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Terrafugia CEO Responds To "Flying Car" Criticism
waderoush writes "The majority of the comments on last week's Slashdot post It's Not a Flying Car — It's A Drivable Airplane were critical, even dismissive, of Terrafugia's work to build a two-passenger airplane with folding wings that's also certified for highway driving. We boiled down these criticisms to the dozen most commonly expressed points, and today we've published responses from Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich. While hybrid airplane-automobiles are an old (some would say laughable) idea, Dietrich argues that current materials and avionics technologies finally make the concept feasible."
It's beats the heck out of waiting in line and taking a shuttle to rent a car at an airport.
Just hit the convert button..... and you are on your way --- SWEET!
If I wanted a driveable airplane I would duct tape a license plate to my Cessna.
Welcome to Slashdot.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
1. A "drivable airplane" makes sense. In the way that you do not have to pay for hangar space and keep it safe and cozy at home. You just store it at home. You just "drive" the vehicle to the airport, put it together, do your pre-check inspection, fly, do your post-check inspection, fold, drive to destination. It's not the "Jetson's" concept, you have to be a licensed pilot, but it's, in a sense, practical enough for use.
2. Terrfugia's CEO state that the materials are not available to make it practical. I certainly hope so. Folding, flying, driving it's going to put a lot of stress to a lot of parts on the vehicle. Flying or driving is bad enough to cause problems to components, combining both in one vehicle it's going to make matters worst. I sincerely wish them luck.
Vi havas e-poston.
It's unthinkable that a story posted on /. should ever receive anything but careful, reasoned analysis. This story implies that most /. commenters are knee-jerk hypercritical dorks who don't read anything or like anything. Some people.
we will end no whine before its time
Man, for a collapsed economy, we must be doing pretty good.
Im enjoying a nice pizza tonight, and a few cold beers I bought on the way home from work. Ill admit gas and milk has gone up a bit, but its not to the point where I cant go about my daily life. If this is a collapsed economy, I say we leave it collapsed.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Try solving some real problems that advance society. Building crap just because selfish rich people are wasteful enough to make you wealthy providing them with useless toys is nothing to be proud of.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
And now I'll have a visible space to comment in. Go Me!
So. Flying cars? ABOUT GODDAMN TIME. Like it's harder to fly a car than drive one! People are trusted with two tons of plastic and steel, developing power of the order of 10 to 200 kW, and not fly light devices, because it's so dangerous? Gimme a break. And my flying car.
They've been promised for a century and the tech is good enough since 1960. There was that design of two propellers turning in opposite directions with opposed angles, so as to create a blowing air column that takes the "flying saucer" off the ground. Lean right and it goes right, left and it goes left, use gears and injection to control blowing power and thus height.
That's a flying car, and it's been developed and implemented and tested and MADE in the 50s or 60s. Now add a gyroscope to that and a second safety thing and a third, so it's impossible to get it upside-down (resulting in death), to descend too fast (death or broken limbs), or crash in an other flying device (don't go too near any signal all flying devices give off).
That's one possible design. It's not a car, but it's a flying personal transportation device. Near enough for me.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
If it drives it requires DMV certification. Why not the FAA too?
lolasaurus eating a roflanadon
while I didn't read the original article, the slashdot concerns made for an interesting and relevant interview... I say good job slashdot
I, for one, am shocked that /.ers didn't fully read the article before posting.
Shocked.
How can we read the article if the site's already down after just 19 comments? This is part of the problem, if everyone waited to read the article then comment, the story would already be a day old.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
Unpossible!
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS2rjcVcaqQ
Just need to make it powerful enough to climb aswell, as it is now it can only prolong your fall.
The moment that flying cars become available, I will start a business selling reinforced roofs.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Okay. I'm convinced that there is a small market for a plane that you can drive from the airport to your destination. Seems it would make as much sense to have removable wings as foldable wings, and be a lot simpler.
Then again, a taxi is probably kinda convenient as well.
That's really all that matters. It doesn't take any money and hardly any skill to make a nice animation of an airplane with folding wings, but to actually build one and fly it, that's entirely different.
I'm looking forward to the performance of the flying prototype. I wish them good luck on making it and flying it to Oshkosh this year. If they make it to Oshkosh even without meeting all of their planned specs I expect them to make money for years since this really does fit a niche that no other vehicle does. While they'll have plenty of revenue, hopefully they'll be profitable too.
Great response from Xconomy. The need for an aircraft that can be used for limited driving is real. Some GA (general aviation) airports have very limited and/or very expensive hangar space. In fact, some airports have no available hangar space, in part because companies lease hangar space and use it for business operations rather than aircraft storage. In CA a few years ago, small aircraft were forced out of a hangar so it could be leased to a company that used it for business operations. That's still not right, but at least with the ability to park their airplanes at home and drive to the airport, small aircraft pilots still have options. At the other end, if you're traveling point-to-point, the ability to skip car rental and use your airplane might be an option as well. Obviously, a driveable airplane would be designed for short-distance driving. It's not a car replacement by any stretch of the imagination. (Yes, I am a certificated pilot.)
I do not think it means what you think it means
(My name is NOT Inago Montoya)
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
is why they decided to make the thing so unspeakably, shit-hammeringly ugly.
According to the old aviator adage, "If it looks good, it flies good," this thing will fly about as well as a charred Strawberry Pop-Tart.
The U. S. has collapsed economically ...
... and Slashdot covers flying cars.
I'm sorry, but you're confusing what you want with the actual state of affairs. Why you want it to be that way is a little mysterious, but your ability to confuse it with reality suggests just the sort of disconnect that might drive you to want to see a failed economy, the better to justify your world view.
I'll have to check, but I assume you make the same exact complaint when Slashdot talks about new video boards, hair-splitting differences between Linux distros, the space program, squabbles over pirated movies and music, 4D rubik's cubes, what China does with web filtering, sailing robots, and whether or not Google is obscuring people's faces in Street View? Nah, I won't check, because I'm sure you did.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Aircraft make lousy cars and boats; boats make lousy cars and aircraft; cars make lousy boats and aircraft. And none of them make good helicopters.
Really, we used to - this has been some time ago - have new front page posts about a particularly popular topic and have some of the most insightful comments, often from differing views, rehashed as a starting point for a far more interesting comments thread than the original story's (with dozens of trolls, flamebaits, ill-informed comments, etc. often based on just the title or summary).
In fact, the section is still there. So is the link. Welcome to BackSlash: http://backslash.slashdot.org/
But where the heck did it go? Did the 'editors' realize that "whew boy, this sure is hard work!"? I never found any information on why it seems to have suddenly just stopped dead.
Maybe I missed a comment from an 'editor' somewhere in an unrelated thread, perhaps it's under some catch-all in the FAQ (it's not listed as a section in the "What are the sections for?" item).
What I do know is: I miss it.
Now to see if I'll get a +5 Off-topic..
No one thought there was a problem building a living room car that every one can afford. Many people still do not. To many people, the living room car is a reasonable and necessary item. Many even invest in tricking out their living room car with full entertainment centers. The benefits are clear. So much time is spent in a car, wouldn't it be great to have all the comforts of a living room. A beer, a tv, a phone. Room to spread out, get conformable, even made engage in intimate relations. And there is little to show that this is a bad thing. The drive is more conformable. Oil prices are up, which is good thing unless one is stupid enough to live in an oil poor region. General safety is up, unless one is stupid enough to drive a car that is not a living room.
