I've always thought what they could do is incorporate a small, propane powered generator, like say around 2.0KW. To get an estimate of the size, honda makes a 2kw one that is about the size of a small suitcase, and weighs around 50lbs.
Maybe make it a modular add-in that you can take in and out of the trunk.
The generator is way too small to actively power the car, but it could be ran so that the heat of the motor could be used to warm the cabin (like all gas vehicles do today) when it is extremely cold. The electricity it provided would extend range much, but it would keep you out of resistive heat, which is a real waster.. It would also provide a means of emergency charging for a stranded vehicle
I'd make it propane, because in a quality tank, the stuff lasts virtually forever, and it burns really clean.
They did not say they are using VHF low. They are most likely using VHF HI (>175 MHZ), or UHF frequencies between 400-700MHZ. These frequencies are in a "sweet spot", traveling much better than > 2GHZ signals and don't get hammered by Sporadic E, Meteor scatter or other weird propagation effects as much as lower frequencies.
Although from TFA, the hop they are doing is 6.2 miles. With decent towers and highly directional antennas on both ends, 2.4ghz could work.
it could make it possible to substantially lighten the weight of automobiles
Possible but steel is actually better than titanium when it comes to the metallurgical property of toughness and fatigue resistance, and its cheap. Maybe some elements could be titanium-ized, but the body will probably be steel for the near future.
People used to buy cars a lot more frequently, as cars used to wear out a lot more quickly.
Just look at stock photos of traffic from the 50's 60's and 70's, you wont see many cars on the road that are more than a few model years distant from when the photograph was taken.
Now walk through a parking lot, you'll see no shortage of vehicles from the mid to late 90s to early 2000s.
Don't think for a second the car manufactures wouldn't love to go back to the purchasing cycles of yesteryear.
I think you meant "entirely bullshit" cars are more reliable now then they ever have been. Easy to work on? no.. but cars are more reliable, cleaner, safer, and faster than ever. A car that didn't need some kind of serious engine or transmission work before hitting 100,000 miles used to be the exception, now we get pissed off if we don't get this kind of reliability.
There is a lot of.net interest right now. I'm getting hit up by recruiters asking me about the tiny bit of C# Asp.net experience that I have (other technologies are much more prevalent on my resume). There's enough interest that I'm thinking about getting the set of magic books that everybody gets and going ahead and getting my certification.
IIS/asp.net/c#/Sql Server isn't the answer to everything, but it allows small to medium sized business to do things that are fairly good, fairly quickly, with programmers that are fairly skilled (and therefore fairly cheap). The purists and self-appointed alpha geeks might howl, but it turns out to work for a lot of folks.
In any case, Hydrogen is probably being used to support the fracking industry.
seriously, the amount of natural gas, used to produce hydrogen for a fleet of these things would be lost in a rounding error in the natural gas industry
Now, what IS being pushed by natural gas industry is LNG powered trucks and trains, and you know what I say: yea for them
Hydraulic fracturing is not a new technology (although horizontal fracturing is), and it does have potential impacts, but those impacts can be mitigated far easier than drilling in deep water.
the side effect is less oil needs to be refined (which is a dirty and energy intensive process), more money stays in this country, and our air is cleaner...
the perfect need not be the enemy of the better.
no, I am NOT a oil industry shill, I think other oil proects like the oil sands pipeline, are absolutely horrible ideas, and I do think the industry needs to be monitored and regulated closely, but natural gas displacing petroleum in transportation, and coal in electricity generation, with alternative energy, like wind and solar, eventually replacing gas in transportation and electricity generation long term is a win for everybody..
Boone Pickens may be a grisly old republican bastard, but he was actually on to something..
A sort? Seriously? I looked at this comment and asked myself if I could write a simple bubble off the top of my head. I muddled my way through it, so I guess I would have "passed". But I do know that there are much better implementations of the sort algorithm. but its been 10 years since i took data structures, and I doubt I could s ruble out a heap sort in the middle of an interview.The thing is I don't write sort implementations every day. Smart people have done this for me, that is the beauty of OO and generics.
WTF are you talking about? GM sales have been improving since the bailout , and they have now equaled (or surpassed, it is very close), Toyota for the top spot in the world
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/13/news/companies/global_auto_sales_race/index.htm Comparing to the 90s is just not apt, not Toyota only sold 1.8 million, are they "dying" too? Cars are lasting longer than they ever had, and the world economy is still getting over the biggest collapse since the great depression, so such comparisons are not valid
ANY kind of petroleum extraction can, and does, have problems. Issues with an on-shore hydrofracking operation are far easier than dealing with an issue in deep water It is unwise economically, and I dare say immoral, to use energy, but demand it come from somewhere else.
