The one in Missouri that was shut down for environmental odor issues after 6 citations?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10636943

 

That was almost three years ago, and "an experimental unit." I'd be interested in seeing if they worked it out- I would imagine they did.

Still think it is a cool solution to a myriad of problems. Produce usable oil, while stopping the flow of sewage/animal waste and byproducts into the env.

 

Easy, he does not drive it 10-20-30-40k a year.

 

My mustang gets as good mileage as my MCS(unless I really bay the Mini, then it gets better than the babied Mustang)! And it gets almost 2x over the carb'ed version of engine it replaced. It has a 0.63 ratio overdrive 5th gear, and turns under 2k RPM at 75. While it's no Kia, as a marginal improvement over what it was it's massive. If you've read any or many of my posts (sorry, I forgot you don't read the long ones) you may come to know that I'm data driven.

I advocate higher gas prices cause we don't pay the full cost of it's use. I advocate carbon taxation so higher gas prices don't induce us to convert tar-sands or that hype of clean coal, and we really work on technologies that will help make fossil fuel based energy depencancy a thing of the past.

Matt

 

He is looking beyond his short-term self-indulgent interests to his long-term interests.

Take a few sessions to read and digest what he has written. It was well laid out. Understanding something as simple as that is, IMO, an absolute minimum requirement for making a semi-intelligent decision on issues such as the CAFE law.

 

to say "That's too much work" and stick to overly simplistic quotable quips!

Matt

 

Wow. Didn't really answer my question, but lots of interesting points.
Unfortunately the Insight was neat from an engineering perspective, but having sold 489 units in 2006, is an abject market failure.
My point was that while some gov't mandates have beneficial results, blindly following them is not always wise, or good - i.e. MTBE. I think there is a healthy friction between business and gov't - neither always knows or does what is 'right'. (Remember smog pumps and <100 HP V8s?) Even moreso in these days of earmarks and bridges to nowhere, one doesn't know if the gov't is doing what is right for 'the people' or 'their people'.
A good example are the new ethanol mandates. The gov't requires the use of ethanol, yet puts tariffs on imported ethanol while subsidizing domestic ethanol, driving up the price of corn and all derivatives. It's a big shell game, not about creating cleaner energy.
You lambast the market for being short sighted, but pols have the same issue - the next election is never far away, and the next fundraiser is even closer.
I don't like CAFE just because it is indirect - as you say, if the goal is to reduce fuel consumption, raise the price. Making the auto makers responsible for what people want to purchase is just a bit convoluted (but I'm not a big fan of marketing.) Europe taxes the hell out of gas, and registration fees are based on engine size. They also have lots of cities in relatively close proximity, and many jobs provide cars and gas cards because of the egregious costs.

 

but really, what is the right action path for a representitive to do when if they do the right thing they are out of office, and if they do nothing they are just pawns of power players? CAFE sucks from on objective standard, but when no political body in the US will do the right thing, and the masses won't educate them selves past the short term hit to their wallet (and even vote out those that choose to do the right thing), and the suppliers want to twist market forces into something that improves bottem line while perverting optimal market operation, I'd postulate that it's better than nothing!

And while the Insite sold few cars in any given year, that isn't really the point. It was a beach head into new technologies that showed up in cars that sold many, many more units. So that's a bit of an out of context dismissal. You asked for an example of something that was "good" that wasn't created by biatching and screaming of an industrial leader in the face of regulation, and you got it. The EV-1 doesn't meet that standard, cause it was a response to the California Zero Emission legislation that was later overturned....

Matt

 

+1, I agree with Matt.

 

The big picture is the total and complete failure of our government to look beyond short term concerns and to focus on the long term future of our country. Our corporations do exactly the same focusing on quarterly profit and not long term viability. This goes far to explaining why GM, Ford, and Chrysler are failing and why the US economy faces severe downstream financial issues. Europe has it right. Tax gasoline heavily, forcing consumers and companies to streamline. Ethonol as previously shown can't work so long as the government regulates it and corn is continued to be use. enough said

 

Probably true - I'm just a cockeyed optimist in hoping for 'good' from our reps vs. 'better than nothing.'


Actually my challenge was:
in response to your statement:
As you said, the Insight wasn't a result of a mandate, it was the result of a company challenging technology and pushing the envelope.
I think companies do great things without the gov't telling them to. Of course, sometimes they do bad things unless the gov't tells them not to.

I DO agree that companies with new technology will succeed (buggy whips, anyone?), but I do NOT agree that the key to success is to 'not say anything' in response to gov't mandates. That's all I was saying.

The ZEV mandate is a prime example - your statement above would indicate that if some company had just created a ZEV, they'd be kicking butt. Reality is that the technology just isn't there yet (5 years after the mandate was to take effect!)

The factors that determine which automakers are succeeding/failing is a whole new discussion.

