If the coming WAR on Global WARming won't work for Stan and Sulleny, may be the Second Declaration of Independence, or the Second American Independence WAR will work for them, if they are sufficiently Patriotic! We will need to unite in this matter, if we are going to be able to avoid looming disaster.

T Boone Pickens and John Baldwin have the right idea: Using CNG to displace petrol for now. (H2 later, of course)
The car's old fuel tank can be ripped out, to be replaced with a new tank capable of storing BOTH CNG and Gasoline. You can fill up with CNG at home using the Phil system perhaps once a week for high pressure system. If lower CNG pressure is chosen to reduce retrofit cost for the car, perhaps plugging in to Phil every nite may be necessary. Or if Pickens has his way with US Congress, we will see CNG filling-capable gas stations in most places. Traveling to where CNG is not available, you can still fill up the tank with gasoline.

This CNG-GAsoline FFV concept can be adapted RIGHT NOW, and to TENS OF MILLIONS OF VEHICLES, instead of waiting for battery factories to be built and for tens of millions of battery packs to be manufactured, which may take years...(may be not quick enough to help America's looming crisis.)

Roger: "(H2 later, of course)" ... LMAO, you're incorrigible.

Keep in mind that the incremental cost of producing a basic pick-up or SUV new starts at around $10k. There is no way a conversion is going to be cost effective, when you consider all the labor, integrating the electronics, etc. An incentive fee to scrap them, and tool up new PHEV is the way to go. Andy Grove is smart, but he's overstepped this time. Silicon Valley types don't necessarilt understand the cost economics of Detroit (see Tesla's problems).

Conversion to CNG/gasoline FFV is much more cost-effective, and can pay for itself after a few years from savings in fuel cost.

Here's how: just add a single CNG injector at the throttle body, and replace the car's old computer chip with a new one that is capable of running the engine with different fuel, and change out the old fuel tank and put in a new CNG/Gasoline fuel tank. Swithching between CNG and Gasoline is automatic, and is dependent on the CNG pressure on the tank. Cost estimate: $2000-3000 USD. A PHEV conversion would cost 5-10 times that amount!

Double post here, for all the CNG proponents...step back folks look at things...natural gas production in the US and Canada has peaked and is in decline - current demand, without transportation use, is driving the price through the roof for natural gas. CNG prices normally go down in the summer, but this summer have climbed appreciably from their already very high marks of last winter - typically we would expect them to rise again this winter over the current (higher than last winter) price. This is bad, as its how we prevent a large percentage of the US population from freezing to death, there's no capacity in the system for transportation use. Additional demand for CNG will occur throughout the Northeast as people abandon heating oil (because of its expense), further driving up the CNG price since demand already outstrips supply on the world market (and domestic production is in decline).

Because CNG is such an easy replacement for petroleum you can expect its price to continue to climb as the world markets start to replace petroleum with CNG where they can and drive CNG prices closer (per energy output) to Oil prices.

CNG might be a good idea if we had a surplus domestic market (that was isolated from the world market and prices) - but we don't. Its a precious resource that will climb (cost to consumer) in value as oil continues to climb (overall, over time). Its not a good mid or long term investment strategy for transportation.

Sasparilla,
Listen to what good ol' Pickens, an investment tycoon and ex-oilman has to say, please.

He plans to use wind electricity to displace NG consumption so that transportation sector can use it. More solar and wind electricity, less NG consumption for electrical generation, hence no net increase in NG consumption. Furthermore, bio-methane from agricultural waste and trash can supplement NG supply.

Even solar and wind H2 can be converted to methane via Sabatier process, but I'd say, if you have H2, use it directly in ICE vehicle by mixing it with the CNG for improvement in fuel efficiency.

Once again Stan is pushing global cooling as if global warming is not true. To set the record straight; the on-set of global cooling *could* occur if the effects of a natural, predicted period of reduced solar activity overcomes the effects of man-made greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere.

The problem is this reduced solar activity is part of a CYCLE the sun goes through so when the cycle turns back global warming returns. We MAY see a cooling over the next 20 years but if we have not reduced our CO2 emissions in 50 years we could face a warming like nobody's ever seen because the effect of AGW will be on top of the effect of increasing solar activity.

