Line loss: instead of your car causing the polution, you've got the electric plant causing the polution. And a lot of that is for electicity that will be lost during transmission.
That power plant is much more efficient at converting energy then your internal combustion engine. Show me a internal combustion engine that can convert 60-80% of the energy in gasoline into electric or motion. Fat chance. More efficient generation means less fossil fuels burned which means less CO2 release into the environment. So it's already a win even if you use fossil fuels to generate the electric -- which is hardly a given (hydro or nuclear anyone?). Line losses during transmission do not amount to much in a properly designed electrical distribution system.
Single point of failure: What happens when the power goes out for a week because of ice storms? You may not have heat and you can't go anywhere.
So I suppose all those gas stations in your area can pump gas without electricity? In fact in your scenario those stations with power would still be useless because they would likely be raided by people looking to top off their tanks and run out of gas in short order.
Infrastructure: where are you going to charge when you're not at home? Do you think other people want to be paying for the electricity for your car? Try jacking into someone else's power in the city and you'll find your plug holes filled with liquid cement in the morning!
And why the hell would you need to charge it away from home most of the time? How many hours does your car spend sitting in your driveway/garage doing nothing? And in your above ice storm scenario I highly doubt that your family member/friend that you went to stay with would really begrudge you for using some of his power. Especially if you offered to pay him for it.
Imagine what you could do with a bank of solar panels on the top of a trailer in a tractor trailer rig
Not very much I'm afraid. I recall reading somewhere that the average solar energy input per square meter of Earth's surface is roughly 3.5-4.5kWh/day. Even if your solar panels were 100% efficient (impossible) it still wouldn't power your tractor trailer.
The biggest "problem" is that it would put gas stations out of business. Imagine being able to swap your batteries at pretty much any store.... Can you imagine the economic impact?:-) (I'm looking forward to it already....)
It wouldn't even need to put them out of business. They would just need to retool to become your battery swapping place. In fact it would probably be easier to provide a handful of gas stations with the electrical hookups required to charge a ton of batteries then it would be to do it in individual homes.
The bigger economic impact would be on automobile makers (electric cars are a much more simple design once you work out the new technology and production processes) and automobile maintenance people. There would be a lot less parts likely to break and a lot less routine maintenance would be required of a BEV.
Even the best batteries have unbelievably low energy density compared to gasoline,
I suppose that depends on how you look at it. If you consider the energy lost to waste heat in a gasoline engine then they start to look a bit more favorable. In any case I hope you are right that we will see some new vehicles on the market soon. Until that time I shall keep my klunker on the road -- or buy another klunker when this one dies. There's no way in hell I'm rewarding the automobile makers by buying a new vehicle. Besides which, it's a waste of money to buy a new car anyway:)
After factoring in line and charging losses, it is quite likely that the engine of their tractor is more efficient than an electric tractor could be (assuming a battery that can store enough power).
I highly doubt that. The typical internal combustion engine is no better then 20-25% efficient at converting chemical energy into motion. What do you think all that heat your tractor puts off is? It's waste. Compare that to a three phase electric motor which can approach 90-95% efficiency. And it can act as a generator to slow your vehicle down instead of wearing on the brake pads and converting yet more useful energy into waste heat.
Granted, the problem with farming and tractors is that they need rather huge amounts of horsepower. Given the state of the rural electric infrastructure it's probable that for the foreseeable future farming will require internal combustion engines.
My point isn't that electric vehicles can replace gasoline ones across the board in 100% of scenarios. My point is that for the typical American/Canadian they would probably be more then good enough for our lifestyle.
Ever driven cross-country? Mis-estimate your fuel capacity once in the middle of the plains/desert especially at night and you are SOL. This is why some people carry extra fuel in a can.
Indeed. Mis-estimate as in make a mistake. I'm sorry but I have very little pity for somebody who runs out of gas. It's even stupider to do so in modern cars with trip computers that practically tell you how much range you have remaining and what your current MPG is. Combine that with exit numbers matching mile markers in most states (you know how far you have to go) and you still have zero excuse for running out of gas.
Simple, it was not deemed economically viable (not enough profit to justify the expense). If that were not the case someone else (the Japanese for instance) would have jumped all over it.
Because the Japanese don't have an investment in existing internal combustion technology.... oh wait.
Do you know how much it cost to develop and market either of those vehicles? They are all simple changes to existing designs and technologies. And marketing is marketing regardless of the product. Plus, it seems there are many thousands more people interested in an H2/H3/Grand Cherokee than those a battery powered econo-box which easily justifies the marketing budget.
Yes, the "we only build it because it's what they want" argument. Well I, along with tens of thousands of others want a fucking BEV. I don't see them rolling off the assembly lines. In fact the only time American car makers built them they purposefully crippled them to hamper the product (draconian lease requirements that forced you to give your vehicle back with no buy out option) and then stopped development.
