100 MPG cars...

[Tecumseh]

Public Transportation?  Ha!!  I live 40 miles from the nearest public transportation.  There is no public transportation anywhere near me.  Y'all do realize that the only people you are bitching at are people who live and commute in big cities right? 

I like to think about the guys who live near Freeport or Texas City or Pasadena and work in chemical plants.  I see them commuting 40 miles or more across back roads and such to get to work at various chemical plants.  Somehow those chemical plant areas that hire all sorts of people are rarely factored in to public transportation plans.  The trains in Houston run from the Football Stadium to Downtown.  Why?  So some idiot mayor could make a half hearted attempt at the Olympics.  They had half a dozen car wrecks with that train system before they even allowed passengers. 


Also, Houston has HOV lanes.  They are well used and often moving just a slow as the regular traffic.  They also are set up to take people to down town.  Not everyone works there.  Houston is pretty spread out.

So those people who drive 80+ miles to and from work, do you think they would possibly buy a smaller more gas friendly car?

[Manedwolf]

Public Transportation?  Ha!!  I live 40 miles from the nearest public transportation.  There is no public transportation anywhere near me.  Y'all do realize that the only people you are bitching at are people who live and commute in big cities right? 

I like to think about the guys who live near Freeport or Texas City or Pasadena and work in chemical plants.  I see them commuting 40 miles or more across back roads and such to get to work at various chemical plants.  Somehow those chemical plant areas that hire all sorts of people are rarely factored in to public transportation plans.  The trains in Houston run from the Football Stadium to Downtown.  Why?  So some idiot mayor could make a half hearted attempt at the Olympics.  They had half a dozen car wrecks with that train system before they even allowed passengers. 


Also, Houston has HOV lanes.  They are well used and often moving just a slow as the regular traffic.  They also are set up to take people to down town.  Not everyone works there.  Houston is pretty spread out.

So those people who drive 80+ miles to and from work, do you think they would possibly buy a smaller more gas friendly car?

If they can afford the larger, safer, more comfortable car, why the hell would they want a tiny, vibrating bubble that would be a speedbump for the larger vehicles?

That makes no sense at all.

[280plus]

You're right! I AM bitching about the big cities. Call it a "if the shoe fits" scenario. It makes no sense for thousands of people to sit in traffic one to a car, idling, just burning up fuel by the barrel full 5 days a week in every medium to big city there is in the USA. And if that trend could be broken it would serve to alleviate a lot of the energy problems everybody is fretting over. Yet those same people will pay lip service to the current buzz word "green" and bug me about solar this and geothermal that... 

They come in thinking "green", I tell them how much green "green" actually requires and they stop thinking "green" and start turning green instead. 

Did you ever get that thing where you look at a word long enough and it starts to look wierd and not like a real word at all? Heh, green... 

[Manedwolf]

It makes no sense for thousands of people to sit in traffic one to a car, idling, just burning up fuel by the barrel full 5 days a week in every medium to big city there is in the USA.

The Democrat party agrees with you, and wants to pass laws to make it so that only the wealthy can afford to drive their own cars into cities with "congestion charges". London-style cameras tracking you everywhere, seeing your license plate and sending you a bill for driving in a public area owned by taxpayers. We'd be back to the 19th century in terms of vehicular equality.

Do you really want to be on their side?

[280plus]

No, I want it to be like the populace itself (rich and poor alike) realized the problem and addressed it all on it's own without the nanny having to step in. 

But then the nanny would have nothing to do...  What am I thinking!?!

 

[280plus]

I know, I preach Utopia. 

[Gewehr98]

I hear ya, 280. 

People will drive one to a car and eschew public transportation and/or fuel-efficient vehicles until they can no longer afford to do so, then cry foul when they've got to re-think their lifestyles.  One minute, they'll be parroting Manedwolf with the "I got mine, screw y'all" bit, then the next they'll scream bloody murder that they got no warning and it's somebody's fault, trying to keep the man down, etc.  Historians of the future will footnote it in their review of the 20th and 21st centuries, under the "Petroleum-based economy" period of human development. 

They're all for "going green", or even pushing the concept, as long as it doesn't inconvenience them in the process.  Neat, huh?   

[Manedwolf]

And what's wrong with the 30mpg of my full-sized vehicle? It's not a 10mpg rolling toolshed.

To me, 30mpg is reasonable. 15mpg more to ride in a toy car is unreasonable.

[Perd Hapley]

No, I want it to be like the populace itself (rich and poor alike) realized the problem and addressed it all on it's own without the nanny having to step in. 

But then the nanny would have nothing to do...  What am I thinking!?!

