Let me find something,

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34860/113/

Theres your way to make lots of hydrogen.


About electric cars and there short range. For me it isnt that big a deal (17, in high school). I drive a max of maybe 100 miles a WEEK, so an electric car would be ideal for me. And with all the research that is going into batteries for things like laptops and MP3 players we are starting to see some big breakthrough in battery tech, IE: this article on a 20 hour laptop battery.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/...our_notebooks/

 

Unfortunately no matter what method is used for creating H (hydrogen), it will always have negative EROEI. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not energy itself.

In plain english: It will always take more energy to make H than the energy you get back from it in a fuel cell (or any other method). Those darn physics laws!

Unless Dr. Evil figures out sustained nuclear fusion...

Neither E85 or H will be future energy sources, only sources of disillusion.

 

Most of the energy we use is from carriers of solar energy -- oil included.

 

It's called the second law of thermodynamics. You might can equal the first law but the second will get you every time.

Most large scale H2 is made from natural gas, which to me seems kind of a waste of natural gas. Given that CO2 is expelled in the process it would seem more prudent to just burn the methane in a car as opposed to converting it to H2 then burning it. How about a methane hybrid??

In reality the push to hydrogen, even made from natural gas, is to eventually transition the production to electrical means by water electrolysis, either from solar or wind farms.

 

You nailed it!

 

Again- you get it all right.

"You should never be so scared, as when someone from the Government is coming to do you good."

 

Nice! That looks like the FREE MARKET in action. Somehow I doubt they were mandated by the Govt. to come up with that solution.

The discovery/generation of electricity wasn't government mandated. The invention of the automobile wasn't govt mandated. Most other inventions that improved life weren't govt mandated. I don't understand why so many people think 100 pinheads in washington know so much more than they or the rest of us do about what is good for us...

Merry Christmas everyone BTW!

 

Pretty much ALL life AND energy on the earth is the result of solar- with the exception of nuclear. All petroleum comes from solar energy on the planet millions of years ago. The earth is a solar powered planet.

 

A great number of things you use daily and take for granted were developed under government mandate -- some for the space program, some for the military. These are two areas where the government has spent $$ in R&D. Other sources are government funded university research. Lots of medical advances have come through this channel.

 

There is also geothermal, but it only contributes about 1% of the energy humans use.

 

Very correct. A government program sponsored by DARPA (TRP-technology reinvestment program) around the early 90s invested a lot of money in ground transportation, much of it going to hybrid technology for automobiles.

 

This is a short sighted view. These business owners did not lose the right to control their own property, they were simply asked to provide their services in an environment in which it was safer to do such. Is this really any different than asking them to serve food in a safe manner? To provide employees with proper safety equipment?

Wow, are you really so far out there that you don't believe that second hand smoke isn't hazardous to your health? Show us the UNBIASED research showing otherwise.

Regardless, this is a discussion on the new CAFE standards which could be boiled down into this. We're FINALLY asking Detroit (and others who want to be included in the market we have to offer), to introduce a touch more modern technology into their product. Egads...is that a touch of common sense in government?

We are building vehicles utilizing a commodity that we (all politics aside) don't do a very good job of producing. The cost of utilizing these vehicles is again all politics aside, very much outside of our control.

Why WOULDN'T we want to become more efficient in something we do every day? Something that our current existence depends on.

 

I tend to just call it 'laws of physics' to keep it easy for people. There are some really sharp people on NAM that get it though.

Exactly, or whatever has the best EROEI.

Except I think I saw a calculation we will need an area the size of one of our larger states completely covered in solar panels and wind farms to make enough energy to power all our cars H through this process. Some states may have trouble getting the water....Atlanta has something like 10 weeks of water left.

 

True- lots of inventions came from military and space, but those were not mandates/taxes etc- those were bids to private companies to invent solutions for particular problems- i.e. getting to the moon etc etc.

 

We were actually talking about this at work the other day. Being from Houston, we were talking about how to position ourselves in this new energy paradigm. I call it new mainly because it seems that some of our bosses thought that the world had really reached a peak in production. But who really knows? The same was said back in the 1930s, 1970s, etc.

