Pete, stop making me participate!

A few thoughts:

- hybrid vehicle on electricity and biodiesel/ethanol mix. Could drop fossil fuel component to less than 30%

- hydrogen vehicle. Unfortunately, hydrogen is most cheaply produced from fossil fuel. Perhaps someone can develop a better solar cell to allow for electrolysis to be more efficient. Caution with this approach is that byproducts of electrolysis of H2O include extremely caustic (pH 14+) solution that has heavy water component (i.e. radioactive duterium). I'm not a chemist, so I can't really explain the stoichiometry of it....

Coincidently, I believe it was Norway that was using electrolysis heavily in the 1940's to produce hydrogen (from water) to be used in fertilizer (ammonium nitrate). Apparantly, as the story goes, the Nazi party had begun informal experimenting with the heavy water byproduct to develop atomic energy (and possibly weapons). History could have been re-written (and not for the better) had they placed this research (and jet power) on a high priority.

Yeah....what he said. But on the whole solar thing...the state of Florida just this year started with the 30% rebate for adding solar panels, up to a maximum of about $3,000. So not much help for doing a whole home system and as I said before, they are sold out of PV panels.

The idea to do it came to mind right after the 3 hurricanes of 2004. After each one the weather was beautiful, lots of sun, no electricity. Generators need gasoline but all the stations were closed, no electricity to pump it. It also would have been nice to have a wind generator as soon as the power went out, while it was blowing 80-120! But will solar panels stay attached to your roof in 120 mph winds?

Most of you now in your 40's, who grew up in the US, remember the oil shortage of 1974. We were told then that by now (30+ years later) we would all be driving electric cars, or little 100 mpg diesels, like they do in Europe. We were also forced to learn the metric system because we were going to be using that by the 1980's...don't get me started.

My parrents bought a VW Diesel Rabbit back in 1978, for $8,000. It got 50 mpg. Wish I could find one today! The new Diesel Jetta gets about 48 mpg, but costs $21-23,000. A Toyota Carola gets 41 mpg on gasoline, for about $13-16,000. Diesel is about $.20 more expensive than gas (why is that? It used to be twenty cents cheaper. Taxes?)

Still, I would rather ride the train the 85 miles to work, like most do in Europe, but we don't have them in rural US, only in a few major cities, like Chicago, NY and Boston. That way I could read or sleep.

Pete,

I feel it is a beautiful pace to sail. To me, there is nothing more beautiful than looking out toward the water and seeing no land, but Pultneyville is a really nice town. There is some farm land, lots of trees and parks. There are no buildings or anything like that, just well maintained houses. It is not too developed. When ever I take someone out for the first time they are always astounded by the view.

Our sailing season runs from May to November. I keep saying, "Rochester is the new Florida if this 'global warming' keeps up!"

I am always thinking, I wish I had a camera so I could remember this view forever. This year I will be taking a camera out to get some good shots.

Matt

It's too late, they already have.

Cars - No more points in the ignition system or carburetors. Computers now control everything in cars. In some cases, over control. Look at the horrible implementation with BMW’s iDrive and Mercedes drop in quality caused by their on board computers.

Banks/Finance – When’s the last time bank tellers hand entered info into a bankbook? 30 years ago? Any company in this area that isn’t using more and more IT systems is a non-player.

Manufacturing – IT systems tell you what/when/how to build. Humans are peripheral equipment.

Engineering – If you aren’t using CAD systems for design you’re taking way too long to bring products to market.

Internet – You’re reading this aren’t you?

Liability, fear of litigation. My understanding was that the system was one of the most promising systems developed and was close to completion, but all funding was cut after the lawyers could not work around the liability issue.

I like the train idea.

Matt

Timbo:

That's true but someone will make more!

The thing to do is send Jeb a message saying $3k isn't enough!

Anybody wanna work on a group project to get the Gov's attention? Something fun,envolving sailing?

If there's Grant money to be had, I'm in! Every day I read in my local paper about another (needles, idiotic) project being funded by "Grant Money" usually around $250,000 or more. So, yeah, let's put together a project for Solar/Wind Powered boats, get Jeb to "grant" us $250,000 and have a regatta! "Look Ma, no imported oil!" Saving the world, one regatta at a time!

