

The three disasters above all resulted in lessons which made the industry as a whole that much safer.  At TMI, we learned that the safeguards worked but needed tweaks, and that was with 1970s technology.  Chernobyl taught us that untrained or ill trained bureaucrats should not be in charge of design decisions (the design itself had been taboo in the west since the 1950s).  Fukushima taught us to keep containment better protected from the elements.

 

If you can find it, read the essay "Know Nukes" by James P. Hogan.  It's a concise and powerful explanation of the relative safety of nuclear power.

 

Nothing that generates usable work can be considered "risk free".

Some of the older folks here might be familiar with Stewart Brand, who was behind the Whole Earth Catalogue, Coevolution Quarterly, the WELL, etc.    Sort of misunderstood as one of those crunchy granola back-to-the-land eco/green types, Brand is actually more interesting than all that, being a somewhat libertarian (I like to call it being self-reliant) technology buff.

 

Whole Earth Catalogue was, after all, subtitled "access to tools".

 

Here is weights in on behalf of nuclear power as a way of addressing shortage of fossil fuels/global warming

 

Stewart Brand: Nuclear Power Could Save The World

 

...which is from his book Whole Earth Discipline. 

 

 

 

From Germany...the Bundeswehr has an internal study underway on the possible consequences of Peak Oil:

 

Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis

 

The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military. The team of authors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Will, uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.

 

The study, whose authenticity was confirmed to SPIEGEL ONLINE by sources in government circles, was not meant for publication. The document is said to be in draft stage and to consist solely of scientific opinion, which has not yet been edited by the Defense Ministry and other government bodies.

 

...nothing really new here, except that the concept is being considered seriously by the Germans.  My guess is the DoD has similar studies, but they are not being reported on (or leaked).

 

 

 

From Germany...the Bundeswehr has an internal study underway on the possible consequences of Peak Oil:

 

...nothing really new here, except that the concept is being considered seriously by the Germans.  My guess is the DoD has similar studies, but they are not being reported on (or leaked).

 

 

You know why it's not new? Because it isn't. It's from 2010. But it caused quite a stir back then. In fact, I thought that study came out longer ago than that.

Keep this in mind:

 

The practical application of fusion technology would make the creation of highly clean-burning synthetic gasoline almost trivially simple.

 

While ideally we might not choose to go that route, it would keep existing transportation modes and infrastructure viable.

Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies'

by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, originally published by The Guardian blog  | Dec 23, 2013

 

A former British Petroleum (BP) geologist has warned that the age of cheap oil is long gone, bringing with it the danger of "continuous recession" and increased risk of conflict and hunger.

 

At a lecture on 'Geohazards' earlier this month as part of the postgraduate Natural Hazards for Insurers course at University College London (UCL), Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008....

 

Full article at:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/23/british-petroleum-geologist-peak-oil-break-economy-recession

 

From Germany...the Bundeswehr has an internal study underway on the possible consequences of Peak Oil:

 

Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis

 

The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, a think tank tasked with fixing a direction for the German military. The team of authors, led by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Will, uses sometimes-dramatic language to depict the consequences of an irreversible depletion of raw materials. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, of the formation of new relationships based on interdependency, of a decline in importance of the western industrial nations, of the "total collapse of the markets" and of serious political and economic crises.

 

The study, whose authenticity was confirmed to SPIEGEL ONLINE by sources in government circles, was not meant for publication. The document is said to be in draft stage and to consist solely of scientific opinion, which has not yet been edited by the Defense Ministry and other government bodies.

 

...nothing really new here, except that the concept is being considered seriously by the Germans.  My guess is the DoD has similar studies, but they are not being reported on (or leaked).

 

 

They do, and it was reported in 2010 as well:

http://peakgeneration.blogspot.com/2010/04/us-military-warns-of-severe-oil.html

 

Just google:  "US Joint Operations Command", "peak oil"  somewhere in one of the links that comes up, you'll find a hotlink to the actual document. 

US Army colonel: world is sleepwalking to a global energy crisis

by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, originally published by The Guardian Earth Insight blog  | Jan 21, 2014

 

A conference sponsored by a US military official convened experts in Washington DC and London warning that continued dependence on fossil fuels puts the world at risk of an unprecedented energy crunch that could inflame financial crisis and exacerbate dangerous climate change.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jan/17/peak-oil-oilandgascompanies

 

Last year's EPA standards for "carbon emissions" are so limiting that power companies will have to use combined cycle generators to meet the standard. Combined cycle means that the exhaust of a gas turbine is used to create steam that runs a steam turbine that generates "more" electricity. Efficiency in generation will be a bonus of the emissions standards.

^Good point.  We generate a lot of waste heat in the US that could be recovered for energy generation purposes. 

^Good point.  We generate a lot of waste heat in the US that could be recovered for energy generation purposes. 

 

Once again, a breakthrough in energy storage, something like Heinlein's "Shipstones", would be a real breakthrough in this regard. 

