[geeks] [rescue] Computerfests (was: first real server hardware) -OT

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Tue, 27 Apr 2004 @ 14:11 -0600, Dan Duncan said:

> On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> > > Size isn't that big a factor anyway except where it relates to weight.
> >
> > Also, I thought they could put a motor in each wheel. 4wd, and fairly
> > small.  It seems at least one hybrid show car was like that.
> 
> The prototypes I've seen put electric motors at the driven wheels.
> It could be 2 or 4.

That's what I thought.  

Now, I *have* seen them put a motor in a standard drive line, or at
least in front of a differential, but most of the time those were
home-brew vehicles.

> Tell me about it.  I wanted my latest car to be AWD (I've been
> commuting 70 miles each way across a continental divide for the
> last 2 winters) and while AWD has become a fairly common upgrade
> on a number of cars, the manual tranny doesn't follow it.

There are times when I appreciate an automatic, but even after years
of driving one, in emergencies I automatically get read to feather the
clutch and my right hand goes to the empty space where a shifter should
be.

> Ethanol is a scam.  It consumes more energy in fossil fuels
> than it produces.  Once you've plowed the fields, pumped the water,
> and distilled the alkyhol (all done with fossil fuels) you might
> as well have just saved the expense and used gasoline.  

Does it have to be done with fossil fuels?  Maybe we could find a way
to process the fuel another way.  In any case, it also happens to be
something we can make locally, instead of importing from the middle
east.  Whatever we do, I want it to end our worries about getting fuel
from the outside.

Also, burning ethanol is not increasing the net level of combustive
products in the environment because it is recent, cyclical biomass.

By contrast, burning oil based fuels increases the net levels of
combustion by-products because you are consuming ancient biomass.

If we take our fuels from fast natural cycles, we create less pollution.

Theoretically speaking... :)

> Free hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe.  The trouble
> is, it's pretty damned scarce here on earth.  It's usually locked up
> in some compound like water and the best way to free it is by
> electrolysis.  

It's also highly explosive, which is the part that worries me.

Gasoline is bad enough already.

> The problem with that is that you have to put in the same
> amount of energy to free it (plus overhead!) that you'll get back by
> burning it.  This is great if you have a ready source of renewable energy
> like solar or wind power that you'd like to store up for later, but most
> of us get our electricity from fossil fuels, so it ends up being just
> like the ethanol.

I thought the idea was we would start using wind and maybe water power
to generate hydrogen as a buffer to create a smooth flow of power.

> I want to smack the average moron who thinks electric cars are
> zero emission vehicles.  

I've been wondering though... will they cause power plant emissions to
increase pollution levels as much as the vehicles save?  Just curious if
anyone has seriously tried to do the math.

Another problem I see with pure electric vehicles is increased power
consumption.

We get a lot of our power, perhaps all of it most of the time, from
nuclear power in Virginia.  The surry nuke plant is at something like
80% capacity, and in summer it sometimes maxes out.

When the brownouts start, the backup plants around here all burn coal as
far as I know.  

If we create a steady increased demand for more power, from road
vehicles and perhaps trains as well, then I assume that means thos
backup power plants will have to be opened permanently.

> My electricity comes from coal, which
> produces all kinds of emissions including spewing more radioactive
> material into the atmosphere than any nuclear power plant.  

Of course, you don't have to bury the spent fuel...

None of our current solutions is very good.

> My
> net emissions may be lower than a gasoline car, but if I owned
> an electric car it would not be a zero emissions vehicle.

As I said, I'd like to know if net emissions are truly lower.

> As an interim step.  The beauty of using a SERIES hybrid design
> instead of the parallel design offered by Honda and Toyota
> (although Prius is a step towards series from parallel) is that
> the engine/generator is merely a source of electricity.  

...as it should be.  The parallel designs have never made any sense to
me.

> faster?  Bigger engine.  How about a multi-fuel turbine to burn whatever
> is on sale this week?  How about Mr. Fusion?  Hamsters?  Plutonium?

Of course, if we ever do get fusion power, we'll have a totally
new and different problem: 6-7 billion people will suddenly
be able to have appliances.

I read a sci-fi story about a period in human history after fusion
where they had to forcibly limit appliance use because 6 billion people
turning on a fan when it got hot, or a heater in winter made massive
changes in planetary heat entropy.

I don't know what the real effects would be, but certain it sounds like
it could create problems.

Also, can you imagine a blackout which effects continents, once most of
the population becomes dependent on electricity?

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["There is no such thing as security.  Life
is either bold adventure, or it is nothing -- Helen Keller"]