And whatever you say about marketing you have to admit that it's pretty shameful that they have a bigger marketing budget for those wasteful self-centered vehicles then they do for research into new technology. Even hybrids.... they are all licensing that technology from Japan because they didn't care enough to invest in it on their own. As much as I love the United States our automobile industry deserves whatever fate awaits it if they don't adapt and innovate.
(the converse of #1 is that electricity to heat is a very poor conversion)
Actually, isn't it true that electric resistance heating is 100% efficient? Your energy loss comes from the initial heat->electric conversion (at a fossil fuel or nuclear power plant) -- not from the electric->heat conversion. This is why it is not cost effective to heat your house with electric -- barring isolated scenarios such as having access to cheap hydroelectric power.
The fact that an implementable technology like batteries has been completely shunted aside in favor of vapordrive is indeed infuriating.
Indeed. And I see it as nothing more then a ploy to let the entrenched industry milk some more profits out of their existing factories and infrastructure. The damnable part is that we will always need small amounts of oil for certain things (plastics, lubricants, farming, etc) and every drop of oil burned in an automobile is going to make it that much more expensive for future generations to obtain it for these life essential items.
Don't be surprised if others do understand about your state divide.
Well in New York State there is a huge culture clash between upstate and downstate. What's annoying is that we really do need each other. New York City needs upstate for it's water resources, food supply, electricity, etc. Upstate needs NYC to support our infrastructure.
A lot of upstate Republicans deny this fact but it's pretty hard to dispute. A friend of mine used to call it the roads to people ratio -- and pointed out the fact that Maine (with less miles of roadway) has a higher state income tax rate then New York.
Where it really sickens me (and this was the source of my frustration) is when upstate Republicans run against upstate Democrats by claiming that "they will be for NYC". They exploit the divide and make it worse just so they can get elected. *Sigh*
The real problem with electric cars is refueling time. The 300 mile range is nice for most trips, but that weekend to grandma's house would be out. She live 500 miles away and there is no way to refill the tank in 20 mins, like a gas tank. It is easy refueling that is the bane of most alternatives. Hydrogen cars also suffer. Nobody trusts Jane car owner to refill a tank of hydrogen or recyle a load of lithium hydroxide. Or plug a 220 outlet into the car. Until we get tort reform, and stupid people are allowed to kill themselves without suing companies, none of this will work.
So there are other options for the monthly trip to Grandma's. Trailers with onboard diesel/gasoline generators come to mind. That would turn your BEV into a hybrid for long distance trips. It would probably be more efficient too -- locomotives use this method (diesel generators turning electric motors) rather then a direct drive system with transmission and clutch.
The outlet part is a no brainer. Inductive charging (similar to some types of electric razors) would completely eliminate the risk of electric shock and would allow you to use that 240 volt supply instead of the 120 volts out of normal outlets.
Hopefully not one of the world's largest sources of artificially generated CO2
Yes, but consider the amount of CO2 released per mile traveled. Your typical internal combustion engine is about 20% efficient as I recall. The rest of the energy is lost as waste heat. Even your oldest coal power plant is at least 40% efficient -- and the newer plants approach 60%-65%. Combined cycle natural gas power plants approach 80%.
So the bottom line is that even if you use fossil fuels to generate your electricity you could count on a much smaller release of CO2 into the environment. Plus you have some measure of control over where your electricity is generated from -- here in New York you have the option of buying wind power in 100 KwH blocks and paying extra for it if you so desire. Besides all that, eventually our economy will move away from fossil fuels (Fusion anyone?) -- but electricity will always be around as the energy transfer medium.
You are not talking about Lousiana, are you? Among the bluest of them all...
That would be a separate case of states that aren't disaster prone deathtraps subsidizing states that are. Florida comes to mind as the biggest offender in this category. You could also look at it locally -- morons that build in forests and whine when their house burns down -- or morons who build on floodplains.
I'm not a selfish city bastard. I actually live in suburbia. I was expressing my frustration about red state politicians bitching about blue state social programs when the blue states are paying for their red state lifestyle. There's also the fact that I'm a New Yorker and grew weary of the upstate/downstate divide (you have to live here to know what I'm talking about). We both need each other. In any case it was offtopic and I apologize if it offended anyone.
You're right gas heat is waste heat, so maybe electric generation is more efficient. I'm not saying don't go electric, I'm just saying don't be surprised everyone doesn't jump at it, until it works and is proven to work in rural and cold settings. Remember trailers add friction and thus provide a MPG hit too, as well as a registration cost, and skill level to drive them.
I don't expect everybody to jump at it initially. But I personally would like the chance to "jump at it". It's total bullshit for the automobile companies to claim there's no demand for BEVs. I would jump at the chance to own one. So would many other people I suspect.
I suspect time and availability of recharging are factors.
They are factors but not insurmountable ones. For 95% of your activity simply recharging your BEV overnight would be good enough. Think about it -- you go to work (30 miles in my case -- that's probably average for the US), work all day, then you go home. Even if you go out and party until last call your car still has several hours to be recharged before you go back to work.
