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I have nothing better to do but to complain about gas right now!
calder:
--- Quote from: Blanka on January 25, 2009, 09:22:29 am --- all countries should boycott both Israel and Palestina until all weapons are sold back to Russia and the USA in a weapon for food program
--- End quote ---
oh god, but how will i live with out my, my uh, hmm, wtf does israel export?... dead sea salt, yes thats it, OH HOW WILL I LIVE WITHOUT MY BATH SALTS!!!
and besides, U.S.A is in too deep with isreal(not debt wise), we can't just leave them there, in that terrible awful place.
SavannahLion:
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on January 25, 2009, 07:17:16 pm ---savannah, you are like that IBM CEO who famously said in about 1950 'i can't see that there would be a need for more than about 5 computers in the world'. funnily enough though, you have made a good argument FOR EV by mentioning alternative domestic/industrial power sources. wouldn;t you know it, EV's can use those too :o
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You're like one of those well wishers that toss in a coin, make a wish, and hope your dreams come true. You've happily missed the point. EV is not the only solution we need to look at right now. An EV is just a hammer to the solution, a hammer doesn't work for every problem. Funding *EV and disregarding every other aspect of energy consumption is an immense waste of time.
Solve our other problems with solutions that work for them. Just because I propose alternate power plant solutions doesn't make it an argument for EV's. The EV is not the magic solution everyone makes it out to be. Did I fail to mention that we had HEV/EV's in the early 1900's? They were pretty common prior to the 1930's because they were commonly used for local transportation.
Apply EV's where they reap the most benefits, localized transportion. I make trips into the mountains on a regular basis, precisely the thing EV's are useless for. Just the thing FFV or Dual Fuel would be more than applicable.
Get it? EV's are not for everyone so people need to stop pretending they're the perfect solution. They're not and they won't until we get our other problems straightened out. This isn't about not needing, "...more than about five computers in the world." This is about having more than five different computers to choose from. We need to attack the transportation (and energy) issue on multiple fronts, not just with EV's.
--- Quote from: danny_galaga on January 25, 2009, 07:23:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: SavannahLion on January 25, 2009, 02:27:34 pm ---We need to be more aware of the actual costs associated with raw materials and recycling. It's cheaper (as in energy) to mine for raw aluminum than it is to recycle it.
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are you for real? you do know that to make aluminium, you need this huge electric arc smelter to make it? huge amount of power. to recycle it, you just have to melt it...
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Yes I am and yes I know. Keep in mind the entire infrastructure involved. All the way from individual collection to transportation to the actual recycling. There's a point in costs where the recycling energy consumption exceeds the costs to produce from raw materials. This results in some towns not bothering to recycle (yes, even aluminum) because the energy and labor costs simply don't make it worthwhile. Aluminum is one of the better materials to recycle, but it's not entirely immune to raw vs recycle costs.
Let's take where I live. My town has one of the better recyclable recovery rates in the state. Many cities are dependent on clients to sort through the garbage for recyclables. My town simply asks us to dump all the recyclables into one bin to be picked up by one truck. That is later manually sorted through at a facility (usually by immigrant workers :-\). This improves the amount of recovered recyclables than what it would have been if we used the traditional "bin" method. Unfortunately, there is growing pressure from "educated" and "advanced" cities to switch to the bin method and close our sorting facility even though that hurts our recovery percentages and introduces additional costs with the different trucks. If our recovery percentages are hurt, then it makes the entire recycling process pointless since we won't get enough benefits to offset the recycling costs.
The point is, smaller towns can't always justify a pure aluminum recycling program. Last I checked, most recycling programs also include glass, paper and other materials which harbor their own costs. Sometimes there just isn't enough volume to offset the associated energy costs with any one particular recyclable. Is it any wonder California has a CRV in an attempt to offset this initial collection cost?
--- Quote from: pinballwizard79 on January 25, 2009, 09:19:32 pm ---also: http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/
I read somewhere its range is 250 miles..............pretty good if that's the case.
350 miles would be perfect however, then I wouldn't even need propane stations (my job = travel daily, sometimes its 20miles, other times 300+miles)
--- End quote ---
That is exactly the type of thing the U.S. needs to expand on. Don't force the entire market into EV's. Give consumers a greater variety of transportation options and put in the infrastructure to support them.
Blanka:
--- Quote from: pinballwizard79 on January 25, 2009, 09:19:32 pm ---also: http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-gx/
I read somewhere its range is 250 miles..............pretty good if that's the case.
