Tow cars and trailers

Marc Ramsey wrote:

You are confusing the message with the messenger. If Al Gore lived in
one 500 sq ft house and traveled around only by bicycle, many would this
frugal lifestyle further reason for ridicule.


Al Gore is his own reason for ridicule. His message is tainted,
undeniably, by the fact he has yet to demonstrate that he is _not_
one of those who says, "Do as I say, and not as I do." Until then we
will ignore him and others like him.

As long as we insist on being warm in the winter and also believe
that the earth can sustain increasing billions of human inhabitants
the problem will continue to grow -- only the rate might be changed
imperceptibly by anything we may try to do about it. It makes no
sense at all for 300,000,000 Americans to become tree-huggers if
5,000,000,000 Asians, Africans, and others are doing all they can to
increase their own material comforts, and with little or no regard
for the pollution that results.

Nature will take care of the problem, one way or the other. It is
our obligation only to see that we are the beneficiaries of the
natural course of events, and not its victims. That requires much
more science and far less dogma.


Jack

Jack wrote:
Marc Ramsey wrote:

You are confusing the message with the messenger. If Al Gore lived in
one 500 sq ft house and traveled around only by bicycle, many would
this frugal lifestyle further reason for ridicule.


Al Gore is his own reason for ridicule. His message is tainted,
undeniably, by the fact he has yet to demonstrate that he is _not_ one
of those who says, "Do as I say, and not as I do." Until then we will
ignore him and others like him.

As long as we insist on being warm in the winter and also believe that
the earth can sustain increasing billions of human inhabitants the
problem will continue to grow -- only the rate might be changed
imperceptibly by anything we may try to do about it. It makes no sense
at all for 300,000,000 Americans to become tree-huggers if 5,000,000,000
Asians, Africans, and others are doing all they can to increase their
own material comforts, and with little or no regard for the pollution
that results.

Stop consuming like a high schooler drinks beer at his first kegger.
Also, the notion that the only way to improve a product is to make it
less expensive is killing US manufacturing capacity and fueling Asian
expansion. We are in the process of jump-starting their middle class
with our demand. If/when we've gone to far and that machine can run
without our demand, we lose all control of world economics including the
oil market, labor markets, and international banking. Forget Fed
control of interest rates (may already be happening). Not to mention
melamine concentration in our food!
The only way to fix things now is through protectionism (yeah, yeah,
**** your economics prof, mine too ;-) ). Consumers and business don't
have the balls to be responsible. Probably too late anyway.

Nature will take care of the problem, one way or the other. It is our
obligation only to see that we are the beneficiaries of the natural
course of events, and not its victims. That requires much more science
and far less dogma.

True, but when really good science is so strong it looks like dogma
(e.g. evolutionary science, or plate tectonics), it serves no purpose to
condemn it *just* because it's the status quo. Climate science seems to
be headed this way.


Shawn

Jack wrote:
As long as we insist on being warm in the winter and also believe that
the earth can sustain increasing billions of human inhabitants the
problem will continue to grow -- only the rate might be changed
imperceptibly by anything we may try to do about it. It makes no sense
at all for 300,000,000 Americans to become tree-huggers if 5,000,000,000
Asians, Africans, and others are doing all they can to increase their
own material comforts, and with little or no regard for the pollution
that results.

Americans consumes nearly 30 times as much energy as Africans, 10 times
as much as East Asians, 5 times the world average. Some (all
treehugggers, no doubt) would like to see us meet the developing world
somewhere in the middle. But, I suspect you are among those Americans
who believe the only solution is superior firepower...

Marc

Americans consumes nearly 30 times as much energy as
Africans, 10 times as much as East Asians, 5 times
the world average.

So much for Americans giving up on their behemoths...I
clipped the following from today SanFranChron.


Gas prices don't scare buyers of big SUVs
After 2-year slump, demand rebounds

Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, May 20, 2007

In these days of nearly $4-a-gallon gasoline, a
three-ton SUV that practically requires a bank loan
to fill 'er up would seem to be a tough sell.

Americans, however, are not shunning these beasts.
Far from it. Auto industry figures show that after
a two-year slump, sales of the gas guzzlers are up
over 2006 -- in some cases, way up.

The numbers for large SUVs rose nearly 6 percent in
the first quarter of 2007, and the April figures were
up 25 percent from April 2006, according to automakers'
statistics provided by Edmunds.com, an automotive research
Web site.

The bigger the guzzler, the better the numbers. Sales
of GMC's Yukon XL were up a whopping 72 percent last
month, and the totals for its Chevrolet sister, the
Suburban, rose 38 percent. Topping off the tank on
either one can cost as much as $120.

"Dan G" wrote in message
ups.com...
...
Bottom line: hybrids get the best gas mileage at present. Diesels are
close behind and may always be a bit cheaper to buy, but not quite as
good for mileage, and also have issues with pollution. Ultimately -
decades ahead - hydrogen is the future. Where the energy to produce
the hydrogen comes from is a whole other ball game :-).


If we don't have the energy to extract the hydrogen, then what makes it "the
future"? I've never understood that angle - "we will need hydrogen for when
we run out of oil" - but we need oil to extract the hygrogen, eh?

Seems to me like we need "something" as an energy source for when we run out
of oil, and what kind of fuel one would generate for transportation would
depend a lot on what that "something" is. Might be H2, very possibly won't.