Also, where can you plug in to recharge? In an apartment without reserved parking, you can't guarantee being able to get to a plug. I can imagine most landlords having a problem with long extension cords running across the parking lot.
And that should stop Detroit/et all from investing in this technology? Those are hardly insurmountable problems. It's not a big leap of faith to picture "BEV friendly" apartment complexes or worksites.
If a gasoline-powered car runs out of gas, the driver can hitch a ride to a station and back with a couple of gallons. What do you do when if/when your batteries run out? Getting towed is expensive.
Well there's no reason to run out of gasoline or battery power other then stupidity on the part of the owner. I've never run out of gas.
My whole point is that this technology should not have been abandoned. Why isn't it still being researched? What about that new battery chemistry that we read about awhile ago that recharges to 90% in only a few minutes? Could that scale into BEV sizes? Why the hell isn't nobody researching and building these things? I would buy one -- so would a lot of other people.
Hell, if Detroit would invest half the money into BEV technology that they spend on marketing for the H2 and Grand Cherokee.....
That's not enough range for half a million drivers in Saskatchewan
Then let them pay more for a gasoline powered car. On a slightly offtopic rant I'm rather sick of populated areas (typically blue states in the US) subsidizing rural ones (typically red states in the US). Why should we have to pay more for our phone service/electricity/roads/etc, etc, etc just so you can afford yours? If you like living in the middle of nowhere so much then be prepared to pay for it.
and it wouldn't do well in winter. A hybrid can provide heat to the passengers without an electric heater which might be too much strain on a vehicle's battery
That's debatable. All the heat coming off your gasoline engine is waste heat anyway. That represents inefficacy. So even if you had to run an electric heater the BEV is still better for the environment.
Besides all that, one of the more interesting ideas I've seen involves a BEV with an a trailer that you could hook up for long distance trips. The trailer contains a gasoline or diesel powered generator -- effectively making your BEV into a hybrid. How often would you need that functionality? Heck, I could get by 95% of the time if my BEV only had 100 miles of range -- and we are talking about cars with a 300-350 mile range.
Not my dream. I've never had a credit card and never will. 15+% interest to spend more money than I have has always seemed like a losing option to me.
Bravo. I've had my own problems with them. Which is to say that I had medical problems and given the choice between screwing over my local not-for-profit hospital and screwing over Capital One I decided to screw Capital One. I still don't really regret that decision.
"Credit" ratings and trying to get a "better" credit score has always seemed a dubious construct to me
I completely agree with that too. The only shitty part about living credit-free though is trying to buy a house. I can't say that I will live without a credit card but I can say that there is no way in hell I will ever again do business with the likes of Citi, Capital One and their ilk. I refuse to transact any sort of banking business with anybody other then my local credit union.
Especially now that you can't wash it away with going bankrupt.
I knew there was a reason why I filed before Oct 17;)
Sadly you are right about most westerners (90+% I would bet). Like I said, not my dream. I plan to live a responsible, fulfilling life instead. Maybe even retire decently.
Indeed. I wasn't attacking you personally either -- just the mentality that it's good to borrow/spend money.
Any US e-mail provider will roll over for a search warrant, and some will roll over given a friendly suggestion from someone representing himself as a law enforcement employee.
Yeah, but if Verizon rolls over for a search warrant, odds are that there is nothing for them to turn over because I leave fetchmail running 24/7 and it downloads and then deletes all my e-mail every 5 minutes or so. G-mail's privacy policy specifically states that they will retain deleted e-mail for a set period of time that is unspecified.
Of course, if you are the target of a criminal investigation you are probably fucked no matter what you do. They could just get a search warrant for your home PC or put a tap on incoming/outgoing e-mail. My main concern with G-mail/Google is the amount of profiling they are doing, who they will sell that information to and the exposure it would bring me if I was ever sued in civil court.
Look at how much toxic chemicals is in a battery. Now factor in that you have to replace the batt every 2-4 years. Not only does it end up costing you more, but you're not doing much besides thinking you're helping.
That's oil cartel/Detriot propaganda talking. There are people driving battery operated vehicles from the early 90s (that's right BEVs -- not hybrids) that say they still get similar performance out of the batteries as they did when they first bought the car. Hybrids are new enough that it remains to be seen how well the batteries will hold up.
In any case the recycling programs that already exist for batteries (in particular, lead-acid car batteries) are hugely successful. There is no reason other then pessimistic cynicism to assume that these programs couldn't scale to successfully recycle all batteries related to automotive technology without releasing harmful chemicals into the environment.
What's easier to control? The chemical leakage out of a recycling plant with measures in place to prevent it or a tailpipe on your SUV?
That is to say, everyone and everything on the planet.
And the oil companies and the auto makers who get to wring some more life out of their outdated internal combustion technology.
Wikipedia's article on battery operated vehicles is pretty damn interesting. Why was that technology abandoned? There's no reason why with modern technology we couldn't build an all-electric car that had comparable performance to any hybrid (they already did in every category save range) and similar range (the missing piece). Who here wouldn't own a battery powered electric vehicle if it had about 300-350 miles of range?