350 miles would be perfect however, then I wouldn't even need propane stations (my job = travel daily, sometimes its 20miles, other times 300+miles)
--- End quote ---
Here Liquid natural gas is quite normal, and it is always built in to normal cars thus making them hybrid.
If I would put a LNG tank in the trunk of my cheapo french car, I would have a 600 mile normal range + a 400 mile LNG range :D
danny_galaga:
--- Quote from: SavannahLion on January 25, 2009, 11:24:32 pm ---
You're like one of those well wishers that toss in a coin, make a wish, and hope your dreams come true. You've happily missed the point. EV is not the only solution we need to look at right now. An EV is just a hammer to the solution, a hammer doesn't work for every problem. Funding *EV and disregarding every other aspect of energy consumption is an immense waste of time.
Solve our other problems with solutions that work for them. Just because I propose alternate power plant solutions doesn't make it an argument for EV's. The EV is not the magic solution everyone makes it out to be. Did I fail to mention that we had HEV/EV's in the early 1900's? They were pretty common prior to the 1930's because they were commonly used for local transportation.
--- End quote ---
ok, i see your points. but it's as if you are an australian or something! aussies are great at thinking of reasons not to do things. instead of trying to make recycling of aluminium more efficient in your town, you are saying it's too hard, let's not bother at all. to me, if at first it costs more MONEY, then that doesn't matter. MONEY is not real. resources are. through constant innovation, the system becomes more efficient. If it's costing more ENERGY, that really needs to be looked at, because it really does take a LOT of energy to smelt bauxite into aluminium.
and you are still viewing an EV as it is now. if development continues with them, why can't they be even more useful than petrol engines? i can imagine that one day you will have say, 400 km range in an EV that only takes 5 minutes to recharge. and in a 4wd, that would be even better than fuel, because if you run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere, you've run out. you 'run out' with an EV, then an emergency solar array could charge it up in a couple of days. that's nowhere near possible right now of course. but for now, an EV can do for most people. if they need to go on a longer trip, you can still hire a fuel car. the aussie attitude would be 'well, it can't be done. let's forget it'. americans normally have more 'can-do' attitude. classic example is putting a man on the moon before the 60's was out.
petrol cars were once thought of as pretty pointless, pretty much until WWI. there were no fuel stations. they were noisy and smoky and way less reliable than just riding a bicycle or catching a tram. but things improved. people didn't just give up on petrol.
another great example is is Otto Lilienthal. He is pretty much the father of modern flight. by the time he died, he'd made hundreds of hang glider flights. each one lasting only for maybe 10-20 seconds. pretty much anyone would say 'wow. that's a cool novelty. but kinda pointless'. the wright brothers saw that work and dreamed of taking it further. and they sure did! they flew the wright flyer for 12 seconds on that cold december morning. even then, most people reading about it in the paper would have thought 'thats incredible! but kinda pointless'...
to me EV's are the way forward, because they are not tied to any one power source. an EV can run on coal, uranium, hydro-electric, wind, solar, hampsters in a wheel etc. all sorts of developments effect the future of EV's. for instance, did you know that there is a 'solar panel' paint being developed? and one of the purposes the developer proposes is to use it on roofs of houses. it's not hard to imagine that at least some of the power of an EV could come directly from your roof. hell, you could even paint the car with it! that might be a couple of percent right there!
i should clarify though, that maybe we aren't in complete disagreement. i am arguing EV's for private purposes. for land transport, diesel is probably going to be king for a long time. natural gas for some things like buses is great. and you definitely need oil for ships and aircraft. this is another reason to push for something like EV's (or maybe compressed air). it leaves more fuel for really important transport.
i probably arent convincing you, but there's hope for you yet though, isn't MAGLEV an EV? ;D
incidentally, looking at wiki for maglev, looks like a few hands were thrown up in the air early on:
"In the 1960s, Great Britain held the lead in maglev research;[2] Eric Laithwaite, Professor of Heavy of track and was thoroughly tested, but his research was cut off in 1973 due to lack of funding, and his progress was not sufficient. British Rail also set up a Maglev Experimental Centre at their Railway Technical Centre based at Derby.
In the 1970s, Germany and Japan also began research and after some failures both nations developed mature technologies in the 1990s."
Level42:
Maglev's are a promise from 30 years ago....
And don't leave anything on the track:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-09-22-germany-train_x.htm
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