In many areas, coal (with Mercury emissions) or oil (with Sulfur emissions) are used to generate power. So, you may have oil drilling, refining, delivery, burning, and losses from AC transmission.
They are now, yes.
The point is that once we have centralised "power" production (ie moved away from all having our own IC engines) it is much easier to clean up the existing power generation. It is much easier to incorporate cleaner ways of generating power into the mix (solar/wind/geothermal/oil/coal/gas/nuclear/whatev er) because you just need to feed the power into the grid. If a new method of generation becomes available we can just add it to the system and everyone benefits.
Sure, it's not all going to happen overnight, but if city dwellers chopped their SUVs, their Chelsea Tractors, etc, for an electric vehicle it would sure make living in towns and cities a nice proposition for everyone, and help kick-start the new technology.
As I see it, this technology is coming. It's really not a question of if, but when and I'd say the sooner the better.
I know what I want mine to sound like- George Jetson's car (^^)
How about the car(s) out of The Flintstones, with the sound of bare feet slapping the floor, and the screech when you hit the brakes! You wouldn't be able to see where you were going from laughing too much.
There was a company in the UK that offered a system similar to this, in concept, about 5 or 10 years ago, but it obviously only provided the sound to the occupants - I googled for it but couldn't find any references! Definately not rocket science to have speakers on the outside and some feeds from the "engine" to drive the acceleration/overrun/etc sounds, which could also be used as part of an alarm system (Step away from the car! You have three seconds to comply.[sound of large gun being cocked]You have two seconds to comply).
Facts are facts, mister. If it can't yet be done, you're out of luck
I'm not sure that's right. Let's look at the Wright Brothers first flight shall we. Well, that's obviously such a useless machine. Range measured in hundreds of yards? Only carry one person. Likely to die.
The 250 mile range is perhaps too short for many people, but I bet the majority of car journeys are well within this range. If people started purchasing such vehicles as second/third cars then the technology would improve. As the number of units sold increased, the unit price would come down. Competition would be encouraged, inovation would be rewarded and some of the bigger players would start looking into it. It's already happening because Toyota/Honda have decided it will happen and want to be first with the hybrids. They are expensive, but some people are buying them. It happens in all new technology. Mobile phones, digital cameras, everything new - they start off really pricey and the early adopters buy 'em. Soon though, economies of scale bring the prices down, and the technology improves as the market expands.
I don't think anyone expects everyone to immediatly chop in their beloved gas-guzzlers for some electric golf cart and start hugging trees, but this vehicle probably does have a market. If the Gov could give tax breaks - such as allowing tax free re-charging whilst at work, it could further encourage the take-up of the technology by reducing the cost of ownership.
... and finally, in TFA itself, they talk about a "sedan" in a few years, and they are saying they reckon that battery tech will have progressed sufficently by then to make it feasible. They realise the batteries are the (only!) weak link, and that's why they are riding the wave of laptop battery style technology because there's already a lot of people with a vested interest in making them smaller, lighter, quicker to charge, and able to hold a bigger charge for longer.
This might even mean that in a few years when you have to get new batteries for your Tesla, the new ones will be cheaper, lighter, and provide a greater range because the tech has moved on.
And what you are really complaining about is infrastructure. The "people who know" reckon you should have a break every couple of hours if you are driving, so if you stop for a coffee at a suitably setup cafe you could plug in for 15 mins. Stop for lunch and get an hour's charge.
So, 250 mile range. How fast do you drive? Let's assume 70mph average, so after 140 miles, you stop for a coffee and a 1/4 hr charge. I've no idea how much charge a 1/4 hr might give you, but assume there's some "fast charge" option that can boost the remaining range by 30 miles (anyone any idea if that's even remotely right?). That gets you another two hours driving at 70 to "empty your tank" when you stop for lunch and an hour's charge. If the 1/4 hour got you 30 miles, the hour should get you another 120 or so which is nearly another 2 hours driving and an afternoon stop for high tea, maybe some scones/clotted cream/jam (Mmmmm) and a top up for another 1/4 hr.
OK... I've almost certainly not got the math(s) right, but I'm sure you've grasped the concept. Chuck some solar cells on the roof and drive somewhere where it's sunny...
There are a few options of coarse like diesel and LP gas but few cars run on either one and none can switch.
