Simple. Vehicles that can run on ethanol, the so called flex fuel vehicles, get a 50% bonus on gas mileage for the purposes of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) calculations. Make all the company's vehicles be flex fuel vehicles and presto, chango, each company's CAFE jumps from today's 27 mpg to 40.5 mpg. Problem solved.
Cost? Trivial. They have to specify that fuel system elastomers (mostly hoses and gaskets) will withstand ethanol. This isn't hard, this stuff already withstands gasoline, and most elastomers that are gasoline proof are also alcohol proof. The auto makers simply specify alchohol resistance on all their purchase orders, and the suppliers will do the rest. Alcohol resistant hoses and gaskets don't cost anymore than what the industry uses today. The fuel injectors have to inject about 1/3rd more alcohol than gasoline, but the injectors are all controlled by microprocessors. Add a bit more programming (code) and the micro will squirt in the right among of alcohol for proper engine operation. More code is cost free.
Marketing can have a field day trumpeting how green the flex fuel vehicles are.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Obama, the only Democrat in favor of nuclear power
Caught the democratic debate on MSNBC last night. The field has been whittled down to Obama, Clinton, and Edwards. Quite a bit of shrinkage since the first debates. The NBC newsies moderating the debate ( posing the questions) made a couple of attempts to stir up some racial tension but Obama and Clinton weren't buying any of that. With one exception the three survivors are all coming from the same place, issues wise. Obama was the one exception, he spoke favorably about nuclear power, whereas Clinton and Edwards both said no way. Obama did qualify his support a bit, calling for more testing, review panels, environmental impact statements, and such, but he did say yes.
On this issue Obama is the only grownup. Candidates who obsess about addiction to oil, energy independence, CO2, and global warming, which Clinton and Edwards did, while rejecting the only existing technology that will reduce same, are being childish.
On this issue Obama is the only grownup. Candidates who obsess about addiction to oil, energy independence, CO2, and global warming, which Clinton and Edwards did, while rejecting the only existing technology that will reduce same, are being childish.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
TV news brings race into the Democratic primary
During the NH primary Bill and Hillary made a couple of remarks that could be interpreted as slights to Martin Luther King or Barack Obama. You have to work at it to see the remarks as racial slights, but the TV guys have a lot of time to do just that. The TV news has been rerunning, commenting upon, and asking "have you stopped beating MLK" kinds of questions for a week now. Even Lehrer's News Hour rose to the bait last night. With enough air time they can convince the electorate of many things. I find it shameful for newsies to egg the candidates on to disgraceful behavior. So far the candidates have kept their cool (mostly) but how long will that last with the national press calling for a fight over who is more racially prejudiced?
Fox News agitating for better air traffic control system
Must be the Fox TV people are getting irritated by delays, canceled flights, lost luggage, cattle car seating and taking off of shoes. They had a guy on Fox News this morning ranting that all could be fixed by some miraculous but unnamed technological improvement that the FAA was supposed to do but had not.
Not true. The congestion, delays, and cancellations are caused by too many aircraft trying the operate out of too few airports. The only fix is to bring more airports into service. Right now the bulk of commercial traffic goes thru 35 hub airports which is too many airplanes. An airport can only safely operate about one flight per minute, and no amount of technology can do much about it. It is very dangerous to allow the following flight to touch down before the proceeding flight has cleared the runway. Likewise it is dangerous to allow the following flight to release brakes before the proceeding flight is airborne.
The solution is to bring more airports into service. In New England airports in Providence Rhode Island and Manchester New Hampshire take a good deal of traffic that used to go to Boston. Which is one reason Boston is not on the FAA's list of overloaded airports.
Not true. The congestion, delays, and cancellations are caused by too many aircraft trying the operate out of too few airports. The only fix is to bring more airports into service. Right now the bulk of commercial traffic goes thru 35 hub airports which is too many airplanes. An airport can only safely operate about one flight per minute, and no amount of technology can do much about it. It is very dangerous to allow the following flight to touch down before the proceeding flight has cleared the runway. Likewise it is dangerous to allow the following flight to release brakes before the proceeding flight is airborne.
The solution is to bring more airports into service. In New England airports in Providence Rhode Island and Manchester New Hampshire take a good deal of traffic that used to go to Boston. Which is one reason Boston is not on the FAA's list of overloaded airports.
Fusion Power in our time?
Dr. Robert Bussard gave a talk to Google people here. He told of an 11 year R&D program to achieve fusion thru a "compress to a point" process. Six electromagnetic coils are arranged in a cube. Their magnetic fields squeeze electrons into a trap in the center of the magnetic coils. A good big clot of trapped electrons creates a strong electric field that sucks in positive ions (hydrogen, deuterium, tritium, lithium or boron). Once in, the positive ions are trapped by the negative charge, and zip around at high speed until they go head on with one another and fuse.
