Yeah, 'twas nice for a time, to think you could beat entropy.

I'm not so sure about your last though - 'solar collectors'? I take you to mean just that. But a friend of mine has been hauling PVC pipe, etc. to odd places (like Pacific Islands) for years. Helping local folk heat water and such (not run their electric SUVs or anything). Quite more than merely cost effective. And I mean from chemical vat onwards.

Even electro-solar: it gets cheaper and cheaper to turn out literally 'rolls' of solar conversion cells, as the efficiency creeps ever upwards. Some old dogs need some new tricks, just so long as they keep in mind the real overall accounting, as you say.

Personally, I think it would be a lot if.. the Six-Pack clan could grok simply the Idea of the *Real* overall cost (in all those categories you mentioned) of any car and of - lots of other crap we plan to turn out, with no idea how to recycle last year's model.

Like CRTs, digital ones comin up. (500 channels with nothing on) Each old one going direct to landfill: is burying all that hidden stuff; the solvents and materials used in construction yada yada PLUS the carcass itself + The ENERGY budget spent getting it into the colorful nonrecyclable packaging too.

Only weird folk, like here - ever think about that stuff. So I'd say that just beginning to think about it all over the place (never mind just re 'lectric cars) would be a BIG first step to getting off this treadmill from the store --> home for 3 mos to a couple years --> landfill. [GoTo 'store' and start over].



Ashton
Minor nit - we'd have to find some creative things to pay homo-sap to do - besides create endless energy sumps, like now. So ??