If you get your petrol car converted to run on LPG (at least, here in the UK) it becomes a bi-fuel vehicle and runs on both petrol and LPG. Indeed, it always starts using petrol, then switches to LPG. There is (certainly in the installations I have seen) a button on the dash to switch back if you want the extra power petrol provides - for example to beat someone away from traffic lights.
The Gov (bless 'em) used to offer a subsidy for new cars being converted when the real benefits would be had from encouraging people with old cars. The old car benefit would be two-fold - they are less efficient to start with, so there is more to be gained from using LPG, and you end up using the old car for longer... re-use is better than recycling!
If yer interested, there is another benefit and that is that petrol cars burning LPG don't turn their oil into black sludge because there's less shite in the fuel and this translates into longer service intervals.
That's gotta be the simplest thing to resolve. Bung a subwoofer in the vehicle somewhere and a bunch of little speakers and before you set off decide what you want your car to sound like. I think I'll drive a Cobra today. Lovely.
Even more fun than downloading ringtones to your 'phone, downloading car sounds. It could be made to sound like anything!
OK, call me old fashioned, but a discussion about alternative fuels/best fuel consumption/etc/etc and a post about how it is odd that people in the US consider 22MPG to be "good" seems to me to be rather more "on" than "off", topic-wise.
Now if I'd ranted on about the apparent IQ of the moderator, perhaps compared it to a house plant, mentioned "single figures", "room temperature", that sort of thing. You know, sandwich short of a picnic, lights are on but no one's home. Maybe "mouth breather"?
Now for something like that, yes, then I could see an off topic mod being justified.
Oh, sorry, this is the "Off Topic" Room?
I wanted the "Enlightened Moderator" room. next on the left you say. Many thanks.
Obviously, given the option of 20 years in a modern car or 20 years in a clunker, the modern car wins hands down, but as the clunkers are already built I think there may be a case for saying an existing clunker for the next 5 years might be "greener" than having a new car built from scratch and driving that for 5 years.
A mate has an old 5 series BMW which he converted to LPG and now runs sweet as a anything. Total cost of car + convertion is somewhere under £2000. Now the UK Gov used to have a deal where if you converted your car to LPG they'd pay for some of the conversion cost, except the numb-nuts only applied it to new cars. So if you purchased a new car and converted it they'd help, when it would actually make much more sense to apply the grant to converting old cars, which are less efficient to start with.
Even more crazy, the convertions didn't then allow you to pay less or nothing in Ken's London congestion charging, whereas a new LPG/Bi-Fuel car would do. It's all arse-about-face!
A by product of the LPG convertion is that the service intervals for the car have become even more infrequent (esp. for the oil change interval) as the LPG stuff appears to keep the engine "clean", greatly prolonging the life of the vehicle (rapidly approaching 200K miles - not stratospheric these days, but still good!).
In much the same way as your monthly costs expand to accomodate your salary, your luggage expands to fit the vehicle. We have a two and a four seater car. We can go away for a week long camping holiday in either car, and in both situations the vehicle will be full.
Buy a larger car and hear the cries of "How did we ever cope with the smaller car". Actually, it's quite easy. You just take less stuff!
I had to admit that it was ME, with my liberal/Buddhist "who needs newer stuff?" attitude that was actually doing more damage to the environment and to the geopolitical landscape.
I'm not sure that's true unless your bro's vehicle of choice is one of the newest that are mostly made up of recyclable parts. The cost of making a car/SUV is enormous in energy and resources and it's entirely likely that, taken as a whole, your knackered clunker represents a greener "footprint" than a brand spanking shiney new vehicle, regardless of the respective average MPG's quoted.
I believe the tree-huggers mantra is sometimes "Re-use is better than recycle".
Wow. Better than 22MPG eh! I have two sports cars (a 2 seater and a 4 seater - both convertable as I really like the extra headroom it affords) and neither does under 40MPG even when I cruise at 90MPH+.
If you think 22MPG is good there's something wrong! 22MPG is an insult to the poor trees that died to make the petrol!
And I'd much rather be in a small nimble car paying attention and be given the option to avoid an impact than drive around in some thinly veiled armoured half-track on the off chance that some bozo is going to make a beeline for me when I'm half asleep.
... no future society would stand to let people remain in suspended animation and grow rich
Why not? Isn't the bank (or whoever) using the funds themselves, and paying you interest for the privilege? It could be the new model for Social Security!