@Sasparilla

If people change over to heating their homes with NG instead of oil when they could just as easily switch over to solar thermal or electric heatpumps then they are short sighted fools.

There is already a product on the market called an electrocharger. It is just a bit short of being an idle-stop system which could save 17% of the fuel now burned in vehicles that are going zero mph. That is probably more fuel than we now import from the Arabs. The number of batteries needed would be a fraction of those needed for a PHEV. An aggressive retrofit policy is the only way to quickly change the average fuel consumption of our vehicle fleet.

I will not go for natural gas. It too difficult to handle - it have to be pressurized.
This is one of th reason why the conversion to natural gas is so expensive.
If you have to choose gas I will choose proven method used in Europe. In most countries they use propane -butane or LNG.
The most installed conversion system you can find in Italy and Poland. In Poland it is around 2 million cars (10% of total number of cars in there). Annual the number rise by 140 thousand.
The reason for the convention is that LNG is almost two time chipper then gasoline (in Poland the gasoline is almost $9/gallon).

The

I see that most people toking about grand plan in scale similar to Manhattan project. I am all for that. If we not do that we are facing shock that we never felt before.

So fare I did not hear from any one how that plan can be finance?

Pickens, Gore, and Grove ideas do not include realistic financing. You have to remember that government coffers are empty. Increasing the taxes to finance grant plan might have adverse effect for long time on the economy.

Pickens saying that we spend 700 billions a year to by oil.
Well it will be good idea to use that money to finance the renewal energy source. Yes, but we need to buy the oil. That a classic chicken and egg problem.
The question is - do we need to buy the oil? And for how long?

If I am correct in US oil national reserved are so big that in case of war we could supply the whole country for 3 years (at current usage level).

What we need to do is:
1.Set the cap for minimum gas price to at list $5 (may be higher).

2.Relies the oil reserve (the oil revers are already pay by tax payers – no extra cost to government). The resew oil should be sell to refinery with with minimum cap – at list $130 per barrel. That money will be use by government
3.Recalls all troops to US (military use very significant amount of fuel, and pose significant cost to the country budget).
4.Impose mandatory installation of solar heating panels to heat the watter and possible the homes.
(heating houses is the most energy intensive process and impose the highest cost to the owner specially in the northmen states)
5.Change building cod and impose minimal isolation standard for old and new houses.
(that one time cost for the owner that will reduce energy usage for heating and cooling).
6.Adopt European Emission Standard (that will introduce in large scale diesel engine in to American made cars).
7.Impose high tax for car with engine bigger then 2.5L

The resew of oil should be sell to refinery with with minimum cap – at list $130 per barrel. The refinery will have to buy first from government before they could buy from other country. That money will be reinvest by government . The 3 year supply should give around $2.1 trillion.
The firs 3 years should give significant financial jump start.

The extra tax from minimum cap on gas price and money from oil reserve should be used for:
- grants for R&D to improve efficiency (for universities, research labs and business).
- grants R&D in renewal energy sources (for universities, research labs and business).
- investment grants to improve efficiency of existing infrastructure.
Big projects that will involve a lot of small and big businesses.
- investment grants in renewal energy (wind, solar, wave, alga..- avoid any renewal that can deplete soil and interfere with food production)
As above, big projects that will involve a lot of small and big businesses.

The reduce demand for oil on in the rest of th world will reduce the world oil price significantly. That should lover the prices for other commodity that energy for production. That will be only temporary. It should however give time for the financial resource to be use mot efficiently. You will be able to transport more goods that will be used for new development.

The overall demand for oil should slowly decrease in firs 3 years, so the cup for the gasoline will have to be rise to keep the financing.

Some of the comments here are good...some; Typical pecking in the Hen House. :-)

This conversion concept is THE way to go. Battery tech is there right now for this type of solution...and contrary to what some of you have said here; this is the ideal solution for medium and heavy trucks that operate in a short/medium range capacity. Ask any general contractor if he wouldn't like to chop his fuel bill almost in half AND get a tax brake and lower maintenance costs to boot...with an ROI of 3-4 years?