    

The Nanny MUST be kept busy.      The funny thing about what you're saying is that, when gas gets THAT expensive, people WILL start doing just that.  But so far, they really aren't.  A guy I know, a tradesman living in a small house in a bad neighborhood, with a wife and three kids; he just traded in his Tahoe on a newer one.  I guess no one told him that the gas prices were sky-high, and the economy is WORSE THAN THE GREAT DEPRESSION, THE SKY IS FALLING, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!. 

The point being, if gas is as expensive as we seem to think it is, why haven't our lifestyles changed all that much?  When it gets THAT expensive, we'll do what it takes.  But not until then. 

[Gewehr98]

The point being, if gas is as expensive as we seem to think it is, why haven't our lifestyles changed all that much?  When it gets THAT expensive, we'll do what it takes.  But not until then.

Fistful, that was my point, to a tee.

Nobody's gonna budge from their comfort zone until forced to, and you'll be able to hear the cacophany from a long ways off when it happens.

In the meantime, the rest of us are just Chicken Littles, I guess. 

(Anal-retentive Chicken Littles, at that.  I presently have Smart Power Strips shutting off ancillary computer devices and their parasitic current draw, Kill-A-Watt meters monitoring stuff, an expanding solar panel array, a Winco 36VDC Windcharger project, drive a 2.2L E-85 truck, and am looking at a diesel Volvo for my wife to drive using the local pizzeria's waste cooking oil...)

[Manedwolf]

Or not.

Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: February 8, 2008

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these green fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?hp

The greenies with ethanol or biodiesel vehicles might feel silly when we go to coal-derived gasoline instead. 

Which is what I'd hope would happen. We have plenty of coal. Making food into fuel makes no sense at all.

I also expect that when the demand for power gets high enough, legislators will finally tell the enviromental whackjobs to STFU, and start building more nuclear plants.

[Gewehr98]

Y'know, I'd be way cool with coal-derived motor fuels.  Hell, I'd cream my jeans to see these magnificent articulated 2-8-8-2 behemoths on the rails again:



It'll be damned interesting, though, because coal ain't the most-environmentally friendly fossil fuel out there. If you thought the Sierra Club was on a warpath now, just wait. The smokestack scrubber on the locomotive above would probably be nearly as big as the boiler assembly.  Of course, the extra bits needed to make a current steamer safe would also drastically change the appearance and performance of said locomotive (already near a million pounds with locomotive and tender, 5,600 drawbar horsepower), because one cannot have 300 psi of superheated steam traversing every railroad crossing ready to go "Boom" when somebody decides to straddle the warning gates in their soccer mommy van...

(Can you tell I volunteer weekends at a local railroad museum, rebuilding vintage steamers?) 

[Manedwolf]

I'm seeing more home anthracite autostoker stoves on the market, and more talking about reviving and updating the process the Germans used to make coal into fuel for vehicles.

So who knows?

It'd certainly help the economy in places like West Virginia and Pennsylvania if they went full-out back into coal mining!

[Gewehr98]

This kills me every time:

Making food into fuel makes no sense at all.

News flash -nobody's starving.  My family is planting corn on acreage that the FedGov paid them to lie fallow under the PIK program for many, many years, and selling the additional bushels to the distilleries.  Normal corn production (how much field corn are you eating, anyway? Mexican tortillas use white corn...) is no less than it was prior to ethanol's debut. Our black angus beef herd is also fat, dumb, and happy.   

And all that vitriol completely negates the fact that distilleries around my neck of the woods are built with the capability to switch over to cellulosic ethanol production, anyway.  Folks may giggle and snort, but corn was the easiest short-term attempt to create a biofuel using technology that our alcoholic forefathers pioneered.  It worked in the gas tank of Jimmy Johnson as he was running shine prior to his NASCAR days, and it works fine in my E-85 truck.  I haven't run a drop of regular gasoline in over two years now, and when I run it in my high-compression 383 stroker '53 Chevy pickup project, I'll also drive it to and from the family farms - Jimmy Crap Corn, and I Don't Care... 

Now, you want a good biofuel source, I'd start looking at liquifying and cracking Soylent Green, say, from the Berkeley area.  Just get the hemp out of the mix, first. 

[Bogie]

So...
 
Why not make nice small cage-like vehicles that can run on envirogoo, and run in an HOV lane, or whatever? Make a one-person-cage (two if they're cohabitational...), and make it cheap?

[Manedwolf]

So...
 
Why not make nice small cage-like vehicles that can run on envirogoo, and run in an HOV lane, or whatever? Make a one-person-cage (two if they're cohabitational...), and make it cheap?