Wouldn't it have been sensible to let the guy attach the sucker to the ISS anyway? It's got to be good for NASA and the other ISS people to find out if this this is a runner, and attaching it to the ISS, even temporarily (under the understanding that it would be moved if the docking port was needed) would seem to be in everyone's best interests!
Exactly, this was a kid applying for a job, not a suspected terrorist. Why shoudl the patriot act be used at all?
... and yet people say "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" about ID Card legislation and the like. This is EXACTLY the reason that such powerful laws should not be made, because they will ALWAYS be misused.
Some bozo in a Gov office needs some info on someone...
Option 1: Call his references, call previous jobs, call his university, school, etc, etc, etc
Option 2: Use the Patriot Act to get all the above to call you with the information
In a nutshell, that's what I don't like about perl. There's so many default actions that mean you don't need to write the code to do all sorts of things and, IMHO, that just makes it unmaintainable. Sure, if you're the perl-kid then it's all obvious to you and you can exercise your skills by writing ever more terse scripts that requires someone of equal or greater skill to be able to make any changes.
I just don't see the problem with having a "main" (or whatever) typed into the script to indicate where the script starts, and END somewhere to show where it ends. What are you saving by leaving them out? Aren't you just polishing up your ego?
But going 220 kph (~ 132 mph) is a kick, even when others overtake! Absolute Hell on the fuel efficiency, however.
There's a chap with a McLaren F1 and when it came time for a service the owner hooked it up to a telephone line so the engineers could log in and poke about to know what parts to bring with them when they flew over from Woking to physically service the thing (actually, I believe you get a full set of tools included in the price with the car, so the engineer(s) just have to bring the spares. cool eh!) and after a few minutes of remote poking about called the owner. Apparently, they said there was something seriously wrong with the engine management system as it was reporting hours on end of 200MPH (not KPH!) travel. The owner said no, that was probably right, as he used it for his commute every day and regularly "cruised" at 200MPH or so.
He also had a GPS system installed. He said "nothing makes you later for a meeting than doing 200MPH in the wrong direction". Nice.
I'd say I agree with pretty much everything you say, but...
I really don't think it's any less safe for kids to play outside than it used to be. Incidents (a very non-specific term for the unpleasent events that do occur) are far more widely reported these days, and mostly, I fear, because it sells newspapers. The news reporting seems to be trying to scare the population into becoming hermits. If you don't lock your doors, arm yourself (esp. in the US), wrap your kids in cotton wool, and buy tomorrow's newspaper (!) you won't be safe!
Most of the problem of stupid teenagers is because they haven't been able to learn from their mistakes earlier in life because they are simply not allowed to take risks. It must be tough to let your kids out of your sight when you hear all the truely awful stories of what "sometimes" happens, but the children are missing out on part of their development and this is what makes them think it's OK for them to wander off with a 19 year old when they are 13 or 14. If they'd had some exposure to the real world when they were 8, 9, 10 they'd more than likely realise that there's something suspicious about a 19 year old wanting to spend time with a 13 or 14 year old!
Slashdot Mirror
They are now, yes.v er) because you just need to feed the power into the grid. If a new method of generation becomes available we can just add it to the system and everyone benefits.
The point is that once we have centralised "power" production (ie moved away from all having our own IC engines) it is much easier to clean up the existing power generation. It is much easier to incorporate cleaner ways of generating power into the mix (solar/wind/geothermal/oil/coal/gas/nuclear/whate
Sure, it's not all going to happen overnight, but if city dwellers chopped their SUVs, their Chelsea Tractors, etc, for an electric vehicle it would sure make living in towns and cities a nice proposition for everyone, and help kick-start the new technology.
As I see it, this technology is coming. It's really not a question of if, but when and I'd say the sooner the better.
How about the car(s) out of The Flintstones, with the sound of bare feet slapping the floor, and the screech when you hit the brakes! You wouldn't be able to see where you were going from laughing too much.
There was a company in the UK that offered a system similar to this, in concept, about 5 or 10 years ago, but it obviously only provided the sound to the occupants - I googled for it but couldn't find any references! Definately not rocket science to have speakers on the outside and some feeds from the "engine" to drive the acceleration/overrun/etc sounds, which could also be used as part of an alarm system (Step away from the car! You have three seconds to comply. [sound of large gun being cocked] You have two seconds to comply).
I'm not sure that's right. Let's look at the Wright Brothers first flight shall we. Well, that's obviously such a useless machine. Range measured in hundreds of yards? Only carry one person. Likely to die.