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
"Dan G" wrote in message
ups.com...
...
Bottom line: hybrids get the best gas mileage at present. Diesels are
close behind and may always be a bit cheaper to buy, but not quite as
good for mileage, and also have issues with pollution. Ultimately -
decades ahead - hydrogen is the future. Where the energy to produce
the hydrogen comes from is a whole other ball game :-).


If we don't have the energy to extract the hydrogen, then what makes it "the
future"? I've never understood that angle - "we will need hydrogen for when
we run out of oil" - but we need oil to extract the hygrogen, eh?

Seems to me like we need "something" as an energy source for when we run out
of oil, and what kind of fuel one would generate for transportation would
depend a lot on what that "something" is. Might be H2, very possibly won't.

Yes! Kind of like the E85 push, the big boosters never bother to
mention that it takes nearly as much energy to make the ethanol as you
get out, meanwhile driving up corn (and beef) prices, and any other crop
that isn't planted so that corn can be.
I wouldn't be surprised if battery technology develops so thoroughly
that fuel cells (i.e. H2) never takes off.
Look at the Antares for example :-)


Shawn

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
If we don't have the energy to extract the hydrogen, then what makes it "the
future"? I've never understood that angle - "we will need hydrogen for when
we run out of oil" - but we need oil to extract the hygrogen, eh?

Seems to me like we need "something" as an energy source for when we run out
of oil, and what kind of fuel one would generate for transportation would
depend a lot on what that "something" is. Might be H2, very possibly won't.

Hydrogen isn't an energy source, just a way of storing energy in a
transportable form, same as battery or biofuel.

It has a few disadvantages too - when you combine electrolysis to get H2
with fuel cell efficiency the overall efficiency is around 66%. Thats
good compared with an IC engine's typical 25-35%, but other storage
methods, e.g. Li-poly batteries, which have a charge/discharge
efficiency of around 85%. The proof of this is that direct drive (no
storage) solar electric UAVs and those using Li-poly storage have
already flown successfully but no solar fuel cell system has, AFAIK, yet
flown.

Now consider that liquid H2, which is what cars will probably run on.
This needs cryogenic storage (if you don't cool it to liquid you either
need heavy HP gas cylinders or you adsorb it in a carrier and that
material isn't all that light either). In practice cryogenic tanks boil
off hydrogen to cool the remainder, which reduces the overall efficiency
by 15% if you immediately drive until the tank is empty and by up to
100% if you just park the car.

I think some other liquid fuel, such as ethanol, would be a lot less
hassle, but, like hydrogen, it needs to be manufactured industrially
using solar or nuclear power if enough is to be produced to entirely
replace fossil vehicle fuels.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

If you want to look at alternative liguid fuels for the existing fleet
consider Butanol (Butyl alcohol). It has about the same energy content as
gasolene, burns at the same air-fuel mixture and has an octane rating of 94.
It can be made from biomass at better net energy yeld than ethanol. Since
you can mix it with gasolene at any ratio with no changes needed in the
engines, it looks better to me than ethanol.

Bill Daniels


"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
...
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
If we don't have the energy to extract the hydrogen, then what makes it
"the future"? I've never understood that angle - "we will need hydrogen
for when we run out of oil" - but we need oil to extract the hygrogen,
eh?

Seems to me like we need "something" as an energy source for when we run
out of oil, and what kind of fuel one would generate for transportation
would depend a lot on what that "something" is. Might be H2, very
possibly won't.

Hydrogen isn't an energy source, just a way of storing energy in a
transportable form, same as battery or biofuel.

It has a few disadvantages too - when you combine electrolysis to get H2
with fuel cell efficiency the overall efficiency is around 66%. Thats good
compared with an IC engine's typical 25-35%, but other storage methods,
e.g. Li-poly batteries, which have a charge/discharge efficiency of around
85%. The proof of this is that direct drive (no storage) solar electric
UAVs and those using Li-poly storage have already flown successfully but
no solar fuel cell system has, AFAIK, yet flown.

Now consider that liquid H2, which is what cars will probably run on. This
needs cryogenic storage (if you don't cool it to liquid you either need
heavy HP gas cylinders or you adsorb it in a carrier and that material
isn't all that light either). In practice cryogenic tanks boil off
hydrogen to cool the remainder, which reduces the overall efficiency by
15% if you immediately drive until the tank is empty and by up to 100% if
you just park the car.

I think some other liquid fuel, such as ethanol, would be a lot less
hassle, but, like hydrogen, it needs to be manufactured industrially using
solar or nuclear power if enough is to be produced to entirely replace
fossil vehicle fuels.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Asbjorn Hojmark wrote:

Currently, the 300M Americans emits more CO2 and consumes more oil
than the next four countries together, including the 1B+ Chinese and
1B+ Indians. 23% of the total CO2 emission in the world comes the US.


Today is not the problem. Demand increases as population increases
and as international interactions increase.

Resentments are not solutions.


Jack

Marc Ramsey wrote:

Americans consumes nearly 30 times as much energy as Africans, 10 times
as much as East Asians, 5 times the world average. Some (all
treehugggers, no doubt) would like to see us meet the developing world
somewhere in the middle.


Have you yet reduced your energy consumption by 80%? We await your
example.



But, I suspect you are among those Americans
who believe the only solution is superior firepower.


And I suspect you have your own notion of when that might be useful.
I also suspect we can agree that it's too expensive -- until nothing
else is sufficient.


Jack