Reading through the summary and responses there seems to be this same air of uncertainty that existed when the auto manufacturers were using a loophole in a law so that farmers could continue to farm to provide cheap inefficient cars to the masses. There is nothing particularly wrong with it. There is no reason why a person who can afford it should not have a aircar, or a land yacht, or anything else they think they need to be happy. However, such things do have long term effect on the human condition. Speaking personally, there are already severe safety issues on my street dealing with land yachts that they streets are too narrow to accommodate, especially at the speeds that these drivers like to travel. I can imagine somebody buying one of these, and trying to land. At the very least, i would expect a lawsuit demanding that we cut down the trees and pave the front yards to accommodate such planes. And don't laugh. Similar lawsuits have been filed as people wish to reclaim overgrown land for their big houses and big cars.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There was that design of two propellers turning in opposite directions with opposed angles, so as to create a blowing air column that takes the "flying saucer" off the ground.
Two words. Gas mileage. Show me any verticle fan craft, carrying 4 adults, that gets anywhere near the gas mileage of any normal car on the road.
Using engine power to hold the craft up is the antithesis of obtaining reasonable mileage.
Now add a gyroscope to that and a second safety thing and a third, so it's impossible to get it upside-down
Hand-waving those hard parts away doesn't make it any easier.
For any type of non-airport ops, we need 6" precision in a heavy crosswind. Why 6"? That's what you do in your car in a parking lot. Not getting upside down is only part of the problem. You have to come down sometime.
Maintenance. A LOT of cars on the road are spectacularly badly maintained. Do you want those same clowns flying overhead, ready to break down?
as a pilot, i love the idea of being able to fly into a tiny strip by the beach and then drive the few miles to the nearby town. what i want to know is what stops someone from landing on a country road somewhere and then folding up their plane and saying 'oh no officer, i drove here'? there are plenty of roads that are landable around.
Once all training is out of the way, for safety reasons the craft would no be allowed to go into plane mode in populated areas. So one would have to drive to a 'take off' zone and fly away. and if someone was allready flying, and tryed to fly into a populated area, the computer would take over and fly them away. yes, it is just that simple.
I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Carl for his well thought-out response. It's not every day that busy entrepreneurial CEOs take time out of their schedules to address the unwashed internet masses.
I think this project has a lot of potential. I'm always surprised at the attitude people have that "well, I wouldn't buy it, therefore it's not a good product." News flash, folks: there are market segments you are not a part of. Just because not everyone would buy something doesn't mean no one will. Judging from the number of preorders this has gotten (and knowing many general aviation pilots who would leap at an opportunity to own something like this), I would say it has been very well received.
And he's right about the timing. While carbon fiber technology has existed for a long time now, it is just now gaining traction in general-purpose manufacturing, and the economies of scale are bringing the price down to the point where products can be built with it for roughly the same cost as some other materials. The convergence of affordable composite manufacturing and a new type of sport-plane license have finally made this type of vehicle possible.
The licensing programs for general aviation are much more strict than they are for automobiles. If this vehicle inspires regular car drivers to get their VFR licenses, I suspect the training will also make them better drivers.
However, I don't envy the cost of Terrafugia's product certification program. This vehicle needs to be certified to both FAA and NHTSA standards, which aircraft and automobile companies spend many millions on separately, just for the paperwork alone. Godspeed to the certification team!
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
This reminds me a lot of the Phantom. A lot of big talk, and low quality 3D renders. They spend all their time trying to convince you that it's real, and 0% of the time doing anything to actually make it a reality.
However, you can pre-order one! Just ask all their investors. The only thing that will fly here, is their money!
Interestingly enough, I find a Backslash article on the front page right about now.
Maybe the editors *do* read our comments, after all! =)
...pedestrians who walk in front of you and become hamburger.
Dudes: If it flies it requires FAA certification. You may return to your crack pipes now.
If you had read the fine article you'd have seen that there were two major components to the answer for "Why now when it has always before been infeasible?":
1) New materials make it technically feasible.
2) New FAA regulations, creating a new class of aircraft (Light Sport) that's drastically easier to certify, makes it bureaucratically feasible.
I believe 2) completely answers your objection.
But thank you for playing.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Moller claims to get about 18 mpg on ethanol with his M400 volantor, despite it's seemingly fuel-hungry 8 engines. I think he's cheating, though, since he's only actually built a 2-passenger model, and he hasn't flown it off the tether yet, let alone FAA-certified production models.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Thats not the question.. The question is.. But will it BLEND?!
Maybe he's not interested in "solving real problems" but making a fun toy. If you want to "advance society" knock yourself out but don't try to force everyone else to do things your way.
But making everyone else do things their way is how people who claim to be "advancing society" have their fun: using the rest of us as their toys.
And they consider it necessary. After all, "society" is everybody (except when it's "everybody but YOU"). To "advance" it they have to change the behavior of its members. Of course they change it to be more in line with what they consider "advanced".
If the poor, benighted people were happy doing things in a "less advanced" but more self-directed way, tough!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The article mentions walk around inspections. He talks these up and I've heard other pilots do this too. I'm sure it is a good thing to do, if you fly infrequently. If you're flying much more often and that really is the point of this vehicle, to get pilots flying more, then a visual inspection is just "eyeballing" .. you're going to get complacent and miss things. With today's technology is there really any need? Even light planes can have a sensor array network with computer analysis of the sensor data giving a green light to fly or not. Aircraft is so behind the times in this way. Even the big commercial operators get by with people visually inspecting the plane.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Not a good comparison. Those cars typically seat four adults. This thing seats 2 (read the older article on this topic). Two seater cars (other than sports cars, again, toys for the rich) get much better than 27.5 mpg. The Honda Insight is a two seater hybrid getting 60 mpg city / 66 highway.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
I think he's cheating because he's never flown the thing 18 miles to prove it, much less at 350 miles per hour for a full tank of fuel. The proposed fuel economy means nothing if there isn't even a demo model which can demonstrate the actual profile is feasible.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The US economy is collapsing.
1: There is absolutely -ZERO- events causing the gas and oil spikes, which means there is no end to their price climb in sight. Picture what will happen to prices of fuel when some yahoo lights a fart anywhere near an oil refinery. $6-$8 a gallon of regular unleaded is almost a certain thing in most of the US by the end of the year.
2: Congress is absolutely powerless to do anything to stop it, the current administration just plain doesn't care about the American people in any way. Even if Congress try to do something, how can they pay for it? Sell war bonds to China? The US is bankrupt.
3: The dollar is rapidly losing ground against every single currency in the world. The only reason that the dollar buys what it does is because people believe in it... and people are not anymore.
4: There are no solutions to the energy crisis. Nuclear plants are not going to be built anytime soon, nuclear fusion is a joke to keep tokamaks funded, even though there have been -zero- advances in fusion since the laser was invented. Solar is a joke because it costs more to make a solar panel than what energy it ever gets through its useful life. Wind, geothermal, are only useful in rare areas. Pretty much, the US lives and dies on coal and oil... and cars don't burn coal.
5: The mortgage crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Its only going to be a matter of time before banks start having to be bailed left and right, just like in the 1980s... and unlike the 1980s, there isn't money to fund the FDIC.
