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Comment Wrong focus (Score 1) 491

Busses are too few and at this time, generally do not lend themselves well to pure electric approaches.
Far more important are the large number of Commercial vehicles, esp. Semis.
About 3 years, O and the Dems tried to push a tax break that would enable us to move new commercial vehicles off diesel and over the nat gas. Sadly, the neo-cons/tea* fought that because the large oil companies do not want to see the price of oil plummet.
What is really needed is to drop the massive subsidies that we have on oil/nat gas/coal, and the moderate subsidies on hybrids and electric vehicles.
Instead, we should have a set of LIMITED TIME subsidy that solves a few of these issues:
1) for any pure electric car with a range of 100-149 MPC (via epa rating), they get 7.5K. For any pure electric with a range above 150 MPC, give them $15K.
This should drop by $1.5K each year. 2) a subsidy for any commercial vehicle using [LC] Nat Gas. In addition, if this is for a serial hybrid, the subsidy should start at the same amount (i.e. a serial hybrid using Nat Gas will have double subsidy what a simple nat gas truck would have. In addition, the large the vehicle, the more subsidy for it. Finally, the nat gas subsidy should drop by 20%, and the serial hybrid should start dropping after that. So, that means that the nat gas subsidy is gone after 5 years, and the hybrid portion will be a steady rate for the first 5 years, but then drop 20% for the next 5 years, meaning that it will last 10 years.

Commercial vehicles makers are ready to do nat gas. It will be expensive at first, but will drop rather quickly. It is the hybrid portion that is of interest since it allows a company to focus on creating pure electric vehicles down the road.

Comment Re: Talking Point (Score 1) 427

Sadly, idiots like you do not look at facts and need to put somebody else down all the time, typically with lies.
First, america or capita is about 2x both Europe's AND China. China's per capita has risen fast to be about Europe's rate.
Secondly, over the last 20 years, Europe's rate has not changed much. In POF, america is the only major nation to have made major cuts.
Thirld, Co2 is tied to manufacturing, not ppl. Those who choose per capita are kidding themselves. As such, Europe is in the lead on that, but america is in the middle of the European pack. But China is in the bottom 5 in terms of co2 per $ real GDP.

And while China continues to grow their emissions by 3-5% a year, and Europe is actually growing as well, only Americas continues to fall.

Comment Re:Crichton is an idiot. (Score 2) 770

>"Science requires only one investigator who happens to be right, "

The one investigator publishes a paper, his work is confirmed by many others, he wins the Nobel Prize, and a new consensus is created. This differs from one loud voice who disagrees with the current consensus. For a handy metric for differentiating the two, see John Baez's Crackpot Index.

Comment Re:Gotten? (Score 4, Informative) 770

It is proper English. It is the difference between the active and passive voice. "He was sick, but he got well." "He was sick, but he has gotten well." The difference is actually tangentially related to the story subject. When I was in university [mumble] decades ago, all scientific papers for publication, and by extension all term papers, were required to be written in the third person past passive voice. This was thought to appear more objective. Printing costs for scientific journals drove the change to active voice, because, in English, that voice uses fewer words. Now that journals are largely electronic, printing costs are less of an issue, leaving aside Dilbert's PHB's concern about using up electrons. Active voice may also be more readable, particularly for those being taught by teachers who say things like, "Me and him went to the store."

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