 

the Tesla is doing well, the've oversold thier initial plans for the roadster, and have gone through a couple (3 at least) rounds of VC funding. While the founders are probably much better off than when they started, it will be an interesting call if they succeed as a car company. If they do launch the next one (5 person passenger sedan, in volume), then you will have another case as well.

AC Propulsions is a successful company, it was founded by some guy and his drivetrain was in the EV-1, and it seeded the drivetrain of the Tesla as well. I'm sure he's pretty well off as well, and you too can buy one of his propulsion systems for about $25k. Not the result of gov mandate.

But I still argue that the premis behind your request for examples is wrong. There's tons our gov does well, but it's not fasionable to talk about it. There's lots that markets screw up, but it's not fasionable to talk about that either. Where the two collide the current fashion is to "privatize", "deregulate" and "let the efficiencies of the market provide optimization" despite the fact that there are tons of examples where this is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Matt

 

Well, most people who want higher taxes on gas seem to believe in human-caused global warming- which I don't subscribe to either.

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/swindle.htm

We'll likely just continue to disagree...

 

you should at least know that you are on the outer fringe of scientific consensus.

Points about your reference...

Item 1. At no time in the past of our planet have we had industrial CO2 output at all, much less at the levels that occure with planet wide harvesting of carbon based energy forms. The point isn't logically sound in that it's making the implications that CO2 is a consiquence, not a driver, when there have never been planet wide CO2 emmeters on the scale that human industrialization has wrought. There is validity in the points that models dont' account for the reflectivy of the earth, and a prudent society would be well served by actually measuring the effect of abledo changes. Too bad the satillite designed to do just that has been parked in a warehouse so we can service the space station! This is an act of willfull ignorance of a massive scale. I can't even comprehend the policy decision that can justify closing one of the very few remaining holes in climat modeling.

Item 2. This is based on assuming facts not known, or the faulty justifications derived from point number 1. IT's more bad logic. It also states untruths. "wildy expensive" for one. Dealing with green house gas emissions will take less than one eigth of one percent of GDP. If you were to integrate this over time, you come up with a total cost of 5.5% of GDP by 2050, or a bit over one years growth. Look at your own insurance premiums. I sure don't know that my house will be subject to earthquake, flood or fire damamge. I don't know that I'll die before my kids make it through college to self sufficiency. I don't know that I'll be in an auto accident. Add up all those costs and it's a hell of a lot more that 1/8th of one percent of my income. For a maybe. What really underlies arguements like it's too expensive to do this stuff is an assumption that we can't do anything about it anyway, so why spend the money. But this really flies in the face of the arguement that we don't understand the system. If one subscribes to the belief that we can't model the system, then how can one make the claim that action won't do any good? The claims that we can't do diddly unless other nations act is actually true. But currently, the US is the largest contributor that hasn't actually signed on to try to act. It also ignores the fact that in creating technologies that can help with CO2 emissions, one could actually export the technologeis to other nations with economic growth.

Point 3 is just BS plain and simple. There are many coral islands that will be under water with as little as a few meters of sea level rise, and there are millions of people who live in coastal flood plains. The claims for increased economic activites tend to look at narrow benefits, like the northern passage being open for longer periods of time, or increased wood growth from northern climates, without looking at the associated negatives that can go with global change.

I run into arguements like this all the time. Sure, there are the fringe few that keep claiming that inaction is the best course of action. Usually (although not universally) there is a high correlation between economic interests and postion. Why did Exxon support (wayyyyy in the background) for over 200 "grass roots" groups to spout selective information about what's going on. The IPCC isn't a radical group. It's a consensus organization (meaning that the real hard advocates for anything are cut off, like extreme scores for ice-skating) that represents the best minds in the fields and generates the best information the species (ours that is) has to offer. Guess what, the consensus view is that some sort of action is prudent. And since they don't BS the way many do (even Al baby in "An Inconvienient Truth"), they even quote confidence levels. We're at about a 90% certainty that we're screwing the atmospheric pooch with our emissions. Many will hide in that last 10%. Heck, there's even a 10% chance that things aren't the way the best method ever created for increasing knowledge (peer review process) have concluded.

But I'm sure this was too long to read too.

Matt

Matt

 

LOL!!!! That's great! The funny thing is- Science isn't >consensus<. A bunch of people can't get together and all decide that something is and that makes it so- it has to be proved scientifically. Human caused global warming has not been.

We will not convince each other.

Have fun motoring!

 

Science is a consensus method. It involves postulation, prediction, and independent tests. I should know, I've grown up in a science family, and actaully have done it for a living!

But what I percieve to be a difference between us is that I'll actually look at broad sources of information. Heck, I'm a liberal who actaully will read books authored by conservatives! I don't cherry pick information, I understand statistics, and I'm willing to learn and change my mind.

I've talked to people serious about climate change, and they too have problems with the sensationalist approach that films like "An Inconvienient Truth" take. But that seems to be the only thing that has traction in a public debate that has had billions of dollars spend on mis-information campaings.

