The Car Allowance Rebate System is a US federal program that helps US citizens to purchase a new, more fuel efficient vehicle when trading in a less fuel efficient vehicle.

Thousands of Americans are rushing out and trading in their old cars to receive a $3500 or $4500 discount towards the purchase of select new cars. This may sound great at first but there are many hidden facts the majority of the population may not be aware of.

• The program is designed to get old cars up to 25 years old with under 18 MPG off the road and replace them with brand new cars that have a higher MPG rating.
• Depending on the age of the vehicle you will ether qualify for $3500 or $4500 off of the purchase price of the new car.
• The old car must have been owned, registered, and insured for the past year.
• The dealer is required to disable the old cars engine by draining the oil and replacing with a water and silica solution, permanently destroying the engine.
• The old car must the crushed and the engine and drivetrain cannot be sold for parts, this prevents the sale of the car in the United States and elsewhere as a vehicle.

Many of the cars being turned in as “Clunkers” to this program are still perfectly fine and are being turned in just so the owner can get a new car, but because the car is required to be destroyed hundreds maybe even thousands of cars are being destroyed. But is this really the best way to get people to buy new cars? Why go to the effort to destroy perfectly fine cars that may only be 4-5 years old.

Let’s say all the cars that went to the program that were newer then say 1998 were taken into a low income car program, helping get the “real clunkers” off the road.

It could work as follows:

• The total household income is less then a certain level.
• Each household would qualify for only one vehicle trade.
• The traded vehicle must need more then $500 in repairs to qualify.
• The car must be less then 35 years old, but mileage does not matter.
• The car must be owned for the last year but is not required to be registered or smogged.

This would help get the “real clunkers” and unsafe cars off the road and help clean up the roads. But why was this not the way the Cash for Clunkers program was designed? We can only guess that it has to do with the fact that the Government has recently bailed out both GM and Chrysler. By requiring people to purchase a new vehicle they are protecting there investments.

Another theory about why they don’t want to have a low income program is “Keep Them Stupid and Poor” consperacy that has been floating around the internet. I think the government has been brainwashing the population, there is so many stupid laws and programs right now and the majority of the population appears to be going along with it.

I see this first hand as I am an unemployed, student. Like many others I have been in search of a job for many months, but because of the current economy there has been very little interest. Another major issue is the cut to education budgets, just this summer I had a class I was attending get canceled after the first week was over because they were two people short of the twenty person quota. I feel that as an American I am not getting what I should, if I pay my taxes I should be able to use that money, and I feel it unfair to allow this program to only benefit the people capable of making monthly car payments. What about the rest of the population?

Iceland’s carbon bank account makes the rest of us look like paupers. Iceland has a decade’s long strategy of tapping sources of renewable energy. Whereas a number of U.S. states (Note: not Federal government!), have set goals of 10 to 15 percent renewable energy generation, Iceland now is already at about 80%. Geothermal or hydorelectric plants provide virtually all of Iceland’s electrical needs, and homes are typically heated by water pumped from geothermal hot spots. They are also amongst the first countries to have a hydrogen infrastructure (i.e., “gas” station) in place, and a number of their buses are currently powered by hydrogen engines.

Admittedly Iceland is blessed with an abundance of water and geothermal constructs to allow this potential. But it is also a focus and determination that has allowed them to bring these renewable energy sources to fruition. Now if we can only get the U.S. and the rest of the world on board. Hmmm, maybe polar bears won’t become a nuisance to citrus growers after all!

Here is a video about it:

But, Stan died shortly after that journey: he was poisoned to death. A rather persistent and nasty rumor blames a hit-man from the middle east with obvious interest in seeing such an invention disappear. Another related rumor says Stan was offered $1 billion dollars to dump the engine and retire – but he refused, and suffered the unfortunate consequences.

So, is it real? Well, in a way. BMW has a prototype car they call the Hydrogen 7 (pictured). They state that: “Our long-term EfficientDynamics strategy can be summed up with one vehicle: the BMW Hydrogen 7. As the world’s first luxury performance sedan with hydrogen drive, it runs on the most plentiful element in the world and emits virtually nothing but water vapor”. However, it runs on especially processed hydrogen (ahh, the big business “hook”?), that must be dispensed at stations much like, or as an addition to, current gas stations. In their words, the Hydrogen 7 is not yet available “because the infrastructure for refueling a hydrogen internal combustion engine is not yet complete”.

Well, at least they are working on it, and to my knowledge nobody has been “wacked” by oil interests as of yet. Keep tuned, we may be emerging on a breakthrough that will free us from the oil dependence nightmare.