Chip with simple program for Toy

[Rob Dekker]

"The Trucker" <mikcob@verizon.net> wrote in message newsan.2008.08.13.15.38.29.259486@verizon.net...

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:36:15 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:01:41 -0700, "Rob Dekker" <rob@verific.com
wrote:


"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:rja4a4h09trf53mdoh6jbjdac0pjam04pj@4ax.com...
On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 17:17:24 -0700, "Rob Dekker" <rob@verific.com
wrote:


"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:5r04a4d87bh0u33c9ka5ns617r62fg03tn@4ax.com...
On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:28:03 -0700, "Rob Dekker" <rob@verific.com
wrote:


There are just an amazing amount of new battery possibilities when vehicles
finally move away from the inefficient, polluting, and heavy ICEs, and
towards an era of clean electric drive.

Except that everything else, so far, is less efficient, more
polluting, and heavier. Not to mention way more expensive.

This is not true.

Electric drive is 4X more efficient (not even counting regenerative braking), zero-pollution at the tailpipe (it has none), and
is
much lighter than an ICE.

Only if the electricity magically comes from somewhere free, and you
lug enough batteries for 20 miles of travel.

But the electricity sas to be generated somewhere, at thermal
efficiency levels. Transport, chargers, and batteries throw a bunch of
it away. Batteries are heavy and full of nasty chemicals.




More expensive ? Prototypes are always more expensive.
But let's see :

ICE : Complicated engine with lots of rotating and moving parts, with oil + water cooling system, with emission control (incl
catalytic converter with precious metals), with transmission and a differential and exhaust system and a massive amount of
pipes
and sensors.

And it all works great. I can load up 200 HP-hours worth of energy in
about 2 minutes at a gas pump. That's about a 5 megawatt equivalent
charging rate. And I can drive coast-to-coast on about an hour of pit
stops.

You seem to confuse electric drive with EVs.
Electric drive with a small auxiliry power unit will give you all the benefits of the current gasoline (or another fuel)
infrastructure.
Like in the Volt (the only model with electric drive that GM actually has a plan for)....

Stuff like this has been "planned" for decades. I'll be impressed whan
quantities of them are on the road.

A plug-in hybrid does make sense for city drivers. But small, light
cars make sense no matter what propels them. A small, light
gasoline-powered car may make the most sense.

The external costs of the fuel do not appear in the price. And if these
costs were part of the price then biofuels would be the best current
alternative. This is true here in the USA because we actually have the
land necessary to produce that fuel and it is land that is not currently
serving any good purpose or land that is serving a purpose that is not as
environmentally and economically valid as it would be if devoted to fuel
production. An example of this latter case is the production of paper
that ends up in the land fills as trash. We could do with a bit less
paper and use the pulp trees to make fuel. That is probably a good trade.

Sometimes I get into my Rabbit in the morning, start it up, drive away
5 seconds later, turn on the radio and the heater, ignore the steep
hills and the cold rain, and marvel at the whole process. And that
hundreds of millions of other working people can afford to do the same
thing.

Yes. me too.
The ICE has served us greatly over the past 100 years that oil was abundant and cheap, and the engineering advances made are
magnificent.
The ICE also enabled an astounding economic growth that we (as the people of this planet) have created for ourselves.
It also created a number of really big problems, which start to become apparent, increasingly difficult and pressing as well as
more
and more expensive.
More expensive for individuals, as well as nations, as well as the planet's eco systems.
It's time for change (before another 2 billion people join in our lifestyle).



Electric drive : a few melon-size electric motor/generators and a power control unit.
Add a small (40hp) auxiliry power unit and you drive a 80mpg vehicle.

Mmmm. What would be cheaper in mass production ?

What *is* cheaper?

Want to bet ?
In mass production, I want to bet that electric drive is significantly cheaper to produce than ICEs.

If electric cars are cheaper and more efficient,
why aren't they popular? Conspiracy?

