Hell, BB&T not only doesn't use 2 factor authentication, they also don't enforce strong passwords, nor do they prevent browser caching of passwords. The login field was recently "moved" in order to "prevent some types of known security attacks" but the login fields are still ON the MAIN PAGE...
Here's my take on this: Lets find the asshole lawyer who argued he should be in such a facility, and lock his ass up until the guy comes back or is caught. Whoever thought this guy was a low flight risk was clearly a moron. While we're at it, lets lock up the prosecution for not having brought into court a competent psychologist who should have been there to emphasize just how much of a flight risk this troll was.
Minimum security prision should be exclusively reserved for those near the end of long sentences, who require staged reintroduction to society and communal life. I don't care if you're locked up for 2 weeks or 20 years, there should be concrete walls, steel bars, and no frills, and while in there, I expect you to be working hard labor at some boring ass job for the benefit of the state, or working on maintaining the facility, cooking food for others, doing prison laundry, etc.
Yes, we do need to have varying levels of security and inmate:officer ratios, especially for dangerous and violent offenders, but I could care less if you only had 2 cops wathing over 300 low risk inmates, as long as they're all both incapable of escape, and confined to a life far inferior to their previous freedom.
Prison life should generally suck for those incarcerated there. Prisons should be built extremely cheap, with little frills. Education while in prision should also be manditory. If you're locked up for 10 years, with nothing better to do than work hard 40 hours a week at some menial prison labor, then you should walk out able to read, do math, and likely even have a degree in a trade, skill, or other profession. Refusal to self education should result in automatic parole denial, and potentially increased sentencing.
The purpose of prison is to rehabilitate, not store, criminals. Giving them an environment that is welcoming helps noone. Minimum security, especially short sentences, typically reserved for non-violent offenders, does little to discourage repeat offences, and leaves society feeling unfulfilled.
OK, this is about the thousandth bogus report on this. Based on the dramatic increase in cellular use, and long term it has been used over, there is NO STATISTICAL CORRELEATION to cell phone use and cancer. Not by individual use studies, not by geographiucal correleation of users to cancer outbreaks, nothing.
Brain tumors numbers are up mostly because WE'RE ACTUALLY MORE CAPABLE OF FINDING THEM vs 30 years ago...
No mathematical model has yet been proposed to show any correlation between radio waves from publically accessible technology (obviously excluding X-rays here...) of ANY KIND, including exposure to microwave ovens, high power transmitters, TV, and more. The only thing we're somewhat sure of is that close proximity to extremely high voltage lines "could" be hazardous, but even there they're not 100% sure...
In fact, though cancer detection rates seem to be up, again, mostly due to our ability to better detect it, and due to an increased population of elderly and longer life spans, on the whole, it's believed we've actually reduced the likelyhood of cancer across the board aven with our increase in exposure to these waves.
Cancer is a DNA level response. They have not shown that DNA even respons to these frequncies of emission that I have heard. Does this guy know otherwise, and can he prove it? (cuz others have disproved it)
Granted, I'd be happier if the cell phone use culture was adjusted dramatically, especially use while driving and while in quiet environments, but crap science like this just pisses me off. I'm also sick and tired of the pharmacitical and medical industry in general, proposing medicines that cost more, and have worse side effects than current medice we have today, spending billionjs in marketing to people who have no medical knowledge or rational decision making ability, and billions "buying" doctors to prescribe the crap.
If the cure for a headache makes my nose bleed, my vision blurry, prevents me from driving a car, causes stomach ulcers, and could cause my kidneys to fail or heart to stop, i'll deal with the headache!
Also, even if it has a 1:10,000 chance of causing me cancer, I've got a 1:100 chance of being killed in my car, should I stop driving now too?
Sure, regionally, your local prices may be down due to other industry factors, but, fact is, the national market rate for wood pelets is rising faster than gasoline. If the wood is located somewhere it's not economical to collect, then it will only be used regionally, and can be treated as an isolated market, but try getting wood fuels in Florida, or texas... Also, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH WOOD! With 12-20 year growth cycles, the yield per arce, and efficincy issues making wood fuels (not to mention what we'd do with all the waste material, and the toxic issues associated with it, which is why they STOPPED making it in the first place), we simply can't sustain it. Farmers might make home stills, but beyond a hobyist fuel, it;s pretty useless on an international level.
H2 in liquid form, in fact any stable unpressurized liquid fuel, is generally safe (toxicity aside). You're right about that, but it's still an ICE, and still an unsustainable fuel source. Again, I'm arguing against the governments hundred billion dolar investment in H2, not woodfuel, but both are unusable sources.
Liquid cooling using nitrogen? sure, efficiency is about 8%... great, not we can fill up instantly, but we just killed any reason to do so, plus, now we have to KEEP that tank at that temperature, which costs energy driving or not, and if the power source fails, and it gets too hot, you could have a serious issue, unless you build super stron (read HEAVY) tanks. You can't have both a pressurized tank that remains at room temp and a super cold tank... you can't do both with the same system...
Li-Ion, Li-Po, and Li-Tit batteries have less energy loss over time that H2 storage tanks due to vapor loss. Ni-Cads, yes, the discharge over time is high. Li-Ion, discharge over 90 days is about 1%. Also, Li based batteries do NOT reduce in efficiency over time. Cells go bad, but bad cells don;t take energy to charge, so there's no loss of efficiency (and bad cells will be replaced by the car dealer once enough go bad, lifetime waranty on the cells acording to GM and Toyota).
The wells to wheels analysis have been done on existing technology. Simple energy in to energy out analysis. Electric power is FAR more efficient than H2, and also costs a lot less, not even including infrastructure issues.
The ONLY viable liquid fuel we have today is WindFuels. This is hydrocarbon created by combining waste CO2 (from sequestration) with H2 and water, and the energy input is all from wind. This system is affordable, does not have technology roadblcks, can be built today, and costs less than gas from Oil at LAST years prices, let alone today... www.dotyenergy.com Check it out.
where do you live??? 220 volt outlets in the apartment?!? you must mean 110. I can understand a small studio, or efficiency apartment having a 30 amp box, but only if there were no dryer hookups, an efficiency fridge, no dishwasher, and the AC and water heater were powered by the building, not the unit.
Shit, even my vaccum uses 14 amps. and the cheap shit one i use in the garrage is a 10 amp unit. If I have a few lights on and vacuum, i'd blow the breaker...
besides, I don;t expect you have either a garrage or a safe place to park and plug in where others would could not screw with your hookup to your car, so I expect you'll not be a candidate, and fall into the 15-20% of others who also would not be.
Also, that electric bill? The increase in electric charges would be less than half of what you'd save in gas (many electric cars are quoting $2-3 per charge with 40 mile ranges on Califirnia electric costs, other places will be cheaper.)
Well, actually, I discuss it with the other child's parent... but generally, yes. I return the game to their parents, and make mine repay the other child for the lost game. The other child is in turn punished for providing unapproved materials to another child by loosing access to said game (or other item) until his or her parents deem it should be returned.