And Good for Pickens, if he can make few bucks($BBucks) and help to substantially displace the Middle East from our energy equation, then So Be It! Energy Independence will not take the form of Petroleum Products... Byproducts of the hunt, like NG are, at the very least, a step in the right direction.

Clearly low/non-enriched nuke plants, solar, hydro/wave, and wind are the ways to go.

Think about it: if the people of Nevada were to actually welcome Yucca Mountain, on the condition that they get first dibs on the waste product....Nevada could export power to the entire west coast...by building a slew of low-grade breeders out there in the deserts near Yucca. they consume 90% of highly enriched waste material, and the about half the remaining about is medical grade (and tritium for gun sights:). Only about 5% of the remaining product would need to go into Yucca's long term storage. But, Harry Reid won't get with it, because Yucca is the 3rd rail of Nevada politics and he doesn't want to become the Puff Daschelle of NV.

In Nevada you can build solar power plants that could supply energy for whole US. That sound much cleaner.

Older readers will recall that the personal computer (pc) was brought to to market by enthusiasts before IBM was persuaded to follow.
Likewise, plug-in hybrid conversions have been developed by enthusiasts. If anyone knows how to bring new product to the mass market, it is the pc execs.

I have had good use out of one of the earliest zap electric bike pedal-assist conversion kits which simply bolts on and enables the rider to engage an electric motor by pressing a rubber roller onto the tyre.
Many green car congress readers have asked for a PHEV kit which bolts onto the propshaft of a RWD vehicle.
There are many ways of achieving this. One company is suggesting replacing the differential with one which includes an electric motor. Bosch has developed an automatic gearbox which includes an electric motor.

One Honda Insight owner has developed his own drop-down electric fifth wheel:
http://www.99mpg.com/ProjectCars/mikesinsight/

My reservation about Andy Grove's approach is that converting a behemoth to PHEV40 would be very expensive.
It currently costs $10k plus to convert a lightweight Prius HEV to PHEV with limited range, using the existing electric motor and controller.
To convert a heavy SUV or truck to a PHEV with a 40 mile range would require an expensive powerful electric motor, high power motor controller and a fortune in batteries.

Personally, I expect the route to a retrofit mass market will be via kits for commuter cars with modest electric range just enough to cover the non-freeway part of your commute to work (say just 10 miles). Such a kit would appeal to those who can recharge both at work and at home (in garage or on street).
A vast number of ordinary commuters drive 20 miles or less in low speed traffic. Reducing 5000 miles per year from your gas bill will save a lot, but it will still take a long time to recover the cost of the battery.

HEVs from the vehicle manufacturers are likely to enter from the top down as with Mercedes roll-out: Bus, SUV, S-class, E-class.

The missing url link for the speech is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zOxi1AGwqg

Andy Grove also penned a recent article in The American:
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/our-electric-future

Extract from that article:
To start with, the U.S. government should lead the way by requiring that a growing percentage of new cars be built with dual-fuel capability. These dual-fuel cars would have both an electric engine and an auxiliary gasoline engine to augment it. The car would run on electricity, and after the batteries were depleted, it would switch to running on the gasoline engine.

Such dual capabilities are often built into machines to help with technology transitions. When DVD players first came to market, they were often combined with a VCR tape player so the consumer could choose if he wanted to watch a movie in VCR or DVD form. Eventually the DVD player became the default standard, but only after a period of time that allowed consumers and the broader market time to adapt.

Laptop computers today come with both wireless and wired Internet connections. If you are in a hotel, you can choose to use wireless service or plug in to the hotel’s wired connection. I expect wireless connectivity eventually will be sufficiently powerful and accessible to obviate the wired alternative.

The same would happen to cars. The forces of disruptive technology would eventually bring about improvements in battery technology, ultimately allowing the production of an all-electric car with satisfactory driving range.

This process, however, won’t happen quickly enough on its own. No matter how fast the production of dual-fuel cars is ramped, replacing the bulk of the approximately 250 million cars on the roads in the United States with new cars will take a decade or more. As with PCs, the work of advocates and hobbyists shows the way out of this dilemma. There are enterprising folks who have experimented with converting existing gasoline cars into electric cars by removing the gasoline engine and replacing it with an electric engine. Some are working to devise ways in which existing gasoline cars would be converted to dual-fuel cars. As with the new dual-fuel cars, these cars would give first priority to the electric power stored on board, and switch to gasoline only after the electric power is exhausted.