How about an Education Grant to teach kids to sail instead of ride jet skis? $250,000 would buy a lot of Waves!

Thanks for the answer

In effect, the laywers were afraid for the unknown and preferred the inferiour performance of a known situation rather then risk improving things by introducing a relatively unknown situation.

Also for some reason people are expected to sooner litigate a company whose "trained" car was involved in an accident then a car company that produced an "untrained" car, even while the latter situation is most likely a more dangerous situation. As in most applications; human controllers are pretty mediocre. Alot of accidents happen because a human controller made a error or intepretated the situation the wrong way.

I'm sure that "trained" cars will add a few new error and accident modes, but the reduction in human induced accidents could be much more significant.

But it is the same thing ago; alot of world problems could have been solved already if not everybody was paying so much attention to protecting their own backsides.

Wouter

Matt, can you give me the name of the company who did this work and development ?

Wouter

O, ye of little faith.

NY Times 02/16


A Way to Cut Fuel Consumption That Everyone Likes, Except the Politicians



By ROBERT H. FRANK
Published: February 16, 2006
SUPPOSE a politician promised to reveal the details of a simple proposal that would, if adopted, produce hundreds of billions of dollars in savings for American consumers, significant reductions in traffic congestion, major improvements in urban air quality, large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and substantially reduced dependence on Middle East oil. The politician also promised that the plan would require no net cash outlays from American families, no additional regulations and no expansion of the bureaucracy.

As economists often remind their students, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So this politician's announcement would almost surely be greeted skeptically. Yet a policy that would deliver precisely the outcomes described could be enacted by Congress tomorrow — namely, a $2-a-gallon tax on gasoline whose proceeds were refunded to American families in reduced payroll taxes.

Proposals of this sort have been advanced frequently in recent years by both liberal and conservative economists. Invariably, however, pundits are quick to dismiss these proposals as "politically unthinkable."

But if higher gasoline taxes would make everyone better off, why are they unthinkable? Part of the answer is suggested by the fate of the first serious proposal to employ gasoline taxes to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil. The year was 1979 and the country was still reeling from the second of two oil embargoes. To encourage conservation, President Jimmy Carter proposed a steep tax on gasoline, with the proceeds to be refunded in the form of lower payroll taxes.

Mr. Carter's opponents mounted a rhetorically brilliant attack on his proposal, arguing that because consumers would get back every cent they paid in gasoline taxes, they could, and would, buy just as much gasoline as before. Many found this argument compelling, and in the end, President Carter's proposal won just 35 votes in the House of Representatives.

The experience appears to have left an indelible imprint on political decision makers. To this day, many seem persuaded that tax-cum-rebate proposals do not make economic sense. But it is the argument advanced by Mr. Carter's critics that makes no sense. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how such a program would alter people's opportunities and incentives.

Some examples help to illustrate how the program would work. On average, a family of four currently consumes almost 2,000 gallons of gasoline annually. If all families continued to consume gasoline at the same rate after the imposition of a $2-a-gallon gasoline tax, the average family would pay $4,000 in additional gasoline taxes annually. A representative family with two earners would then receive an annual payroll tax refund of $4,000. So, if all other families continued to buy as much gasoline as before, then, this family's tax rebate would enable it to do so as well, just as Mr. Carter's critics claimed.

But that is not how things would play out. Suppose, for example, that the family was about to replace its aging Ford Explorer, which gets 15 miles per gallon. It could buy another Explorer. Or it could buy Ford's new Focus wagon, which has almost as much cargo capacity and gets more than 30 miles per gallon. The latter choice would save a whopping $2,000 annually at the pump. Not all families would switch, of course, but many would.

From the experience of the 1970's, we know that consumers respond to higher gasoline prices not just by buying more efficient cars, but also by taking fewer trips, forming carpools and moving closer to work. If families overall bought half as much gasoline as before, the rebate would be not $2,000 per earner, but only $1,000. In that case, our representative two-earner family could not buy just as much gasoline as before unless it spent $2,000 less on everything else. So, contrary to Mr. Carter's critics, the tax-cum-rebate program would profoundly alter not only our incentives but also our opportunities.