Generally, when we're talking about kids here, we're talking about kids of the same age, and typically I have found there shared, unapproved, games were not known to exist by the other parent either.
In 1 or 2 rare cases, I've found I have been unable to get the child to snitch on the friend, and have kept the item until such a time as I figured out who it belonged to.
Um... my comment on kicking their asses was targeted at the PARENTS, not the kids. I only condone striking a child when other methods do not appear effective, and then with apropriate force. The idea of the spanking is not to induce harm, it is intended to scare, and is typically only effective against children too yough to understand emotional or logical consequnces.
Exactly my points. Well raised children think before they do something wrong. If they have done something wrong, certainly I'll be very interested in why, but clearly they knew they were doing wrong before they did it.
Most of the kids in school today lack this distinction, or, do wrong because they do not fear the consequences.
Exactly. Even more important than simple power backup is AVR. The microfractures that can be created in system chips by voltage as little as +/- 10 volts, over time, will cause systems to malfunction.
I can't find the article, but at one point as a reseller for APC (maybe it was Leibert), their marketing material used to state that 95% of all system component failure was due to voltage irregularity, and that properly filtered line voltage could extend the life of electronics 3 fold.
You should not only have your systems and servers on UPS, but at this point, all your Home theater equipment too, TVs and all. Battery backup is not so important for these other devices, but AVR and line conditioning is.
He's right about drives continuing to write bad data. Sure, you can restore from backup, but you still loose what was created since that point. Critical databases can be replicated and mirrored in real time, and come close to preventing 100% of data loss, but not so for most other system uses, and realtime record level syncing is out of the budget for most companies.
Beyond UPS, not a bad idea to have an on-site generator too...
Here's a law I'd like to see, lets punish the parents who fail to discipline their children. If a kid is off the rails, lets ensure the parent is actually involved in the process, and if not, lets fine them, punish them, I'm even OK with kicking their asses!
If my kid comes home with a video game i don't approve of, i take it. Simple, done. Once they're done buying their friend a new copy, after 4 weeks of allowance is saved up, they'll not likely do it again.
If you can't hold your kids to the same rule, teach them what you allow and don't allow under your roof, then they'll run all over you, and when outside your house, behave exactly the same way to others.
The only fault society plays in bad parenting, is the same lax attitudes that currently apply in schools seem to also apply within DSS. Everyone is afraid to get sued for telling someone to their face they're a bad parent. I'm not proposing we should get back to the way things were in the 50s, but at least how they were in the early 80s would be a marked improvement!
How does this sound, we'll simply ban anyone under 18 from buying anything without parental permission, not even food or snacks? We'll make it a law that the retailer must have parental permission to sell a kid that bag of Doritos, since it's hazardous to your child's health, self esteem, and more, and you as a parent should have complete control over not just what they see and hear, but what they eat, who they socialize with, what they wear, and in every conceivable way, can shelter them from any harm that could ever befall them, and all because you're simply afraid that what you teach them is not enough to protect them, and how you punish them is ineffective and they'll just go behind your back anyway.
C'mon. All we need is a simple rating system printed on the game, just enough to give the parents a clue, and if you like, content specifically targeted at adults we can refuse to sell to kids under 17... The idea that we're trying to force the hardware to understand who's using it, inconveniencing the people who are old enough, or mature enough to use it, is crap. Well enough that you legislated parental control requirements on our games and TV sets, that we had to pay the bill for, but requiring these things to conform in any way to standards, and giving them a timeline for release of that hardware, and reverse engineer it into existing products that will still be on sale then? No, I'm not paying for it.
here's the deal: exactly how WOULD my kid get a hold of a game I don;t approve of. They're $40 each or more, and his allowance ain't gonna cover doing that too often. Even still, he's got to get to a store and back with the game (or a friend's house and back) At 16, I'm really not going to care, but when younger, me or my wife will be TAKING HIM, or another parent we approve of our child being shuttled by (who will be aware of our rules before being given care of our child). If an older brother or sister gives them access to a game they shouldn't have, they'll face the same concequences.
If the kid DOES get a game that way, we'll take it. Easy enough. then he's up shit creek without his allowance he spent, and potentially punished further. They only make mistakes like that once....
It's called parenting. If you can't keep your 12 year old from playing adult games, you're doin' it wrong. Outside of your house is another story, but under your roof, they really can't hide the game. They can try, but when you find out, the punishment will be MUCH worse.
I happen to be a strong believer in not allowing my children to have TVs, games, computers, or phones in their rooms. (distracts from study and sleeping, the only 2 things that should happen in a bedroom in my house). We have a game room for them, and closely monitor what they do in there. Its not sheltering, and its not cruel, its called parenting. When they can afford their OWN tv, or game system, they can have one. That's the deal. I can't afford to buy 4 of them (3 kids plus me we're planning) so that's what they get to live with.
Punishment? Whatever works. Some kids need solitary confinement, others to be scolded in from of their friends, other having their favorite things removed, others put to household labors, and others to be spanked. Each kid is different, and each kid will respond to your authority once you learn what works. The failure of parents today to use proper discipline is mostly what's wrong with America today.
It used to be, if I even looked cross at a teacher, my ass was sent to the office. today, one county here in SC actually has a rule that kids who fight, but don't draw blood, should not be sent to the office. they've had kids throwing chairs at teachers, in front of other administrators, and not even get suspended. Further, even if they don;t hand an assignment in, they STILL GET 60% for it!!! You can't have discipline if there are not consequences, nor consistency! Let me tel you, I was FAR more afraid of my parents than the principal. I was deathly afraid to bring home any indication I wasn't perfectly behaved. I was punished a lot growing up, but rarely ever hit. My sister, she got spanked a lot, and rarely got other forms of punishment. Either way, most things we did wrong, were done wrong once and never again.
Yup, simple laws of fluid (gas) motion and thermodynamics. It just creates more drag than it can recoup from spinning the blades to spin the generator.
Solar panels on the roof, hood, and trunk have also been suggested. Fact is, the cost is simply so high, no car could ever pay off the investment in fuel savings. Also, centrally collected solar is more efficient.
even at home, solar on the roof is great for hot water, but not really a good investment for energy. Id prefer to let people voluntarily invest that money instead in their power company, to expand wind and other green central energy collection systems, in exchange for reduced power bills over 10 years equal to the same amount. The money will have a far better return for the whole community, and the homeowner who donates earns the exact same benefits either way.
Forgot to include 1 thing: Making H2, 90+ % efficient. Compressing H2, 6% efficient! Oh, and it leaks out over time too...
Doty Energy will be making H2 from wind energy. That H2 is NOT compressed, but simply piped to another room in the facility where it is immediately combined with CO2 waste (solids from sequestration mostly) and water, using a mostly chemical process that actually creates heat, and is by itself more than 67% efficient today. The output is that 60% of the water is reusable, and we produce fuel, any fuel. It's a clean process with little or no hazard waste. Wind and waste CO2 in, fuel out, total efficiency of the process is over 65% today, and they believe it can be refined up to 75% in mass refining. This is not only a fuel replacement, but also lubricants and all the other byproducts we'll STILL NEED, even if H2 COULD be feasible. This can be sent anywhere using existing pipelines and a few new ones, and can be easily trucked.