John, I don't believe in conspiracies. In a free market the most cost efficient solution wins. But big changes take time.
The incentives are there now (to start moving to electric drive, away from oil and towards electricity), but only for the last
couple of years.
Also the political will to change (to start moving away from oil and fossil fuels) has not been there.
We are just getting started (with PHEVs).
This process is going to take a while (to move vehicles away from oil and towards electricity).
15-20 years is my estimate.

And biofuels are a big part of that which fills the gap.

I hope so. But there is a lot of work to do.

The promising biofuel segment of fuel production from biomass is very, very small right now.
Here is an example plant (in Germany) :
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3938#more
Unfortunately, this process in still not cost effective (even though the biomass is free, the plant still looses money).
With that free enterprise will not jump on it....

And remember that it would require a monumental increase (think hundreds of such $100M+ plants) to even compensate for 1 million
barrels/day of oil.

So I don't see how biofuel can compensate for the adsurtly immense requirements of the US ICE engines.

Batteries cost ?
If you are an average American, you spend around $3,000/year in gasoline right now.
I bet that for $3,000/year you can lease a top-of-the-line battery pack. Even at current low-volume prices.

What is cheaper ?
What is cleaner ?
What is more efficient ?
What is better prepared for the post Peak-Oil era that we just entered ?

The peak oil point is always 10 years away.

That is impossible.
Oil will peak at some point if it did not already.


Hey, build yourself an electric car and save a bundle. There are lots
of conversion kits on the market.

I might just do that, although retrofits are very seldom cost-effective.
I pretty much have to throw away half the vehicle (ICE/drivetrain etc etc you know it).
And the other half (chassis) got crumbled on I 238 last week (


There just aren't any good batteries.

After all we talked about, this is what you say ?
It seems to me that you have made up your mind on this subject.

Where's the great battery? I suspect a really good auto battery may be
impossible.

Biodiesel is one super duper battery. The shelf life is really good and
the weight is not all that bad for the energy content. The photosynthesis
is a the way you charge the battery. We need better algae that can get
20% efficiency as opposed to 8%.

The problem (with algae oil or another liquid biofuel) is also that it needs to be burned in an ICE before it powers the wheels.
That goes with an efficiency of 20% (or maybe 30% for diesels).

But 30% of 8% is an overall photons->wheel power efficiency of less than 3%.

It's going to be very difficult to make that process cost-effective.

There was some promising research on
this and some folks observing less than 8 photons to cause proper
reactions and then .... nothing. There were some dudes shifting light
wavelengths from blue to yellow red and that seems to have gone also.
Nothing is happening that I can find.

We talked about this. Algae plants will not be much more efficient than open ponds, around 2,000-3,000 gallons/acre/year. Maybe up
to the Dimitrov limit of 5,000 gallons/acre/year.
That means that a cost-efficient algae plant thus needs to be very cheap (open/closed ponds of plastic foil tubing).
Did you see any large-scale algae experimental plant already that matches that criterium ?

We are gonna need a LOT of these plants (the ones that are currently not there, and not cost-efficient in their pilot versions) to
make any dent in the 20+ million barrels/day that the US uses. Maybe we should do something on the 'consumption' side (with EVs and
PHEVs) ?

How do I search (like google) the patent data to find stuff like this?

Try http://www.freepatentsonline.com
Or simply google for a search string of interest and include the 'patent' keyword.

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org/extend

 

[Rob Dekker]

"NoEinstein" <noeinstein@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:e902cc90-227f-4246-82e7-507b922b450d@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 13, 11:38 am, The Trucker <mik...@verizon.net> wrote:
.......

Dear The Trucker: The 'up-side' of paper is that it comes from trees
that also "eat" CO2. My bio-mass of choice is hemp. Such removes
several times more CO2 per acre than does a forest.

Hemp, algae, any biomass, bring it on !

The problem is that none of the biomass->liquid fuel processes seems to be currently cost-effective.

That puts free enterprise into a wait-and-see mode, obviously....

