Absolutely! If you look at the "pork" you will notice that most (but not all) projects are things that while very useful to society (yes locals more than most but it still helps everyone) these projects have such a slow rate of return that business would NEVER do them.
Just because the payback is usually measured in decades doesn't mean it is a waste. Please point me to a reference that supports your contention that "pork" increases taxes. I maintain that the added revenue of prior projects more than pays for the new ones.
His schedule was often published...he typically did 1-1.5 hours of meetings when in Texas and the remainder of the time he "cleared brush" etc.
I do 1-1.5 hours of meetings a day when I am on vacation and I always keep the football around....sounds like Bush spent a lot of time on vacation and his performance demonstrates that.
"Most congressmen go to their home districts and then spend all their time raising money to better get themselves reelected and keep accumulating power."
You know....if my representative does what I want then I have no problem supporting him or even throwing some money his way. By meeting me he now has a chance of finding out what I want and that will influence what he does.
Money certainly helps, but the only sure way to stay in power is to have your constituents LIKE you and what you do...
You are assuming that everyone is going to go hang out at their own 1000 acre ranch.
Congress adjourns BECAUSE we are a representative democracy. Most congressmen go to their home districts and then spend all their time meeting with the people (YOU) to better understand what you want and represent you better.
This is congress doing their job.
What really tells is how active Congress is when they are in session. This Congress has been very active even though all the important legislation has been vetoed. Personally I am looking forward to meeting with my representative (Jim Marshal D-Ga) without having to fly to Washington.
As I recall in 2003 the GOP chair of a committee refused to allow the Democratic members of the committe to speak, ignored a motion to continue the hearing and stormed off WITH the gavel in hand...all this beacuse the dems wanted to call some witnesses for testimony.
Average commute is 15 miles. Average electric car uses 300 watt/hours per mile (after recoving energy from braking) Cost effective solar cells are 15% Surface area of a car is 1.5 square meters. Solar insulation is 1 kw/h for 5 hous a day (on average)
However with a hybrid the electric motors kick up the extra power. Therefore the engine can run at the most fuel efficient RPM for a higher percentage of the time.
So when you are going the optimum sped the engine is tooling along to match. When you are going below optimum the engine keeps going optimum and recharges the batteries until they are full then drop down to meet demand. When you are going above optimum, the engine continues at optimum while the batteries supply the extra power. When the batteries are exahusted the engine speeds up to compensate.
While the hybrid driven at top speed will eventually use up it's stored electricity and soly rely on it's tiny engine, on typical driving conditions the batteries will alsways have enough juice to get you over the harder spots without compromising performance.
It won't be a new message. Nearly 20 years ago, a large-scale study led by psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found a "trivial" gap in math test scores between boys and girls in elementary and middle school. But it did suggest that boys were better at solving more complex problems by the time they got to high school.
The lime is being added to REDUCE the acidification of the ocean which will then better absorbe CO2...which will return the ocean to the current acidity and rate of CO2 absorption. The excess CO2 will generally precipitate out, collect on the bottom and form...lime stone.
#1 we don't know exactly where the oil is...we know about where it is but that is different. If you started today: To exploit off shore oil you first have to do extremely detailed underwater analysis of the geography (6 months to a year). You then do test wells (two years to find the right site). You then build the oil platform on site (two years since it is an extremely complex machine in a fairly difficult area). You then do a full well (one year to drill it, validate the stability and start extracting oil). Then you spin up production which typically takes about 2 years (that's as fast as they can do it). Therefore to extract any meaningful oil it will take a MINIMUM of 7.5 to 8 years. This is assuming the laws were changed yesterday AND not fought in court. 10 years is actually a conservative estimate. The sad truth is that drilling several miles into the crust UNDER a mile of ocean and pulling out oil without spilling any is HARD.
#2 The US's ability to produce oil in the first place is starting to drop. Peak oil was reached for all existing US wells in the 80's. Even if every single known or suspected reserve in US territory was drilled immediately, we wouldn't add more than 10-15% to the global supply. It is true that speculation has driven up the price of oil, but the the US has very little to do with it.