Not all vehicles have the space and design that allow this process to happen easily. Luckily, it is the most gasoline-hungry cars that do. Pickups, SUVs, vans, and the like represent about 80 million vehicles, with mileage of perhaps 13 to 16 miles per gallon. Converting these should be our first priority. The instincts of conservationists have been to improve what is already pretty good—compact cars with decent fuel efficiency. Our national priority to decrease the amount of oil-based energy dictates that we go after the low-mileage part of the fleet first.

Estimates show that converting these vehicles to dual-fuel operation, even with electricity providing no more than 50 miles of driving range between daily recharging, could cut petroleum imports by 50 to 60 percent—a stunning opportunity.

A task of this magnitude requires major effort and investment. We may need to apply tax incentives to offset the cost of the retrofit and couple them with deep discounts on the cost of electricity used by the vehicle over some initial period, such as one to two years.

Randell Mills is a Harvard medical graduate who developed a "Grand Unified Theory of Classical Physics" that claims that electrons can exist in stable states below the "ground state" in atoms. He has also claimed to have discovered processes using catalysts that can induce hydrogen atoms to convert into such states below ground state (and such converted hydrogen atoms he terms "hydrinos"), along with significant releases of energy. In fact, his company BlackLight Power claims to have made numerous devices that generate electricity from the energy released by hydrino formation - eventually (he says) as cheaply as 2 cents per kWh:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/01/smallbusiness/blacklight.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008070210

http://www.blacklightpower.com/

I’ve had some curiosity about Mills and his outlandish theories since the early 1990’s. He now has a substantial company with very well-qualified and highly-regarded personnel. His theories may be invalid but his company now claims to have practical working devices no matter what theory was applied. I consider it very unlikely that his company is a unique mass-delusion, or a massive fraudulent conspiracy. BlackLight Power’s devices may still be fraudulent though if just a few are conspiring…but for what purpose – money, propaganda, anti-espionage ?? And if in the unlikely case that this technology is for real – isn’t it more likely to be a greater threat to humanity than a net benefit ??

BlackLight sounds like EEstor to me!

http://www.99mpg.com/ProjectCars/ewheelforanyvehicl/

Have a look at the above link for a review of the practical issues involved in adding a universal electric 5th wheel to a Dodge Caravan.

75 mpg idling to provide power steering, power brakes and winter heat sounds like a cost effective option.

@ Jay Dee,

Mills looks like he's set to commercialize the plasma technology that's been on the shelf for a while. Good for him.

"isn’t it more likely to be a greater threat to humanity than a net benefit ??"

This kind of technology is only a threat if it is the source of greed-based conflict. The technology appears to be perfectly benign. The people attempting to control it are a source of concern. Since there may be multiple trillions of $$ at stake - and the process of disclosure - the threat arises from power struggle, not the science.

I can see fuel efficient cars being converted this way, but to add PSV 40+ mile electrical loads to our already overloaded national grid makes no sense. We need to establish significant carbon taxes with a proportional cut in income taxes, which will reduce the number of PSVs on the road today.

Trying to simply find a different heroin for the addict does not break the addiction.

In some areas, off peak night charging may work. However, there is a lifeline energy usage that would need to be adjusted. If you install an all electric kitchen and you were using natural gas, the utility company should adjust your lifeline. The same principle should apply here as well. If not, you will be paying the 2nd or 3rd tier rates when you exceed the lifeline levels and that is much more expensive. This is why AC raises your bill so much in the summer time. If you have a 300 kwh lifeline, you could exceed that in the first 10 days of the month.

There is a simple and inexpensive way to get 20 to 40% improvement in mileage and that is by installing an after-market supplemental hydrogen (HHO) system in automobiles. If all of the autos in the US had HHO systems we wouldn't need any oil from the middle east.

Supplemental, on demand hydrogen systems are well proven, inexpensive and safe. A small percentage of hydrogen injected in to the intake manifold improves combustion tremendously and reduces emissions to the point where a catalytic converter is not necessary.