6: The present attitude is "Yo, Joe Sixpack... sell your SUV and buy a Prius"... yep, demanding other people conserve, even through most people would be happy to trade cars, just they don't have the cash to. Conservation is a nice feel good thing, but its not an energy policy. Again, like #4, there is -zero- interest by the government in energy, or breakthroughs in alternative energy sources that will provide more than piecemeal help.
The US is just like the USSR was in 1990. Its bankrupt, but the economic collapse hasn't propagated yet, just like (and to use a bad car example), pulling the alternator with the battery in the circuit doesn't mean the vehicle dies immediately, although it will just be a matter of time until the battery dies. What will be the turning point is when the stock market takes a serious dive, and the Dow heads under 7000.
Prove me wrong on this.
The US economy grew at .6% (annualized) the last two quarters, amidst a massive spike in oil prices, and food prices, and a financial service sector meltdown, and new-home-building doldrum, and assorted other minor panic. Unemployment remains about 5%, inflation (via the CPI) just .3%. If anything, this testifies to the strength of the rest of the US economy. My local Ph.D. economist opines, "If anything, the government should stop stepping on the gas."
Invest in America. It's underpriced.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
You believe the CPI?? *points and laughs*
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
I believe that as oil is a global commodity, if item #3 is true, that would be a cause of item #1 for folks living in the U.S.
Well I'm here how do you propose to develop an aircraft that can't descend to fast or doesn't flip over in midair? Because if you have a solution I'm sure just about every aircraft manufacturer in the world would be prepared to offer you anything you want for it.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
all those are the direct result of sh@tty republican reign over white house, in which they didnt do scat to regulate the filthy credit business, tried to reduce dependence on arab oil, and printed money like a banana republic. all those will change, when new administration takes over.
and im turkish, and live in turkey, and even i know that.
Read radical news here
No parachute. Less range than a Cessna. Lame.
True. And if you think Moller is cheating, what must you think of Terrafugia!
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
You put in a ballistic parachute. They're common among experimental aircraft enthusiasts.
They're not practical for commercial airliners due to square/cube problems however economies of scale make other enhancements more practical in that regime.
And.. Oh, Terrafugia's design does call for one. Big surprise there. IOW, unless your regularly inspected and certified safety system fails, you're not going to die from poor maintenance in other areas, although if it's anything like skydiving, you might just lose your license for a period if negligence is the reason for parachute deployment.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The parachute idea is a good one and could potentially save some lives there is still the problem that you have to come down somewhere and especially in an urban area where you might see these things theres alot of very bad places to come down on. The other thing is that you still have no guarantee that the safety systems will be maintained, I work in an auto shop doing oil changes and tire repairs so I know for a fact that there are all to many people who fail to even bring in there cars every 3 months and spend $30 to get there oil change despite the fact that if they don't it will create all sorts of very expensive hell, or the people who will drive there tires until the tread is completely gone and the metal belts are showing. There are even people who will drive them beyond that till the tire completely blows and then then continue to drive on the rim and then expect you ti fix their tire.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
Are you implying that the CPI is imperfecT? Well.... duh. But are you implying not linked to the state of the US economy in any meaningful way? I think that takes more than a point-and-laugh to back it up.
Actually, there is a significant body of research revealing that the CPI overstates inflation by failing to adequately account for changes in spending patterns that are tied to very prices of the consumer bundle it sets out to measure, and it doesn't account very well for incremental product improvements, like safer cars or squeezable ketchup bottles that don't get a bunch of stuff stuck in the bottom. (Though that's more of an intermediate/long-range thingy.)
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The problem with flying cars, as has been pointed out, are a matter of piloting. If we can automate air traffic control and the autopilot so that there's no human control required, then it's practical.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Basically, you're falling prey to two classic biases.
1) You remember things that rise in price, and forget things that fall.
2) You remember things you buy all the time, and forget things you buy every so often.
As it turns out, gasoline and food - which you buy all the time - have gone up a lot. Things that you buy relatively infrequently, like big-ticket electronics, have dropped dramatically.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
You may as well be complaining about the cost of diamonds and moaning that since a hard working Amercian can only afford a few three foot diamonds these days the economy is clearly collapsing.
most people would be happy to trade cars, just they don't have the cash to
Heh, right. Lots of $1000 cars will get 35MPG, your ego just refuses to be seen in them -- you want the trendy status symbol Prius. The same way you refuse to live within 100 miles of where you work, and then complain about gas prices, as though they're the problem.
I'd love to see $8/gallon gas. I spend about $20/month on gas, even on my small income doubling that is a non-issue.
Cars themselves are luxury items, of course, and you're perfectly capable of living in a city and using public transit like most of the world.
This space intentionally left blank
...but, doesn't the GDP deflator do a better job of keeping track of inflation in regards to necesseties like food and uh, I don't know ... Gas?
.5x food.
While the CPI will just generalize the "consumer's" overall purchasing experience, where inflation can be less if you get 5x more swimming pool this year and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Price_Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDP_deflator
Wow... talk about negative.
first off, there are plenty of solutions to the "energy crisis". What type of make believe fiticious crap world are we living in where if economics force us to change it's the End Of The World.
1. Solution #1 - switch to an alternate form of energy. There are a ton of options. The last time I checked the sun was still shining and we can still get power from it. Be it solar, wind, or nuclear, there are a ton of options. Why don't we do this? Because the economics don't say we should. Oil is still cheap, but The *second* oil becomes too expensive, there will be a ton of alternate energy sources available to tap. The only reason we don't do it is becuase oil is STILL too cheap.
2. We can also *gasp* change the way we live. Shit, I know i waste plenty of energy. Heating air conditioning... hot water in the mornings, driving to work, pure wastage. How can I get away with wasting energy? Simple, it's cheap. it's less than 5% of my total income so I don't give a crap. I pay roughly 6x that on mortgage. Before the world falls apart, I'm sure we can adjust the way we live at least a tiny bit. But OMG, you may have to sell you SUV and buy a geo metro. Truely the end of the world.
BTW, I'd love to see soemthing backing up that statement about you needing more energy to create a solar panel than all the energy you will ever get out of it. Smells like slanted anti-alternative-energy BS to me, but if you got it from another article or source I'd be interested hearing their twisted logic OR I could even learn something and find out I'm wrong, but i highly doubt it on this issue. Perhaps you're thinking of Ethonal. Either way, source please.
The mortgage crisis.. I guess I don't give a shit. There aren't any losers here. You have gready companies who sold a lot of mortgages when times were good never considering that things may turn south because that might impact their current earnings portfolio. If some of them go belly up its no big shakes to me. I frankly think a few of them SHOULD be put out of business becuase if there was anyone in this mess who was at fault, it was them.
Then you have greedy homeowners who took crazy ass loans or "no paperwork required" loans. Look, buying a house is easily the single biggest investment of your life. If you don't run a few numbers through excel and say "does this make sense" then I don't really feel a lot of pity for you when you can't afford your house. It most likely means you overbought when you got the house (which most people do). But now you've lost your gamble so you have to declare bankruptcy and have to wait 7 years before you buy another house. It's not the end of the world. It sucks, but you took a gamble because housing prices were going up and up and everybody but you was getting rich but you... and now the bubble's burst.