.......

The best immediate correction of our auto emissions problems is to use
optimized engine RPMs and loads to generate electricity for driving
the vehicle. Having engines run at varying speeds is hugely
inefficient.

I agree.
Problem with all liquid fuels is that you need an ICE before you get to to power the wheels.
And that goes with an efficiency of about 25-30% (for current diesels in actual vehicles).
Higher efficiency (up to 50%) is possible with a diesel series hybrid (similar to diesel-electric locomotives) because the diesel
engine can be rather.
There is a (small) ICE that runs at optimal RPMs and drives a generator, which then drives the electric motors that drive the
wheels.

If you add a small battery/supercap to such series hybrid, then you will be even more efficiency, since now you can use regenerative
braking power and have more power during accelleration. That means you can go for a smaller ICE, which can then be more efficient
still (fewer friction losses). It also avoids 'idling' (as the diesel-electric locomotives still do).

If you add a bigger battery, then you can make this a plug-in series hybrid, and take advantage of low-cost electric prices.
So this seems to be the best way to go for now.

Unfortunately, none of the automakers even goes the first step (make a series hybrid).

There are fixes for the symptoms of global warming which can buy
time to develop fuel alternatives. Battery technology that uses toxic
metals isn't environmentally friendly.

Most batteries considered for PHEVs don't use toxic metals. The ZEBRA for example just contains nickel and salt, and a bit of
aluminum.

Rob

 

[Rob Dekker]

"jmfbahciv" <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote in message news:9rmdnRcGd_FklDnVnZ2dnUVZ_t3inZ2d@rcn.net...
........

Modifying a gasoline engine to run on gas is trivial and dual fuel
cars are common in parts of the world.

Synthetic fuel becomes real when either the stuff in the ground runs out
or the cost to produce becomes on a par with the stuff in the ground,
whichever happens first.

I'm discovering that, when it's very humid here, I get quite ill and
my liver becomes swollen. It doesn't happen if I shut the windows
on the south side where the traffic is. I'm wondering if ethynol(sp?)
is getting into the air I breathe.

Ethanol. Does it smell like alcohol ? When you get 'ill' do you have symptoms of drunkenness ?

If not, then you probably inhale particulates (small particles in mostly #2 (fossil) diesel exhaust). They have been shown to cause
serious health effects in humans.
One more reason to switch away from fossil fuels.

Horses are smarter than oxen,

They are? Cows are a lot smarter than horses.

you can train them and they are more
versatile.


You can train any animal, even cats .

/BAH

 

[Rob Dekker]

"Paul E. Schoen" <pstech@smart.net> wrote in message news:48a0789e$0$24564$ecde5a14@news.coretel.net...

"John Fields" <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote in message news:mpi0a45l430mc992mhu42rm7copkc0bu6i@4ax.com...

[snip sniping]

I write what I like, when I like, regardless of your displeasure.

And "We"???

I think you attribute to yourself support which isn't there.

I agree. I found some of the early discussion interesting, and proposed some possibly more practical alternatives, which were
reluctantly and incompletely accepted or rationally debated. This has deteriorated into a lot of childish banter, and I have
removed myself from further "discussion" until something more substantial and worthwhile is posted. My silence does not indicate
support for the original idea. I see promise for some of the alternatives, but it seems counterproductive to exchange insults.
Where is Phil when we need him?

Paul

I share that opinion with you.

It seems to be harder and harder to get free brainstorming and even technical discussions done on sci.energy.
It is more and more interrupted by negativism, naysaying, and lots of synical and insulting language.
And then I'm not even talking about the visits of the usual trolls.

Paul, I read all your postings and find then delightfully creative and optimistic.
So please keep on posting, and just ignore the people that yell and insult.

Remember that people that listen often don't talk much.

Rob


>

 

[Jon Slaughter]

"John Fields" <jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote in message
news:5af9a4diagnlhp5gstdfv7qorb9eqthqp2@4ax.com...

