Anti alternative fuels?????

Question

I here people talking a lot about big oil companies and how they slander alternative fuels and buy up patents and don't develop the technology, but does anyone have links to proof? I hear a lot of talk, but I still haven't seen anything with my eyes that makes it fact. Post links to documents so we can see the real deal.

Answer 1

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The most famous example of this was the NIMH battery technology. The battery was developed by a small Michigan research company, Ovonics, by Stanly Ovshinsky (I've personally met this person.) He sold controlling interest in the patents to General Motors, who used the batteries in the EV1 electric car.
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The batteries gave the car twice the range of the former lead-acid batteries, and also had a 100,000 mile plus lifetime. Despite this revolutionary performance, GM didn't want Stanley to speak publicly about the success of his battery.
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After the electric car program in California was killed, and the EV1s were crushed, GM sold the NIMH patents to Chevron/Texaco, who formed the company "Cobasys". Cobasys sued Panasonic and Toyota (the only other carmaker using NIMHs in an electric car, the RAV 4 EV), and stopped the manufacture of EV sized NIMH batteries.
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Discussion of patent fiasco:
http://www.evworld.com/blogs/index.cfm?page=blogentry&authorid=51&blogid=104
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and
http://jcwinnie.biz/wordpress/?p=1387
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And a RAV4 EV user speaks about NIMHs:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/ev-list-archive/message/78631
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News article about the Panasonic lawsuit:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040710180354/http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/energy8e_20040708.htm
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What Cobasys themselves say about NIMHs and electric vehicles:
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http://www.cobasys.com/pdf/faq/faq.html
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Note they do not come out and say that you can't get them - but they tell you there's no distribution network for those batteries. In fact, no amateur electric car maker has been able to get any, and larger EV makers, if they can get these batteries, are charged extremely high prices. Why make them so hard to get? If you're in the business of selling batteries, why not sell them? (The bit from Cobasys about NIMHs needing special handling is nonsense; Li-Ion batteries, and acid-filled wet cell batteries are much more dangerous, but are still easily available.)
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Large size batteries are not just used in electric cars - they are also used in wheelchairs, forklifts, golf carts, boats, UPS, power leveling, industrial applications, etc.

Why is Chevron/Texaco/Cobasys not interested in these markets? Go ahead, search the internet right now, see if you can figure out how to buy large (more than 10ah) sized NIMH batteries. Note that other battery types (lead acid, gel-cell, Ni-Cd, Li-Ion) are readily available in all sizes.
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Answer 2

Yes. Last year, the Royal Society of the UK (the oldest and one o the most respected scientific odies in the world) published the results of an investigation that showed Exxon/Mobil (among others) spents $40 million a year in disseminating information to mislead people about global warming, etc.

You can get information about this by going to their website (you'll have to dig a bit, though--use their search facility).
Also--the current flap about the White House censoring reports by scientists is not a small matter--and the guy in charge of it is a former lobbyist for te oil companies. He's not in the White House now--he went back to working as a "consultant" for one of the oil companies.

At the same time, I wouldn't get to wound up in conspiracy theories. To hear some tell it the oil companies are at fault for everything from sunspots to hangnails. But the stuff above you can check--and is documented evidence of unethical behavior.

Answer 3

ok, i'm going to take a step returned and clarify my perspectives. determination gas components are not accessible on the instant. the fee of production is in simple terms too intense, and that they require an very almost thoroughly new branch of marketplace. on a similar time because it truly is authentic, to not pursue those determination energies may be a grave mistake. on a similar time as you won't have faith in worldwide warming, that's nevertheless an extremely in all possibility risk. and whether not, our gas supply will, quicker or later, run low and then out. we could have some thing to returned that up. no rely if that's image voltaic potential, which calls for a intense preliminary fee yet has great long term utilization with the aid of low maintenance costs, or ethanol, which admittedly does reason some subject concerns with unknown polution it emits yet may be taking from a surplus supply of corn quite than the present used supply (so taht does not strengthen your nutrients costs, yet greater gas costs do, delivery subject concerns), or perhaps underwater generators utilising the sea currents, although that still calls for a intense preliminary fee. we can not in simple terms sit down and wait. i'm not asserting enforce determination fuels now, i'm asserting initiate the technique now, so as that in the time of five years we are going to definitely be waiting to declare that's achievable.

Answer 4

The worlds largest manufacturer of solar cells is BP, an oil company.

Answer 5

Actually recently they have been jumping on the band wagon.

This is probably a move of self-preservation and shows what they really believe about the future. Money talks and they listen.

They do what economically makes sense for them, and you can get mad about it but it happens all the time. Ever heard of microsoft, they are way worse about snuffing out competition.

Answer 6

I am still waiting for something that will really work at a price we can afford.

Answer 7

See a film called "Who Killed the Electric Car" to start.