My furnace doesn't run on fairy sweat and neither does anyone else's. We (meaning the "west" in general) would be far better off economically, and even environmentally, if we ran more of our transport on natural gas. It's also a great compliment to alternative energy sources like wind and solar, given the extreme reliability and variablility of a well desigined combined cycle natural gas electric generation plant.
People are slimy, and the petroleum industry is especially so, so tough, enforcable, and actively enforced regulations are needed, but lets not throw the baby out with the (natural gas heated) bathwater...
There seems to be some crabby-old-man effect that takes over on internet message boards Doesn't matter if it's LED lightbulbs, electric cars, or stuff like this, there's never any shortage of angry cynical types ready to whine about how the technlogy isn't perfect, doesn't perform 100% how things they are used to perform, costs too much, etc..
Enough allready, we get it Mr. internet cynic, you aren't as nearly as smart or interesting or original as you imagine yourself...
Why 16,900? You can't get much of anything for that price these days, even a reasonably equipped corolla/civic/focus/cruze will cost more. Considering it's a new technology, that frees you from ever having to buy gas, and releaves you of a lot of maintenance issues, a considerable premium is justified
All this aside, if 200 miles is your bogey, you can get into a natural gas powered civic, which now has a 250 mile range for under 30k. You can fill it up at home, and there are more nat gas stations out there than you realize, but still not enough
My modest proposal, convert the bulk of the postal truck fleet to CNG and make every post office a publicly available CNG filling station.
Doubtful at least in the USA. We already have more natural gas than we really know what to do with. Oil fired electric plants are costly, messy, and unreliable when in comparison to a combined cycle natural gas plant. They only exist in isolated places, for got reason.
All I'm saying is that if the gps, or whatever is guiding the plane is smart enough to offset the planes in altitude, coils it not also offset them laterally by a few thousand feet
Agreed. That's what I was thinking when I read this article: two planes, out over the atlantic, passing directly over/under each other with a thousand feet to spare, WHY?
Not a pilot here, but I would assume that over the atlantic there is more than enough room for planes to be offset both horizontally and vertically. Seems like in that airspace there is no reason to allow one unforeseen maneuver put people so close to a collision.
Hydraulic fracturing has an environmental impact, guess what, all energy extraction has an environmental impact. My 95% efficent gas furnace doesn't run on fairy sweat, and neither does anyone else's. It's not very smart, nor fair, from an economic, environmental, or geo-political perspective, to use energy but demand it come from somewhere else. The vast overwhelming majority of horizontal fracture operation have been completely uneventful. Now yes, problems have occurred, but a problem with a on shore horizontal fracking operation is orders of magnitude easier to deal with than a fuck up in water 2 miles deep.
Now, before I get accused of being some kind of shill, the industry needs to be regulated heavily, because people tend to be slimy. The real sticking point is what to do with the waste water. The technology exists to process this properly, but oil industry slimeballs being who they are have tried to push for having the water treated in existing municipal treatment facilities that are ill equipped for this task.
We need to do this, along with a concerted effort to build more nuclear power plants, and more alternate energy plants where they make sense. The nat gas can be used for peaking plants, and to displace liquid petroleum in transportation fuel, powering our trucks and even our trains (as well as for heat of course). We'd all be better off, economically, and environmentally if we did this.
That theory about 80% of population is not well substantiated by neverending stream of cars on roads of South Bay.
Not a theory, a fact, substantiated by relevant data, start here http://www.ridetowork.org/transportation-fact-sheet your anecdote about the traffic situation in one particular area is not substantiation of anything...
There are very few charging stations around. 99.999% of parking spots have no power
and a hundred years ago hitching posts outnumbered parking spots. Its all about the cost of gasoline, which isn't going down, and the political will to get the public sector on board with the appropriate subsidies and infrastructure updates. To act like the lack of powered parking spots is some deal-breaking, unsurmountable problem is ridiculous
It can be done, I'd rather spend money here on things like this, than on things like the Iraq war and permanently staging the fifth fleet in the UAE (socialized expenses that are NOT paid by the gallon, but probably should be).
Many people live in San Francisco but work in Silicon Valley. That'd be easy 40-50 miles one way.
Right, and I'm sure the concept of a powered parking spot is beyond even the wildest imaginations of Silicon Valley's best I mean they've had them for 50 years in Alaska and Canada for 50 years (for block heaters), but such a concept is unimaginable anywhere else
Once you start talking about at destination charging, staying on the grid and off gasoline become that much easier. not that it's already not doable for the 80 percent of the population who commute under 20 miles each way..
Slashdot Mirror
I've always thought what they could do is incorporate a small, propane powered generator, like say around 2.0KW. To get an estimate of the size, honda makes a 2kw one that is about the size of a small suitcase, and weighs around 50lbs.