#3 Oil companies have reported record profits across the board. They had secured rights to the land and were already running very close to their max capacity plus the price of oil is not going to drop any time soon even IF everyone started pumping as much as they could. It's not a conspiracy but it is good business sense. In addition I would like to point out that it is a known fact that oil companies have leases to public land which they are NOT drilling. It is public information.
#4 Yes Katrina and Rita did not cause any spilled oil because the rigs capped the wells and left the area. It still took months to restart production. But I wasn't refering to an oil spill. I was thinking about the damage to the area from the test wells, from the construction etc. Spilled oil (and yes even the best oil rig spills oil) just adds to that.
The problem with oil spills is that it spread out to a huge geographic area. Oil recover techniques are really only effective if you catch it very early and it is a small spill. Even if the oil doesn't hit the land it still kills off most of the creatures in the ocean below it. A layer of oil prevents oxygen exchange with the ocean and gradually suffocates the plants and animals living there.
As far as oil spills on land, please provide a citation. I know that non-point sources of oil pollution (like oil leaks from cars etc) is the largest category of harmful pollution. I have worked for my states Department of Natural resources and my job was to monitor the health of the states major lakes.
I challenge your assertion that crude oil contains a lot of salt water. It is true that salt water is used in the extraction of oil but that is because they don't mix and oil rides on top of the oil. Unless you can provide a document showing that crude oil barrels have some appreciable level of water I call bull shit.
The difference between the danger of salt water vs the danger of oil is that there are natural processes to handle salt. There are none for oil. If land is full of salt you won't be able to use it for agriculture but there are natural plants, bacteria and animals that will seek it out and gradually clean it up. Plus rain will gradually wash it away. With oil there are no such natural processes. It is generally not usable by bacteria or other life forms and rain doesn't wash it away very quickly. Land filled with oil must wait for the oil to gradually break down on it's own, typically with sunlight, and then wash away. A gallon of sea water will kill an area for a few years. A gallon of oil will kill an area for a few centuries.
Without concerning themselves that these two items are, to some extent, mutually contradictory. Which leads to an instability higher than you might think.
This is WHY they are important to watch. They are very unstable with some mutual exclusive demands. If government/society starts to crack down on their demands they get up and leave pretty quickly.
But you are right, it is often dificult to differentiate between noise and data. However Hawkins is such a huge name I am shocked that they didn't cough up the money to keep him. That is suggestive right there.
Godwin right in the first post! Bravo I say, Bravo! A true and shining accomplishment in the field of utterly irrelevant comparisons.
Thank you! I truly appreciate the resounding compliment. As you can tell it was a near thing and required forgoing spellcheck...but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for my adoring fans...fans like you.
In all seriousness, I do think scientists are an excellent canary for the local political/cultural environment. They rely on public funding while demanding the right to teach/work as they see best. When the scientists start leaving I sit up and take notice.
Except by exploring off shore you MIGHT get oil on the market in 10 years. In 10 years the damage will be done and we will have shifted, at least partially, to other mobile power sources (I think batteries/ultra caps etc will be very good by then and could replace gas as a portable energy source plus at $150 a barrel, a lot of bio fuel sources become profitable, coal liquefaction becomes profitable etc).
However if you use the Dems idea than we force the oil companies to use the resources they already have instead of giving them a reward for not using what they already have. Exploiting the land they already have will get added oil to the market in 2-3 years.
The real problem is NOT a lack of oil but a lack of refining capacity. If you want to effect gas prices than build more refineries...it will take two years to build a new refinery.
The reality is that $8 a gallon is really what it SHOULD be right now. The US has lived in an artificially low priced gas environment for the last 80 years. It is unavoidable that gas will reach $6-7 a gallon in today's dollars. But this doesn't worry me THAT much because in the next two years there will be viable electric cars in my price rage ($30K) with performance that matches or exceeds gas powered cars. After I drive the wheels off my Civic I will buy an electric to replace it.
