bad day at black rock -- LAID OFF TODAY

[TLS Guy]

This thread needs some good news so I'll share some personal good news. My layoff was pushed back to at least March 1. It will likely be pushed back beyond that date as well. That is due to increased sales of the F-150 pickup truck. Don't believe the lying consumers that say they only want small fuel economy vehicles. Ford just added a new third shift at the F-150 plant to meed consumer demand for the truck. That's good news for me and should keep me working through the economic recovery, I hope.

Good to hear. You need some good luck.

I don't think people understand, (including people who should know better), how far we are from getting independent of fossil fuel. We need to do this because it is running out!

Last fall we bought a Toyota Camry Hybrid. Nice vehicle, and on nice day driving carefully you can get 40mpg + around town. However in the winter you need heat, and then you have trouble getting 25 mpg!

The other issue is that the batteries are warranted for 100,000 miles. They are $8000 a set. Now Toyota don't want them failing before then, so they have severely limited the current you can draw from the battery, to prolong battery life. So to use the battery effectively, you have to accelerate so slowly, you are in danger of exciting road rage.

And of course with this system, even running on the battery, the valves are just lifted, and the pistons are still going up and down.

If I had this to do over, I wouldn't. This is so far from getting us energy independent it isn't even funny.

Now for the electric car, this problem will be even worse. How will they heat and get decent battery life.

Jeremy Clarkson recently reviewed the the "great Tesla" in the UK, and found that he could not get more then 52 miles per charge, and they claim over 200. Unless there is a rapid charge center handy, the charge time is over night. To top it off the brakes failed, and it had to be towed home. So that does not sound ready for prime time.

The other thing is that those vehicles won't pull a boat, or haul trash. The fact is people don't want a glorified moped, that want vehicles that will do some work, and give the family a good day out.

The only decent way forward, I think, is hydrogen powered vehicles. We need to build a hydrogen grid, and have those wind and solar systems, use their electricity to produce hydrogen.

I wonder if we do need to modernize the grid. May be would should scrap it. If you think about you could power everything from hydrogen.

 

[Davemcc]

IIRC, you can produce hydrogen independently at each filling station using water and electrical services already in place, no new grid required, and it takes all the gas tanker trucks off our highways.

P.S. I don't think I've ever seen a Prius attain the speed limit on a freeway.

 

[TLS Guy]

IIRC, you can produce hydrogen independently at each filling station using water and electrical services already in place, no new grid required, and it takes all the gas tanker trucks off our highways.

P.S. I don't think I've ever seen a Prius attain the speed limit on a freeway.

In my view, it would be very dangerous and inefficient

 

[Davemcc]

In my view, it would be very dangerous and inefficient

The Prius or the Hydrogen station???

 

[TLS Guy]

The Prius or the Hydrogen station???

Mass quantity hydrogen production scattered over populated areas, making hydrogen from electricity would be very hazardous.

Actually in vehicles it will probably require nano particle hole storage, rather than compressed hydrogen cylinders, for reasons of safety

Expect a nuclear physicist at every dealership. Car prices will probably be $350,000 to $500,000 range for some time. As oil production really starts to be inadequate to meet demand, and that will be a soon as this world wide recession ends, for us to go for a hundred years or more, where very few will be able to afford personal transportation.

Fossil fuel to power vehicles has been very low hanging fruit. Replacing it with something else is going to be very complex and expensive. The next issue is whether there will be enough precious and rare earth metals on Earth to sustain the technology. Having to mine the planets is no longer far fetched.

No one has the first clue how to power fight without fossil fuels. May be with bio fuels, but I doubt the Earth could sustain it.

I think as this recession starts to come to an end, this issue will quickly send us back into a long and deep one.

 

[Davemcc]

Doc,
You might find this interesting.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/124/hotbed.html?page=0,0

 

[Adam]

Well, at least Mark is optimistic about the future.

 

[TLS Guy]

Doc,
You might find this interesting.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/124/hotbed.html?page=0,0

I think there is still a storage problem, which was glossed over here. You can't compress hydrogen to the liquid phase without a very expensive cryogenic system. You would have to do use cryogenics for natural gas also. Natural gas is largely Methane, and that can not be stored in useful quantities without keeping it very cold, with inert gas cryogenic systems.

MRI scanners give us our best experience of large scale use of inert gas cryogenic systems, as their huge magnets have to be cooled close to absolute zero, -273 degrees Celsius. They are a significant problem to look after and maintain.

If a gas can't be compressed to liquid phase at temperatures found on the Earth's surface, then that is a severe limitation.

If you are going to use hydrogen to power cars and keep them warm up here in the North country, it will require, cooling hydrogen to the point where it can be compressed to the liquid phase, or storing it in surfaces, using something like nano holes. If you can't compress a gas to liquid, you will only get about 200 miles range from a small car with no heat on.

Imagine also the problem of a vehicle, especially a semi, stranded on the road, with the cryogenic system down and full of liquid hydrogen or methane.

T. Boone Pickens wants to power semis, on natural gas, but this issue never gets mentioned.

 

[TLS Guy]

Well, at least Mark is optimistic about the future.

I am, but it won't be next year or ten. It will likely be a couple of generations before we have something practical to replace fossil fuel for transport.

My Hybrid vehicle has taught me we have made no worthwhile or significant headway on this problem. No progress at all for winter driving up here. In fact I think it is more inefficient than standard propulsion in very cold weather, because of what is required to keep the sophisticated electronics powered.