A cage will not protect you from physics, only crushing. If you're thinking of what race car drivers use, they survive because they're strapped in a dozen ways and are wearing a neckbrace.

Unless you want to wear a six-point harness, neckbrace, helmet and all the rest, basic physics still says that when your ultra-light bubble gets hit at highway speeds, your neck is going to snap or you're going to die of massive hemmoraging from your body slamming into the interior of the vehicle at the full speed it was going when the collision stopped it.

Lack of mass will ensure that when it hits something bigger and more massive, it will stop faster, and will lack a big crumple zone hood, engine and trunk to soak up kinetic energy.

Your body won't survive that.

[Perd Hapley]

I notice that Bogie really loves the tiny cars.  More power to him.  But he must be an awfully small guy. 

I'm not a big guy.  I am about 5'10", and 220 pounds.  I drive a Tacoma, and my wife has a 93 Century.  I have difficulty entering or exiting both cars.  Actually, I've gotten pretty good with the Tacoma.  Just every once in a while it's hard to fit the legs under the wheel.  But the Century requires me to crouch down pretty low, just to get down into the seat, and under the wheel.  I must have been spoiled, from driving a full-size pick-up for a few years.  I never had any problems taking a seat in my old Celebrity, that I owned prior to that. 

I'll get a bigger car or go back to a full-size pick-up as soon as I can. 

[280plus]

Hydrogen people,,,hydrogen... 

G, what railroad museum? AFAIK that steamer is in Scranton, they've got a HELLUVA frigging rebuild shop there. I was half , ok, more than half, tempted to move back there just so I could work in the shop. Out of 100 volunteers ony like 12 work in the shop. The rest want to drive. 

They can't repair it because it is too heavy for the turntable. 

A boiler on wheels that pushes itself around. Who woulds thunk? 

[mfree]

Lack of mass will ensure that when it hits something bigger and more massive, it will stop faster, and will lack a big crumple zone hood, engine and trunk to soak up kinetic energy.

Your body won't survive that.

This is why my imaginary tiny little 3 wheeled vehicle has very large chrome-moly steel bars and is kind of pyramid shaped.

Can't crumple? Then submarine Soccer moms in their SUVs will most certainly be on the lookout for you on the road once it's common knowledge that hitting you means they're going to get launched 5' into the air...

[Gewehr98]

G, what railroad museum?

Mid-Continent Railway Museum, North Freedom, WI.

http://www.midcontinent.org

We have three steamers undergoing rebuild right now.

It's damned expensive to re-tube a boiler, let me tell you!

[Tecumseh]

Or not.

Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: February 8, 2008

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these green fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?hp

The greenies with ethanol or biodiesel vehicles might feel silly when we go to coal-derived gasoline instead. 

Which is what I'd hope would happen. We have plenty of coal. Making food into fuel makes no sense at all.

I also expect that when the demand for power gets high enough, legislators will finally tell the enviromental whackjobs to STFU, and start building more nuclear plants.

  Why not go back to the electric car?  We have the technology, it would make a lot more sense to use that.  Wouldn't it?  Better for National Security and all.   Don't you guys support the troops? 

[Gewehr98]

Except that the electricity to charge said cars has to come from somwhere else, and there's usually a smokestack attached to that big electrical generator.

You're simply moving the exhaust from a tailpipe to a bigger smokestack.

Why do you hate America?

[Manedwolf]

Except that the electricity to charge said cars has to come from somwhere else, and there's usually a smokestack attached to that big electrical generator.

You're simply moving the exhaust from a tailpipe to a bigger smokestack.

Why do you hate America?

There's also the fact that firefighters are reasonably quite hesitant to extract someone from an electric car until they can be sure it's completely grounded. They don't want to catch a lightning bolt.

Plus if the lithium-ions go up while you're in it, if nobody has copper powder, you're screwed.

[Paddy]

And what's wrong with the 30mpg of my full-sized vehicle?

Which came to you as a result of CAFE standards. The only way to increase overall fuel economy is to mandate it.

[Manedwolf]

And what's wrong with the 30mpg of my full-sized vehicle?

Which came to you as a result of CAFE standards. The only way to increase overall fuel economy is to mandate it.

Actually, no, it came to me as a result of Honda engineers. The F23 engine in mine is a natural evolution of Honda designs dating back to the 1980's. It isn't the less-efficient, rather painfully hobbled F23A1 ULEV mandated by California, which has lower horsepower and a weak torque curve in comparison. THAT one is the result of laws, and thankfully, I'm not saddled with it.

Also, I did some stuff to it that made it more fuel-efficient but less emissions-compliant. CA would throw a fit and declare it illegal, my state doesn't care.