Bussard's EMC2 corporation built a series of small (under a foot) models, ran them and took data. His last and best machine dubbed WB6, operated in a pulsed mode to keep the heat down, achieved a record setting level of fusion as measured by neutron detectors.
Bussard is convinced that break even fusion can be obtained by scaling the WB6 machine up to 5 or 6 feet (from the 1 foot prototype). He says a $200 million dollar budget over 5 years would lead to a 100 Megawatt fusion reactor.
Bussard is a serious scientist, well known and respected in the science and engineering community. $200 million isn't much money. You can only buy two jet liners for that price. It's peanuts compared to the spending in the ITER tokamak project. Maybe some fairy god senator could slip a $200 million earmark for Bussard into the federal budget.
Bussard's EMC2 corporation built a series of small (under a foot) models, ran them and took data. His last and best machine dubbed WB6, operated in a pulsed mode to keep the heat down, achieved a record setting level of fusion as measured by neutron detectors.
Bussard is convinced that break even fusion can be obtained by scaling the WB6 machine up to 5 or 6 feet (from the 1 foot prototype). He says a $200 million dollar budget over 5 years would lead to a 100 Megawatt fusion reactor.
Bussard is a serious scientist, well known and respected in the science and engineering community. $200 million isn't much money. You can only buy two jet liners for that price. It's peanuts compared to the spending in the ITER tokamak project. Maybe some fairy god senator could slip a $200 million earmark for Bussard into the federal budget.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
The McLaugflin Group
This is the PBS news commentary show where everyone shouts at everyone else. They were hashing over the Hillary surprise from New Hampshire. McLaughlin was pushing the idea that voters were looking for experience. The other talking heads weren't buying. Neither was I.
I, and a lot of voters, are looking for someone with good judgment. Someone who will make the right call in an emergency. Someone who we can like, because it is impossible to trust someone we dislike. We figure any competent adult, who has achieved high office, has all the experience necessary. Plus as president he/she has every expert in the world offering advice. Hillary isn't going to achieve the nomination 'cause we think she has experience, she has to make us voters like her. The competition, Obama, is very likable, Hillary has to match that.
I, and a lot of voters, are looking for someone with good judgment. Someone who will make the right call in an emergency. Someone who we can like, because it is impossible to trust someone we dislike. We figure any competent adult, who has achieved high office, has all the experience necessary. Plus as president he/she has every expert in the world offering advice. Hillary isn't going to achieve the nomination 'cause we think she has experience, she has to make us voters like her. The competition, Obama, is very likable, Hillary has to match that.
16% of GNP spent on health care (W
One dollar in six goes for pills and plasters and doctor's bills. Our international competitors Japan, Germany, France, the rest of the EU, spend half that. And, after paying twice as much as anyone else, we don't get anything for it. Objective measures of health, life expectancy and infant mortality are no better in the US than in Europe.
So, the price of every American product is jacked up 16% to feed the medics. Our competitor's prices only bear an 8% load. Can a US firm compete with an 8% cost disadvantage? Can our salesmen close the sale when our products are more expensive? Probably not. Why does the US run such a humungous trade deficit every year? Over priced products are one good reason.
Back in 1980 health care costs were only 8% of GNP. In the 28 years since, US health care costs have doubled. Is the quality of 2008 health care any better than 1980 health care. Life expectancy and infant mortality say no; they have not improved. We are just spending an awful sum of money and getting nothing back for it.
The economic drain of health care costs is too great to bear now. The democrats want to offer free health care to everyone in the country. That will push the percentage of GNP even higher, and really wreck the American economy. If something is free, more people will use it.
Let's cut the outrageous costs of health care. If the price were reasonable, ordinary people could afford to pay their doctors.
So, the price of every American product is jacked up 16% to feed the medics. Our competitor's prices only bear an 8% load. Can a US firm compete with an 8% cost disadvantage? Can our salesmen close the sale when our products are more expensive? Probably not. Why does the US run such a humungous trade deficit every year? Over priced products are one good reason.
Back in 1980 health care costs were only 8% of GNP. In the 28 years since, US health care costs have doubled. Is the quality of 2008 health care any better than 1980 health care. Life expectancy and infant mortality say no; they have not improved. We are just spending an awful sum of money and getting nothing back for it.
The economic drain of health care costs is too great to bear now. The democrats want to offer free health care to everyone in the country. That will push the percentage of GNP even higher, and really wreck the American economy. If something is free, more people will use it.
Let's cut the outrageous costs of health care. If the price were reasonable, ordinary people could afford to pay their doctors.
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