There's actually a moral delemma that comes up with this stuff. Since the truth isn't as extreme as what needs to be said to get attention, what does one do? If one actually says that the truth as best we know it isn't as bad as some people say, one can be sure that there will be tons of advocates for inaction who will selectivly quote that further proof that nothing should be done. So, does one stretch the truth a bit to make a point and try to get people to act in thier own willfully ignorant bliss or does one honestly say what is the best information out there knowing full well that it will come back and bite you in the butt by providing more fuel for inaction. Many really rigerous scientific minds worry about that often. They tend to go with truth, with the result that action is delayed over what sensationalistic cherry picking of information (about all the naysayers do) could have achieved, and this is done to preserve credibilty and the scientific method.

I challeng you to read the IPCC reports and see if you actually don't change your mind. I know it won't happen because they are much longer than my posts. But all you're doing is being willfully ignorant of the best our species has to offer on the subject, and will sit there smugly in your self-confidence. Please proove me wrong.

Matt

 

A thousand years ago the consensus was that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

250 years ago the finest medical experts agreed that bleeding a patient was often the best way to cure them of many diseases.

Eighty years ago eugenics was all the rage and was accepted by the majority of behavioral scientists and geneticists.

Thirty years ago the same people now predicting catastrophic man made global warming were predicting a new ice age.

Many of the same alarmists were predicting mass starvation and a crash of the human population during the 1980s. (Population Bomb, one of my favorite books, I still have my 1971 edition.)

The consensus “scientists” said that 2006 and 2007 were going to be very active hurricane seasons. They said it was going to get warmer every year when it’s actually been getting cooler for almost a decade. They said that the ice sheets were going to melt while the Antarctic has been getting colder and adding ice.

More and more climatologists and meteorologists are disputing the wild claims made by certain politicians every day and the vast majority of so called scientists who support the claims are not climatologists or meteorologists but are in completely unrelated fields.

Consensus is a political or social accommodation, not very useful in scientific inquiry where the pursuit of knowledge is supposed to be paramount.

 

and short so Rubbus can finish the post.

If the models suck and we don't know diddly about this stuff, what makes you so sure that harvesting carbon containing molecules on a planet wide scale and burning them pretty much as fast as we can isn't a bad thing to do?

Rubbus can stop reading here. I don't want to overly tax his mind....

And Lidisney, there is some truth to what you say, but it's also out of context. When the evidence that the earth revolved around the sun came out, sure some guys got the shaft, but verification of the hypothisis ruled the day. Many of the other examples listed also fall into this model.

In fact, the climate change advocates would be the people who are saying the earth isn't flat and we revolve around the sun, to map it onto one of your examples. They are the ones that are using the best newest data and best most advanced modelling techniques. Those that say it's not happening would be the flat earthers!

What most don't know is that while climate change models had huge error bars, those bars are narrowing. There are things that can be done to narrow those bars further, and like I said earlier, a prudent society would do it's best to narrow them so that the debate can move farther into what is known instead of what is guessed. We aren't really doing that and that's sad.

Matt

 

Ack.
Matt, science is NOT concensus. Science is testable and repeatable.

Given the very nature of the massively complex climate system, it is not testable nor repeatable.
I look forward to 2050.

Sooo... how 'bout that new CAFE standard...

 

Most bitchen' law this year! Wonder how the pissing contest between the EPA and CA will work out.....

Matt

 

1) The article is from 2004. How about something from this age of man, not the first second Bush era. Additionally, you didn't touch on my point about this being no different than safe food/safe work environment conditions.

2) The tech is there and has been for years. Cars have gotten less efficient in the past 20 years as we've made them bigger/heavier. Don't even try to give me the small cars are less safe line on here.

As for the pedestrian safe front ends, have you been to Europe/Asia and encountered the crowds on foot? It makes perfect sense in those markets. As we move towards more mass transit in this country I foresee similar standards being adopted here. Pedestrians have the right of way.

I apologize for my tone, tolerance for ignorance is not my strong point.

(By all means, I'm a man of science and cold/hard numbers so if you can prove me scientifically/economically wrong, I'm all for it)

 

Interesting. Where's the research to back this up?

 

to estimate accelerated ice cap melting is from the US navy! A surevey of the polar ice was just done and results released... And while some extimate very extreme acceleration, it's faster so far for sure.

I was thinking more on the consenus role in science, and it's there for sure. Take a bottle and ask it's volume, you just measure it. But how about how a black hole works? Or galaxy formation, or the self heating of Jupiter? Qazars? The list of stuff that is science that can't be measured directly is massive. These items are modelled and behaviours predicted. In the case of some of the extraterrestrial items, one looks for the very unobserved yet predicted phenomina as an indication that the models are improving... In general, things that are overly complex, overly large, overly small and/or overly distant fall into these camps. So while not all science is consensus, some surely is.

Matt

 

What a philisophical discussion this has become!

 

CAFE laws are political compramises to a broken market construct. So you have a perfect storm for hot opinions. Never fails....

Matt