[citation needed]

1000 times thank you. I've had to repeat the "Volt is a Prius" mantra far more than I care to.

I'd like to know how they came up with MPG with hydrogen. Did they just use an equivalent volume of Hydrogen?

[Citation needed]

while technically true, it's only on very specific routes currently. Tesla claims this will be fixed by (effectively) 2016.

Source: http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger

And it's delicious.

Willing to relocate? Depending on what you're looking for, I may have a few leads.

Your "outdated socio-economic system" is someone else's "reality". While we are rapidly eliminating jobs for people on the left side of whatever IQ test you wish to use, we still have to pay people for food and to build stuff. When we automate THOSE jobs, we'll STILL have to pay for the energy production, energy usage, and maintenance of said automation, energy production and energy distribution.

"Powerful people" aren't the problem. Energy and materials science is. Until energy production and transmission is zero cost, or close enough to it that it becomes an advertising expense, the leisure society isn't going to happen. I also don't believe that "Powerful people" are hiding the near zero cost energy production silver bullet. To speculate that it is so leads down the dark hole of conspiracy. Near zero cost energy not going to be in my lifetime, and probably not in my child's either. If the NIF (or any of its analogs) produce a self-sustaining fusion reaction, that will be tipping point. The materials science problem is nearly taken care of, but said materials (Iconel, among others) are too expensive and (again) energy intensive to produce in large quantities.

There is speculation that if we actually get to the zero cost for energy society, mankind will inadvertently self-exterminate. I can see this being a very real possibility.

And what are those root causes of heathcare being expensive? 12+ years of education? $BIGNUM spent on research for new/better ways to do things? Malpractice payouts driving malpractice insurance through the roof? The large number of people employed by insurance companies? Something else?
Education and Reasearch takes time from multiple people. Malpractice is a real problem and takes up lawyers time. Apparently all those people employed by insurance companies are needed for one function or another. All of these people need to eat and an incentive to keep doing what they do. Money is what feeds them and the incentive. I'm not sure how to change that equation, or even lower its end number.

I suspect that most if not all the Hydro is being used that is economically and perhaps practically feasible.

There has been exactly 1 permit for a nuke plant in the US in the past 40ish years that I know if (Vogtle). The 3 mile island non-incident gave nukes bad enough press that between the NIMBY crowd and the "Gotta ensure my job" crowd basically killed nukes until someone gets really desperate. The number of nukes going offline soon is troubling enough. Fukushima has not helped in the US and actually started to cause other governments to massively back off from nukes

The 'whatnot' I guess could be:

• CNG/Propane and such fired plants, which may be feasible considering the boom the US has had in fracking.
• Some of the tide based generator stuff, but I'm unclear if it's been proven effective yet.
• Biomass, but that's proven to be expensive and a bit of a shell game when it comes to where fuel comes from.

Replacements for coal are tricky, as the GP pointed out. If they were easy and close to cost neutral, someone would have already capitalized on it.

I'm not saying that a better/cleaner/cheaper method of generating electricity shouldn't come on line. I don't think many, if any, would disagree with that. When you start to talk about cutting one of the major resources that enables the research for the improvements (the amount of power the NIF in the US uses is patently absurd), it becomes difficult to work out a reasonable transition from the "bad" to "anything else".

I think you're thinking of Bastiat.

Soylent green is people...

This assumes that they haven't already. That is a false assumption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund#An_economic_perspective

I would buy this if diesel were taxed at the same rate as gasoline. That's not true, as it's usually about 10% more. Considering the sheer volume of fuel these large trucks go through, claiming that they aren't paying their fair share seems a bit of a stretch.

Also consider that while a large truck does carry a significant amount of weight, they also distribute it over a significantly larger contact patch. While I will grant you that load on the asphalt is still higher than most cars, it's not nearly as straight forward as one might think. If someone with more time could google a comparison, that would be very enlightening.