In fact such a car would probably be cheaper (subtract the internal combustion engine, replace it with a nearly maintenance free electric motor(s), possibly subtract the transmission, subtract the cooling system, add batteries) and a lot easier to maintain -- brakes/wheel bearings/etc would be the only items left -- and the brake pads could last a lot longer with regenerative breaking.
I still think it doesn't happen because it would put too many people out of work in Detriot/Japan/Germany -- and to a lesser extent because of the oil influence. But that's just my paranoia. Wish I had the investors and the wherewithal to give it a shot on my own.
Say what you will about the Catholics, they're not anti-intellectual.
This guy would probably disagree with that statement if he was still around. Granted, I'll take Catholic ritual and tradition over Baptist fundamentalism any day. Of course there's a reason why most of my family that's religious is Episcopalian -- all the ceremony and half the guilt as my Mother says.
In my experience from using them for business, home and a shitload of friends who always call me (the computer "guy") when they have problems, the only issue I'd say Verizon has is the usual phone company bullshit of the left hand (repair/install/provisioning) not knowing the right hand (tech/customer support) is doing. The actual service is nearly bulletproof in my experience. A far cry from the only other option around here (Roadrunner) that seems to die if you have an old TV hooked up the same cable line. In my neighborhood there's some sort of random interference on the cable lines (bad enough that channels 2 and 3 show it) that kills RR/digital phone/video on demand at random times throughout the day. It's going on nine months now since I switched to Verizon DSL and they still haven't fixed it.
In any case, they did gain my everlasting respect when they fought RIAA to protect their client. Think a media company (Time Warner/Comcast) would have done that? Consider that the next time you hear somebody bash the phone company.
There aren't many mom & pop providers left anymore.
I doubt they're the point they match names with cookies, but they probably do match up your search requests to give you better ads.
Not if you use G-mail. They automatically have your name and a list of all of the people you talk to.... assuming that you didn't lie and give them a fake name. From the people you talk to it probably wouldn't be all that hard to get enough information to track the rest of your data down (address, city, etc.).
While i'm sure you're right about google logging IP addresses with search requests, this can only be useful if the user's got a static IP address
Your overlooking the nice cookie that Google leaves on the PC of every user who doesn't know enough to get rid of it. And what of G-mail users (cookies required)? Need one browser/profile for G-mail and another to do all of your searches? That might work for you and me but you can't deny that Google is stockpiling a shitload of data that they can probably nail to individual human beings without too much trouble.
But in court it would have to be proved that the accused conducted the searches and not some other person. And with that bag of holes called WindowsXP, who can claim beyond all reasonable doubt that a PC wasn't owned?
That might be true in criminal court but it's definately not true in a civil matter. Even in criminal court you'd still need to have a reasonable doubt that you didn't actually do those searches. If the state brought in an expert who said he looked at your PC and didn't find any evidence that you were "owned" then you'd probably be shit out of luck. Ditto for a civil trial -- and you don't even have "reasonable doubt" as a burden there.
I have my plasma screen and a bunch of other things
I was with you until you said plasma screen. Ah, the American/Western dream.... to own lots of flashy possessions and die knee deep in credit card debt;)
Not that I begrudge you. Just saying that if I had the ability to ditch my car I'd probably bank all of that money I'd be saving. I didn't need it before, so why would I need it now?
How would Google know what someone has been thinking about?
Gee, based on just the searches that I do? They could figure out that I work for a mental health agency, that I used to work for an insurance agency, that I'm considering getting engaged, that I perfer credit unions to banks, that I've filed or am considering filing bankruptcy, etc, etc, etc. Don't even get me started about my porn perferences;)
I can't even say that they couldn't pin all that down to an actual name any more either since I'm using G-mail and it receives the same cookie that google.com does.
funny how it is ok for the music industry to die because it has an antiquated model but on/. it isn't for ISPs, coders outsourced, etc...
Insightful? And the parent as troll? That hardly seems fair. The parent wasn't trolling. The parent was pointing out a very ligitimate fact -- it sucks to be an ISP in that town. How the hell is that trolling? Would it be trolling if some company started handing out all the free food you could eat and I said "sucks to be Wegman's in that town"?
In any case I would have a very hard time using this "free" service. Given Google's privacy policies and the fact that they warehouse data forever would you really trust them with your Internet access? Newsflash: They can announce "don't be evil" all they want but they are in the business of making money.
Besides which, my ISP (Verizon) gained my everlasting respect when they refused to sell out a customer to RIAA. Think Google with their "we'll hand over any information if we are subpenoaed" would have fought that fight?
Slashdot Mirror
Line loss: instead of your car causing the polution, you've got the electric plant causing the polution. And a lot of that is for electicity that will be lost during transmission.