They can make ethanol, methanol, propane, you name it. It's just hydrocarbons. Previous to now, this was completely possible, but no one put all the pieces together this way. Why not? why didn't we have cell phones in the 70's, or lasers in the 50s, we had the pieces, they just weren't through to we assembled that way...
We're waiting on too many breakthroughs for H2, and even if we make em, it's still dangerous, expensive, and requires more energy input total. give it up. Japan already abandoned research into it. It;s only Big Oil still going, trying to convince you that there's hope (without involving the possibility of small time distributors that will eat their profits).
[Quote]BTW apparently electric cars are about 25% efficient, if hydrogen combustion can do 35% efficiency then it is better than electric charging[/Quote]
OK, don't know where you got 25% for electric cars. battery to wheel efficiency is over 88%. "wheels to wells" efficiency, generating power and all, and USING FOSSIL FUEL TO DO IT, is 28% efficienct overall. The same wheels to wells on ICEs? 14% efficient if you're lucky. Since we can make electricity from wind, we can remove the 39% electric generation efficiency loss there (who cares if wind to electricity isn't efficient, it's free!), then we're talking electric cars being 4-5 times more efficient than ICEs.
Lets also look at CO2 emissions: the equivolent MPG, starting with 1 million BTUs of energy (Oil) is 69MPG for an electric car vs 24MPG for an ICE. and that's assuming we're still using oil as the core source of electricity. With Wind, the MPG equivalent goes to over 150MPG equivalency.
OK, Wood gas is NOT H2. It can not be consumed in a fuel cell, and is NOT what we're talking about in the science news today. Wood gas is NOT made from electrolysis, it's made from wood, and have you seen the wood pellet costs over the last 10 years, due to ethanol and wood home heating demand? a SIX FOLD INCREASE!!! It would cost over $7 per gallon to make H2 wood gas today, and it's LESS efficient than oil, and does NOTHING to slow the CO2 output. Wood gas can NOT be made in a competitive price even to oil.
Honda and GM ARE talking about using pure H2. They've discussed liquid high compression in flexitanks, metal infused storage, and more. We are NOT talking about any kind of H2 liquid stable blends here, we do NOT have any financially stable method for doing so, nor do we have enough resource material to support it. This is the same argument I can use against ethanol: We can make enough, if we let 3 billion people starve to death and remove them from the food chain.
The H2 ICEs in showroom cars now are 100% H2 burning, H2 vapor gas engines, with a very small percent of additional gasses added, mostly to ensure you can smell it when it's leaking, and to help with compression. Everything else being worked on is a fuel cell, which could work just as easily with Methane as with H2, and both are bad ideas.
Electrolysis will NOT be done on-site. The space requirements for machinery, expertise and electronics to safely operate it, combined with the need for extremely pure, distilled water, which we can not guarantee consistancy in a pumped grid, is simply not possible. We also have to hdeal with O2 recapture when making H2, you can't just release all that O2 into a city air environment! so now you need underground tanks to capture the O2 as well as H2, and some way of shipping the O2 away instead of bringing the H2 to the station. This solves nothing, and adds complication.
Also, those H2 stations, could yo imaging someone taking out a storage tank with a shaped charge or car bomb? You'd loose a whole city block......not to mention, H2, in the BEST scenarios they've come up with, will cost over 200 trillion in infrastructure. Windfuels and electric car grids will cost between 30 and 40 trillion. A much better plan.
Oh, and your precious H2 cars, unless you're talking about super cooled liquid to a prepared tank (which will use energy to stay cold 24/7) then filling an H2 tank is a 3 hour process, to go approxamately 150 miles. Inserting compressed H2 into a tank under pressure generates heat, which must be disipated by radiators under the car. You've seen George bush hook up to an H2 refilling station, but you've never seen anyone say how long filling takes...
Well, it;s not really a big difference. It;s the same technology, we've just beefed up the electric drive, and taken the engine off the drive train. Now the engine, when it's running, strictly and only runs at peak output, about 4500RMP, and can get close to 40% efficiency, vs providing power to the wheels which is 25% efficient at best.
You have the option to plug it in simply because electricity is 1) cheaper per mile driven and 2) CAN be renewable (as we expand wind/solar/water/etc/power). you are not REQUIRED to EVER plug it in, it will just cost you more to drive if you don't.
Full electric, I have no hope those will catch on outside of true, commuter only uses. Finding a rapid charge station easily won't be common except in highly populated areas for a decade, and the grid needs 20-30 years to catch up to the demand it would need. We will get there eventually, but I expect there will allways be a gas backup, or other power source, in electric cars that are popular.
The problems with H2 combustion: 1: we can make H2 at 85%+ efficiency, but BURNING IT in an ICE is still only 35% at best efficient.
2: How do we GET IT to the engine? In a tank? great, not all a terrorist needs is a few M80s and he's got a bomb that can take out everything in a parking lot. Not going to happen. On demand H2? not nearly as efficient, requires an entire infrastructure to supply, change, and recycle alluminum plates that last about 400 miles, and takes half an SUV of space and weighs half a ton.
3: how do we get H2 to you? it can't be pipelined securely in enough volume. (too much leaks, and maintaining liquid H2 is not possible in pipelines safely or cost effectively. You have to truck it. We'd need a fleet about 6 times larger than our current one to truck it around. Each of these rigs is a hasmat issue.
4: leaks. Gas leaks in your garrage, unless you put a spark on it, you're OK, and at worst you have a small fire to deal with. H2 leaks in your garrage, turn on the light and goodbye house.
5: Your math is based on fuel cells, but your quoting costs of H2 ICEs. This is inconsistent. Fuel cells are currently $300,000 devices. We can NOT make them for $10K. Not for decades. ICE with H2 is our only viable option, and getting H2 into an ICE is not a viable option.
Battery cars are currently available, unsibsidized, for 100K, about 1/5th of an H23 powered car. GM will have them under 30K in a year. (the 100K is mostly due to it being a car that competes with a lambroghini, not a commuter car).
Home hookups of 120 amps are common, they';re used for every tankless water heater, and an electrician can set up a charging station for about $1500. It requires the assistance of your power company, but they don't charge extra for that (just for the power you will use). a 200AMP 220 volt home line is about 1.5" thick. One flexible enough to hook up to your car will probably be about 2.5" thick. It can be easily moved by a person.
I'm not arguing how easy it is to MAKE H2, I'm aruning on that fact that we can't really USE it (except for Windfuels, which is a realistic, and profitable use) www.dotyenergy.com
An outlet is typically run off of 15, 20, or 25 amp circuits, you're right, and off that circuit, you can expect a 8-10 hour charge cycle (to 80%, not 100). A 30A 220V outlet (common to dryers, hot water heaters, and AC systems) is available in many homes. If you have available space in your 200 amp box, you can easily add a 30 amp connector to your garage and charge in about 4 hours.