There are a couple of new vehicles (not in the US) that are going to HHO systems, and on this website is an article today mentioning a 20/80% mix of hydrogen and natural gas for internal combustion engines for improved emissions and mileage.

America needs to stay FOCUSED, AWARE and EDUCATED.

History reminds us that every time oil prices peak and the North American market/consumers start to discuss alternative energy sources, the oil exporting countries start to trim down their prices. History also tells us that the oil exporting nations have been very successful in the past and in fact, we have lost our enthusiasm and dropped many of our alternative energy initiatives after oil prices are reduced.

WE need to stay focused this time.

1) Al Gore and his energy initiative is on course.
2) T. Boone Pickens and his wind power initiative is on course.
3) The BG Automotive Group mass production electric vehicle program is on
course along with their solar charging stations.
4) Richard Branson from the UK is on course.
5) The Gas Reduction Act of 2008 might not be the most environmentally sound
solution, but yet it shows that Congress has finally realized that we have an
energy crisis (again), and a real threat to our national security.

The continued dependence on foreign oil is a threat to our long term democratic values. We must become an energy independent nation, and with this, some sacrifices will have to be made by the American consumer.

Be aware!!
We are exporting approximately USD $700 Billion dollars per year of U.S. currency. The majority of this money is being transferred to the Trillion dollar “sovereign wealth funds”. This is USD $700 Billion not being spent on America’s educational system, health care and security.

The “sovereign wealth funds” are directly buying major interests (large blocks of stock) in U.S. companies, including most of the major banks. Also, billions of dollars of “sovereign wealth fund” money is being invested in our hedge funds, private equity firms, and the investment banking industry. A few of these firms are directly and indirectly investing large sums of money into our “gas combustion” automobile industry. Do we want our auto industry in the direct or indirect control of the firms that are supplying us oil? This is an interesting topic for an investigative reporter.

There are automotive consulting companies in Michigan (heart of our auto industry), lobbying States and our Federal Government, NOT to subsidize the Electric Vehicle industry. The latter seems to be contradictory to what the American public would like to see from our automobile industry. After the billions (excess of $20 billion) the automotive companies have lost in the past 6 months producing gas combustion vehicles, you would think they too would change course. Changing course is not adding 2-4 miles per gallon w/Hybrids. Drastic measures in our auto industry must take place and NOW!

Do not let the temporary reduction in oil prices push us off course….AGAIN.

Read, Read, Read- Stay on top of the issues. Let’s not be fooled again.

STAY FOCUSED, AWARE and EDUCATED!

I like the water-powered cars. I can afford water.
I suppose though, when they say that the water car really works, there'll be a 30% spike on my water bill, like
the 30% spike the electric companies are trying to push since they found out electric cars are viable.

This is not about global warming. This is about peak oil. There is evidence to suggest that we may have peaked in late 2006 and the lack of new production coming online suggests we will definitely be at risk of global depletion sometime around 2015. THAT my friends is the urgency.

As to whether it's a good idea to retrofit, I'll reserve judgement on that one. What I will say is that we need all the critical transport infrastructure off of oil ASAP.

My personal plan if I were a big honcho in the DOE would be this:
1. No new gas or diesel powered heavy vehicles to be purchased by the Federal Government from no on in
2. All heavy trucks to be replaced by fully electric trucks with acceptable range (200 mile+) such as the 12 ton electric trucks made by Smith Electric Vehicles
3. US Federal Government buildings to be heated and lighted by renewables to free up nat gas or heating oil for the private market
4. Private logistics and transportation fleets should be "persuaded" to start converting their delivery vehicles to all electric on a phased basis. (UPS in the UK is already doing this)
5. Feebate program similar to that in France to get the mass market to start to adopt electric vehicles

The poster who said that people who "need" pickup trucks are not going to buy vehicles that don't have the performance they "need" is just plain wrong.
If said person can't afford gasoline because of a massive global imbalance in supply and demand of oil then performance is a moot point. The worker will be taking the bus or out of work. Viewed from that angle "underpowered" electric vehicles would be very acceptable. In any case, from what I have read, electric trucks have BETTER performance than gasoline trucks.