The US is a strong country and we can survive all of these things. The world is not coming to an end. The sky is not falling.
Thank you, but I'll save my pity for a bunch of children who died when their school's clasped after the earthquake in China or other people who actually deserve it.
don
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
Photovoltaics are still messy, but solar-thermal plants are entirely doable, both technologically and economically. The trouble is, as you said, that the "powers that be" apparently have zero serious interest in replacing coal plants with anything different.
Over the years I've noticed a growing disconnect between US leaders and citizenry. I'm tempted to opine that your "leaders" simply don't give a damn; the US really needs to give the Old Guard the boot at the next election, on both sides of your weird two-party-one-horse government. I remember when your dollar was worth two of ours - now it's heading the other way around.
Prove me wrong on this.
Since you asked...
1: There is absolutely -ZERO- events causing the gas and oil spikes...
We're AT WAR in the MIDDLE EAST. War means chaos. Chaos means production becomes unsteady. Unsteady production means LOWER SUPPLY.
Also...
CHINA and INDIA are ENTERING THE MODERN AGE. That means they want cars, and power plants, and other things that burn oil. Half the world starting to do what Americans have done for a century means INCREASED DEMAND.
You know what happens when you LOWER SUPPLY or INCREASE DEMAND? Yep. Prices go up. And this isn't even mentioning Peak Oil.
2: Congress is absolutely powerless to do anything to stop it,
The price of oil? Pretty much. Congress also can't stop hurricanes. What's your point?
the current administration just plain doesn't care about the American people in any way.
Actually, they do. Every single elected offical in Washington cares deeply about their country--the Republicans just think we're better off if they leave us to fend for ourselves, even if some of us starve. (Are you starving?)
Even if Congress try to do something, how can they pay for it? Sell war bonds to China? The US is bankrupt.
The US is FAR from bankrupt. China's only where they are in the world because we're allowing them to grossly distort the currency exchange, because we want them to work for peanuts. Push comes to shove, we can just sue in the WTO and slap a Tarrif on investments and production from China.
3: The dollar is rapidly losing ground against every single currency in the world. The only reason that the dollar buys what it does is because people believe in it... and people are not anymore.
Odd. I still get paid in dollars, and they purchase enough goods for me to go back to work tomorrow.
The dollar won't be the uber-currency of the 21st century. Good. Hegemony is boring, and Americans suck in a boring world.
4: There are no solutions to the energy crisis. Nuclear plants are not going to be built anytime soon, nuclear fusion is a joke to keep tokamaks funded, even though there have been -zero- advances in fusion since the laser was invented. Solar is a joke because it costs more to make a solar panel than what energy it ever gets through its useful life. Wind, geothermal, are only useful in rare areas. Pretty much, the US lives and dies on coal and oil... and cars don't burn coal.
"no solutions": I suppose you're right. We'll never go back to $1 a gallon gasoline. Shucks. But we knew this was coming twenty years ago.
Nuclear: Plans are on the tables, Greenpeace's founder is endorsing Nuclear... sorry, there will be new plants built or chartered by the next Presidential Election. Maybe before this one.
Fusion: I won't even dignify this with more than "you're wrong."
Solar: Ok, in small batches, for small device use, in the northeast, a photovotalic cell takes more energy to create than it will produce in its lifetime. But (1) they get significantly cheaper with larger batches and technology improvements, (2) they last longer in larger installations, and with increased tech, which increases their total energy output, (3) in some places (deserts) they pay-off in less than five years already, (4) photovotalic isn't the only means of solar power. Reflected-light to melt salt or boil water works pretty damn well.
Wind: Wind blows everywhere, some places essentially constantly. Couple a wind farm with a flywheel, and you can produce pretty damn good power. Essentially anywhere in the United States. Not eveywhere, but hardly "rare" for any meaningful definitions of that word.
It's Economics, stupid: Let me put this a little bit more clearly. Wind, Geothermal, Wave, Solar, and Nuclear lose out to oil and coal for electricity generation because the latter are so god damn cheap.
There's still no explanation about how to make something that weighs 1/2 as much as a car meet the same crash test ratings, just some bullshit about advanced composites. There's already a lot of carbon fiber and advanced composites flying. The reason I think this is a scam is that there's nothing published, at all, about FAA certification. The FAA is hostile to all innovation (it's by nature a very CYA organization) and certifying the manufacturing process of an existing, certified design takes a year. Certifying a new aircraft with new technology will be an incredible hurdle. I think this is an elegant scam or a pipe dream.
I see this not as a car replacement for everyone but a great convenience for hobby pilots.
With this you can own your own airplane without having to leave it at the airport (with all that this might entail, such as airplane hanger/parking/club affiliation cost etc). Also great when flying to another airport (visiting relatives for example) because you don't have to worry about leaving your plane there.
Of course this convenience will probably come at steep premium compared to other small planes and ultra light aircraft but it probably makes sense if you depend on a larger airport (class C for example) and don't have to park it there. Although i wonder how/where you would enter the airport ground environment.
Let's see, what dangerous things do people do while driving:
.....and probably more. So, what is to stop his customers of "Suburban Pilots" from doing these things? Now, he wants to COMBINE the two.
1) Drink
2) Drive while sleepy
3) Take imparing edications (like painkillers)
4) Shave
5) Read the paper
6) Talk on cell phones
7) Fiddle with the radio
8) Drive recklessly
9) Ignore posted traffic signs
10) Eat
In a worst-case scenario, a drunk or willfully impaired pilot will crash their plane and kill people on the ground. In a best case scenario, the pilot will crash and only kill themselves, eliminating the chance they will make the same bad choice again.
For some reason, this idiot thinks flying should be a casual activity. Unfortunately, that's not the case: Flying is NOT a casual activity, even for pilots. It may be relaxing and recreational, but even then its something that requires serious attention. I am not a pilot, but I am pretty sure pilots would not take the act of flying with the same approach as driving to the corner store.
Furthermore, there is the question of maintenance: As a mechanic, I've see nhow people maintain their cars: They don't. The biggest excuse is cost, with "It was making funny sounds", a "little light came on", or "I think something is wrong". Usually, people wait until a minor problem (such as an oil change being needed or a small radiator leak) becomes a major problem (engine seizes or radiator hose fails). If his target customers can't afford to perform maintenance on their cars WHEN ITS NEEDED, what's to say they'll fix their planes when it's needed?
Also, one needs to compare the accident rates for proffesionals (i.e. people who do it for a living, or spend the vast majority of their time doing it):
Driving: Compare the accident rates of proffesional drivers, such as stunt car drivers, test drivers, and race car drivers (who are driving outside of a racing environment) with those who drive to work, school, the store, etc.
Flying: Compare the accident rates of recreational pilots with those who fly for airlines.
The difference betwee the two isn't as significant as that between average drivers and professional drivers, but it will become far more pronounced if the idea of marketing these "cars/planes" succeeds. Plus, when a plane crashes, it does damage to whatever stops it, much like cars, only alot more since it's falling from tens of thousands of feet and moving at about 200 MPH.
Also, provided any insurance company insures it, just how much will it be? I seriously doubt this will pass a crash test, either from falling from the sky or getting hit by another car.