Hey, Bret, since you know a lot about thermodynamics, I've got a
problem here maybe you can help me out with.

I'm stuck with a MOSFET with an Rds(on) of 0.05 ohms and I need to run
20 amps through it all the time.

Well, not all the time, but enough of the time that it might as well
be all the time in that it'll reach thermal equilibrium when it's
working.

It's in a TO-220 package, has a thermal resistance of 1.0C/W from
junction to case, can stand a maximum junction temperature of 175C and
it'll run in an ambient temp of 20C.

Perusing the data available at:

http://www.aavidthermalloy.com/

Which heat sink would you recommend?

Oh, I also have cost constraints, so if you could recommend the least
expensive solution that would be great.

Thank you ever so much.

I wonder what his real education in thermodynamics is? (My impression from
his last post is that he is trying to show how smart he is by pointing out
all the kooks... as if that somehow prevents him from being one)

 

[Rod Speed]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

The last thing my farmer relatives want to do is
waste their time refueling when doing the field work.

No one ever promised that post peak would be a rose garden.

Maybe algae diesel will work out. ?That's plan A.

If it doesn't then we need a plan B.

Plan C is oxen.

Why do we need algae diesel as a plan A, when there are
centuries worth of synthetic crude to processed from coal?

You mean _one_ century worth of crude.

Nope.

 

[Rob Dekker]

"terryc" <newssixspam-spam@woa.com.au> wrote in message
newsan.2008.08.13.12.16.49.722955@woa.com.au...

On Wed, 13 Aug 2008 07:42:48 -0400, jmfbahciv wrote:


I don't know anything about caring for oxen; is it similar to cows?

1) they generally don't take kindly to being milked.

ROTFL !

2) They are a working beast, whereas cows generally have it easy.

Not unlike their human equivalents ;o)

 

[Rod Speed]

Immortalist <reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

Do you accept the major neuroscience theories about how the brain functions?

Irrelevant to how NEW IDEAS are produced.

Then you are saying that if ideas are are result of the
activities of particular regions of the brain, then they are
not relevant to the activities of particular areas of the brain?

Nope, not saying anything even remotely resembling anything like that.

Your position doesn't make sense, since the best science we have indicates
that it is likely that ideas are produced by neural activities in a brain.

Having fun thrashing that straw man ?

Well brain functions and neural activities are the same thing,

You did get that bit right, presumably by accident.

so therefore it is not a straw man.

There is no 'so therefore' involved.

If you accept that brain functions and neural activities are
the same thing then there was no distortion of your position.

Irrelevant to how NEW IDEAS are produced.

New ideas are identical to the activities of some nerve cells.

if new ideas are identical to activities in some nerve cells

Meaningless gobbledegook.

Then your claiming that there are some things that you experience
that are not the results of the activities of nerve cells?

Nope.

If so then you are not a proponent of the identity theory

Having fun thrashing that straw man ?

and our paths diverge;

You have no 'path', just desperate wanking.

<reams of your desperate wanking that has no relevance what so
ever to how NEW IDEAS are produced flushed where it belongs>

and the causes of those activities were established
to be sometimes in- line with other neural activities

More meaningless gobbledegook.

<reams of your desperate wanking that has no relevance what so
ever to how NEW IDEAS are produced flushed where it belongs>

 

[Rod Speed]

Immortalist <reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

There are many theories about brain circuits and the activities
that take place within them, and neural darwinism is right up
there with "games theory" and "neural network" theories.

And it aint been established that that has anything to do with
what is being discussed, HOW NEW IDEAS ARE PRODUCED.

Some neural activities are identical to "trains of thought" and these
like other neural processes need to be iterated and continue to cycle
so that constancy can be maintained, based upon these changes.

More meaningless gobbledegook.

<reams of your desperate wanking that has no relevance what so
ever to how NEW IDEAS are produced flushed where it belongs>

 

[Rod Speed]

Immortalist <reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

The way the brain is wired has everything to do with the activities of the brain.

