Reply To: Brain: dualism of consciousness.

[zapkitty]

dennisp wrote: You missed the part where I said “make hydrocarbon fuels [em]from CO2[/em].” If the fuel you’re burning is made from CO2 that you just pulled out of the air, you’ve got a closed loop with no net emissions. The overall effect is no different than if you were using electric vehicles.

Nope, it’s very different. What you’re doing with your plan is essentially paying extra just to tread water on the CO2 levels contributed by hydrocarbon fuels without mitigating any of the other health and environmental problems they also cause.

As I said, even just sustaining the petroleum-based part of the CO2 load isn’t an option we can afford anymore.

dennisp wrote: Other advantages: no need to wait for sufficiently good batteries. No need to convince people to replace their cars with new ones that take hours to “refuel” instead of minutes…

Even current electric vehicles such as the Leaf or the Volt can be fully recharged in 30-45 minutes and you can top them up whenever you are near a charger.

The “hours of charging time” meme is rooted in attempts to allow charging at home with the existing grid and home circuits,… and [em]those[/em] will have to be upgraded regardless of what else we may do.

As for the shifts in the auto industry? They’re already happening. Paying extra in monerary, health and environmental costs just to try hang on to what’s already past won’t be doing those workers, or the rest of us, any favors.