Someone needs to teach this guy: An exotic idea isn't always a good one. Hybrid planes/cars are a good example.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
in the air, and you are on your way - LOL.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
"Company pilots often choose to cruise at 50-55% power and take advantage of the economy available there. At 175 mph, the RV-10 is getting more miles per gallon than most of the luxury cars, pickup trucks and SUVs it is flying over." -- Van's RV-10.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
if you need your oil changed every three months I think you should have a better look at your car...
MP3 Search Engine
Google is your friend. Just look up "solar cell energy to manufacture", and you will get 588,000 hits about this, and plenty of sources showing that the life to make up for a solar cell's cost (in perfect weather and conditions) is far greater than the usable life of the cell itself.
Everyone talks about alternative sources of energy, and how they will be sprouting up as oil's price increases. I heard about oil shale cutting in when oil cracked the $85 mark. Nope, no dice. I heard about harnessing the hot air over DC and state capitol buildings as an energy source when oil cracked $100/bbl. Still no alternative energy sources around, and to boot, things have gotten worse -- the biofuel fad has ended up taking crops out of people's mouths and are causing mass starvations. Alternative energy stuff is mainly promises from people just wanting to take investor money, just like the dot.com boom of last decade. There are lots of snake oil sellers out there, but as of now, there essentially is no alternative to oil and coal.
Nuclear would be a very good solution, but most people soil themselves if they hear of a reactor being proposed, much less built in their state, so energy sources that are nonpolluting and can offer consistent power 24/7/365 (which wind and solar are unable to) are not built. Ironically, coal releases more radioactive minerals (uranium and thorium) than nuclear would ever will, even with a total meltdown and vaporization of a core (which won't happen, period, with modern technology.)
As for conservation, again the problem is that people are barely able to feed themselves. They can't magically conserve by turning a 10 year old SUV into a Prius, nor can they magically turn their older house into a just built energy efficient home with a modern HVAC system. This stuff to upgrade takes something called money... which is scarce in this tumbling economy. Almost everyone I know is doing their darnedest to conserve.
The mortgage crisis may not have affected you, but it has done a number on the economy. Even though you did well with a mortgage, Joe Sixpack is causing banks to melt... which means the US government has to bail them out or face massive runs on banks not seen since 1929. Which means even more Federal debt.
The US may be a strong country, but in WWII, we were able to make an economy after the 1929 crash by manufacturing stuff, using domestic resources. This time around, we have almost no manufacturing capacity (the EPA pretty much banned steel alloy refinement so all metal making ends up being shipped to China), and even worse, the US far fewer resources than it did several decades ago. Good luck finding basics like copper, nickel, or other metals without having to go to great expense.
The will of the people is not there either. Instead of a united country willing to forgo differences, the US is a collection of Balkanized nationalities, who are more interested in having the latest iPod, or having the latest purple item for their World of Warcraft character, than anything dealing with national stability. There is just zero interest in how the US is doing, just how can one profit from the country, and a sense of entitlement, which will soon be shattered in a couple years, when there won't be enough money to even maintain power grids.
Feasible != Practical
No hour on a horse is ever wasted. Winston Churchill
Moller claims to get about 18 mpg on ethanol with his M400 volantor
Moller also claims to have a functional 'flying car'.
Sadly, that's not on the front page; unless you have a custom front page that always shows backslash articles... from August 2006 :\
Did anyone notice the small obstacle in the blind spot?
The Consumer Price Index excludes all forms of Food, Oil, Natural Gas, and Electricity. Worthless.
"His name was James Damore."
It has hovered on tether. I don't know about ground translation, but I imagine that would be easier to test. His device meets the bare minimum technical definition for "flying car" and "roadable airplane"
In other words, he has a *lot* more built than Terrafugia, but he's still perpetually four years away from selling anything.
Also, if the neat-o 3d images are anything to go by, they're going to have a hell of a time getting the bifold wings to fold through the tail booms.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
You also tend to fly a little more efficient route than a car would travel, resulting in fewer miles traveled.
"Can't" is a strong word, but a powered parachute tends to descend very slowly when power is cut. They're usually only built for one or two people, though, and not much else.
Well done! You'd be surprised how many Americans can't seem to figure that out. They are particularly, oddly enough, often the Democrats who are bemoaning Bush in every way but can't see that spending money we don't have is causing lots of the problems.
BTW, our Congress is 49% Democract, 49% Republican, 2% independents who tend to vote Democrat. Our House of Representatives is 56% Democrat. Guess what body of the government passed the budgets according to the President's whims? Yep, the Democrat-controlled Congress, which has an even lower satisfaction rating (16%-22% by many sources) than Bush.
Many of us in the US have been pushing for the minor parties to gain ground on the Democrat/Republican duopoly, since they're pretty much working together towards mostly common goals while appearing to be at one another's throats.
Cirrus offers a ballistic parachute on all of their aircraft and they are FAA certified. The debate is still out if they are any safer for having them as it appears pilots may be more apt to do things they know they shouldn't.
all those are the direct result of sh@tty republican reign over white house, in which they didnt do scat to regulate the filthy credit business, tried to reduce dependence on arab oil, and printed money like a banana republic. all those will change, when new administration takes over
So, since you know so much about this, you can explain in more detail. Please do explain how such tighter regulation was in place when a Democrat administration was in office for the previous eight years. Ah, I see.
While you're at it, please explain how the person in the executive office can cause the legislative actions in the congress and the senate that would be necessary to do what you're talking about. Perhaps you can cite the Democrats (who have been running both houses for a while now) who - since they have the majority, and can control what legislation is brought to votes - had a firm grasp on how regulation would have prevented people from borrowing more money than they could pay back, and put forth legislation that would have prevented it. Then point to the calander date during which the Democrats mustered a vote on that subject, being in charge of the legislative agenda as they are, and then sent such legislation to the president you hate so much, where he vetoed it - since that's the mechanism by which he would have prevented such regulation. No, really, please pass along those details... I'm having trouble finding any sign of them, or finding any sign of the actions that The Wise Bill Clinton took to address that issue, but which The Evil Bush tore down.
So, thanks in advance for providing that information. Oh, and please also, if you would, explain how a new administration will suddenly have new constitutional authority to regulate banking and real estate in a way that doesn't have to start with the congress. I'm intrigued, since neither candidate is asserting such new powers, though you're convinced they will have them.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Obviously, real payback times would be longer, but not by an order of magnitude. Most cells last at least 20 years or so.
I am a tech-sector consultant. My job is 100% travel. I drive or take a commercial flight to a client site, spend a certain number of days there, then return home. I am also a licensed private pilot (PPSEL, not IFR yet, but I've been wanting to get a "wet ticket" for a long time)
I have about a 6hr tolerance for the time/distance I am willing to drive in order to avoid having to fly commercial. That's the distance at which the savings in wheels-up/wheels-down time in a commercial aircraft is nearly cancelled out by early arrival requirements, the time spent checking in, the time spent waiting for baggage, the time spent getting rental cars (or getting my car out of the park-n-save), the time spent driving to the job site (or home). At that point, the flexibility of leaving whenever I damn well please plus reduction in the likelihood that weather will affect my travel makes a compelling argument for driving myself. At that time/distance, the only good argument for flying commercial is the "let somebody else do the work" argument. If I let American or Continental take the wheel, I can reduce the pain of the delays by using the time productively (or sleeping).