You quite sure you aint one of those rocket scientist desperate wankers ?

Please explain what that means.

Go and fuck yourself and find a less pathetically hoary old line.

<reams of your desperate wanking that has no relevance what so
ever to how NEW IDEAS are produced flushed where it belongs>

I can easily show evidence that these are the three main
theories in brain science at this time and they are very
similar, and based upon "systems theory" or complexity theory.

But you dont have a shred of evidence for what is being discussed,
WHETHER NEW IDEAS ARE PRODUCED BY RANDOM EVENTS.

I have evidence that patterns need to be shuffled around the brain

No you dont.

<reams of your desperate wanking that has no relevance what so
ever to how NEW IDEAS are produced flushed where it belongs>

and that there is a probability of errors in the copying process.

And that in spades.

Afraid not

No need to be afraid, child.

There is evidence that a group of cells creating a
pattern clone that pattern in nearby groups of cells.

Irrelevant to whether there is any RANDOM COMPONENT with new ideas.

If this is how some parts of the process of idea formation works

You aint established that it is.

then it is relevant.

Fraid not.

Even copying files in a computer have some errors.

Wrong again.

I retract the reference to tin can computers, I was thinking about copying CDs;

Still wrong.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6138_102-0.html?forumID=31&threadID=100286&messageID=1173025

Mindless pig ignorant silly shit.

reams of your desperate wanking that has no relevance what so
ever to how NEW IDEAS are produced flushed where it belongs

How so?

Find a less pathetically hoary old line.

<reams of your desperate wanking that has no relevance what so
ever to how NEW IDEAS are produced flushed where it belongs>

 

[Rod Speed]

Immortalist <reanimater_2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

Sorry about having to post it in three parts,

A Jap would at least have the decency to disembowel itself.

Dont make a mess of the carpet.

Google has trouble posting large arguments sometimes.

Nope.

 

[Tom Biasi]

"RichD" <r_delaney2001@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7e373b5b-aa74-46df-9438-48726b63b3f6@b2g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

What is a static power switch?

--
Rich

What would happen if you typed "What is a static power switch?" into Google?

 

[Bob Masta]

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:09:00 -0400, Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>
wrote:

<snip>

From a memory of a Carl & Jerry story, I think the magnetometer uses
a standalone excitation, and not that much more than a milk bottle filled
with water and wound with wire. I can't remember what they used as a
pickup.

Hey, I remember that story! I think the gadget was called a "proton
spin magnetometer" or something like that. The idea was the same as
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. They hit the coil with an RF pulse which
put the protons of the hydrogen atoms in hte water into an altered
state, then they monitored the decay back to baseline. (Or some
such.) I seem to recall that they were trying to do some sort of
archaeological search, but it turned out that their version of the
gadget had some problem... I think it was too sensitive to background
objects, or the Earth's field, or something.

Boy, *that* takes me back!

Best regards,



Bob Masta

DAQARTA v4.00
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, Sound Level Meter
FREE Signal Generator
Science with your sound card!

 

[Spaceman]

Immortalist wrote:

On Aug 14, 7:37 am, "Spaceman" <space...@yourclockmalfunctioned.duh
wrote:
Immortalist wrote:
A 'Frankenrobot' with a biological brain

Meet Gordon, probably the world's first robot controlled exclusively
by living brain tissue.

Oh crap,
The creation of the Dalak race has begun.


Dalek is a member of a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from
the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Daleks are
organisms from the planet Skaro, integrated within a tank-like
mechanical casing. The resulting creatures are a powerful race bent on
universal conquest and domination, utterly without pity, compassion or
remorse (as all of their emotions were removed except hate). They are
also, collectively, the greatest extraterrestrial enemies of the Time
Lord known as the Doctor. Their most famous catchphrase is "EX-TER-MI-
NATE!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic
electronic voice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek

Yes, I knew all that, but sadly now humans have created the "proto-type".
Good thing there will be no "TARDIS" nor any "real" timewars.