Maybe make it a modular add-in that you can take in and out of the trunk. The generator is way too small to actively power the car, but it could be ran so that the heat of the motor could be used to warm the cabin (like all gas vehicles do today) when it is extremely cold. The electricity it provided would extend range much, but it would keep you out of resistive heat, which is a real waster.. It would also provide a means of emergency charging for a stranded vehicle
I'd make it propane, because in a quality tank, the stuff lasts virtually forever, and it burns really clean.
I grow plants indoors. I have found that a mix of big-box-store available 6500k and 4500k CFLs work quite well
Does anybody have any experience growing plants under LEDs? Does it work?
They did not say they are using VHF low. They are most likely using VHF HI (>175 MHZ), or UHF frequencies between 400-700MHZ.
These frequencies are in a "sweet spot", traveling much better than > 2GHZ signals and don't get hammered by Sporadic E, Meteor scatter or other weird propagation effects as much as lower frequencies.
Although from TFA, the hop they are doing is 6.2 miles. With decent towers and highly directional antennas on both ends, 2.4ghz could work.
I feel safer already
To Gitmo with his fat ass
it could make it possible to substantially lighten the weight of automobiles
Possible but steel is actually better than titanium when it comes to the metallurgical property of toughness and fatigue resistance, and its cheap.
Maybe some elements could be titanium-ized, but the body will probably be steel for the near future.
People used to buy cars a lot more frequently, as cars used to wear out a lot more quickly.
Just look at stock photos of traffic from the 50's 60's and 70's, you wont see many cars on the road that are more than a few model years distant from when the photograph was taken.
Now walk through a parking lot, you'll see no shortage of vehicles from the mid to late 90s to early 2000s.
Don't think for a second the car manufactures wouldn't love to go back to the purchasing cycles of yesteryear.
Entirely unrelated
I think you meant "entirely bullshit" cars are more reliable now then they ever have been.
Easy to work on? no.. but cars are more reliable, cleaner, safer, and faster than ever. A car that didn't need some kind of serious engine or transmission work before hitting 100,000 miles used to be the exception, now we get pissed off if we don't get this kind of reliability.
There is a lot of .net interest right now.
I'm getting hit up by recruiters asking me about the tiny bit of C# Asp.net experience that I have (other technologies are much more prevalent on my resume). There's enough interest that I'm thinking about getting the set of magic books that everybody gets and going ahead and getting my certification.
IIS/asp.net/c#/Sql Server isn't the answer to everything, but it allows small to medium sized business to do things that are fairly good, fairly quickly, with programmers that are fairly skilled (and therefore fairly cheap). The purists and self-appointed alpha geeks might howl, but it turns out to work for a lot of folks.
In any case, Hydrogen is probably being used to support the fracking industry.
seriously, the amount of natural gas, used to produce hydrogen for a fleet of these things would be lost in a rounding error in the natural gas industry
Now, what IS being pushed by natural gas industry is LNG powered trucks and trains, and you know what I say: yea for them
Hydraulic fracturing is not a new technology (although horizontal fracturing is), and it does have potential impacts, but those impacts can be mitigated far easier than drilling in deep water.
the side effect is less oil needs to be refined (which is a dirty and energy intensive process), more money stays in this country, and our air is cleaner...
the perfect need not be the enemy of the better.
no, I am NOT a oil industry shill, I think other oil proects like the oil sands pipeline, are absolutely horrible ideas, and I do think the industry needs to be monitored and regulated closely, but natural gas displacing petroleum in transportation, and coal in electricity generation, with alternative energy, like wind and solar, eventually replacing gas in transportation and electricity generation long term is a win for everybody..
Boone Pickens may be a grisly old republican bastard, but he was actually on to something..
A sort? Seriously? I looked at this comment and asked myself if I could write a simple bubble off the top of my head. I muddled my way through it, so I guess I would have "passed". But I do know that there are much better implementations of the sort algorithm. but its been 10 years since i took data structures, and I doubt I could s ruble out a heap sort in the middle of an interview.The thing is I don't write sort implementations every day. Smart people have done this for me, that is the beauty of OO and generics.
WTF are you talking about? GM sales have been improving since the bailout , and they have now equaled (or surpassed, it is very close), Toyota for the top spot in the world
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/13/news/companies/global_auto_sales_race/index.htm
Comparing to the 90s is just not apt, not Toyota only sold 1.8 million, are they "dying" too?
Cars are lasting longer than they ever had, and the world economy is still getting over the biggest collapse since the great depression, so such comparisons are not valid
Fine, when you do it wrong, you can have problems
ANY kind of petroleum extraction can, and does, have problems.
Issues with an on-shore hydrofracking operation are far easier than dealing with an issue in deep water
It is unwise economically, and I dare say immoral, to use energy, but demand it come from somewhere else.
My furnace doesn't run on fairy sweat and neither does anyone else's.
We (meaning the "west" in general) would be far better off economically, and even environmentally, if we ran more of our transport on natural gas.