If there were a roadable aircraft, it would be an attractive option for me. Nearly all the arguments for driving myself would apply. True, weather would be a much larger factor, but the ability to "drive under" the bad stuff would make up for it somewhat. I think the end result would be that I could extend the range of assignments I could take. I would also get home sooner at the end of the week, spend less on expenses (no rental car, no parking, no commercial flight). If my employer were receptive to the idea, I could expense the cost of the flight. If not, I could incorporate as a FAA Part 135 air taxi and invoice myself for it and submit the receipts. Worst case, I could submit an expense report for the miles I would have driven. At the current $0.55 rate, it would at least pay for gas. The FAA Part 135 air taxi is probaby the best way to go- the requirements are a little stricter than for simply owning an aircraft (commercial license, 100hr inspections not yearly, etc.), but is that such a bad thing if I were planning to use the aircraft in that manner?
Anyway, from my point of view I hope this thing takes off. I'd be able to spend more time with my family and more time in the air, both of which I love. And as an added benefit, I will be better able to serve my customers. So either way, I am eagerly awaiting this project.
The US is in an ongoing state of economic collapse. Unemployment is at levels unseen since the depression in many places.
We are at the very minimum in a recession. And as the housing market continues to go in the toilet, which some believe will continue at the least until the baby boomer die-off reaches its crescendo in 2025, there will be more defaults on mortgages, and dropping property values - leading to dropping property taxes. This will increase municipal debt at a time in which the federal debt has reached, frankly, truly unfathomable proportions.
We didn't escape from the "Great Depression" until the end of WWII, due largely to economic sanctions placed on Germany and Japan. But you can't squeeze blood from a turnip...
Where is the money supposed to come from?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well written reply.
I'm going to focus on the Solar discussion because I find that the most interesting and the only one where we can really argue with facts instead of stories.
When I originally wrote my reply I did a search on google and didn't see anything, but punching in YOUR search phrase I get the articles you mentioned. Typically stuff like "the US never landed on the moon" is championed by a few sights pretty heavily, so I figured the first hit would be your strongest advocate. I'll summarize it:
* This is information from a study done in in 1989 theorizing what 1994 technology would be like
* They calculated that using 1989 technolgoy they would get an energy payback of 6.4 years
* Using what they theorized was 1994 technology they would get an energy payback of 3.1 years
* The author is summarizing their study and points out some things he thinks they missed, inverters and the like, but these will only capture a percentage of the power generated so at worst it will take a percentage longer to recapture the energy.
So even in the TOP search item doesn't make the claim that it takes "more energy to create a solar cell than you can EVER get out of the life of the cell" and my quick scan didn't show any others that advocated that.
Ok, so your statement does appear to be bullshit, but i'm curious what more modern numbers are for energy usage, because 6 years is a huge amount of time and if is still that high I could be convinced your statement wasn't far from the truth!
In looking through some other webpages I found a department of energy webpage provides some really good information.
They provide several different technologies and give the Energy Pay Back Time (EPBT) of each. The times range from 2.7 years to 1.0 years for energy pay back using 2004 and 2005 numbers.
There are also some startups that say they're able to produce photovolatics amazingly cheep (which also translates to low energy), but I'll believe that when I see it.
The DPoE webpage is here: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pv_basics.html
don
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
My id, on the other hand, will drive and piece of junk it can get it's hands on. Usually at recklessly unsafe speeds...
My (limited) understanding is that the problem is actually with the dollar no longer being tied to the gold standard, but to the petroleum standard.
Currencies are worth what they're backed by. The value of petroleum is based on pure market manipulation and bullshit. Consequently, our economy is all manipulation and bullshit.
I am not an economist, so hopefully someone else can come along and regulate and explain more, or explain why I'm off my rocker, or whatever.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well I'm here how do you propose to develop an aircraft that can't descend to fast or doesn't flip over in midair? It's very unlikely for anyone to die just because it breaks down. By a factor of 10 to 1 the most common breakdown is the engine. With the engine off, an aircraft of this type is perfectly controllable, like a glider, and can glide 10 to 20 miles from 5000'. The actual distance depends on the final design, but aircraft capable of cruising at over 100 mph will have good streamlining. Even high drag older aircraft designs could glide 9 miles. Typical commercial passenger jets could glide 17-22 miles. Even with the minimum glide range of 10 miles they have over 300 square miles of available land to find a farmer's field, a road or some other landable area. With a 20:1 glide ratio (which is reasonable), they'd have over 1200 square miles to choose from.
If there isn't anywhere to set down they can use the parachute built in.
Aircraft don't "flip over in midair" just because they have a problem. In more than 90% of accidents there was no mechanical breakdown cause. In the less then 10% of accidents that have a mechanical failure, more than 90% of those are engine related, so we're down to 1% of accidents that are mechanical, but not engine related. Even within that 1%, there are only a few complete loss-of-control accidents, such as a major control failure or structural breakup.
Basically, if this aircraft meets the Light Sport Aircraft rules, as they claim, then it will be light, and light aircraft land slowly. Slow landing speeds mean you will survive, even if you have to land in the trees or in water.
Usually, if they want to pass a bill, they send a bill that they think will pass.
Bush promised to veto a number of bills before they were even finished. Does that help you understand? You're acting like the Executive branch is powerless or something.
Perhaps you can cite the Democrats (who have been running both houses for a while now) who - since they have the majority, and can control what legislation is brought to votes - had a firm grasp on how regulation would have prevented people from borrowing more money than they could pay back, and put forth legislation that would have prevented it.Now, that's a much stickier situation. However, again, people generally try to put forth a bill for a reason. Maybe it's not always that they know it will pass, but why waste time if it will fail and not accomplish anything? It just makes you look like a bozo.
But just do yourself a favor and compare the history of unfunded mandates during the Bush (Jr.) and Clinton (Bubba) administrations... Clinton signed the act against unfunded mandates; Bush signed the unfunded mandates.
Then point to the calander date during which the Democrats mustered a vote on that subject, being in charge of the legislative agenda as they are, and then sent such legislation to the president you hate so much, where he vetoed it - since that's the mechanism by which he would have prevented such regulation.The preemptive promise of a veto against a bill which does not have sufficient support to override a presidential veto has a sufficient chilling effect to kill a bill before it is even submitted, and probably before pen is even set to paper. A history of such promises (especially if they are followed up on when necessary) has an even stronger such effect. Why waste your time sending legislation up to the pres if you know it won't pass? What, exactly, does that accomplish? It's not like they can impeach him for using his veto power (then again, it's not like they've even tried to impeach him for his many actual crimes...) I don't really think the Democrats are the solution, but I do think they're less bad than the republicans. Just look at what it takes to buy them; Democrats are reliably more expensive to buy off. :P (A certain Samuel Clemens quote comes to mind.)
No, really, please pass along those details... I'm having trouble finding any sign of them, or finding any sign of the actions that The Wise Bill Clinton took to address that issue, but which The Evil Bush tore down.Well, again, that act against unfunded mandates, proposed in 1995 and passed in 1996, comes to mind. But the current administration has repeatedly abused the spirit of the law through a loophole that says that optional programs are exempt. This somehow applies to No Child Left Behind, even though if states do not comply, they will be fucked sideways. (Incidentally, the act is really about producing soldiers. No Child Left Behind refers to when we go to the next big war, and we're drafting people. NCLB is a clear and transparent race towards mediocrity in education. But the fact that GWB is clearly his father's hand puppet, and his father is The Antichrist, is a separate conversation.)
