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Tedtalks: Bold Plan For Electric Cars

Forget about the hybrid auto -- Shai Agassi says it`s electric cars or bust if we want to impact emissions. His company, Better Place, has a radical plan to take entire countries oil-free by 2020. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world`s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts.

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10 Comments

Current View: 15 / Show all Comments

Venomousvole : LVL 36: VP 4.4: said:

Venomousvole

1 votes NegativePositive

222 days 6 hours ago...

brilliant work, something real to aim for. now we just need safe alternative to nuclear/combustion energy.. Why the hell can`t we just make solar panels better? It`s either that or hope the LHC give us the star hack code.

Flynn_2006 : LVL 45: VP 5: said:

Flynn_2006

3 votes NegativePositive

222 days 5 hours ago...

The problem still remains at where the energy source going to come from once large percentage of electric cars are on the road. The primary source of electricity generation in world today are either coal and natural gas. If stop using petroleum as the fuel for cars, we will be spending our next decade building solar panels, wind turbines and digging up coals just to keep up with the demand. Not to mention, all the above energy sources require massive amount of energy to build and most of the solar panels today for example, would take up to a decade to generate back the energy it originally consumes to build it. Is cutting off oil, an extra source of energy today a good idea?

Nose Nuggets : LVL 8: VP 1.7: said:

Nose Nuggets

2 votes NegativePositive

222 days 4 hours ago...

the first TED talk i draw issue with, ill be damned.

first off, to be completely off oil is impossible right now. i don`t know why people think the only thing we use petroleum products for is our cars, but its not. i cant point to anything in my office that is not comprised of or uses a petroleum product at some point during the manufacturing process. not a one. not my pencil, phone, plastic bottle of water, napkins from lunch, my leather wallet, a ream of paper. all of it. every. single. thing.

^to the guy above me, nuclear energy IS safe. VERY VERY safe. i don`t know why people think otherwise.

all in all, this guy didn`t really do much. he just got on a stage and talked well and spit some facts but all he essentially said was we have the technology today to have everyone using electric cars if we had the infrastructure. big whoop, we have had the technology for probably 10 years now. the infrastructure is huge. but even more important then that is who owns the current infrastructure.

now i dont want to sound like i am taking it out on this guy specifically, but i want to state why this will never happen with the current status quo. The US has no real intention of moving away from oil because it would upset the state of things to much. far too many of the people who _actually_ run the country have their fingers in the oil pie. the reason is two fold, one - the obvious one - is money. oil is insanely lucrative as you essentially have poor middle eastern people pull it out of the ground for pennies and then you turn around and sell it like liquid gold. the more important reason is the control it provides as everything relies on it.

Nose Nuggets : LVL 8: VP 1.7: said:

Nose Nuggets

1 votes NegativePositive

222 days 4 hours ago...

regarding available energy -

we have the technology today to power the world with a combination of wind, hydroelectric and solar. its just the money to make these things. with huge investments into solar im sure the yields could be fantastic. of course, all of these options pale in comparison to geothermal. which is insainly cheep, constant (unlike solar / hydro) and simple.

its the powers that be that are stifling our progress, not technology, and not the market.

anoniem : LVL 33: VP 4.2: said:

anoniem

0 votes NegativePositive

222 days 2 hours ago...

"its the powers that be that are stifling our progress, not technology, and not the market"
exactly.

blue_devil : LVL 42: VP 5: said:

blue_devil

0 votes NegativePositive

220 days 23 hours ago...

oil,nuclear,wind, solar, hidro are all small kids when it comes to energy . if we don`t manage to get Fusion working in the next 100 years we will go extinct because nothing else is sustainable in the long run.
...just my 2 cents.

velocity73R : LVL 39: VP 4.7: said:

velocity73R

1 votes NegativePositive

220 days 22 hours ago...

I like Ted Talks` but this one made me wince a bit. I would wager that this audience is comprised mostly of Liberal American`s, that do not understand how their country is run. The majority of the oil traded today is in US dollar`s, if this guy`s dream becomes a reality, those dollars will come flooding back to America like a Tsunami. Sinking the US economy, and making all these Lib`s in the audience buried under a sea of debt. But they clap anyways, not knowing their fate if this new car takes off, strange really...

Nose Nuggets : LVL 8: VP 1.7: said:

Nose Nuggets

0 votes NegativePositive

220 days 6 hours ago...

blue_devil, solar and geothermal are HUGE! HUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUG
EHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHU
GEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGEHUGE

we could run the world off hydro sola rand wind withe CURRENT tech, let alone the kind of panels we would have if we through some substantial funding their way.

it ALL pales in comparison to the possible output of geothermal. even nuclear.

Number2 : LVL 1: VP 1: said:

Number2

0 votes NegativePositive

220 days 4 hours ago...

People, this is interesting only if you believe in the global warming scam. I`m all for advancements in transportation but hasn`t anybody noticed that there are too many cars on the road already. How about we build a bunch of high speed maglev trains to get people off the road. As for energy, anything other than nulear is a fucking scam. Wind,Solar,geothermal,and hydro are all stone age sources of energy. They also junk up the landscape. Nuclear is by far the cheapest,most energy dense, and the cleanest source. By the way, stay away from al gore, he wants you to drink his Koolaide.

theduck1980 : LVL 15: VP 2.4: said:

theduck1980

0 votes NegativePositive

219 days 22 hours ago...

It sounds like a good plan to me... or a start anyway. Obviously there are complications and road blokes to get around if we headed in this direction. But they pale in comparrison to the complications that arise from doing nothing. So I say, don`t criticize this, even if it doesn`t seem perfect to you yet... His speech was nothing more than the breifest of outlines. We need to start down this path NOW!

You know the stupid australian government has just invested a whole bunch of research money into better coal extraction instead of zero emission technologies! fuck that pisses me off... it seems even australia`s government is in the coal industries back pocket... If that money were put straight into the sort of infrastructure this talk was about, then we would be well on our way down under

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Entry Dates: 9/8/2007-9/14/2009