100 Amp lines are custom. Anyone adding an in-line water heater will quickly find they need a 120AMP 110 volt line to power it. (the unexpected $1500 downside to switching to tankless, on demand, heated water). Any electrician can install one, and at that time, they typically either add a 2nd 200AMP breaker box, or upgrade you to a 400 AMP box. On such a line, charging is an hour or less.
If you're in an apartment, likely, 110 outlets are your only option, assuming you even have a parking space anywhere near an outlet... You might convince the apartment manager to install a 220 volt outlet, at your expense, if it can be easily done.
The battery pack life is 15 years, not really an issue. I agree that the goal is 80% charge though, since charging the additional 20% takes nearly the same amount of energy as charging that far. (reducing the $/mile effectiveness of the car)
I mistakenly stated 60 miles. I was looking at info for another electric car, the volt has a 40 mile range.
The 1.4L engine has a slightly higher MPG (as a car engine), but was chosen for it's superior torque at lower RPM, allowing the recharger to work more efficiently, and in the end, it uses the same gas per given joule output as the 1 litre, and did reduce costs since the other did not need to be an 1-off engine design.
Well, since a battery and electric drive have over 90% efficiency, it doesn't matter if you drive striahgt, or stop and go. The recyclic breaking compensates for acceleration, but not driving itself. Electric cars get nearly identical range in city or highway driving (up to about 60MPH where wind resistance starts to impact it more dramatically).
There may be small deisel engines that can get 60-80 MPG, but with about 60 Horsepower, they're not much use for anything buy a 1-2 person commuter car. They're tiny, lightweight, underpowered, and have little or no room for passengers or luggage. Also, Deisel is increasing at a MUCH higher rate than regular gas. (2 years ago, it was cheaper, not it's 50-70 cents more per gallon). This is due to ultra low sulfer requirements, plus increased deisel demand from all the people in europe buying small deisels. We are not equipped to make deisel in the quantities you ask for. We can't all do that.
most new cars include engine idle off technology, which we actually expect to be mandated within the next 2 years, so that's really a non-issue.
Also, electricity has less than half the carbon impact to go the same distance as gasoline, and further investments in our grid will only help 1) remove us from other dependencies by increasing wind and solar energy supplies, 2) get a better, superconducting grid in place, like the one powered up in Long Island in April, and 3) help future proof energy prices vs oil, coal, and nuclear which are going up as fast as gas.
Gm has announced the car will be on save for "under 30K" and although there is some subsidy yet in the car, there's no reason to believe the price will increase dramatically. The Volt uses fairly common components, and simply has more battery and a slightly bigger electric motor than the prius. It's actual cost, aside from the batteries, is very much a parallel. The Battery costs add maybe 3-5K to it, so yes, it will cost more, but but not that much more, especially after they're not hand building them and running them through high yield assembly lines.
The prius is roomier, but the cubic feet of space inside is larger in the volt. I'm comparing what's out there now, not what they're changing. If you want to fault this analysis, fault every car dealer ad on earth, because it's just spinning real numbers. I can make either the Prius or the volt look better just in how I change the working of an ad.
The volt gets 40miles, I was incorrect there. Sorry. It has NOT however decresed to 32, in fact, their change to a "less than 12" gallon tank instead of a 14+ gallon tank, (changing from 600 mile to "320 after empty" range) was done to reduce vehicle weight slightly, and to accommodate additional batteries to extend the range by a few miles, not reduce it. We expect 32 mile ranges on the top end version, while playing a DVD headlights on, devices plugged in, and more, and without breaking (freeway driving at night with kids in the back, vs commuting).
The 150MPG is only IF you use gas at all. If you run on exclusively electric, you are using NO FUEL, thereby infinite range on non-renewable resources. (you obviously are still paying for the electricity, most of which today is non-renewable, but it's shifting in the right direction, and has half the carbon impact to begin with.)
there's still a COST, yes, but it's with a renewable source, and yes, technically we're not using gas, so what's in your tank will REMAIN in your tank.
Um, that "expected" price is based on actual market data, technological improvements assumed, and even accounts for them drilling off the US coast for more oil. Keep in mind, in the time frame we're talking about, india and china are going to DOUBLE their need for fuels, and they're not doing so hot on greening their countries... This is a simlpe, stastitical extrapolation of supply vs demand of a diminishing resource. They said 2 years ago we'd be at $4 per gallon this summer. Noone believed them them, so why should I expect you to believe me now?
Even if these internationally agreed upon numbers are overestimates, here's a fact: I discussed a complete system, with like total costs. You discredited electric cars by omitting a key detail, making it look to be a 1:1 comparrison, when in fact it's closer to 2.5 : 1. That's FUD.
OK, first, the ford is not a fule cell, but direct H2 combustion, which will NEVER be approved for public use (every car becomes a rolling BOMB!)
The batteries are NOT toxic to produce, just toxic to dispose of. They are 100% recyclable, and believe me, you won't be throwing a 400lb battery pack in any garbage can I can find...
H2 will not be used in any distribution system, but it CAN be used very effictvely to be combined with CO2 and water to make hydrocarbons which CAN be pipelined and used in existing cars, all with 0 additional CO2 output net (since the energy to make it is provided by wind) www.dotyenergy.com.
Deisel is rising in price faster than gas. We can't all run on deisel. biodeisel could be made, but at what cost to the environment, and we believe MAYBE we can make 10% of today's current demand, 20% tops using bio deisel.
A Joule is a Joule. Pison engines are 30% efficeint at best, hooked up to a transmission, less than 20%, electric engines are 90+% efficient. recyclic turbines are about 45% efficient. Combine a turbine running on high octane windfuels to recharge batteries on long troips and we're talking about a car that uses 4X less Joules than what we have today, even in hybrids. DO THE MATH, STOP SPREADING FUD!
We will improve engine technology marginally, and fuel economy some as well, but battery drive is the way to go. We have no less expensive, higher efficiency technology even on drawing boards, let alone a couple of years from production.
Fuel cells? their estimates are in 30 years we MIGHt be able to make a fuel cell for under $40K...then build a car around it. We'll make em smaller, but the nanotechnology needed is more than a decade from functionalble, and you STILL NEED FUEL FOR IT.
On battery power, I can go more than twice as far on the same cost equivolent per gallon than the best car on the road. As fule prices increase, so will this ratio. I can get a Volt for 30K next year, thay'll be 15K within 5 after that and in 10K cars within 10 years. You can't argue the technology is too expensive when it will take 10 years to build the factories to make it in mass at competitive prices. We can't make engines cheaper (in fact, we expect they'll get more expensive in order to get more efficient), so the cost ROI only gets better with time.