Oh, and please also, if you would, explain how a new administration will suddenly have new constitutional authority to regulate banking and real estate in a way that doesn't have to start with the congress. I'm intrigued, since neither candidate is asserting such new powers, though you're convinced they will have them.The president provides leadershit.
No one in the government can exist long without public approval... just for the length of their term. We should have impeached this puppet idiot long ago...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Incidentally, the total energy cost over the lifetime of a Prius has to be at LEAST twice what it is on a TDI Golf - and that's even less if you run your Golf on WVO or just biodiesel.
Cars themselves are luxury items, of course, and you're perfectly capable of living in a city and using public transit like most of the world.Here's where I part company with you. Public transit doesn't work in the US like it does in the rest of the world. The only (well, statistically, the only) places that actually have working public transportation systems are major cities and in most cases that's not true either. I lived in SF and I could drive to work AND FIND PARKING in fifteen minutes, but it took a minimum of an hour and a half (assuming everything was on time and I made my connections, HA HA HA) to take the two buses and the light rail that represent the most rapid public transit between bernal heights and potrero hill.
In other words, even if you live in a major city, public transportation will probably fail you in the US.
This, however, is the result of deliberate actions taken on the part of the automotive companies; they bought bus and trolley lines and shut them down, and they lobbied for rail subsidies to be terminated in favor of the federal highway system. The federal government readily agreed, since it provided them with just one more form of leverage to apply against the states in their battle to severely curtail states' rights. Their attempts have been largely successful; for example, several states long avoided legalizing medical marijuana under the threat of their federal highway funds being terminated. This is all logical from the federal government's point of view, since marijuana was originally made illegal under the much-abused interstate commerce clause of the constitution, and that's the purpose of the highway system during peacetime.
Anyway, that's a slight digression, but if you can even afford to live in a city (I paid $800 for a ROOM in San Francisco, my landlord who was the manager of a toys R us turned out to be a tweaker... fun shit.) it doesn't necessarily follow that public transportation will do you any good. And before you suggest it, there is NO FUCKING WAY I would ride a bicycle. It's actually a health hazard to ride on the street not just because of the danger of some dipshit running you over, but because of all the exhaust you're sucking.
So I agree with your apparent assertion that (most?) hybrids are stupid (I think they make some sense when used as a taxi, and series hybrids make a LOT of sense) but I think the rest of what you have to say is pretty ridiculous.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, you're saying that even though the democrats have brought forth, or at least proposed MANY bills that were guaranteed a veto (and have even sent them FOR that veto), that they won't even PROPOSE a bill to address what the GP seems to think is entirely the administration's fault? He blames the credit "crisis" (though I don't think that "coming to your senses and no longer offering absurd loans to people that are going to be overextending themselves" counts as a "crisis") on the current administration, because he says that the current administration isn't controlling the banks or the borrowers enough. Happily, the executive branch doesn't have that sort of direct control over how banks and their customers operate. Those are legislative matters.
You're saying that there are all sorts of brilliant would-be regulations just waiting in the wings, about which their democrat authors aren't saying a peep, because it will make them look bad? As bad as spending weeks and millions of dollars holding hearings about steroid use by baseball players? As bad as not ejecting a fellow democrat from congress after $90,000 in cash bribe money is found in his freezer... and then putting him on the DHS oversight committee? How brilliant can this hidden legislation be if it can't even get a simple majority in the house they run to consider voting for it? Ah... perhaps that's because it doesn't exist, and the GP was blowing hot air out of ignorance about how such things work, and you're really stretching it to give him some cover. It's just silly.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
First, either you are lying or you are talking about the monetary cost of a solar system. It can take 10-30 years to pay off THAT cost, but that has nothing to do with the actual cost of producing the panel, and everything to do with supply and demand and artificially inflated prices.
You have to keep in mind that right now what we're doing with our national effort is making war. Far from being profitable (unless somehow it drives the price of petroleum in the proper direction to dramatically increase the value of the dollar - kind of doubt that one) this is actually putting us into huge debt. If we simply put that effort into producing PV solar, and instead of turning it into a pork processing system :) we just did everything at-cost, we could do this shit tomorrow. Or at least get started.
As the AC sibling comment to this one says, the very first hit on your search terms is Can Solar Cells Ever Recapture the Energy Invested in their Manufacture? and the answer is yes:
So in other words, they knew in 1977 (the linked short-paper was written twenty years later) that even at then-current (no pun intended) levels of efficiency that payoff was in under seven years. Today, with thin film panels, that should be substantially less.
If we promoted solar more, and produced more of it, then the prices would go down (if everyone and their mother made a grid-tie inverter it wouldn't cost you so damned much, for example) and then the economic payoff for the end user would come much sooner. Until then, solar is pretty much for the wealthy and those living off-grid.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Feasible or not, have you seen who's driving on our streets lately? Either the IQ curve is lowering or people are trying to drive with their head somewhere else besides their shoulders.
If you put the average driver in an airplane, it'll make 9/11 look like a joke. We'll have people crash landing into God knows what and no airbag or ABS will save their sorry asses then.
Actually, they do. Every single elected offical in Washington cares deeply about their country
What?
This proves that you have no idea what you are talking about.
People who care about this country are not starting illegal wars, driving up the national debt, getting rich in the process, and then taking the money out of the country and doing further harm to our economy.
Are you paid to say this shit, or are you just brainwashed?
The US is FAR from bankrupt. China's only where they are in the world because we're allowing them to grossly distort the currency exchange, because we want them to work for peanuts.
The US's debt is truly astronomical. We're overdrawn on our credit as it is.
Nuclear: Plans are on the tables, Greenpeace's founder is endorsing Nuclear... sorry, there will be new plants built or chartered by the next Presidential Election. Maybe before this one.
Greenpeace's founder's opinion is not being echoed by Greenpeace. 9 out of 10 hippies I talk to (this is not scientific but I talk to a lot of hippies) just refuse to come around to the idea of nuclear with breeder reactors. Incidentally, if we don't use breeders then using nuclear is a HORRIBLE and TERRIBLE idea; we can gain a couple orders of magnitude in efficiency this way. With breeders, nuclear can be not just practical but also profitable without subsidies.
Solar: Ok, in small batches, for small device use, in the northeast, a photovotalic cell takes more energy to create than it will produce in its lifetime.
Who told you that? It COSTS MORE TO BUY than it will save you in its lifetime, but that is the result of market forces, not physics.
Think about it for a second; a solar system pays you off monetarily in about 20 years (yes, it's a long time) even without any special energy credits. Are you really saying that the power company charges me more for power (and I'm just talking about base rates here) than the sum of the amount that they charge the people who make the panels plus the amount that those people charge me for costs plus their profit? Obviously it's not impossible, but it is also not true . It takes less than seven years at 12 percent, which is a pretty reasonable estimate of the actual efficiency output (who cleans their panels enough?) when your panels are supposed to be around 14 or 15%. And that was for crystalline PV, not thin film, which requires less energy expenditure. It wouldn't seem so at first because of the petroleum-based nature of the plastics involved, but it is so hugely energy intensive to produce pure silicon that it winds up being that way anyway. They also cost less to ship due to their mass being a small fraction of a completed PV panel.
