I'm not convinced spewing a billion tons of CO2 a day into the atmosphere is all that bad for the planet. I do take issue with it coming from a thousand tailpipes in front of me while stuck in rush hour traffic. Mostly because of the carcinogenic factors, but also the cost.
Wind, solar, bio and even tidal power is abundant, and self sustaining, and if you can afford the up front cost, decrease the cash you have to shell out every day.
I was thinking about this yesterday, a friend bought a Honda to drive to work, to save on gas. His four wheel drive truck get 12 mph, the new Honda gets 34. So he saves 20 dollars a week driving it to work. 80$ a month.
It cost him 200$ a month for the car, plus another 1200$ a year insurance, as well as service, etc etc.
So for $300 dollars a month, he saves 80$ in gas. The reasoning doesn't make sense. You spend 220$ more a month to save gas???
If you do the math, how long before you actually start saving money doing this? This seems to be the mindset of some people. You pay a bunch of money up front, to save less money than you spend?
Somewhere down the timeline, there is a point where it is cheaper to use solar or wind or whatever. It seems to me, all these equations leave out one major factor. There is no cost associated with a person personally polluting the atmosphere with gas or diesel fuels. That doesn't cost the consumer anything, all the pollution created by pumping, transporting, refining, transporting, storing, delivering and burning fossil fuels, none of that cost anything.
If you put a price tag on pollution, either through cost to health or whatever, then the equation changes.
But as long as you can ignore any pollution or harm caused by fossil fuels, it is the cheapest.
Except for some places, where they already use solar, because solar is cheapest.
Of course when the grid goes down, solar or wind becomes way more valuable. Because you still have power.
Wind, solar, bio and even tidal power is abundant, and self sustaining, and if you can afford the up front cost, decrease the cash you have to shell out every day.
I was thinking about this yesterday, a friend bought a Honda to drive to work, to save on gas. His four wheel drive truck get 12 mph, the new Honda gets 34. So he saves 20 dollars a week driving it to work. 80$ a month.
It cost him 200$ a month for the car, plus another 1200$ a year insurance, as well as service, etc etc.
So for $300 dollars a month, he saves 80$ in gas. The reasoning doesn't make sense. You spend 220$ more a month to save gas???
If you do the math, how long before you actually start saving money doing this? This seems to be the mindset of some people. You pay a bunch of money up front, to save less money than you spend?
Somewhere down the timeline, there is a point where it is cheaper to use solar or wind or whatever. It seems to me, all these equations leave out one major factor. There is no cost associated with a person personally polluting the atmosphere with gas or diesel fuels. That doesn't cost the consumer anything, all the pollution created by pumping, transporting, refining, transporting, storing, delivering and burning fossil fuels, none of that cost anything.
If you put a price tag on pollution, either through cost to health or whatever, then the equation changes.
But as long as you can ignore any pollution or harm caused by fossil fuels, it is the cheapest.
Except for some places, where they already use solar, because solar is cheapest.
Of course when the grid goes down, solar or wind becomes way more valuable. Because you still have power.