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Hell, BB&T not only doesn't use 2 factor authentication, they also don't enforce strong passwords, nor do they prevent browser caching of passwords. The login field was recently "moved" in order to "prevent some types of known security attacks" but the login fields are still ON the MAIN PAGE...
I don;t see too many criminals breaking in and demaning the bank teller burn the a DVD from the banks server while they're bust bagging the loot...
Here's my take on this: Lets find the asshole lawyer who argued he should be in such a facility, and lock his ass up until the guy comes back or is caught. Whoever thought this guy was a low flight risk was clearly a moron. While we're at it, lets lock up the prosecution for not having brought into court a competent psychologist who should have been there to emphasize just how much of a flight risk this troll was.
Minimum security prision should be exclusively reserved for those near the end of long sentences, who require staged reintroduction to society and communal life. I don't care if you're locked up for 2 weeks or 20 years, there should be concrete walls, steel bars, and no frills, and while in there, I expect you to be working hard labor at some boring ass job for the benefit of the state, or working on maintaining the facility, cooking food for others, doing prison laundry, etc.
Yes, we do need to have varying levels of security and inmate:officer ratios, especially for dangerous and violent offenders, but I could care less if you only had 2 cops wathing over 300 low risk inmates, as long as they're all both incapable of escape, and confined to a life far inferior to their previous freedom.
Prison life should generally suck for those incarcerated there. Prisons should be built extremely cheap, with little frills. Education while in prision should also be manditory. If you're locked up for 10 years, with nothing better to do than work hard 40 hours a week at some menial prison labor, then you should walk out able to read, do math, and likely even have a degree in a trade, skill, or other profession. Refusal to self education should result in automatic parole denial, and potentially increased sentencing.
The purpose of prison is to rehabilitate, not store, criminals. Giving them an environment that is welcoming helps noone. Minimum security, especially short sentences, typically reserved for non-violent offenders, does little to discourage repeat offences, and leaves society feeling unfulfilled.
ROFL....
Incedently, you are unmarried, correct?
OK, this is about the thousandth bogus report on this. Based on the dramatic increase in cellular use, and long term it has been used over, there is NO STATISTICAL CORRELEATION to cell phone use and cancer. Not by individual use studies, not by geographiucal correleation of users to cancer outbreaks, nothing.
Brain tumors numbers are up mostly because WE'RE ACTUALLY MORE CAPABLE OF FINDING THEM vs 30 years ago...
No mathematical model has yet been proposed to show any correlation between radio waves from publically accessible technology (obviously excluding X-rays here...) of ANY KIND, including exposure to microwave ovens, high power transmitters, TV, and more. The only thing we're somewhat sure of is that close proximity to extremely high voltage lines "could" be hazardous, but even there they're not 100% sure...
In fact, though cancer detection rates seem to be up, again, mostly due to our ability to better detect it, and due to an increased population of elderly and longer life spans, on the whole, it's believed we've actually reduced the likelyhood of cancer across the board aven with our increase in exposure to these waves.
Cancer is a DNA level response. They have not shown that DNA even respons to these frequncies of emission that I have heard. Does this guy know otherwise, and can he prove it? (cuz others have disproved it)
Granted, I'd be happier if the cell phone use culture was adjusted dramatically, especially use while driving and while in quiet environments, but crap science like this just pisses me off. I'm also sick and tired of the pharmacitical and medical industry in general, proposing medicines that cost more, and have worse side effects than current medice we have today, spending billionjs in marketing to people who have no medical knowledge or rational decision making ability, and billions "buying" doctors to prescribe the crap.
If the cure for a headache makes my nose bleed, my vision blurry, prevents me from driving a car, causes stomach ulcers, and could cause my kidneys to fail or heart to stop, i'll deal with the headache!
Also, even if it has a 1:10,000 chance of causing me cancer, I've got a 1:100 chance of being killed in my car, should I stop driving now too?
Sure, regionally, your local prices may be down due to other industry factors, but, fact is, the national market rate for wood pelets is rising faster than gasoline. If the wood is located somewhere it's not economical to collect, then it will only be used regionally, and can be treated as an isolated market, but try getting wood fuels in Florida, or texas... Also, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH WOOD! With 12-20 year growth cycles, the yield per arce, and efficincy issues making wood fuels (not to mention what we'd do with all the waste material, and the toxic issues associated with it, which is why they STOPPED making it in the first place), we simply can't sustain it. Farmers might make home stills, but beyond a hobyist fuel, it;s pretty useless on an international level.
H2 in liquid form, in fact any stable unpressurized liquid fuel, is generally safe (toxicity aside). You're right about that, but it's still an ICE, and still an unsustainable fuel source. Again, I'm arguing against the governments hundred billion dolar investment in H2, not woodfuel, but both are unusable sources.
Liquid cooling using nitrogen? sure, efficiency is about 8%... great, not we can fill up instantly, but we just killed any reason to do so, plus, now we have to KEEP that tank at that temperature, which costs energy driving or not, and if the power source fails, and it gets too hot, you could have a serious issue, unless you build super stron (read HEAVY) tanks. You can't have both a pressurized tank that remains at room temp and a super cold tank... you can't do both with the same system...
Li-Ion, Li-Po, and Li-Tit batteries have less energy loss over time that H2 storage tanks due to vapor loss. Ni-Cads, yes, the discharge over time is high. Li-Ion, discharge over 90 days is about 1%. Also, Li based batteries do NOT reduce in efficiency over time. Cells go bad, but bad cells don;t take energy to charge, so there's no loss of efficiency (and bad cells will be replaced by the car dealer once enough go bad, lifetime waranty on the cells acording to GM and Toyota).
The wells to wheels analysis have been done on existing technology. Simple energy in to energy out analysis. Electric power is FAR more efficient than H2, and also costs a lot less, not even including infrastructure issues.
The ONLY viable liquid fuel we have today is WindFuels. This is hydrocarbon created by combining waste CO2 (from sequestration) with H2 and water, and the energy input is all from wind. This system is affordable, does not have technology roadblcks, can be built today, and costs less than gas from Oil at LAST years prices, let alone today... www.dotyenergy.com Check it out.
where do you live??? 220 volt outlets in the apartment?!? you must mean 110. I can understand a small studio, or efficiency apartment having a 30 amp box, but only if there were no dryer hookups, an efficiency fridge, no dishwasher, and the AC and water heater were powered by the building, not the unit.
Shit, even my vaccum uses 14 amps. and the cheap shit one i use in the garrage is a 10 amp unit. If I have a few lights on and vacuum, i'd blow the breaker...
besides, I don;t expect you have either a garrage or a safe place to park and plug in where others would could not screw with your hookup to your car, so I expect you'll not be a candidate, and fall into the 15-20% of others who also would not be.
Also, that electric bill? The increase in electric charges would be less than half of what you'd save in gas (many electric cars are quoting $2-3 per charge with 40 mile ranges on Califirnia electric costs, other places will be cheaper.)