The 250 mile range is perhaps too short for many people, but I bet the majority of car journeys are well within this range. If people started purchasing such vehicles as second/third cars then the technology would improve. As the number of units sold increased, the unit price would come down. Competition would be encouraged, inovation would be rewarded and some of the bigger players would start looking into it. It's already happening because Toyota/Honda have decided it will happen and want to be first with the hybrids. They are expensive, but some people are buying them. It happens in all new technology. Mobile phones, digital cameras, everything new - they start off really pricey and the early adopters buy 'em. Soon though, economies of scale bring the prices down, and the technology improves as the market expands.
I don't think anyone expects everyone to immediatly chop in their beloved gas-guzzlers for some electric golf cart and start hugging trees, but this vehicle probably does have a market. If the Gov could give tax breaks - such as allowing tax free re-charging whilst at work, it could further encourage the take-up of the technology by reducing the cost of ownership.
This might even mean that in a few years when you have to get new batteries for your Tesla, the new ones will be cheaper, lighter, and provide a greater range because the tech has moved on.
I think he is actually saying "The Rich, The".
So, 250 mile range. How fast do you drive? Let's assume 70mph average, so after 140 miles, you stop for a coffee and a 1/4 hr charge. I've no idea how much charge a 1/4 hr might give you, but assume there's some "fast charge" option that can boost the remaining range by 30 miles (anyone any idea if that's even remotely right?). That gets you another two hours driving at 70 to "empty your tank" when you stop for lunch and an hour's charge. If the 1/4 hour got you 30 miles, the hour should get you another 120 or so which is nearly another 2 hours driving and an afternoon stop for high tea, maybe some scones/clotted cream/jam (Mmmmm) and a top up for another 1/4 hr.
OK ... I've almost certainly not got the math(s) right, but I'm sure you've grasped the concept. Chuck some solar cells on the roof and drive somewhere where it's sunny ...
Does that mean it won't catch fire? That's unflammable!
I'm guessing you've never seen an American movie.
I could sure see that turning into a nice little earner!
If you get your petrol car converted to run on LPG (at least, here in the UK) it becomes a bi-fuel vehicle and runs on both petrol and LPG. Indeed, it always starts using petrol, then switches to LPG. There is (certainly in the installations I have seen) a button on the dash to switch back if you want the extra power petrol provides - for example to beat someone away from traffic lights.
The Gov (bless 'em) used to offer a subsidy for new cars being converted when the real benefits would be had from encouraging people with old cars. The old car benefit would be two-fold - they are less efficient to start with, so there is more to be gained from using LPG, and you end up using the old car for longer ... re-use is better than recycling!
If yer interested, there is another benefit and that is that petrol cars burning LPG don't turn their oil into black sludge because there's less shite in the fuel and this translates into longer service intervals.
That's gotta be the simplest thing to resolve. Bung a subwoofer in the vehicle somewhere and a bunch of little speakers and before you set off decide what you want your car to sound like. I think I'll drive a Cobra today. Lovely.
Even more fun than downloading ringtones to your 'phone, downloading car sounds. It could be made to sound like anything!
Now if I'd ranted on about the apparent IQ of the moderator, perhaps compared it to a house plant, mentioned "single figures", "room temperature", that sort of thing. You know, sandwich short of a picnic, lights are on but no one's home. Maybe "mouth breather"?
Now for something like that, yes, then I could see an off topic mod being justified.
Oh, sorry, this is the "Off Topic" Room?
I wanted the "Enlightened Moderator" room. next on the left you say. Many thanks.
Obviously, given the option of 20 years in a modern car or 20 years in a clunker, the modern car wins hands down, but as the clunkers are already built I think there may be a case for saying an existing clunker for the next 5 years might be "greener" than having a new car built from scratch and driving that for 5 years.
A mate has an old 5 series BMW which he converted to LPG and now runs sweet as a anything. Total cost of car + convertion is somewhere under £2000. Now the UK Gov used to have a deal where if you converted your car to LPG they'd pay for some of the conversion cost, except the numb-nuts only applied it to new cars. So if you purchased a new car and converted it they'd help, when it would actually make much more sense to apply the grant to converting old cars, which are less efficient to start with.
Even more crazy, the convertions didn't then allow you to pay less or nothing in Ken's London congestion charging, whereas a new LPG/Bi-Fuel car would do. It's all arse-about-face!
