http://abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20060710/ 

start looking at running vw's on seawater!

There are a number of people who have designed hydrogen combustion systems for cars. I came across a few on the web very recently. The truth is that they are out there. At some point in the not too distant future they will be available, because oil will become too expensive for your average motorist and car manufacturers are not about to just throw away 100years of technology and enormous customer bases. They have even more to loose than the oil barens. So don't worry too much. Cars will not disappear. Governments will just have to learn to be more open minded...and so will people. In the end, there were electric cars before internal combustion engines were reliable. The car wasn't revolutionary because it was powered by petrol. It was revolutionary coz it freed people to travel as they wanted to and when they wanted to. That was the whole point of the "people's car". Society will not give that freedom up easily, they will fight to hold on to it and that will mean hydrogen, electricity and all sorts of other power supplies.

The flintstones always had it right...

Chris, sorry to tell you this, but the flintstones are not real.

Dam

They would have made the best, greeniest hippies.

What about wind up cars? rubberband cars lol. have a pressure regulator to slow the band/spring down and adjust via accelerator. Funny but possible Make us go for an hrs exercise on a pedal bike prewinding the spring/band...

This idea of peak oil is old.

Back in the 1950s an American oil engineer, whose name escapes me, said that when half of the known reserves of oil have been used up (and that is now), the price of oil will rise uncontrollably.

He said it would not matter what we did about it. It would happen. We are using so much oil that if we found another new oil deposit as large as the Middle East that it would delay the fateful day by about 20 years.

Australia's tragedy is that we have enough gas to run this country for a few hundred years. Had we converted Oz to run on gas when we discovered how much we have, then no-one in Oz would care about the price of oil because we would not be importing oil. It's still not too late to do it.

All we need to do is to stop importing oil and to stop exporting gas. Little pigs might fly.

I see where BP is now marketing E10 - with 10% ethanol
in some states....
I believe most fuel, maybe all fuel in the US has ethanol in it, as it was the governments way of using up reserves of Wheat ....[I think?]
I can't remember whether BP is making ethanol from wheat or sugar cane... i think its wheat...

I have heard of many country people converting their deisel Nissans and Landcruisers so they will run on Vegetable oil.... so next time You smell french fries, and there's not a Macdonalds in sight....
You'll know where the smell is coming from...

Lee


http://community.webshots.com/user/vw68autobug 

The percentage of New cars that run on LPG only is on the upswing too....
and I believe it will continue with petrol prices as they are..

still not a lot of Small diesel cars about...
especially when they are so much more expensive then a petrol engined car....

Lee

Stupid thing is we will soon be paying $100 per barrel. It costs $40 per barrel to have liquified coal and the equipment is there already.

Australia alone could destoy the Arab strangle hold on oil prices. Bring in the former soviet states and it's price drop price drop price drop.

yes, but the yanks don't have any interest in aussie and russian oilfields do they. and we all know it's them that controls the price of oil. the yanks are trying to run the arabs dry. once they do that, there is no more money for terrorism and the middle east is one less problem for them. so they think...

BTW, it wouldn't hurt them to pull some rank on their 1st year apprentice....Israel.

the fact of the matter is that all of us have been spoilt rotten, think about it do we worry when we turn on a light or an electric appliance about the burning of fossil fuel which produce huge amounts of greenhouse gas to satisfy our habit our 'quality of life' if i want to go on an overseas holiday do i worry about the amount of fuel consummed by a jumbo jet to get me there and indeed its only been in the last year and a half that we have started to worry about the cost of driving. the sad fact of modern life is that there is NO current or near future replacement for the burning of fossil fuel to feed our habit and i do not see any evidence that anyone really gives a damn about the situation other than to wage war to keep the 'statis quo' as it is.