--
James M Driscoll Jr
Creator of the Clock Malfunction Theory
Spaceman

 

[Jon Slaughter]

arne't you smart!
<BretCahill@peoplepc.com> wrote in message
news:f5554356-f802-4096-9fad-cb1d0e313253@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com...

When it comes to converting one form of energy one way to mechanical
work only a Pelton wheel can approach an electric motor's 95+%
efficiency.

In sharp contrast all single cycle high compression ratio ICE small
enough to be hauled down a road tops off at 40% efficiency with
vehicle size spark ignition ICE generally running below 30%. That's a
well tuned engine running on it's "sweet spot" rpm.

Why can't anyone do much about the sorry efficiency of 99.9% of the
prime movers on the planet?

Far and away the biggest problem comes from the basic thermocycles of
adiabatic engines, i. e., gas turbines (Brayton/Joule/Ericsson I),
diesel (Diesel) and spark ignition (Otto).

The machinery dictates the processes and the shape of the thermocycle
and even the idealized [read: fantasy] adiabatic cycle doesn't fill a
Carnot or other isothermalized parallelogram cycle -- the
thermodynamic limit of heat engines -- very well. Materials
temperature limits reduce the Carnot limit below 100%, so maybe a
little over 50% Carnot for most ideal adiabatic cycles.

The real cycle, however, looks more like a paramecium. The nice
sharply defined corners of the ideal have been rounded reducing
efficiency still more.

Toss in incomplete combustion and other parasitical losses and
electric motors start to look pretty.


Bret Cahill

 

[Daniel T.]

John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

Sure, but where does the electricity come from?

Power plants that run at much higher efficiency (and much cleaner per
kilowatt of energy produced) than any automobile engine could ever hope
to do.

And electricity is hard to transport and store.

Really? Do you know of any city in the industrialized world that
*doesn't* have an electricity transportation system already in place?
Storage is somewhat problematic but it seems a safe bet that this is
because efforts at storing it more efficiently have been systematically
shut down.

 

[Publius]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote in news:f5554356-f802-4096-9fad-cb1d0e313253@
26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com:

When it comes to converting one form of energy one way to mechanical
work only a Pelton wheel can approach an electric motor's 95+%
efficiency.

Yup. But the gas/oil/coal-fired power plants needed to generate the
electricty do not. Then you have the line losses transmitting it to point-
of-use.

 

[Rod Speed]

BretCahill@peoplepc.com wrote:

When it comes to converting one form of energy one way to mechanical
work only a Pelton wheel can approach an electric motor's 95+%
efficiency.

In sharp contrast all single cycle high compression ratio ICE small
enough to be hauled down a road tops off at 40% efficiency with
vehicle size spark ignition ICE generally running below 30%. That's a
well tuned engine running on it's "sweet spot" rpm.

Why can't anyone do much about the sorry efficiency of 99.9% of the
prime movers on the planet?

Far and away the biggest problem comes from the basic thermocycles of
adiabatic engines, i. e., gas turbines (Brayton/Joule/Ericsson I),
diesel (Diesel) and spark ignition (Otto).

The machinery dictates the processes and the shape of the thermocycle
and even the idealized [read: fantasy] adiabatic cycle doesn't fill a
Carnot or other isothermalized parallelogram cycle -- the
thermodynamic limit of heat engines -- very well. Materials
temperature limits reduce the Carnot limit below 100%, so maybe a
little over 50% Carnot for most ideal adiabatic cycles.

The real cycle, however, looks more like a paramecium. The nice
sharply defined corners of the ideal have been rounded reducing
efficiency still more.

Toss in incomplete combustion and other parasitical losses and
electric motors start to look pretty.

Pity about the problem of getting power from the grid to them with cars.

 

[Rod Speed]

Day Brown <daybrown@daybrown.org> wrote:

But lets not forget the costs of shipping cargo to the ship at the dock in the first place. Its not FOB.