What will "save" the US is NOT more oil. It really doesn't matter if we start looking at new sources or not. By the time any come on-line the damage will be done. What will save the US is electrical storage with similar capacities as gas. Since very little electrical power is supplied by oil, the electric vehicle will make us energy independent. The power grid as it is right now can supply current power needs plus 80% of all transportation energy needs. The upgrades needed for the power grid are not that significant and could be completed over 20 years. New power plants could be nuclear fission Uranium (with fuel reprocessing which eliminates almost all waste but is still a fuel we don't readily have), nuclear fission Thorium (which produces almost no long term waste and is readily available in the US but the tech is not quite developed, the first plant is looking like 5 years), nuclear fusion (I have high hopes for the Bussard Polywell which hope to have a 100 MW poerplant in operation in 5 years but we have all heard the fusion stories in the past), solar (photovoltaics are getting much better and much cheaper, within the next 5 years it will be cost effective to install solar grid-tie systems in the bottom half of the US) and if all else fails clean coal.
As you can see, ocean exploration will come too late to do anything but damage the environment (even if just a little). The sad truth is, we in the US will have to simply "grin and bear it" for a few years than hop on electrical as soon as possible.
On the contrary!!! Don;t drill now...let the Saudis sell off all their oil while prices are only $147 a barrel! The Dems are brilliant because we will be able to sell ours at $500 a barrel.
But yes, the technology just wasn't there until now to build a cost effective EV with characteristics similar to gas powered cars.
Ohh, you would deffinetly have a fight on your hands.
BUT if you have a patent issued which is novel and an improvment, it supercedes the prior patent. You are (theoretically) immune from patent infringment from the first patent holder. This doesn't mean that they won't try and stop you. This is often known as patent Trolling.
By claiming broadly you make it more difficult for people to create true improvments.
For instance, if I invented a laser bread cutting board and I listed a 3-laser system in the claims, you could "invent" a 5-laser system and defeat my patent. However if I claimed more broadly and said a "laser bread cutting system" in my claim, your device would still fall under my patent.
Defeating patents is extremly common. There are hundreds of cases where one patent supercedes another.
Except that using grid power vs. ICE is twice as efficient, results in half the pollution and it is all localized so you can scrub, capture or whatever it.
If everyone went to electric vehicles and the power was produced by the oil you would ahve used in cars, we would cut our emmisions in half and be roughly energy independent.
Notice how batteries have remained in the same state as the 1990's...
NiMH batteries have a wide range of problems and were never trully suitable for an electric car. They were too expensive to make, toxic and had pretty bad memory issues.
It is true that big oil killed the electric car but NOT by buying up patents but instead by providing cheap gas.
In the example you provided, the patents were only purchased AFTER the EV1 failed. The reason it failed was primarily market pressure not some vast conspiracy.
But the question was where are patents on Internal Combustion Engines that have been locked out?
The battery makers...While people who didn't have to buy them LOVED them, anyone who was forced to pay for them balked (with a very low percentage of exceptions).
The batteries were to expensive and gas was too cheap. Plus the range was still low.
Now things are much different...batteries are MUCH cheaper, gas is Much more expensive and the range is getting comparable.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely! If you look at the "pork" you will notice that most (but not all) projects are things that while very useful to society (yes locals more than most but it still helps everyone) these projects have such a slow rate of return that business would NEVER do them.
Just because the payback is usually measured in decades doesn't mean it is a waste. Please point me to a reference that supports your contention that "pork" increases taxes. I maintain that the added revenue of prior projects more than pays for the new ones.
His schedule was often published...he typically did 1-1.5 hours of meetings when in Texas and the remainder of the time he "cleared brush" etc.
I do 1-1.5 hours of meetings a day when I am on vacation and I always keep the football around....sounds like Bush spent a lot of time on vacation and his performance demonstrates that.
"Most congressmen go to their home districts and then spend all their time raising money to better get themselves reelected and keep accumulating power."
You know....if my representative does what I want then I have no problem supporting him or even throwing some money his way. By meeting me he now has a chance of finding out what I want and that will influence what he does.