It's interesting to note that post-war US has been built on mortgage financing, cheap land and cheap oil, thus the sprawling suburban city structures that we have today. If you look at all the foreign major cities in the US, I would reckon that very few if any are structured like cities in the US. Most of them are pretty centered around the core of the city with many people living in high rises. Increase gas prices to $10.00 per gallon and I think we'll soon see people moving back toward the city. Think if your commute was 25 miles and you had a car with 25 mpg, you'd still be paying $20 for the privelege of going to work... Cut the fuel economy in half and you're at $40...

Given that, the viable alternatives are actually pretty few (note that I said viable). In my opinion, it is only limited to ethanol, diesel and electric. For the proponents of hydrogen, think how long it has taken for the US to build the infrastructure for gasoline...

Diesel - pretty self-explanatory
Ethanol - At face value, this seems pretty good as most cars with a few minor tweaks can run it and it can be distributed through current infrastructure. However, the first item that will need to be addressed is the source of ethanol. Currently in the US, we use corn. However, as many people know, corn-based ethanol is very energy inefficient as the energy balance is only slightly positive if positive at all. (~1.25 although some people say it's below 1) This compares to sugar cane-based ethanol, which is approximately 8. There are other sources such as switchgrass which are also much more efficient. So why don't we change? You can blame all our problems on Iowa and the corn lobby. Everybody blames the oil companies, but nobody ever blames the farmers.
Electricity - This to me seems like the most interesting idea as infrastructure doesn't seem like it would be very difficult, but I'm also thinking that I can plug a car into my house at night and be okay ( correct me if I'm wrong), and it's dominated by technological advances. I think within 10 years, you can have very viable battery technology. Unfortunately, pursuit of this technology will only continue as oil prices remain very high so any demand destruction will probably put it off several years/decades.

Regarding CAFE standards, it seems like some sort of governmental regulation of fuel economy is required. As Matt put it, if the market was left to its own devices, we would have lots of problems. The government is only regulating because market foresight is too short and if spare capacity happened to spike and oil price dropped back down to $15 per bbl, all pursuit of fuel efficient technology would stop again and everybody would be trying to figure out how to get another Canyonero into their garage. There's many political and economic reasons why we should pursue energy efficiency.

By the way, I think it's been stated somewhere in this thread that energy per GDP has been decreasing over the last 3 to 4 decades. While the efficiency gains in the '70s are unquestionable. The thought has also been raise that since the US outsources production of so many goods and services, we've offloaded the energy use to another country so it could very well be true that in the last decade, the energy per GDP of the US has grown.

 

As to the second hand smoke thing- this is interesting reading:

http://www.davehitt.com/2004/name_three.html

Note- I >hate< smoke and smoke-filled restaurants. But I think it should be up to the shop owner if he allows smoking or not. Don't like smoke- don't eat or work there. I wouldn't.

Not nice to call someone "out there" who disagrees with you. :(


Again- more efficiency is great- and it will come when the tech is there. We don't need govt pinheads designing our cars for us. That's what gave us the "pedestrian safe" front ends on cars now- mandated by the EU. How insane is the idea of making getting run over by a car safer?!?!?!

 

This is really cool tech-

http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/eco/zwaste2.html

"An experimental unit that uses a technique known as the "thermal depolymerisation process" (TDP) that can recycle seven tonnes of waste a day into gas and oil has been running for three years in Philadelphia. A scaled up version is due to open in Carthage, Missouri next month. It is designed to transform 200 tonnes of guts, beaks, blood and bones a day from a nearby turkey processing plant into 10 tonnes of gas and 600 barrels of oil."

Again- all without govt. mandates. Private and yes, some govt. investment...

 

that is really cool. I wait for the day that chicken guts become a commodity that you can trade.

 

Oh and to just think, the government is helping to fund that project.

 

Yep- thats what I said. But it wasn't >tax< hikes, >mandates< or other foolishness.

 

References? If Chevron bought the patents, they would be part of the public record (and the patent period would be over about now). What are the patent #s??
Sounds like the parable (aka urban legend) of the evil auto companies that bought the patents to the 100mpg carburetor (which never existed.) Is it even possible to patent how a battery technology is used??
If Chevron sued Toyota, please cite the venue.

 

Really? Please cite instances of companies that did what the gov't told them, no questions asked, and flourished.
It seems the successful companies (the ones that currently exist) have done so by finding ways to tell the gov't what to tell them to do.