I just could not resist seeing if we made any useful headway. The answer in terms of significantly useful is no. The other issue, is that Toyota are making a loss on every Camry hybrid they build. Just looking around it, and keeping track of all the inverters and control system etc, that vehicle really needs to cost in the 70 K range.

 

[Adam]

Toyota is likely willing to take a loss in order to increase their customer base for future vehicles. Just because something costs a lot today doesn't mean that it will cost a lot in a year or two. Microprocessors used in low-end computers wouldn't have been extremely expensive ten years ago - they wouldn't have even existed. There are a lot of smart people out there. People need to get focused on finding a solution to a particular problem, sure, but I believe that we can.

I'm not saying that we're three days away from becoming independent of fossil fuels, but I think that we'll get there in time. If not, then I just won't drive 70 miles each day to and from work. My silver lining to a societal collapse.

 

[TLS Guy]

Toyota is likely willing to take a loss in order to increase their customer base for future vehicles. Just because something costs a lot today doesn't mean that it will cost a lot in a year or two. Microprocessors used in low-end computers wouldn't have been extremely expensive ten years ago - they wouldn't have even existed. There are a lot of smart people out there. People need to get focused on finding a solution to a particular problem, sure, but I believe that we can.

I'm not saying that we're three days away from becoming independent of fossil fuels, but I think that we'll get there in time. If not, then I just won't drive 70 miles each day to and from work. My silver lining to a societal collapse.

We will get there, but in a long time. The race for Lithium is already enjoined.

The scramble for Li and rare earth metals, will make the issue of dependence on foreign oil look like nothing. Astro physicists are already pondering where to go in our solar system to get the resources that we will need. I don't see it getting cheaper as it scales up, rather the reverse.

With a median US household income of $50,000 I think it could be centuries before personal transport is a reality again for most. Those kinds of incomes will not support the kinds of technology required to get the job done.

On top of that it seems from today's paper GM will far more likely than not go chapter 11, which will delay progress further.

 

[Rickster71]

The other issue is that the batteries are warranted for 100,000 miles. They are $8000 a set. Now Toyota don't want them failing before then, so they have severely limited the current you can draw from the battery, to prolong battery life. So to use the battery effectively, you have to accelerate so slowly, you are in danger of exciting road rage.

And of course with this system, even running on the battery, the valves are just lifted, and the pistons are still going up and down.

If I had this to do over, I wouldn't. This is so far from getting us energy independent it isn't even funny.

Great post Mark!
I've been trying to explain just what you've mentioned to many friends of mine.
The naive among us* seem to think it's so simple, like flipping a switch to energy independence. (EDIT-*Just for the record: I'm not referring to anyone in this thread.)
There is no panacea, no free lunch.

 

[Rickster71]

Microprocessors used in low-end computers wouldn't have been extremely expensive ten years ago - they wouldn't have even existed. There are a lot of smart people out there. People need to get focused on finding a solution to a particular problem, sure, but I believe that we can.

I'm not saying that we're three days away from becoming independent of fossil fuels, but I think that we'll get there in time. If not, then I just won't drive 70 miles each day to and from work. My silver lining to a societal collapse.

Adam I agree with much of what you say.

The fly in the ointment, is much of what needs to be done, defies the laws of physics.

The building of the microprocessor, went along with those laws.

 

[Adam]

With a median US household income of $50,000 I think it could be centuries before personal transport is a reality again for most.

Okay, I'll say it - WHAT?!? Centuries? Did you recently stop smoking along with Alex? Or maybe start with Sensi? Okay, yes - it "could" be centuries. It could also be seemless. According to some people, the Y2K bug was going to be the end of civilization as we know after it caused a complete collapse of the grid. It wasn't, because it didn't.

Humans were able to move long before fossil fuels were used for fuel. We won't have to go mine the far moons of Saturn in order to get around.

 

[TLS Guy]

Great post Mark!
I've been trying to explain just what you've mentioned to many friends of mine.
The naive among us* seem to think it's so simple, like flipping a switch to energy independence. (EDIT-*Just for the record: I'm not referring to anyone in this thread.)
There is no panacea, no free lunch.

You can see the problems, because you are tech savy.

We need a project 10 to 20 times the size of the Manhattan project to get even close to a solution on this one.

Million and millions of batteries full of Li is less sustainable than fossil fuel. Nano technology at present also requires tons of the stuff.

Then you have the issue of rare earth metals in these new high efficiency motors.

I'm wondering if we don't need a simpler technology. Something like standard electric motors with electric pick ups above the road. Then with enough battery power for intersections. That would be enormous infra structure expense, but so will going to the planets. The only fly in that ointment is, that copper is becoming a scarce resource as well. So even making lots of old type motors in very large quantities may prove problematic.

This is nothing like Y 2 K. These problems are huge, with no solutions at present that will scale to what is required.

I love the Toyota, it is very drivable, especially in town. However it does not further the energy issue very far. Also the intelligent decisions made by the designers continually scream at me how far we have to go.

 

[Davemcc]

I'm wondering if we don't need a simpler technology. Something like standard electric motors with electric pick ups above the road.

This is the one that I want...
http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/afx/afx9443.htm

 

[MUDSHARK]

A recession is when a neighbor loses his job. A depression is when an AH friend loses his.

I wish you good luck and hope that you can find an interesting position soon. WE have a fairly small company and every layoff is done reluctantly. Sadly, we have let a few really good employees go and they are missed. You just reminded me to work even harder to help win two large projects than will be let in the next month. They should see us through if we are successful.