[ExI] How the world collapses

[spike]

>… On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] How the world collapses

 

On Sat, May 17, 2014 , spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

 

> > Ja, your car can produce 306 peak horsepower, but its average usage is less than a tenth of that typically,

 

>…So now I accelerate at a snail's pace…

 

Ja.  You give up some of your peak acceleration, resulting in a huge weight reduction of the vehicle.

 

>… and still have a 48 foot by 48 foot square of solar cells mounted on top of my car, and I still need that "WIDE LOAD" banner. And I still can't use my car at night or on cloudy days…

 

How bizarre, Johnny!  

 

Think it over: you carry a small IC running at peak efficiency and output always, you have energy storage onboard.  Think of it as a Nissan Leaf with about half the batteries and a 5 kw generator running full bore the whole time you are on the road.  Granted it isn’t fast off the line, and practical top speeds would be about 100 km/hr, but they would be cheap, reliable, low-cost transportation.  Those of us who like our V8s can keep our V8s.  Assuming we can afford them.

 

  

>…To me that sounds like a big step backward; I thought the idea was to gain more control over time and space not less…

It’s a nice goal of course.  Now explain how we are going to handle the load when a billion more Chinese people and a billion more Indian people want to drive.  And the billion more that will be born in the next decade want to eat.

On Sun, May 18, 2014  Tomaz Kristan <protokol2020 at gmail.com> wrote:

>>… Time is much more precious than oil.

 

>…That my friend is one excellent point! I wish I'd said that.   John K Clark

Of course it is, now.  Oil is still practically free: it is easy to recover.  How hard is it to extrapolate forward all the trends we already see?  How long do you expect oil to stay practically free?  How will we do when we are having to cook the stuff out of the oil sands of Canada?  Will we really need to keep tearing around to the latest hip-hop concert or football game?  What are we doing that is really all that important?

spike

 





 

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