CA had an electric (ZEV) vehicle mandate back in 2001, to be implemented by 2003 - how many manufacturers (including Nissan, Toyota, etc.) were able to meet this mandate? None? So are they ALL dinosaurs?
Sparrow tried (and failed, and went bankrupt), and Tesla is trying again, but reality is that electric is just not ready for prime time. Yet.

 

True, nut nuclear, there will be renewed interest in this. As far as water goes, sea water will work fine, actually better, you need a good conductor, water is not, sea water is.

 

No one publishes these notes. But there are instances of companies anticipating the required changes, and doing something about it. The mandate to create the Insight came from internal decisions about the wastefull nature of the internal combustion engine.

Just look at who ******* the most about changes. Executives at Toyota have said (off the record, no one wants to get in trouble) that they don't care about increase in CAFE standards, as they already know how to deliver it! And they know they're farther ahead than the competition, so they'll just deliver something between what the people really want and what the regulators are asking for, and slowly but surely become the biggest car company in the world! (And this will happen this year.)

Now, look at the other side. In the 70s there were fights on the catalytic converter for cars. GM said it would take about $2k per car to equip them with a cat.... Guess what, they overshot by 10x. I just listened to Lutz speak. He claimed that the increase to fleet levels of 35 MPG would take $6k-$8k per car to do it. Guess what, it won't be that much. Other car companies already are well on the way. Lutz even admitted that Honda was the best at making light cars that don't require tons of exotic materials. GM is tearing Hondas apart to figure out how to do that. Lighter cars are part of the answer, but not by making them out of titanium....

But he also did say that if you want to use less gas CAFE standards aren't the way to do it, you tax the crap out of gas, and people will use less.

All the free marketers out there who advocate government non-action have failed, in every instance, to answer some (all) of these fundimental points.

1) Even Adam Smith, the market man himself, said that government should spend on a) social programs, and b) eductation. The first because the market's don't value social benefits, and the second because markets only work when the buyers are educated about the issues in the market. How can a governement spend on these items without using tax dollars?

2) Every efficient market that has existed in modern times fuctions because of regulation and oversight with enforcement mechanisms. This isn't lassaiz-fair markets at all, but regulated markets. What is the proper role for government in these areas?

3) If one is to value the free market system paradigm, how does one deal with the contagen effect where non-actors are burdened with the consiquences of others decision in the marketplace? With the sub-prime mess, people with good incomes and financial positions are having thier borrowing power limeted because of all the bets on sub-prime mortgages. Contageon effects are things like bank-runs and the like, and can have disasterous consiquences for societal health. Unless you think crashes like '29 and the dustbowl were good things. What is the role for government in limiting contageon effects or long term effects that aren't reflected in the transaction price?

4) If there are items that the market doesn't value, how does a responsible society capture the costs of these items (like cleaning up Love Canal, providing clean drinking water, the national transprtation infrastructur or postal service to rural areas) WITHOUT government action? National defense falls into this category as well.

5) The historical record of our economy shows the greatest growth and living standard increases in times of a mixed economy where lots was done by non-market actors, and that times of exreme volotility tend to come as we embrase more and more a bias towards unregulated markets.

6) Unrestrained markets tend to concentrate wealth. Economic dynasties are just as bad for societal health as any other dynastic system. How does a responsible society deal with these trends?

7) Traditional market mechanisms don't deal well with network derived value. This isn't the network like ethernet, but the fact that a products value isn't determined by the cost of production etc., but by the context in which the product is used. Think of software products, where two word processors can do the same thing, but create different file formats. The one you chose to use has a value component that is derived from all the other purchase decisions that have come before, as interoperability is something that's very important. Systems with this type of hystorisis tend to create monopolies, that are very counter to market health, even free market health. Is there a role for non-market actors with regard to this issue? If yes, how does one counter this (standards?), if no, how does one deal with the fact that installed base can lock out competition, defeating the market mechanisms?

8) A well functioning market requires that the actors in the market be free with information, and versed in the relavent information needed to make an informed decision. How can this happen when buyers are lazy (willfully ignorant), not sophisticated enough to make an informed decision (are you all experts in the consiquences of your market decisions? How much research do you have to do to feel that you really are in command of the relevent data, and do you really know what the long term effects are of your decisions, think lead in paint) or sellers act specifically to hide relevent information? What is governments role in these situation... Many would say screw the uniformed buyer, but what about the fact that uniformed buyers decisions have effects on others via contageon mechanisms? What effect does these type of biases have on the goal of market derived efficiencies andn optimization?