Beginning of the End? Oil Companies Cut Back on Spending

by Gail Tverberg, originally published by Our Finite World  | TODAY

 

Steve Kopits recently gave a presentation [link to presentation at resilience.org] explaining our current predicament: the cost of oil extraction has been rising rapidly (10.9% per year) but oil prices have been flat. Major oil companies are finding their profits squeezed, and have recently announced plans to sell off part of their assets in order to have funds to pay their dividends. Such an approach is likely to lead to an eventual drop in oil production. I have talked about similar points previously (here and here), but Kopits adds some additional perspectives which he has given me permission to share with my readers.

 

I encourage readers to watch the original hour-long presentation at Columbia University, if they have the time.

Controversy: Does Oil Extraction Depend on “Supply Growth” or “Demand Growth”?

The first section of the presentation is devoted the connection of GDP Growth to Oil Supply Growth vs Oil Demand Growth. I omit a considerable part of this discussion in this write-up.

 

Economists and oil companies, when making their projections, nearly always make their projections depend on “Demand Growth”–the amount people and businesses want. This demand growth is seen to be rising indefinitely in the future. It has nothing to do with affordability or with whether the potential consumers actually have jobs to purchase the oil products.

 

Kopits presents the following list of assumptions of demand constrained forecasting. (IOC’s are “Independent Oil Companies” like Shell and Exxon Mobil, as contrasted with government owned companies that are prevalent among oil exporters.) ...

 

Full article (pretty long) with charts and graphics at: 

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-04/beginning-of-the-end-oil-companies-cut-back-on-spending

"The path toward US energy independence, made possible by a boom in shale oil, will be much harder than it seems.  Just a few of the roadblocks: Independent producers will spend $1.50 drilling this year for every dollar they get back. Shale output drops faster than production from conventional methods. It will take 2,500 new wells a year just to sustain output of 1 million barrels a day in North Dakota’s Bakken shale; Iraq could do the same with 60. (2/27)"

 

~Peak Oil Review, March 3, 2014, Tom Whipple

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-03/peak-oil-review-mar-3

Post peak countries: the collapse of Yemen

by Ugo Bardi, originally published by Cassandra's Legacy  | 03/05/14

 

When I saw for the first time the data about oil production in Yemen, I was so impressed that I wanted to know more. I found a news source in English - the "Yemen Times" and I placed the link in my feed. For several months, by now, I have been reading the news from a place where I have never been and, probably, will never go, but that I find incredibly fascinating.

 

The stories in the Yemen Times read as a tragedy written by Shakespeare: for a taste of this feeling, you may read the article titled "Carrying out a death sentence," but it is just an example of a never ending series of disasters taking place in the country, which include some 4000 people murdered every year, including a few taken as target by American drones flying over the country.

 

Surely, not everything that's taking place in Yemen is to be attributed straight to crude oil but, surely, with oil production now crossing consumption, with the government getting about 70% of its revenues from oil, and with Yemen producing very little that can be exported apart from the "Qat" drug, then some kind of disaster is to be expected. And consider that population continues to grow: Yemen has now about 25 million people (and 50 million guns)...

 

Read more at:

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/post-peak-countries-collapse-of-yemen.html

 

Interesting perspective that even tangled in the recent events in Ukraine, there is a relationship to peak fossil fuels:

 

Ukraine Crisis Highlights Ugly Global Energy Truths

by Andrew Nikiforuk, originally published by The Tyee  | Mar 27, 2014

 

 

Anyone who thinks the crisis now unsettling Ukraine is purely about a people's quest for democracy and "the madness" of Vladimir Putin would be mistaken.

 

Ukraine, a semi-failed state due to energy debt and corruption, merely illustrates the new energy politics now unsettling governments from the United States to Crimea. It represents our collective global future, should governments and citizens continue to ignore energy flows and budgets.

 

The story should be familiar to most North Americans. In U.S. political lingo, Ukraine is a blue state dependent on energy imports from Russia, the powerful red state next door. They share a tense master-slave relationship.

 

The West, including the fantastically indebted G7 club, thinks it has some moral authority in this dispute, but has its own shackles to worry about. It doesn't export much energy these days, and it is singing the economic stagnation blues because cheap energy is disappearing.

 

Moreover, Western leaders ignore the realities of a shrinking global economy that can't grow on high-cost energy...

 

Read full article at:

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-27/ukraine-crisis-highlights-ugly-global-energy-truths

 

 

And then there is this one:

 

Export Stupidity

by Richard Heinberg, originally published by Resilience.org  | Mar 27, 2014

 

 

Congress is holding hearings this week on the possible lifting of a US oil export ban instituted in the 1970s to promote national energy self-sufficiency and has invited a number of “experts” with dubious ties to the oil and gas industry to explain to them why it’s such a good idea. Following Russia’s near-annexation of Crimea, American politicians are intent on undercutting Russian president Vladimir Putin’s greatest geopolitical asset—his country’s oil and natural gas exports. If the US could supply Europe with large amounts of fuel, that would reduce the Continent’s dependency on Russia while depriving Putin of needed revenues.