Money certainly helps, but the only sure way to stay in power is to have your constituents LIKE you and what you do...
You are assuming that everyone is going to go hang out at their own 1000 acre ranch.
Congress adjourns BECAUSE we are a representative democracy. Most congressmen go to their home districts and then spend all their time meeting with the people (YOU) to better understand what you want and represent you better.
This is congress doing their job.
What really tells is how active Congress is when they are in session. This Congress has been very active even though all the important legislation has been vetoed. Personally I am looking forward to meeting with my representative (Jim Marshal D-Ga) without having to fly to Washington.
As I recall in 2003 the GOP chair of a committee refused to allow the Democratic members of the committe to speak, ignored a motion to continue the hearing and stormed off WITH the gavel in hand...all this beacuse the dems wanted to call some witnesses for testimony.
I forget the details but google knows all.
Average commute is 15 miles.
Average electric car uses 300 watt/hours per mile (after recoving energy from braking)
Cost effective solar cells are 15%
Surface area of a car is 1.5 square meters.
Solar insulation is 1 kw/h for 5 hous a day (on average)
SOOO...
1.5 square meters * 15% * 1000 watts * 5 hours = 1125 watt/hours
The average commute is 15 miles * 300 watts-hours = 4500 watt/hours consumed.
Solar powered cars won't work until solar cell efficiencies are 50% or better.
However with a hybrid the electric motors kick up the extra power. Therefore the engine can run at the most fuel efficient RPM for a higher percentage of the time.
So when you are going the optimum sped the engine is tooling along to match. When you are going below optimum the engine keeps going optimum and recharges the batteries until they are full then drop down to meet demand. When you are going above optimum, the engine continues at optimum while the batteries supply the extra power. When the batteries are exahusted the engine speeds up to compensate.
While the hybrid driven at top speed will eventually use up it's stored electricity and soly rely on it's tiny engine, on typical driving conditions the batteries will alsways have enough juice to get you over the harder spots without compromising performance.
It won't be a new message. Nearly 20 years ago, a large-scale study led by psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found a "trivial" gap in math test scores between boys and girls in elementary and middle school. But it did suggest that boys were better at solving more complex problems by the time they got to high school.
So she (Janet) did the MATH wrong....
Umm...RTFA!
The lime is being added to REDUCE the acidification of the ocean which will then better absorbe CO2...which will return the ocean to the current acidity and rate of CO2 absorption. The excess CO2 will generally precipitate out, collect on the bottom and form...lime stone.
#1 we don't know exactly where the oil is...we know about where it is but that is different. If you started today: To exploit off shore oil you first have to do extremely detailed underwater analysis of the geography (6 months to a year). You then do test wells (two years to find the right site). You then build the oil platform on site (two years since it is an extremely complex machine in a fairly difficult area). You then do a full well (one year to drill it, validate the stability and start extracting oil). Then you spin up production which typically takes about 2 years (that's as fast as they can do it). Therefore to extract any meaningful oil it will take a MINIMUM of 7.5 to 8 years. This is assuming the laws were changed yesterday AND not fought in court. 10 years is actually a conservative estimate. The sad truth is that drilling several miles into the crust UNDER a mile of ocean and pulling out oil without spilling any is HARD.
#2 The US's ability to produce oil in the first place is starting to drop. Peak oil was reached for all existing US wells in the 80's. Even if every single known or suspected reserve in US territory was drilled immediately, we wouldn't add more than 10-15% to the global supply. It is true that speculation has driven up the price of oil, but the the US has very little to do with it.
#3 Oil companies have reported record profits across the board. They had secured rights to the land and were already running very close to their max capacity plus the price of oil is not going to drop any time soon even IF everyone started pumping as much as they could. It's not a conspiracy but it is good business sense. In addition I would like to point out that it is a known fact that oil companies have leases to public land which they are NOT drilling. It is public information.
#4 Yes Katrina and Rita did not cause any spilled oil because the rigs capped the wells and left the area. It still took months to restart production. But I wasn't refering to an oil spill. I was thinking about the damage to the area from the test wells, from the construction etc. Spilled oil (and yes even the best oil rig spills oil) just adds to that.