That power plant is much more efficient at converting energy then your internal combustion engine. Show me a internal combustion engine that can convert 60-80% of the energy in gasoline into electric or motion. Fat chance. More efficient generation means less fossil fuels burned which means less CO2 release into the environment. So it's already a win even if you use fossil fuels to generate the electric -- which is hardly a given (hydro or nuclear anyone?). Line losses during transmission do not amount to much in a properly designed electrical distribution system.
Single point of failure: What happens when the power goes out for a week because of ice storms? You may not have heat and you can't go anywhere.
So I suppose all those gas stations in your area can pump gas without electricity? In fact in your scenario those stations with power would still be useless because they would likely be raided by people looking to top off their tanks and run out of gas in short order.
Infrastructure: where are you going to charge when you're not at home? Do you think other people want to be paying for the electricity for your car? Try jacking into someone else's power in the city and you'll find your plug holes filled with liquid cement in the morning!
And why the hell would you need to charge it away from home most of the time? How many hours does your car spend sitting in your driveway/garage doing nothing? And in your above ice storm scenario I highly doubt that your family member/friend that you went to stay with would really begrudge you for using some of his power. Especially if you offered to pay him for it.
Imagine what you could do with a bank of solar panels on the top of a trailer in a tractor trailer rig
Not very much I'm afraid. I recall reading somewhere that the average solar energy input per square meter of Earth's surface is roughly 3.5-4.5kWh/day. Even if your solar panels were 100% efficient (impossible) it still wouldn't power your tractor trailer.
The biggest "problem" is that it would put gas stations out of business. Imagine being able to swap your batteries at pretty much any store.... Can you imagine the economic impact? :-) (I'm looking forward to it already....)
It wouldn't even need to put them out of business. They would just need to retool to become your battery swapping place. In fact it would probably be easier to provide a handful of gas stations with the electrical hookups required to charge a ton of batteries then it would be to do it in individual homes.
The bigger economic impact would be on automobile makers (electric cars are a much more simple design once you work out the new technology and production processes) and automobile maintenance people. There would be a lot less parts likely to break and a lot less routine maintenance would be required of a BEV.
Even the best batteries have unbelievably low energy density compared to gasoline,
I suppose that depends on how you look at it. If you consider the energy lost to waste heat in a gasoline engine then they start to look a bit more favorable. In any case I hope you are right that we will see some new vehicles on the market soon. Until that time I shall keep my klunker on the road -- or buy another klunker when this one dies. There's no way in hell I'm rewarding the automobile makers by buying a new vehicle. Besides which, it's a waste of money to buy a new car anyway :)
After factoring in line and charging losses, it is quite likely that the engine of their tractor is more efficient than an electric tractor could be (assuming a battery that can store enough power).
I highly doubt that. The typical internal combustion engine is no better then 20-25% efficient at converting chemical energy into motion. What do you think all that heat your tractor puts off is? It's waste. Compare that to a three phase electric motor which can approach 90-95% efficiency. And it can act as a generator to slow your vehicle down instead of wearing on the brake pads and converting yet more useful energy into waste heat.
Granted, the problem with farming and tractors is that they need rather huge amounts of horsepower. Given the state of the rural electric infrastructure it's probable that for the foreseeable future farming will require internal combustion engines.
My point isn't that electric vehicles can replace gasoline ones across the board in 100% of scenarios. My point is that for the typical American/Canadian they would probably be more then good enough for our lifestyle.
Ever driven cross-country? Mis-estimate your fuel capacity once in the middle of the plains/desert especially at night and you are SOL. This is why some people carry extra fuel in a can.
Indeed. Mis-estimate as in make a mistake. I'm sorry but I have very little pity for somebody who runs out of gas. It's even stupider to do so in modern cars with trip computers that practically tell you how much range you have remaining and what your current MPG is. Combine that with exit numbers matching mile markers in most states (you know how far you have to go) and you still have zero excuse for running out of gas.
Simple, it was not deemed economically viable (not enough profit to justify the expense). If that were not the case someone else (the Japanese for instance) would have jumped all over it.
Because the Japanese don't have an investment in existing internal combustion technology.... oh wait.
Do you know how much it cost to develop and market either of those vehicles? They are all simple changes to existing designs and technologies. And marketing is marketing regardless of the product. Plus, it seems there are many thousands more people interested in an H2/H3/Grand Cherokee than those a battery powered econo-box which easily justifies the marketing budget.
Yes, the "we only build it because it's what they want" argument. Well I, along with tens of thousands of others want a fucking BEV. I don't see them rolling off the assembly lines. In fact the only time American car makers built them they purposefully crippled them to hamper the product (draconian lease requirements that forced you to give your vehicle back with no buy out option) and then stopped development.
And whatever you say about marketing you have to admit that it's pretty shameful that they have a bigger marketing budget for those wasteful self-centered vehicles then they do for research into new technology. Even hybrids.... they are all licensing that technology from Japan because they didn't care enough to invest in it on their own. As much as I love the United States our automobile industry deserves whatever fate awaits it if they don't adapt and innovate.