9) What is the proper response to markets that have a construction where the full consiquences of transactions are not carried by the actors in the transaction? How should society deal with these hidden subsidies? Is there a role for government in these situations? If yes, how does it get done, and if not, why should markets not have to pay the full costs of the transaction?

10) With little barrier to the movement of equity, R&D becomes a cost, not an investment in the future. Don't belive it? Look at Bell Labs (what's left of it). Basic research is totally a cost, not an investment. As a society goes further and further into pure market mechanisms for it's economy, who will do the basic R&D that is the long term fuel for technological innovation and growth? Yes, the markets will eventually respond, but only when there is a crisis. And at that point the cost of creating the infrastructure to respond will be high, and only directed at the percieved issue of the moment. Is this the best way for society to behave? Is this how our long term interstes are best served?


Now, all the debate that goes on about CAFE, government roles, buyer choices and the like are just facets of how our society has chosen to compramize on these issues (there are more, that's for sure), and while the quote about not trusting a government who is trying to help you sure sound good, how many of us would really want to give up our water standards and run a chem lab in our home to know how to treat the tap water? I think we all agree there are areas where government action is helpful, and areas where it's not. The debates tend to be about where we draw the lines in these areas of grey. For what it's worth, there are some very good books on these vary issues. There are places where market forces ARE the best mechanism out there to effect change and efficiency, and areas where they are not. I'm reading a couple of them now, and am learning a lot about the issues. We will never have a situation where pure unfettered, unregulated markets are the best mechanism, and we will never have situations where pure command economies are the best answer either. I really just hope that we all educate ourselves about the forces at play, areas where more unfettered markets are good, where they are not, and get away from the BS mantras like "It's our money" without the following "It's our debut", Governement is bad, regulation is bad or many of the other 100% positions that really screw the pooch and prevent real dialog to occure. Straw man arguement like "Gee, if we mandate this the next thing will be your governemtn regulating everything you do, think or say" aren't helpfull either, as it's BS. The debate will stay in the areas of grey, and there's more than enough to debate there without clouding the issues with these extrapolations to the extreme.

Personnally, I've spent a long time thinking about these issues, and have also tried to become more and more informed. I've come to some basic conclusions...

A) we don't have any pure markets, and that's just the way it is.

B) the longer the time horizen, the worse the markets do. Our particular type of market constructs tends to look for the biggest short term return, long term is someone elses problem.

C) Our markets construcs tend to favor creation and exploitation of monopoly positions.

D) Our market constructs tends not to care about the lower end of the socio-economic ladder (While it's getting bigger and bigger, the buying power is somewhat small, and they're choices are limited anyway).

E) Almost everyone isn't as eductated as they think they are in the transaction under consideration as they think they are, even me!


So there are some consiquences that I associate with these positions.

i) Government better pay a lot of for basic research and long term R&D. No one else will, and it's the fuel of our economic growth.

ii) We better do something about the markets tendancey to monopoly creation, if not, the markets will destroy themselves (positive feedback leading to run away trends).

iii) Let the markets fight it out in the middle, but both ends need extra-market attention.

iv) Government needs to have a strong role in regulation and enforcement. For the markets own health.

v) We need to do everything we can to move to life-cycle pricing. While it's flawed, it's better than the world of hidden subsidy that is currently in use. It also allows for the markets to work better when the true cost of a transaction is reflected in it's price. Who knows, with good life-cycle pricing, maybe MORE areas of the economy could be given over to market mechanics.

vi) We better get off our asses and read the obvious tea leaves that are out there. One expample is that our energy picure is bleak, we can anticipate a lot of what's coming, and actively invest in it now, instead of waiting for it to have a high enough pay off for the market to step in. (same thing could be said of our impending entitlement crises....)

Happy Holidays.

 

Ok- so that post was so huge I couldn't even read it all.

What I find odd is someone who has:

"'65 Mustang Convertable, 5.0 EFI, 5-sp, 3.55 8.8", GR-350 Suspension, 271 WHP and a big effin' grin!"

...advocating higher gas prices through massive taxation. I REALLY don't understand how someone could think that way. So you actually want to pay MORE for your gas. No offense intended- just doesn't make any sense to me.