A second barrier to the adoption of higher gasoline taxes has been the endless insistence by proponents of smaller government that all taxes are bad. Vice President Dick Cheney, for example, has opposed higher gasoline taxes as inconsistent with the administration's belief that prices should be set by market forces. But as even the most enthusiastic free-market economists concede, current gasoline prices are far too low, because they fail to reflect the environmental and foreign policy costs associated with gasoline consumption. Government would actually be smaller, and we would all be more prosperous, if not for the problems caused by what President Bush has called our addiction to oil.

At today's price of about $2.50 a gallon, a $2-a-gallon tax would raise prices by about 80 percent (leaving them still more than $1 a gallon below price levels in Europe). Evidence suggests that an increase of that magnitude would reduce consumption by more than 15 percent in the short run and almost 60 percent in the long run. These savings would be just the beginning, because higher prices would also intensify the race to bring new fuel-efficient technologies to market.

The gasoline tax-cum-rebate proposal enjoys extremely broad support. Liberals favor it. Environmentalists favor it. The conservative Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker has endorsed it, as has the antitax crusader Grover Norquist. President Bush's former chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, has advanced it repeatedly.

In the warmer weather they will have inherited from us a century from now, perspiring historians will struggle to explain why this proposal was once considered politically unthinkable.

Bless you Tiger! This is a fantastic idea! I will be talking this idea up to anyone who will listen, and a few who would rather not!

I've been told that it's because of the war and the fact that most of the heavy equipment over there uses Diesel causing a burden on the system.

I think diesel is taxed more than gas.

Sounds like a great idea, until you think about this:

Unless there is constructed a DIRECT corollary between gas consumption and payroll tax return, or some sort of end-of-year deduction scheme, all this will do is make rich people richer and the poor, poorer.

Low and middle-income people don't go out and buy new cars. They can't afford to. They put $5 in their tanks at a time and go to work. And face it, for the most part, it's the lower-incomers who drive the lower-mileage vehicles.

So these low and middle-incomers see an IMMEDIATE knock to their cash flow but a VERY gradual and probably unbalanced recompense, since the payroll tax 'repayment' would be a national average. And payroll tax is proportional to income, right? So Joe Bubba is laying out hundreds of dollars more in gas costs and seeing only a few dollars return every week. Keep in mind, Joe Bubba is living week to week...

It's only the upper mid and upper income people who will go out and buy that new Explorer with the better mileage. And then see a greater profit, because they're paying the higher tax, but they're getting more back and expending less on gas. The lower brackets will suffer it out and take a beating.

One other possible corollary to make the scheme work would be if there was some sort of subsidization, tax incentive, whatever, to allow lower-income people to go and buy those lower-mileage automobiles.

baa baa, United Sheep of America, it ain't gonna happen, there's too much stroke and too little incentive, especially culturally, against conservation. Ask yourselves why don't we have more mass transportation, for instance?

Question 1 from the Guyness Quiz

1. Alien beings from a highly advanced society visit the Earth, and you are the first human they encounter. As a token of intergalactic friendship, they present you with a small but incredibly sophisticated device that is capable of curing all disease, providing an infinite supply of clean energy, wiping out hunger and poverty, and permanently eliminating oppression and violence all over the entire Earth. You decide to:

a. Present it to the President of the United States.
b. Present it to the Secretary General of the United Nations.
c. Take it apart.

Why end of year, I think "food Stamps" are actually credit cards, so why not a gas card?

Also, middle incomers (like me ) can basically buy any car they want. The auto industry has very sophisticated lending practices, they aren't leaving anyone out!

This program would make the consumer think: "do I really want the most expensive thing I can afford". I believe the net result would be reduced fuel consumption.

Remember too, that GM's financial problems are exacerbated by the drop in SUV sales.

The price of fuel is going up, you can manage the rise and keep some of the money at home, or keep sending more and more to the middle east.

Oop- you haven't been watching Hollywood movies/Live TV lately:
After 1. as you say....
a. Swat Team, FBI, Federal Secret Police, NSA, CIA, US Army are pointing 1000 guns at you and screaming, "GET ON THE GROUND, GET ON THE GROUND!"
b. They confiscate the device and take it apart.
c. You are jailed secretly forever as a subversive, no options or choices.

Green Guy:



I'd email you and asked what made it tick!