Well, actually, I discuss it with the other child's parent... but generally, yes. I return the game to their parents, and make mine repay the other child for the lost game. The other child is in turn punished for providing unapproved materials to another child by loosing access to said game (or other item) until his or her parents deem it should be returned.
Generally, when we're talking about kids here, we're talking about kids of the same age, and typically I have found there shared, unapproved, games were not known to exist by the other parent either.
In 1 or 2 rare cases, I've found I have been unable to get the child to snitch on the friend, and have kept the item until such a time as I figured out who it belonged to.
Um... my comment on kicking their asses was targeted at the PARENTS, not the kids. I only condone striking a child when other methods do not appear effective, and then with apropriate force. The idea of the spanking is not to induce harm, it is intended to scare, and is typically only effective against children too yough to understand emotional or logical consequnces.
Exactly my points. Well raised children think before they do something wrong. If they have done something wrong, certainly I'll be very interested in why, but clearly they knew they were doing wrong before they did it.
Most of the kids in school today lack this distinction, or, do wrong because they do not fear the consequences.
Exactly. Even more important than simple power backup is AVR. The microfractures that can be created in system chips by voltage as little as +/- 10 volts, over time, will cause systems to malfunction.
I can't find the article, but at one point as a reseller for APC (maybe it was Leibert), their marketing material used to state that 95% of all system component failure was due to voltage irregularity, and that properly filtered line voltage could extend the life of electronics 3 fold.
You should not only have your systems and servers on UPS, but at this point, all your Home theater equipment too, TVs and all. Battery backup is not so important for these other devices, but AVR and line conditioning is.
He's right about drives continuing to write bad data. Sure, you can restore from backup, but you still loose what was created since that point. Critical databases can be replicated and mirrored in real time, and come close to preventing 100% of data loss, but not so for most other system uses, and realtime record level syncing is out of the budget for most companies.
Beyond UPS, not a bad idea to have an on-site generator too...
Here's a law I'd like to see, lets punish the parents who fail to discipline their children. If a kid is off the rails, lets ensure the parent is actually involved in the process, and if not, lets fine them, punish them, I'm even OK with kicking their asses!
If my kid comes home with a video game i don't approve of, i take it. Simple, done. Once they're done buying their friend a new copy, after 4 weeks of allowance is saved up, they'll not likely do it again.
If you can't hold your kids to the same rule, teach them what you allow and don't allow under your roof, then they'll run all over you, and when outside your house, behave exactly the same way to others.
The only fault society plays in bad parenting, is the same lax attitudes that currently apply in schools seem to also apply within DSS. Everyone is afraid to get sued for telling someone to their face they're a bad parent. I'm not proposing we should get back to the way things were in the 50s, but at least how they were in the early 80s would be a marked improvement!
How does this sound, we'll simply ban anyone under 18 from buying anything without parental permission, not even food or snacks? We'll make it a law that the retailer must have parental permission to sell a kid that bag of Doritos, since it's hazardous to your child's health, self esteem, and more, and you as a parent should have complete control over not just what they see and hear, but what they eat, who they socialize with, what they wear, and in every conceivable way, can shelter them from any harm that could ever befall them, and all because you're simply afraid that what you teach them is not enough to protect them, and how you punish them is ineffective and they'll just go behind your back anyway.
C'mon. All we need is a simple rating system printed on the game, just enough to give the parents a clue, and if you like, content specifically targeted at adults we can refuse to sell to kids under 17... The idea that we're trying to force the hardware to understand who's using it, inconveniencing the people who are old enough, or mature enough to use it, is crap. Well enough that you legislated parental control requirements on our games and TV sets, that we had to pay the bill for, but requiring these things to conform in any way to standards, and giving them a timeline for release of that hardware, and reverse engineer it into existing products that will still be on sale then? No, I'm not paying for it.
here's the deal: exactly how WOULD my kid get a hold of a game I don;t approve of. They're $40 each or more, and his allowance ain't gonna cover doing that too often. Even still, he's got to get to a store and back with the game (or a friend's house and back) At 16, I'm really not going to care, but when younger, me or my wife will be TAKING HIM, or another parent we approve of our child being shuttled by (who will be aware of our rules before being given care of our child). If an older brother or sister gives them access to a game they shouldn't have, they'll face the same concequences.
If the kid DOES get a game that way, we'll take it. Easy enough. then he's up shit creek without his allowance he spent, and potentially punished further. They only make mistakes like that once....
It's called parenting. If you can't keep your 12 year old from playing adult games, you're doin' it wrong. Outside of your house is another story, but under your roof, they really can't hide the game. They can try, but when you find out, the punishment will be MUCH worse.
I happen to be a strong believer in not allowing my children to have TVs, games, computers, or phones in their rooms. (distracts from study and sleeping, the only 2 things that should happen in a bedroom in my house). We have a game room for them, and closely monitor what they do in there. Its not sheltering, and its not cruel, its called parenting. When they can afford their OWN tv, or game system, they can have one. That's the deal. I can't afford to buy 4 of them (3 kids plus me we're planning) so that's what they get to live with.
Punishment? Whatever works. Some kids need solitary confinement, others to be scolded in from of their friends, other having their favorite things removed, others put to household labors, and others to be spanked. Each kid is different, and each kid will respond to your authority once you learn what works. The failure of parents today to use proper discipline is mostly what's wrong with America today.
It used to be, if I even looked cross at a teacher, my ass was sent to the office. today, one county here in SC actually has a rule that kids who fight, but don't draw blood, should not be sent to the office. they've had kids throwing chairs at teachers, in front of other administrators, and not even get suspended. Further, even if they don;t hand an assignment in, they STILL GET 60% for it!!! You can't have discipline if there are not consequences, nor consistency! Let me tel you, I was FAR more afraid of my parents than the principal. I was deathly afraid to bring home any indication I wasn't perfectly behaved. I was punished a lot growing up, but rarely ever hit. My sister, she got spanked a lot, and rarely got other forms of punishment. Either way, most things we did wrong, were done wrong once and never again.
Yup, simple laws of fluid (gas) motion and thermodynamics. It just creates more drag than it can recoup from spinning the blades to spin the generator.
Solar panels on the roof, hood, and trunk have also been suggested. Fact is, the cost is simply so high, no car could ever pay off the investment in fuel savings. Also, centrally collected solar is more efficient.
even at home, solar on the roof is great for hot water, but not really a good investment for energy. Id prefer to let people voluntarily invest that money instead in their power company, to expand wind and other green central energy collection systems, in exchange for reduced power bills over 10 years equal to the same amount. The money will have a far better return for the whole community, and the homeowner who donates earns the exact same benefits either way.
Forgot to include 1 thing: Making H2, 90+ % efficient. Compressing H2, 6% efficient! Oh, and it leaks out over time too...