Wind: Wind blows everywhere, some places essentially constantly. Couple a wind farm with a flywheel, and you can produce pretty damn good power. Essentially anywhere in the United States. Not eveywhere, but hardly "rare" for any meaningful definitions of that word.
Wind has real problems; it truly HAS been a problem for flocks of migratory birds, but that is a lesser issue to the fact that those wind turbines are not especially inexpensive to produce, they do make a lot of noise (we are slowly waking up to the effects of noise pollution) so you don't want one in your backyard, and they MUST be placed up in the air so that they get wind in most cases. This keeps small-scale wind from being broadly useful, although it IS useful in some places.
Of course, when the conveyor shuts down, and the jet stream shuts down, the weather patterns we take for granted are pretty much all going to change...
5: The mortgage crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Its only going to be a matter of time before banks start having to be bailed left
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The only brilliance they're interested in is a new, brilliant way to fleece the taxpayer.
Nearly everyone in both parties has been bought.
Status Quo: Quid Pro Quo.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Indeed. In the DC metro area, public transit can get you from one suburb (where you live) to the neighboring suburb (where you work) in about three hours, round trip. There will be essentially no parking near the transit points. It will cost you $5 to $12 per day to use it each day. I simply can't affort to give up three hours a day sitting on a bus and a train. The solution is telework for the vast armies of people that mostly just spend their days pushing around information and talking to each other or their customers on the phone. That will save huge amounts in energy, wasted time, required paved infrastructure, etc.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
To eliminate the super-long commute?
When nuclear power finally does become significantly cheaper than oil power, the switchover will not happen in one second, or even one year. The design, approval, and build time on nuclear plants in the US is around 10 years on the low side. Also, replacing gas stations with power stations will take a while too. But like you, I'm confident that the economy will help us all sort it out together, without any great disaster.
Perhaps the transition time will include more expensive energy and gas prices, and people will be forced to conserve a bit to save money. But that alone is far from catastrophe, and will likely bring efficiency improvements which would stand everyone in good stead when their new power plants come online.
The fact is, we're in pretty deep shit, and nobody's talking about it because nobody in the government or the media is talking about it, and we really need to talk about it if we're going to do anything to improve the situation.
Your brain is not a computer.
well, first, it was republicans who sent over $400 bn to god knows where during the afghanistan-iraq gig. almost all is unaccounted for.
second, with that many executive powers your current rep president has handed himself and his agencies, i doubt that congress would be able to press too much against what budget he wanted.
Read radical news here
I'm not sure that most of the world really could get along with out a car, or have the immediate ability to move to a true city with a strong mass transit system. I live in the DC area and the Metro is for the most part useless for my commute as i would have to add an extra hour or so just to get to work on time. The Prius seems like a joke to me with it's relatively high price tag and a 7 year shelf life on the battery. Personally I am going to stick to my motorcycle for my 15-20 mile commute with its 54-60 mpg :)
**for those wondering how it can take an hour to go 15-20 miles i have to travel around the beltway meaning that to get to the metro station with in 5 miles of my office I have to take the train into the heart of DC from Vienna and then another back out into Bethesda.
Came across mollar 8 years ago. Beleived them when the would have a working model by '04 and FAA certification by '06 '04 came, we got the tether model. Not quite as expected, but something. I stopped believing anything form mollar when '06 came and went, and FAA- Certification got bumped to '08 I started consididering them a joke when '08 came, and FAA - Certification seems to have been posponed indefinatly.
As for most people in the world living in cities, I think it's something like a 50/50 split. And then it depends on what you define as 'city'.
$8 a gallon is pretty much the going rate in the UK at the moment. Of course most of that is tax, taken by our thieving government that refuses to improve public transport. Or in fact any public services whatsoever.
Fucking Slashdot...
Let me make one thing clear. I'll respond more, but this is important.
If you think that questioning your political opposition's motivation, intellect, or honesty is a valid tactic in political discourse, SHUT THE FUCK UP. It's a crappy idea when the Republicans do it, and Democrats--and democracy--deserves better.
John Kerry loves his country. Al Gore loves his country. Newt Gingrich loves his country. Rush Limbaugh loves his country. Keith Oberman loves his country. Ron Paul loves his country. Ronald Regan loved his country. Jimmy Carter loved his country. RICHARD NIXON loved his country.
If you think that any American who dedicated their lives to public service--which is what politics is, by the way--doesn't love his or her country, you don't know yours.
"Joe Sixpack" buys a new car every five years anyway. He should have gotten rid of the SUV by now, and if not by now then by, at the latest, 2010. Unemployment is pretty high right now, and it's only going to get worse. I predict a continual rise in crime over the next twelve to seventeen years as the economy goes right in the toilet. Good luck not having your car stolen by someone who is going to take it to be stripped for the two useful parts, with which they will buy a burger and some crank. Unemployment isn't that high, and we're likely to have a significant economical boom once we stop pissing away money fighting Iraq's battles for them.
As for crime -- please. Even at the bottom end of the scale, there's enough legal opportunity to feed and house everyone. Crime's as much an addictive and cultural thing as anything else -- and the legalization of a few choice narcotics would pretty much win the "war on drug dealers" overnight, and you know it.
The most likely manner, however, is just to leave it be. China holds a lot of US currency, but by no means a majority of US dollars. And so long as we have enough time to have an effective home currency, we'll do fine. Even if everyone in the world dumped dollars for Euros. (Hint: We'd do so at the same time, make the Euro our national currency, and we'd be welcomed with open arms.) And that doesn't strike you at all as short-sighted? Nope. I don't hold anything more than short-term savings in dollars. Only a fool would. I hold it in stocks et al which, although priced in dollars, reflects wealth of an altogether different sort than the simple dollar bill. Have you failed to notice how that rate is increasing? The dollar has already lost 96% of its purchasing power since 1913. Hyperinflation is a very real possibility. 1913? NINTEEN THIRTEEN?
You'll forgive me if I don't panic. Inflation that is not fast enough to disrupt ordinary life is simply not a problem. If your currency is not out doing something, it deserves to lose value over time. The United States of America does not have a free market either. A free market is a market in which prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. We do not have a perfectly free market. But we have a market that is a hell of a lot freer than the USSR's. Which is all that matters. Our semi-free Market is a HELL of a lot better than the USSR's pseudo-Command market. In case you believe I am going over the top, here is a video [thedailyshow.com] of Alan Greenspan stating quite clearly that we do not have a free market, along with some hand-waving about how we can't have one because of human nature. You'll forgive me if I don't buy your attempt to stretch Alan Greenspan's appearance on a comedy show to equating the USSR and the USA's economic status. The fact is, we're in pretty deep shit, and nobody's talking about it because nobody in the government or the media is talking about it, and we really need to talk about it if we're going to do anything to improve the situation. Find me one economist -- just ONE -- who believes we're in the kind of end-of-the-world shit you're describing. I'll wait.
E-mail me if you have to.
Pretty much same here. They've been "building" that "milkfarm" for a while now. How long does it take to pile up some high-clay content earth around an area the size of a city block and fill it with three feet of water, anyway?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!