(the converse of #1 is that electricity to heat is a very poor conversion)
Actually, isn't it true that electric resistance heating is 100% efficient? Your energy loss comes from the initial heat->electric conversion (at a fossil fuel or nuclear power plant) -- not from the electric->heat conversion. This is why it is not cost effective to heat your house with electric -- barring isolated scenarios such as having access to cheap hydroelectric power.
The fact that an implementable technology like batteries has been completely shunted aside in favor of vapordrive is indeed infuriating.
Indeed. And I see it as nothing more then a ploy to let the entrenched industry milk some more profits out of their existing factories and infrastructure. The damnable part is that we will always need small amounts of oil for certain things (plastics, lubricants, farming, etc) and every drop of oil burned in an automobile is going to make it that much more expensive for future generations to obtain it for these life essential items.
Infuriating indeed. Short-sighted bastards :(
Don't be surprised if others do understand about your state divide.
Well in New York State there is a huge culture clash between upstate and downstate. What's annoying is that we really do need each other. New York City needs upstate for it's water resources, food supply, electricity, etc. Upstate needs NYC to support our infrastructure.
A lot of upstate Republicans deny this fact but it's pretty hard to dispute. A friend of mine used to call it the roads to people ratio -- and pointed out the fact that Maine (with less miles of roadway) has a higher state income tax rate then New York.
Where it really sickens me (and this was the source of my frustration) is when upstate Republicans run against upstate Democrats by claiming that "they will be for NYC". They exploit the divide and make it worse just so they can get elected. *Sigh*
The real problem with electric cars is refueling time. The 300 mile range is nice for most trips, but that weekend to grandma's house would be out. She live 500 miles away and there is no way to refill the tank in 20 mins, like a gas tank. It is easy refueling that is the bane of most alternatives. Hydrogen cars also suffer. Nobody trusts Jane car owner to refill a tank of hydrogen or recyle a load of lithium hydroxide. Or plug a 220 outlet into the car. Until we get tort reform, and stupid people are allowed to kill themselves without suing companies, none of this will work.
So there are other options for the monthly trip to Grandma's. Trailers with onboard diesel/gasoline generators come to mind. That would turn your BEV into a hybrid for long distance trips. It would probably be more efficient too -- locomotives use this method (diesel generators turning electric motors) rather then a direct drive system with transmission and clutch.
The outlet part is a no brainer. Inductive charging (similar to some types of electric razors) would completely eliminate the risk of electric shock and would allow you to use that 240 volt supply instead of the 120 volts out of normal outlets.
Hopefully not one of the world's largest sources of artificially generated CO2
Yes, but consider the amount of CO2 released per mile traveled. Your typical internal combustion engine is about 20% efficient as I recall. The rest of the energy is lost as waste heat. Even your oldest coal power plant is at least 40% efficient -- and the newer plants approach 60%-65%. Combined cycle natural gas power plants approach 80%.
So the bottom line is that even if you use fossil fuels to generate your electricity you could count on a much smaller release of CO2 into the environment. Plus you have some measure of control over where your electricity is generated from -- here in New York you have the option of buying wind power in 100 KwH blocks and paying extra for it if you so desire. Besides all that, eventually our economy will move away from fossil fuels (Fusion anyone?) -- but electricity will always be around as the energy transfer medium.
You are not talking about Lousiana, are you? Among the bluest of them all...
That would be a separate case of states that aren't disaster prone deathtraps subsidizing states that are. Florida comes to mind as the biggest offender in this category. You could also look at it locally -- morons that build in forests and whine when their house burns down -- or morons who build on floodplains.
And yes, that's bullshit too.
Because you're not all selfish city bastards?
I'm not a selfish city bastard. I actually live in suburbia. I was expressing my frustration about red state politicians bitching about blue state social programs when the blue states are paying for their red state lifestyle. There's also the fact that I'm a New Yorker and grew weary of the upstate/downstate divide (you have to live here to know what I'm talking about). We both need each other. In any case it was offtopic and I apologize if it offended anyone.
You're right gas heat is waste heat, so maybe electric generation is more efficient. I'm not saying don't go electric, I'm just saying don't be surprised everyone doesn't jump at it, until it works and is proven to work in rural and cold settings. Remember trailers add friction and thus provide a MPG hit too, as well as a registration cost, and skill level to drive them.
I don't expect everybody to jump at it initially. But I personally would like the chance to "jump at it". It's total bullshit for the automobile companies to claim there's no demand for BEVs. I would jump at the chance to own one. So would many other people I suspect.
I suspect time and availability of recharging are factors.
They are factors but not insurmountable ones. For 95% of your activity simply recharging your BEV overnight would be good enough. Think about it -- you go to work (30 miles in my case -- that's probably average for the US), work all day, then you go home. Even if you go out and party until last call your car still has several hours to be recharged before you go back to work.