A by product of the LPG convertion is that the service intervals for the car have become even more infrequent (esp. for the oil change interval) as the LPG stuff appears to keep the engine "clean", greatly prolonging the life of the vehicle (rapidly approaching 200K miles - not stratospheric these days, but still good!).
Buy a larger car and hear the cries of "How did we ever cope with the smaller car". Actually, it's quite easy. You just take less stuff!
I'm not sure that's true unless your bro's vehicle of choice is one of the newest that are mostly made up of recyclable parts. The cost of making a car/SUV is enormous in energy and resources and it's entirely likely that, taken as a whole, your knackered clunker represents a greener "footprint" than a brand spanking shiney new vehicle, regardless of the respective average MPG's quoted.
I believe the tree-huggers mantra is sometimes "Re-use is better than recycle".
[oh yes ... did you mean hyperthetically?]
Wow. Better than 22MPG eh! I have two sports cars (a 2 seater and a 4 seater - both convertable as I really like the extra headroom it affords) and neither does under 40MPG even when I cruise at 90MPH+.
If you think 22MPG is good there's something wrong! 22MPG is an insult to the poor trees that died to make the petrol!
And I'd much rather be in a small nimble car paying attention and be given the option to avoid an impact than drive around in some thinly veiled armoured half-track on the off chance that some bozo is going to make a beeline for me when I'm half asleep.
Why not? Isn't the bank (or whoever) using the funds themselves, and paying you interest for the privilege? It could be the new model for Social Security!
Just wake me up when I can afford breakfast!
Maybe it's just 'cos we've got so much more "heritage" over here in good old Blighty that we like to call them Bouncy Castles?
Some bozo in a Gov office needs some info on someone ...
Option 1: Call his references, call previous jobs, call his university, school, etc, etc, etc
Option 2: Use the Patriot Act to get all the above to call you with the information
Which is easier? So which is more likely!
Just Say NO!
In a nutshell, that's what I don't like about perl. There's so many default actions that mean you don't need to write the code to do all sorts of things and, IMHO, that just makes it unmaintainable. Sure, if you're the perl-kid then it's all obvious to you and you can exercise your skills by writing ever more terse scripts that requires someone of equal or greater skill to be able to make any changes.
I just don't see the problem with having a "main" (or whatever) typed into the script to indicate where the script starts, and END somewhere to show where it ends. What are you saving by leaving them out? Aren't you just polishing up your ego?
I nearly spat my tea out all over my keyboard ... I read that as "tissues".
There's a chap with a McLaren F1 and when it came time for a service the owner hooked it up to a telephone line so the engineers could log in and poke about to know what parts to bring with them when they flew over from Woking to physically service the thing (actually, I believe you get a full set of tools included in the price with the car, so the engineer(s) just have to bring the spares. cool eh!) and after a few minutes of remote poking about called the owner. Apparently, they said there was something seriously wrong with the engine management system as it was reporting hours on end of 200MPH (not KPH!) travel. The owner said no, that was probably right, as he used it for his commute every day and regularly "cruised" at 200MPH or so.
He also had a GPS system installed. He said "nothing makes you later for a meeting than doing 200MPH in the wrong direction". Nice.
I'd say I agree with pretty much everything you say, but ...
I really don't think it's any less safe for kids to play outside than it used to be. Incidents (a very non-specific term for the unpleasent events that do occur) are far more widely reported these days, and mostly, I fear, because it sells newspapers. The news reporting seems to be trying to scare the population into becoming hermits. If you don't lock your doors, arm yourself (esp. in the US), wrap your kids in cotton wool, and buy tomorrow's newspaper (!) you won't be safe!
Most of the problem of stupid teenagers is because they haven't been able to learn from their mistakes earlier in life because they are simply not allowed to take risks. It must be tough to let your kids out of your sight when you hear all the truely awful stories of what "sometimes" happens, but the children are missing out on part of their development and this is what makes them think it's OK for them to wander off with a 19 year old when they are 13 or 14. If they'd had some exposure to the real world when they were 8, 9, 10 they'd more than likely realise that there's something suspicious about a 19 year old wanting to spend time with a 13 or 14 year old!
Which means ... statistically, you'll be less likely to have an accident if you have a few beers before driving anywhere.
Oh ain't statistics great! It's really no wonder Politicians make use of them so often.