Doty Energy will be making H2 from wind energy. That H2 is NOT compressed, but simply piped to another room in the facility where it is immediately combined with CO2 waste (solids from sequestration mostly) and water, using a mostly chemical process that actually creates heat, and is by itself more than 67% efficient today. The output is that 60% of the water is reusable, and we produce fuel, any fuel. It's a clean process with little or no hazard waste. Wind and waste CO2 in, fuel out, total efficiency of the process is over 65% today, and they believe it can be refined up to 75% in mass refining. This is not only a fuel replacement, but also lubricants and all the other byproducts we'll STILL NEED, even if H2 COULD be feasible. This can be sent anywhere using existing pipelines and a few new ones, and can be easily trucked.
They can make ethanol, methanol, propane, you name it. It's just hydrocarbons. Previous to now, this was completely possible, but no one put all the pieces together this way. Why not? why didn't we have cell phones in the 70's, or lasers in the 50s, we had the pieces, they just weren't through to we assembled that way...
We're waiting on too many breakthroughs for H2, and even if we make em, it's still dangerous, expensive, and requires more energy input total. give it up. Japan already abandoned research into it. It;s only Big Oil still going, trying to convince you that there's hope (without involving the possibility of small time distributors that will eat their profits).
[Quote]BTW apparently electric cars are about 25% efficient, if hydrogen combustion can do 35% efficiency then it is better than electric charging[/Quote]
OK, don't know where you got 25% for electric cars. battery to wheel efficiency is over 88%. "wheels to wells" efficiency, generating power and all, and USING FOSSIL FUEL TO DO IT, is 28% efficienct overall. The same wheels to wells on ICEs? 14% efficient if you're lucky. Since we can make electricity from wind, we can remove the 39% electric generation efficiency loss there (who cares if wind to electricity isn't efficient, it's free!), then we're talking electric cars being 4-5 times more efficient than ICEs.
Lets also look at CO2 emissions: the equivolent MPG, starting with 1 million BTUs of energy (Oil) is 69MPG for an electric car vs 24MPG for an ICE. and that's assuming we're still using oil as the core source of electricity. With Wind, the MPG equivalent goes to over 150MPG equivalency.
http://www.electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml
OK, Wood gas is NOT H2. It can not be consumed in a fuel cell, and is NOT what we're talking about in the science news today. Wood gas is NOT made from electrolysis, it's made from wood, and have you seen the wood pellet costs over the last 10 years, due to ethanol and wood home heating demand? a SIX FOLD INCREASE!!! It would cost over $7 per gallon to make H2 wood gas today, and it's LESS efficient than oil, and does NOTHING to slow the CO2 output. Wood gas can NOT be made in a competitive price even to oil.
Honda and GM ARE talking about using pure H2. They've discussed liquid high compression in flexitanks, metal infused storage, and more. We are NOT talking about any kind of H2 liquid stable blends here, we do NOT have any financially stable method for doing so, nor do we have enough resource material to support it. This is the same argument I can use against ethanol: We can make enough, if we let 3 billion people starve to death and remove them from the food chain.
The H2 ICEs in showroom cars now are 100% H2 burning, H2 vapor gas engines, with a very small percent of additional gasses added, mostly to ensure you can smell it when it's leaking, and to help with compression. Everything else being worked on is a fuel cell, which could work just as easily with Methane as with H2, and both are bad ideas.
Electrolysis will NOT be done on-site. The space requirements for machinery, expertise and electronics to safely operate it, combined with the need for extremely pure, distilled water, which we can not guarantee consistancy in a pumped grid, is simply not possible. We also have to hdeal with O2 recapture when making H2, you can't just release all that O2 into a city air environment! so now you need underground tanks to capture the O2 as well as H2, and some way of shipping the O2 away instead of bringing the H2 to the station. This solves nothing, and adds complication.
Also, those H2 stations, could yo imaging someone taking out a storage tank with a shaped charge or car bomb? You'd loose a whole city block... ...not to mention, H2, in the BEST scenarios they've come up with, will cost over 200 trillion in infrastructure. Windfuels and electric car grids will cost between 30 and 40 trillion. A much better plan.
Oh, and your precious H2 cars, unless you're talking about super cooled liquid to a prepared tank (which will use energy to stay cold 24/7) then filling an H2 tank is a 3 hour process, to go approxamately 150 miles. Inserting compressed H2 into a tank under pressure generates heat, which must be disipated by radiators under the car. You've seen George bush hook up to an H2 refilling station, but you've never seen anyone say how long filling takes...
Well, it;s not really a big difference. It;s the same technology, we've just beefed up the electric drive, and taken the engine off the drive train. Now the engine, when it's running, strictly and only runs at peak output, about 4500RMP, and can get close to 40% efficiency, vs providing power to the wheels which is 25% efficient at best.
You have the option to plug it in simply because electricity is 1) cheaper per mile driven and 2) CAN be renewable (as we expand wind/solar/water/etc/power). you are not REQUIRED to EVER plug it in, it will just cost you more to drive if you don't.
Full electric, I have no hope those will catch on outside of true, commuter only uses. Finding a rapid charge station easily won't be common except in highly populated areas for a decade, and the grid needs 20-30 years to catch up to the demand it would need. We will get there eventually, but I expect there will allways be a gas backup, or other power source, in electric cars that are popular.
The problems with H2 combustion: 1: we can make H2 at 85%+ efficiency, but BURNING IT in an ICE is still only 35% at best efficient.
2: How do we GET IT to the engine? In a tank? great, not all a terrorist needs is a few M80s and he's got a bomb that can take out everything in a parking lot. Not going to happen. On demand H2? not nearly as efficient, requires an entire infrastructure to supply, change, and recycle alluminum plates that last about 400 miles, and takes half an SUV of space and weighs half a ton.
3: how do we get H2 to you? it can't be pipelined securely in enough volume. (too much leaks, and maintaining liquid H2 is not possible in pipelines safely or cost effectively. You have to truck it. We'd need a fleet about 6 times larger than our current one to truck it around. Each of these rigs is a hasmat issue.
4: leaks. Gas leaks in your garrage, unless you put a spark on it, you're OK, and at worst you have a small fire to deal with. H2 leaks in your garrage, turn on the light and goodbye house.
5: Your math is based on fuel cells, but your quoting costs of H2 ICEs. This is inconsistent. Fuel cells are currently $300,000 devices. We can NOT make them for $10K. Not for decades. ICE with H2 is our only viable option, and getting H2 into an ICE is not a viable option.
Battery cars are currently available, unsibsidized, for 100K, about 1/5th of an H23 powered car. GM will have them under 30K in a year. (the 100K is mostly due to it being a car that competes with a lambroghini, not a commuter car).
Home hookups of 120 amps are common, they';re used for every tankless water heater, and an electrician can set up a charging station for about $1500. It requires the assistance of your power company, but they don't charge extra for that (just for the power you will use). a 200AMP 220 volt home line is about 1.5" thick. One flexible enough to hook up to your car will probably be about 2.5" thick. It can be easily moved by a person.