Also, where can you plug in to recharge? In an apartment without reserved parking, you can't guarantee being able to get to a plug. I can imagine most landlords having a problem with long extension cords running across the parking lot.
And that should stop Detroit/et all from investing in this technology? Those are hardly insurmountable problems. It's not a big leap of faith to picture "BEV friendly" apartment complexes or worksites.
If a gasoline-powered car runs out of gas, the driver can hitch a ride to a station and back with a couple of gallons. What do you do when if/when your batteries run out? Getting towed is expensive.
Well there's no reason to run out of gasoline or battery power other then stupidity on the part of the owner. I've never run out of gas.
My whole point is that this technology should not have been abandoned. Why isn't it still being researched? What about that new battery chemistry that we read about awhile ago that recharges to 90% in only a few minutes? Could that scale into BEV sizes? Why the hell isn't nobody researching and building these things? I would buy one -- so would a lot of other people.
Hell, if Detroit would invest half the money into BEV technology that they spend on marketing for the H2 and Grand Cherokee.....
That's not enough range for half a million drivers in Saskatchewan
Then let them pay more for a gasoline powered car. On a slightly offtopic rant I'm rather sick of populated areas (typically blue states in the US) subsidizing rural ones (typically red states in the US). Why should we have to pay more for our phone service/electricity/roads/etc, etc, etc just so you can afford yours? If you like living in the middle of nowhere so much then be prepared to pay for it.
and it wouldn't do well in winter. A hybrid can provide heat to the passengers without an electric heater which might be too much strain on a vehicle's battery
That's debatable. All the heat coming off your gasoline engine is waste heat anyway. That represents inefficacy. So even if you had to run an electric heater the BEV is still better for the environment.
Besides all that, one of the more interesting ideas I've seen involves a BEV with an a trailer that you could hook up for long distance trips. The trailer contains a gasoline or diesel powered generator -- effectively making your BEV into a hybrid. How often would you need that functionality? Heck, I could get by 95% of the time if my BEV only had 100 miles of range -- and we are talking about cars with a 300-350 mile range.
Not my dream. I've never had a credit card and never will. 15+% interest to spend more money than I have has always seemed like a losing option to me.
Bravo. I've had my own problems with them. Which is to say that I had medical problems and given the choice between screwing over my local not-for-profit hospital and screwing over Capital One I decided to screw Capital One. I still don't really regret that decision.
"Credit" ratings and trying to get a "better" credit score has always seemed a dubious construct to me
I completely agree with that too. The only shitty part about living credit-free though is trying to buy a house. I can't say that I will live without a credit card but I can say that there is no way in hell I will ever again do business with the likes of Citi, Capital One and their ilk. I refuse to transact any sort of banking business with anybody other then my local credit union.
Especially now that you can't wash it away with going bankrupt.
I knew there was a reason why I filed before Oct 17 ;)
Sadly you are right about most westerners (90+% I would bet). Like I said, not my dream. I plan to live a responsible, fulfilling life instead. Maybe even retire decently.
Indeed. I wasn't attacking you personally either -- just the mentality that it's good to borrow/spend money.
Any US e-mail provider will roll over for a search warrant, and some will roll over given a friendly suggestion from someone representing himself as a law enforcement employee.
Yeah, but if Verizon rolls over for a search warrant, odds are that there is nothing for them to turn over because I leave fetchmail running 24/7 and it downloads and then deletes all my e-mail every 5 minutes or so. G-mail's privacy policy specifically states that they will retain deleted e-mail for a set period of time that is unspecified.
Of course, if you are the target of a criminal investigation you are probably fucked no matter what you do. They could just get a search warrant for your home PC or put a tap on incoming/outgoing e-mail. My main concern with G-mail/Google is the amount of profiling they are doing, who they will sell that information to and the exposure it would bring me if I was ever sued in civil court.
Look at how much toxic chemicals is in a battery. Now factor in that you have to replace the batt every 2-4 years. Not only does it end up costing you more, but you're not doing much besides thinking you're helping.
That's oil cartel/Detriot propaganda talking. There are people driving battery operated vehicles from the early 90s (that's right BEVs -- not hybrids) that say they still get similar performance out of the batteries as they did when they first bought the car. Hybrids are new enough that it remains to be seen how well the batteries will hold up.
In any case the recycling programs that already exist for batteries (in particular, lead-acid car batteries) are hugely successful. There is no reason other then pessimistic cynicism to assume that these programs couldn't scale to successfully recycle all batteries related to automotive technology without releasing harmful chemicals into the environment.
What's easier to control? The chemical leakage out of a recycling plant with measures in place to prevent it or a tailpipe on your SUV?
That is to say, everyone and everything on the planet.
And the oil companies and the auto makers who get to wring some more life out of their outdated internal combustion technology.
Wikipedia's article on battery operated vehicles is pretty damn interesting. Why was that technology abandoned? There's no reason why with modern technology we couldn't build an all-electric car that had comparable performance to any hybrid (they already did in every category save range) and similar range (the missing piece). Who here wouldn't own a battery powered electric vehicle if it had about 300-350 miles of range?