Lawmakers from both parties are also using the hearings to urge the Obama administration to speed up natural gas exports as a hedge against the threat of a conceivable Russian cutoff of gas supplies to Ukraine and other countries. Four Central European nations—Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic—have already made formal requests for US exports.

 

There’s just one tiny problem with all these fervent desires and good intentions. On a net basis, the US has no oil or gas to export....

 

...This is what all the oil and gas export fuss is really about. As for the notion of making Vladimir Putin quake in his boots in fear of a tsunami of American crude and natural gas—forget it. Putin is indeed probably quaking right now, from laughter.

 

Perhaps America should instead consider exporting stupidity. It’s a commodity we seem to have in surplus.

 

Full article at:

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-27/export-stupidity

 

America: You’ve got three more years to drive normally!

by Roger Baker, originally published by The Rag Blog  | Sep 15, 2014

 

 

Three more years? That’s pretty scary! Surely there must be a mistake in that headline.

 

First in a series

 

Is it possible that average Americans could have a hard time driving only three years from now? Preposterous, to say the very least! Three more years to drive would be awful scary if it were true. Fortunately, it can’t be true because the USA has been racing ahead, drilling like crazy, with the result that we are now the world’s third biggest oil producer, just behind Russia and Saudi Arabia.

 

As everyone who follows the news has heard by now, an innovative drilling technology called “fracking” has added about three million barrels a day of new “tight oil” production, from areas of the U.S. like the Bakken in North Dakota, and the Eagle Ford shale in Texas. Obama used to tell us how we need to break our petroleum addiction, but now he can’t bless new drilling enough. As a result, Americans are feeling better and driving more.

 

Case closed, right? Actually no...

Read more at:  http://www.theragblog.com/roger-baker-america-youve-got-three-more-years-to-drive-normally/

9/21/14:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i hope you werent driving??

 

I was driving, taking photos, and giggling all at once.

Jake, I tweeted your second-to-last photo and gave you credit for it.

Should I feel guilty for the fact that the first thing I noticed was the font selection?

That's what it's there for!

 

How ironic you were driving.

How ironic you were driving.

 

That's what the highway-oil-automotive cabal has worked long and hard to achieve -- destroy all meaningful choices, from the unsubsidized, free-market walkable/transit-friendly land uses to the private-sector owned and financed transportation modes and replaced it with the most heavily government subsidized make-work ATM for road builders, oil companies and automakers in world history. Gotta love "capitalism" at its finest.

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

That's what it's there for!

 

How ironic you were driving.

 

Ironically driving on Ft. Washington Way -- where 10 city blocks were demolished in the mid-50s, and where the Big Money succeeded in having the city's Union Station and interurban terminal blocked in the 1910s.

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

 

Which of course is much more important than being able to afford housing, food, etc.

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

 

You must be referring to free-of-charge teleporters?

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

 

You must be referring to free-of-charge teleporters?

 

I have a constitutional right to these!  Because of reasons!

North America is a very thirsty place when it comes to petroleum...

 

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

 

It's certainly in the interests of an authoritarian government to control movement of the population as much as possible.

 

As for that tanker, I wonder if there's another truck tagged "frack it".

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

 

It's certainly in the interests of an authoritarian government to control movement of the population as much as possible.

 

As for that tanker, I wonder if there's another truck tagged "frack it".

 

If you earn more than $15 per hour, sure (the minimum one needs to earn to afford a car without subsidies). Freedom comes with a $9,000 per year entrance fee (AAA's average cost of owning and operating a car). Of course, it's perfectly OK for government to force people to stay in poverty by forcing them drive by only subsidizing roads and leaving scraps for all other modes -- as long as YOU benefit from said subsidies. The only unacceptable subsidies to a tea bagger are those which don't benefit themselves!

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

 

The ONLY reasons you can go wherever you want are a) the fact that highways are supported by massive taxpayer (as opposed to user) subsidies and b) you might make enough to afford admission (can afford to own and operate a car) to the "freedom club, " and c) are healthy enough to drive, unlike those "other people."

 

Maybe there are those of us who think the monopoly of highway interests and having no choice but to drive is pretty tyrannical. Think about that.

Yeah, gotta hate that freedom to go where ever and whenever one wants! 

 

It's certainly in the interests of an authoritarian government to control movement of the population as much as possible.

 

As for that tanker, I wonder if there's another truck tagged "frack it".

 

What authoritarian government are you referring to? Right now, I'd say Ohio has a good representation of an authoritarian,  Soviet style, one-size-fits-all transportation "system" which is nothing but roads. They are doing a damn good job of restricting the movement of anyone who can't drive or does not want to drive.