Exactly who here is naive enough to believe that gasoline (in cars)is going to be replaced by *only one* fuel?

Question

Some of the jokers here seem to think that gasoline burning vehicles will be replaced only by vehicles that burn hydro. Or only by vehicles that use electricity.

They don't seem to understand that in the future, there are going to be a few types of vehicles that use alt. fuel, and will also be profitable to the manufacturers (eventually) of both the vehicles and the fuels.

There will be viable alternatives to gasoline burning vehicles in the future. They will include electric, hydro, biodiesel, and methanol. Not just one type, but *all* those, and maybe others.

So, who disagrees with me?

Answer 1

Will it be replaced by just one fuel eventually?  Quite likely, although there will always be a few people using others.  Will it happen overnight?  No.

Did we all start using gasoline right off?  No.  Did most people eventually end up using gasoline once it was determined to be the easiest, cheapest, etc. at the time?  Yes.

It's called competition.  Eventually something wins. . . the solutions just need to battle it out in the marketplace for a while.  All regions of the world don't have the same ability to drive the world markets, and it'll probably again be what the major manufacturing and consuming regions of the world prefer that wins.  Is that necessarily the best or fair?  No, but we've tolerated a lot worse.

Answer 2

Exactly!

The idea that for an idea to be good it has to work and be used everywhere is deeply ingrained into our national psyche.

It shows up everywhere, from the cars we drive to the foods we eat to the houses we build. People need to relearn the lesson that nature has been trying to teach us, that different bio-regions require different methods of survival.

Answer 3

I am naive enough to believe that with the volume of methane deposits in the north, we could one day be operating almost entirely on CNG.

I am not saying I believe this is going to happen overnight, nor even that we will make that complete conversion. But only that we could.

Even our electric supply, where it is coming from coal might convert to methane from the north.

Now I am a "motivated believer", because I own a lot of that methane as a stockholder in a company that holds leases on a large part of that methane.