In fact such a car would probably be cheaper (subtract the internal combustion engine, replace it with a nearly maintenance free electric motor(s), possibly subtract the transmission, subtract the cooling system, add batteries) and a lot easier to maintain -- brakes/wheel bearings/etc would be the only items left -- and the brake pads could last a lot longer with regenerative breaking.
I still think it doesn't happen because it would put too many people out of work in Detriot/Japan/Germany -- and to a lesser extent because of the oil influence. But that's just my paranoia. Wish I had the investors and the wherewithal to give it a shot on my own.
Say what you will about the Catholics, they're not anti-intellectual.
This guy would probably disagree with that statement if he was still around. Granted, I'll take Catholic ritual and tradition over Baptist fundamentalism any day. Of course there's a reason why most of my family that's religious is Episcopalian -- all the ceremony and half the guilt as my Mother says.
I've heard some verizon horror stories.
In my experience from using them for business, home and a shitload of friends who always call me (the computer "guy") when they have problems, the only issue I'd say Verizon has is the usual phone company bullshit of the left hand (repair/install/provisioning) not knowing the right hand (tech/customer support) is doing. The actual service is nearly bulletproof in my experience. A far cry from the only other option around here (Roadrunner) that seems to die if you have an old TV hooked up the same cable line. In my neighborhood there's some sort of random interference on the cable lines (bad enough that channels 2 and 3 show it) that kills RR/digital phone/video on demand at random times throughout the day. It's going on nine months now since I switched to Verizon DSL and they still haven't fixed it.
In any case, they did gain my everlasting respect when they fought RIAA to protect their client. Think a media company (Time Warner/Comcast) would have done that? Consider that the next time you hear somebody bash the phone company.
There aren't many mom & pop providers left anymore.
I know. I used to work for one :(
I doubt they're the point they match names with cookies, but they probably do match up your search requests to give you better ads.
Not if you use G-mail. They automatically have your name and a list of all of the people you talk to.... assuming that you didn't lie and give them a fake name. From the people you talk to it probably wouldn't be all that hard to get enough information to track the rest of your data down (address, city, etc.).
While i'm sure you're right about google logging IP addresses with search requests, this can only be useful if the user's got a static IP address
Your overlooking the nice cookie that Google leaves on the PC of every user who doesn't know enough to get rid of it. And what of G-mail users (cookies required)? Need one browser/profile for G-mail and another to do all of your searches? That might work for you and me but you can't deny that Google is stockpiling a shitload of data that they can probably nail to individual human beings without too much trouble.
But in court it would have to be proved that the accused conducted the searches and not some other person. And with that bag of holes called WindowsXP, who can claim beyond all reasonable doubt that a PC wasn't owned?
That might be true in criminal court but it's definately not true in a civil matter. Even in criminal court you'd still need to have a reasonable doubt that you didn't actually do those searches. If the state brought in an expert who said he looked at your PC and didn't find any evidence that you were "owned" then you'd probably be shit out of luck. Ditto for a civil trial -- and you don't even have "reasonable doubt" as a burden there.
I have my plasma screen and a bunch of other things
I was with you until you said plasma screen. Ah, the American/Western dream.... to own lots of flashy possessions and die knee deep in credit card debt ;)
Not that I begrudge you. Just saying that if I had the ability to ditch my car I'd probably bank all of that money I'd be saving. I didn't need it before, so why would I need it now?
How would Google know what someone has been thinking about?
Gee, based on just the searches that I do? They could figure out that I work for a mental health agency, that I used to work for an insurance agency, that I'm considering getting engaged, that I perfer credit unions to banks, that I've filed or am considering filing bankruptcy, etc, etc, etc. Don't even get me started about my porn perferences ;)
I can't even say that they couldn't pin all that down to an actual name any more either since I'm using G-mail and it receives the same cookie that google.com does.
funny how it is ok for the music industry to die because it has an antiquated model but on /. it isn't for ISPs, coders outsourced, etc...
Insightful? And the parent as troll? That hardly seems fair. The parent wasn't trolling. The parent was pointing out a very ligitimate fact -- it sucks to be an ISP in that town. How the hell is that trolling? Would it be trolling if some company started handing out all the free food you could eat and I said "sucks to be Wegman's in that town"?
In any case I would have a very hard time using this "free" service. Given Google's privacy policies and the fact that they warehouse data forever would you really trust them with your Internet access? Newsflash: They can announce "don't be evil" all they want but they are in the business of making money.
Besides which, my ISP (Verizon) gained my everlasting respect when they refused to sell out a customer to RIAA. Think Google with their "we'll hand over any information if we are subpenoaed" would have fought that fight?
Let Sony go bankrupt, and let the story of their demise serve as a lesson to the entertainment and electronics industries.
That's about as likely as this man getting elected President of the United States. Not that I wouldn't welcome either outcomes.
Call me a cynic :(