Then too, there is the synergy of the internet, where anyone with
anything to sell no longer needs a big corporation to organize the
means. Small business can spot a local market before the global
economy has figured out it is there. There is likely more faith as
well that future deliveries will be on time and at the agreed price.

The rise to Hubbard's peak oil followed a smooth bell curve, but the decline is apt to be precipitous; as the price
rises, the greed rises, as the greed goes up so does the use of violence trying to control a supply of oil, which
damages the productive infrastructure.

There wasnt any of that 'violence' with previous resources that got scarce like timber etc.

Which drives down the supply, and drives the price up to re-iterate.
One way to global economy can cope is to abandon less profitable
provinces to anarchy and revolution, stop shipping oil and redirect
the remaining supply to the great power centers. The Byzantines did
it for centuries.

Not feasible to do it now.

So, while the global economy seems to keep going for us,

No seems about it.

it quit serving those more obscure poor regions we dont care about.

In fact its currently those regions like china that are benefitting most.

Which will be fine so long as it does not over look some obscure, but critical, resource from such a region.

We dont have any of those.

There's also the import of salmonella, e coli, other biologicals, or WMD and even nukes that will be driving
investment in local infrastructure.

That aint gunna happen either.

 

[Rob Dekker]

<rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com> wrote in message news:8807d195-ce93-40c4-acf8-cbdf657efb43@b30g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

On Aug 14, 7:10 pm, "Rob Dekker" <r...@verific.com> wrote:
"NoEinstein" <noeinst...@bellsouth.net> wrote in messagenews:e902cc90-227f-4246-82e7-507b922b450d@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...

On Aug 13, 11:38 am, The Trucker <mik...@verizon.net> wrote:
......

Dear The Trucker: The 'up-side' of paper is that it comes from trees
that also "eat" CO2. My bio-mass of choice is hemp. Such removes
several times more CO2 per acre than does a forest.

Hemp, algae, any biomass, bring it on !

The problem is that none of the biomass->liquid fuel processes seems to be currently cost-effective.

That puts free enterprise into a wait-and-see mode, obviously....

......

The best immediate correction of our auto emissions problems is to use
optimized engine RPMs and loads to generate electricity for driving
the vehicle. Having engines run at varying speeds is hugely
inefficient.

I agree.
Problem with all liquid fuels is that you need an ICE before you get to to power the wheels.
And that goes with an efficiency of about 25-30% (for current diesels in actual vehicles).
Higher efficiency (up to 50%) is possible with a diesel series hybrid (similar to diesel-electric locomotives) because the diesel
engine can be rather.

Diesels for large ships already achieve 50%, just by being big enough
to optimise the burn. They are not even turbocharged.

Yes. Graham showed me a link once of one of these monsters. Beautiful machines !
Still, the efficiency of 50% is only at optimal RPM (constant and near full load).
This is normal operation for large ships on the open ocean, or airplanes at cruising speed, but cannot be achieved for a diesel
driven car in city traffic.
For cars to get close to that 50% efficiency overall, and still have enough torque at low speeds, it needs to be put in a series
hybrid...
Like a diesel-electric locomotive...
Right ?

The Napier Nomad, a turbocompunded diesel aircraft engine from the
1950's, achieved an efficiency of 45%; although, it was never adopted
as the efficiency was as nothing compared against the light weight and
simplicity of a turboprop. At around thirty litres and 2000+
horsepower (due to a whopping 89psi of boost [without boosting the
compression ratio of this diesel was only 3.5:1) it is a little big
for a tractor. Due to the fuel savings, most diesel manufacturers are
looking into boosting efficiency with turbocompounding (recovering
more power from the exhaust than is needed to drive the
supercharger). Volvo has a few engines which have a turbine
mechanically coupled to the crankshaft. A US federal govenrment
research group (name forgotten) studied the less ambitious idea of
having the turbine drive the supercharger and an alternator.