[Land-speed] Alternative Fuels>From>Jim McNaul

[Ed Weldon]

Nuclear power is the only logical answer to general power needs in this
century given what we know now.  Opposition based on safety considerations
is largely emotional and has little basis in logic   If clean coal methods
including putting the carbon back underground are discovered to be
economically competitive with nuclear power then that's a possibility; but
the science isn't here yet.
For transportation hydrocarbon fuels are the only sure thing.  A lot of work
still needs to be done to get them to be economical and carbon neutral.
With respect to hydrogen fuel cells I have more hope for the fuel cell part
than the compressed hydrogen part.  Still a whole lot of work to do there.
I have two answers for the short run transportation needs of our economy.

First is encourage reduction of inefficiencies such as wasteful disapation
of energy to hydrodynamic drag and waste heat loss from archaic energy
conversion technology of common automotive brake systems.  Both sources can
be reduced by taxing operation of vehicles at economically unnecessary high
speeds on public roads.  Taxation is very possible with existing automotive
computer, GPS and transponder technology.  Miles traveled at some excess
speed up to an established safety limit would result in direct deductions
from a prepaid account.  (like Fastrak on the San Francisco Bay bridges)
(and the system would shut off at the Nevada state line).  Note that
aerodynamic losses increase by the third power of speed. When the account
goes dry a computerized engine governor takes over and limits speed.  The
second is to tax vehicles according to their design use and weight. The
light trucks, SUV's and passenger cars we drive tend to be much heavier than
they need to be to fulfill their purpose.  With modern materials and design
technology I can think of no reason why a vehicle's dry weight shouldn't be
less than its load carrying capacity.

Second is to change employment laws to require that hours worked begin at
the time the employee leaves his/her place of residence and end when they
return based on the average travel times for the trip.  Think about this for
a moment.  Employers certainly wouldn't want their people sitting in traffic
doing nothing while they were being paid.  Imagine all the possible ways an
employer could come up with to reduce that inefficiency.  Would you hire
someone who had to spend 3 hours a day going to or from work?  If you did
you might be highly motivated to provide the employee with a seat on a bus
or train that was a moving internet wireless hot spot.

Lance-- Run the numbers.  In a society inflicted with a seemingly incurable
case of innumerology we need to do more real number crunching on energy
problems.  People's "gut feel" and emotions are not gonna get this job done.
The only thing we have to fear is the loss of our testosterone!!
Ed Weldon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "joseph lance" <jolylance at earthlink.net>
To: "land-speed-digest" <land-speed at autox.team.net>; <jgmagoo at comcast.net>
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2007 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Land-speed] Alternative Fuels>From>Jim McNaul
> Jim;
> I agree except for a couple of fine points:................
> If you guys keep this up, you'll provoke me into doing some capital and
> operating cost estimates for Hydrogen fuel production and compare it with
> gasoline as oil prices go up (providing it doesn't interfere with lurking,
> bench racing, or sex---LOL).
> Lance