The problem with oil spills is that it spread out to a huge geographic area. Oil recover techniques are really only effective if you catch it very early and it is a small spill. Even if the oil doesn't hit the land it still kills off most of the creatures in the ocean below it. A layer of oil prevents oxygen exchange with the ocean and gradually suffocates the plants and animals living there.
As far as oil spills on land, please provide a citation. I know that non-point sources of oil pollution (like oil leaks from cars etc) is the largest category of harmful pollution. I have worked for my states Department of Natural resources and my job was to monitor the health of the states major lakes.
I challenge your assertion that crude oil contains a lot of salt water. It is true that salt water is used in the extraction of oil but that is because they don't mix and oil rides on top of the oil. Unless you can provide a document showing that crude oil barrels have some appreciable level of water I call bull shit.
The difference between the danger of salt water vs the danger of oil is that there are natural processes to handle salt. There are none for oil. If land is full of salt you won't be able to use it for agriculture but there are natural plants, bacteria and animals that will seek it out and gradually clean it up. Plus rain will gradually wash it away. With oil there are no such natural processes. It is generally not usable by bacteria or other life forms and rain doesn't wash it away very quickly. Land filled with oil must wait for the oil to gradually break down on it's own, typically with sunlight, and then wash away. A gallon of sea water will kill an area for a few years. A gallon of oil will kill an area for a few centuries.
Now if only we could use it as a power source....I would LOVE a ZPM ala Stargate!
Where does he get those wonderful toys?!
Reprocess the waste, and then "burn" the long term waste off in breeder type reactors.
We can get 10,000 year hazardous waste to 100 year hazardous waste....
Without concerning themselves that these two items are, to some extent, mutually contradictory. Which leads to an instability higher than you might think.
This is WHY they are important to watch. They are very unstable with some mutual exclusive demands. If government/society starts to crack down on their demands they get up and leave pretty quickly.
But you are right, it is often dificult to differentiate between noise and data. However Hawkins is such a huge name I am shocked that they didn't cough up the money to keep him. That is suggestive right there.
Godwin right in the first post! Bravo I say, Bravo! A true and shining accomplishment in the field of utterly irrelevant comparisons.
Thank you! I truly appreciate the resounding compliment. As you can tell it was a near thing and required forgoing spellcheck...but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for my adoring fans...fans like you.
In all seriousness, I do think scientists are an excellent canary for the local political/cultural environment. They rely on public funding while demanding the right to teach/work as they see best. When the scientists start leaving I sit up and take notice.
And the physicists left too!
all the top phycisits start leaving Germany when things started going downhill?
Except by exploring off shore you MIGHT get oil on the market in 10 years. In 10 years the damage will be done and we will have shifted, at least partially, to other mobile power sources (I think batteries/ultra caps etc will be very good by then and could replace gas as a portable energy source plus at $150 a barrel, a lot of bio fuel sources become profitable, coal liquefaction becomes profitable etc).
However if you use the Dems idea than we force the oil companies to use the resources they already have instead of giving them a reward for not using what they already have. Exploiting the land they already have will get added oil to the market in 2-3 years.
The real problem is NOT a lack of oil but a lack of refining capacity. If you want to effect gas prices than build more refineries...it will take two years to build a new refinery.
The reality is that $8 a gallon is really what it SHOULD be right now. The US has lived in an artificially low priced gas environment for the last 80 years. It is unavoidable that gas will reach $6-7 a gallon in today's dollars. But this doesn't worry me THAT much because in the next two years there will be viable electric cars in my price rage ($30K) with performance that matches or exceeds gas powered cars. After I drive the wheels off my Civic I will buy an electric to replace it.
