> When an automobile engine is place in a boat, it is grossly *de-rated*.
That's the whole point, **people aren't angels**. Their driving habits and general nature require them to have over 100bhp in reserve to get them out of trouble etc. The CEO on the Tesla motor site put it best - "nobody wants to be driving some goofy golf car". Until a "bettery" comes along the problem is one of engineering. Use supercharged, variable boost, small engine capacity hybrids. Install charging points in cities at parking bays or **even inductive charging** at lights or known traffic jam sites. That way a highly optimised engine (a power plant) ultimately burns the fuel more efficiently. Now if they were really serious, left or right, more nuclear power would have been brought on stream (takes about 5 years) and US would be using its own oil reserves and probably exporting oil and technology. As john Steck put it, evolution is cruel so what if we kill a few butterflies? Nature *always* bounces back. Change is the only constant - regardless of what we do. I can't see what a massive state sector has done in the UK since 1997 when someone advising the civil service tells them the lights in the UK will be going out in 2014. Mind you the same thing happened in California due to deregulation. Schmucks to the left, schmucks to the right.