It's also a great compliment to alternative energy sources like wind and solar, given the extreme reliability and variablility of a well desigined combined cycle natural gas electric generation plant.
People are slimy, and the petroleum industry is especially so, so tough, enforcable, and actively enforced regulations are needed, but lets not throw the baby out with the (natural gas heated) bathwater...
Sure there will, just not in America
There seems to be some crabby-old-man effect that takes over on internet message boards
Doesn't matter if it's LED lightbulbs, electric cars, or stuff like this, there's never any shortage of angry cynical types ready to whine about how the technlogy isn't perfect, doesn't perform 100% how things they are used to perform, costs too much, etc..
Enough allready, we get it Mr. internet cynic, you aren't as nearly as smart or interesting or original as you imagine yourself...
Why 16,900?
You can't get much of anything for that price these days, even a reasonably equipped corolla/civic/focus/cruze will cost more.
Considering it's a new technology, that frees you from ever having to buy gas, and releaves you of a lot of maintenance issues, a considerable premium is justified
All this aside, if 200 miles is your bogey, you can get into a natural gas powered civic, which now has a 250 mile range for under 30k.
You can fill it up at home, and there are more nat gas stations out there than you realize, but still not enough
My modest proposal, convert the bulk of the postal truck fleet to CNG and make every post office a publicly available CNG filling station.
Doubtful at least in the USA.
We already have more natural gas than we really know what to do with. Oil fired electric plants are costly, messy, and unreliable when in comparison to a combined cycle natural gas plant.
They only exist in isolated places, for got reason.
I drive 500 miles each way to work, so this will never work for me..
All I'm saying is that if the gps, or whatever is guiding the plane is smart enough to offset the planes in altitude, coils it not also offset them laterally by a few thousand feet
Agreed. That's what I was thinking when I read this article: two planes, out over the atlantic, passing directly over/under each other with a thousand feet to spare, WHY?
Not a pilot here, but I would assume that over the atlantic there is more than enough room for planes to be offset both horizontally and vertically. Seems like in that airspace there is no reason to allow one unforeseen maneuver put people so close to a collision.
Egg-zackly
Hydraulic fracturing has an environmental impact, guess what, all energy extraction has an environmental impact.
My 95% efficent gas furnace doesn't run on fairy sweat, and neither does anyone else's.
It's not very smart, nor fair, from an economic, environmental, or geo-political perspective, to use energy but demand it come from somewhere else.
The vast overwhelming majority of horizontal fracture operation have been completely uneventful. Now yes, problems have occurred, but a problem with a on shore horizontal fracking operation is orders of magnitude easier to deal with than a fuck up in water 2 miles deep.
Now, before I get accused of being some kind of shill, the industry needs to be regulated heavily, because people tend to be slimy. The real sticking point is what to do with the waste water. The technology exists to process this properly, but oil industry slimeballs being who they are have tried to push for having the water treated in existing municipal treatment facilities that are ill equipped for this task.
We need to do this, along with a concerted effort to build more nuclear power plants, and more alternate energy plants where they make sense.
The nat gas can be used for peaking plants, and to displace liquid petroleum in transportation fuel, powering our trucks and even our trains (as well as for heat of course).
We'd all be better off, economically, and environmentally if we did this.
Better Data actually
http://www.bts.gov/publications/omnistats/volume_03_issue_04/pdf/entire.pdf
That theory about 80% of population is not well substantiated by neverending stream of cars on roads of South Bay.
Not a theory, a fact, substantiated by relevant data, start here
http://www.ridetowork.org/transportation-fact-sheet
your anecdote about the traffic situation in one particular area is not substantiation of anything...
There are very few charging stations around. 99.999% of parking spots have no power
and a hundred years ago hitching posts outnumbered parking spots. Its all about the cost of gasoline, which isn't going down, and the political will to get the public sector on board with the appropriate subsidies and infrastructure updates.
To act like the lack of powered parking spots is some deal-breaking, unsurmountable problem is ridiculous
It can be done, I'd rather spend money here on things like this, than on things like the Iraq war and permanently staging the fifth fleet in the UAE (socialized expenses that are NOT paid by the gallon, but probably should be).
Many people live in San Francisco but work in Silicon Valley. That'd be easy 40-50 miles one way.
Right, and I'm sure the concept of a powered parking spot is beyond even the wildest imaginations of Silicon Valley's best
I mean they've had them for 50 years in Alaska and Canada for 50 years (for block heaters), but such a concept is unimaginable anywhere else
Once you start talking about at destination charging, staying on the grid and off gasoline become that much easier.
not that it's already not doable for the 80 percent of the population who commute under 20 miles each way..
I drive 175 miles each way to work, towing my boat, the path is across pike's peak.
Well this vehicle do that? No? Junk...
Clutch??
lookey here, we have ourselves a commie!