I'm not arguing how easy it is to MAKE H2, I'm aruning on that fact that we can't really USE it (except for Windfuels, which is a realistic, and profitable use) www.dotyenergy.com
An outlet is typically run off of 15, 20, or 25 amp circuits, you're right, and off that circuit, you can expect a 8-10 hour charge cycle (to 80%, not 100). A 30A 220V outlet (common to dryers, hot water heaters, and AC systems) is available in many homes. If you have available space in your 200 amp box, you can easily add a 30 amp connector to your garage and charge in about 4 hours.
100 Amp lines are custom. Anyone adding an in-line water heater will quickly find they need a 120AMP 110 volt line to power it. (the unexpected $1500 downside to switching to tankless, on demand, heated water). Any electrician can install one, and at that time, they typically either add a 2nd 200AMP breaker box, or upgrade you to a 400 AMP box. On such a line, charging is an hour or less.
If you're in an apartment, likely, 110 outlets are your only option, assuming you even have a parking space anywhere near an outlet... You might convince the apartment manager to install a 220 volt outlet, at your expense, if it can be easily done.
The battery pack life is 15 years, not really an issue. I agree that the goal is 80% charge though, since charging the additional 20% takes nearly the same amount of energy as charging that far. (reducing the $/mile effectiveness of the car)
I mistakenly stated 60 miles. I was looking at info for another electric car, the volt has a 40 mile range.
The 1.4L engine has a slightly higher MPG (as a car engine), but was chosen for it's superior torque at lower RPM, allowing the recharger to work more efficiently, and in the end, it uses the same gas per given joule output as the 1 litre, and did reduce costs since the other did not need to be an 1-off engine design.
Well, since a battery and electric drive have over 90% efficiency, it doesn't matter if you drive striahgt, or stop and go. The recyclic breaking compensates for acceleration, but not driving itself. Electric cars get nearly identical range in city or highway driving (up to about 60MPH where wind resistance starts to impact it more dramatically).
There may be small deisel engines that can get 60-80 MPG, but with about 60 Horsepower, they're not much use for anything buy a 1-2 person commuter car. They're tiny, lightweight, underpowered, and have little or no room for passengers or luggage. Also, Deisel is increasing at a MUCH higher rate than regular gas. (2 years ago, it was cheaper, not it's 50-70 cents more per gallon). This is due to ultra low sulfer requirements, plus increased deisel demand from all the people in europe buying small deisels. We are not equipped to make deisel in the quantities you ask for. We can't all do that.
most new cars include engine idle off technology, which we actually expect to be mandated within the next 2 years, so that's really a non-issue.
Also, electricity has less than half the carbon impact to go the same distance as gasoline, and further investments in our grid will only help 1) remove us from other dependencies by increasing wind and solar energy supplies, 2) get a better, superconducting grid in place, like the one powered up in Long Island in April, and 3) help future proof energy prices vs oil, coal, and nuclear which are going up as fast as gas.
Gm has announced the car will be on save for "under 30K" and although there is some subsidy yet in the car, there's no reason to believe the price will increase dramatically. The Volt uses fairly common components, and simply has more battery and a slightly bigger electric motor than the prius. It's actual cost, aside from the batteries, is very much a parallel. The Battery costs add maybe 3-5K to it, so yes, it will cost more, but but not that much more, especially after they're not hand building them and running them through high yield assembly lines.
The prius is roomier, but the cubic feet of space inside is larger in the volt. I'm comparing what's out there now, not what they're changing. If you want to fault this analysis, fault every car dealer ad on earth, because it's just spinning real numbers. I can make either the Prius or the volt look better just in how I change the working of an ad.
The volt gets 40miles, I was incorrect there. Sorry. It has NOT however decresed to 32, in fact, their change to a "less than 12" gallon tank instead of a 14+ gallon tank, (changing from 600 mile to "320 after empty" range) was done to reduce vehicle weight slightly, and to accommodate additional batteries to extend the range by a few miles, not reduce it. We expect 32 mile ranges on the top end version, while playing a DVD headlights on, devices plugged in, and more, and without breaking (freeway driving at night with kids in the back, vs commuting).
The 150MPG is only IF you use gas at all. If you run on exclusively electric, you are using NO FUEL, thereby infinite range on non-renewable resources. (you obviously are still paying for the electricity, most of which today is non-renewable, but it's shifting in the right direction, and has half the carbon impact to begin with.)
there's still a COST, yes, but it's with a renewable source, and yes, technically we're not using gas, so what's in your tank will REMAIN in your tank.
Um, that "expected" price is based on actual market data, technological improvements assumed, and even accounts for them drilling off the US coast for more oil. Keep in mind, in the time frame we're talking about, india and china are going to DOUBLE their need for fuels, and they're not doing so hot on greening their countries... This is a simlpe, stastitical extrapolation of supply vs demand of a diminishing resource. They said 2 years ago we'd be at $4 per gallon this summer. Noone believed them them, so why should I expect you to believe me now?
Even if these internationally agreed upon numbers are overestimates, here's a fact: I discussed a complete system, with like total costs. You discredited electric cars by omitting a key detail, making it look to be a 1:1 comparrison, when in fact it's closer to 2.5 : 1. That's FUD.
OK, first, the ford is not a fule cell, but direct H2 combustion, which will NEVER be approved for public use (every car becomes a rolling BOMB!)
The batteries are NOT toxic to produce, just toxic to dispose of. They are 100% recyclable, and believe me, you won't be throwing a 400lb battery pack in any garbage can I can find...
H2 will not be used in any distribution system, but it CAN be used very effictvely to be combined with CO2 and water to make hydrocarbons which CAN be pipelined and used in existing cars, all with 0 additional CO2 output net (since the energy to make it is provided by wind) www.dotyenergy.com.
Deisel is rising in price faster than gas. We can't all run on deisel. biodeisel could be made, but at what cost to the environment, and we believe MAYBE we can make 10% of today's current demand, 20% tops using bio deisel.
A Joule is a Joule. Pison engines are 30% efficeint at best, hooked up to a transmission, less than 20%, electric engines are 90+% efficient. recyclic turbines are about 45% efficient. Combine a turbine running on high octane windfuels to recharge batteries on long troips and we're talking about a car that uses 4X less Joules than what we have today, even in hybrids. DO THE MATH, STOP SPREADING FUD!
We will improve engine technology marginally, and fuel economy some as well, but battery drive is the way to go. We have no less expensive, higher efficiency technology even on drawing boards, let alone a couple of years from production.
Fuel cells? their estimates are in 30 years we MIGHt be able to make a fuel cell for under $40K...then build a car around it. We'll make em smaller, but the nanotechnology needed is more than a decade from functionalble, and you STILL NEED FUEL FOR IT.
On battery power, I can go more than twice as far on the same cost equivolent per gallon than the best car on the road. As fule prices increase, so will this ratio. I can get a Volt for 30K next year, thay'll be 15K within 5 after that and in 10K cars within 10 years. You can't argue the technology is too expensive when it will take 10 years to build the factories to make it in mass at competitive prices. We can't make engines cheaper (in fact, we expect they'll get more expensive in order to get more efficient), so the cost ROI only gets better with time.