What will "save" the US is NOT more oil. It really doesn't matter if we start looking at new sources or not. By the time any come on-line the damage will be done. What will save the US is electrical storage with similar capacities as gas. Since very little electrical power is supplied by oil, the electric vehicle will make us energy independent. The power grid as it is right now can supply current power needs plus 80% of all transportation energy needs. The upgrades needed for the power grid are not that significant and could be completed over 20 years. New power plants could be nuclear fission Uranium (with fuel reprocessing which eliminates almost all waste but is still a fuel we don't readily have), nuclear fission Thorium (which produces almost no long term waste and is readily available in the US but the tech is not quite developed, the first plant is looking like 5 years), nuclear fusion (I have high hopes for the Bussard Polywell which hope to have a 100 MW poerplant in operation in 5 years but we have all heard the fusion stories in the past), solar (photovoltaics are getting much better and much cheaper, within the next 5 years it will be cost effective to install solar grid-tie systems in the bottom half of the US) and if all else fails clean coal.
As you can see, ocean exploration will come too late to do anything but damage the environment (even if just a little). The sad truth is, we in the US will have to simply "grin and bear it" for a few years than hop on electrical as soon as possible.
I have not heard of a 50% efficiency rating but assuming it is true it still wouldn't result in 300 MPG car.
Gas has 34.8 MJ/L worth of energy. Your car gets 34.8*.3 = 10.44 MJ/L
Using your new efficiency your car would gets 34.8*.5 = 17.4 MJ/L
Assuming it takes 10.44 MJ to move your car, with your new efficiency you could drive 17.4 / 10.44 = 1.66 times as far.
So your 30 mpg car now gets 30*1.66 = 50 MPG.
Now, do you ahve a source for your ceramic engine?
On the contrary!!! Don;t drill now...let the Saudis sell off all their oil while prices are only $147 a barrel! The Dems are brilliant because we will be able to sell ours at $500 a barrel.
But yes, the technology just wasn't there until now to build a cost effective EV with characteristics similar to gas powered cars.
Ohh, you would deffinetly have a fight on your hands.
BUT if you have a patent issued which is novel and an improvment, it supercedes the prior patent. You are (theoretically) immune from patent infringment from the first patent holder. This doesn't mean that they won't try and stop you. This is often known as patent Trolling.
By claiming broadly you make it more difficult for people to create true improvments.
For instance, if I invented a laser bread cutting board and I listed a 3-laser system in the claims, you could "invent" a 5-laser system and defeat my patent. However if I claimed more broadly and said a "laser bread cutting system" in my claim, your device would still fall under my patent.
Defeating patents is extremly common. There are hundreds of cases where one patent supercedes another.
I could spend more time and get peer reviewed articles but...I won't so here are a few that my 30 seconds of googling turned up:
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_Web_projects/Z.Yates/Zach's%20Web%20Project%20Folder/EICE%20-%20Main.htm
Scroll down to efficiency. Stock cars are typically 26% at the engine and closer to 12% at the wheels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle
Most gas powered plants are combined cycle which typically operate at 60% efficiency but can get up to 85%.
Here is a more detailed read comparing the Tesla to other cars energy efficiency whise:
www.stanford.edu/group/greendorm/participate/cee124/TeslaReading.pdf
Except that using grid power vs. ICE is twice as efficient, results in half the pollution and it is all localized so you can scrub, capture or whatever it.
If everyone went to electric vehicles and the power was produced by the oil you would ahve used in cars, we would cut our emmisions in half and be roughly energy independent.
Notice how batteries have remained in the same state as the 1990's...
NiMH batteries have a wide range of problems and were never trully suitable for an electric car. They were too expensive to make, toxic and had pretty bad memory issues.
It is true that big oil killed the electric car but NOT by buying up patents but instead by providing cheap gas.
In the example you provided, the patents were only purchased AFTER the EV1 failed. The reason it failed was primarily market pressure not some vast conspiracy.
But the question was where are patents on Internal Combustion Engines that have been locked out?
The battery makers...While people who didn't have to buy them LOVED them, anyone who was forced to pay for them balked (with a very low percentage of exceptions).
The batteries were to expensive and gas was too cheap. Plus the range was still low.
Now things are much different...batteries are MUCH cheaper, gas is Much more expensive and the range is getting comparable.