Rethinking the Role of the Automobile

[BailOut]

Originally Posted by stuffy

a few years ago i switched every light bulb in my house to cfl's except for my office which has daylight spectrum bulbs due to the small amount of natural light available.

the cfl were supposed to last much longer than a normal incandescent, but i have replaced them all within 2 yrs, while my office bulbs (which are on all day long and sometimes in the evening i might add) are ALL still going strong.

it was kind of annoying when considering the cost of the cfl's.

I've heard similar complaints from other Canadians, stuffy. There was some troubleshooting done and what seemed to be the issue was that some Canadian power providers and/or grids have trouble maintaining 60hZ delivery. Many readings were taken as low as 58.9hZ and as high as 61hZ (sorry I don't have a link, but this stuff was burned into my memory because I was learning about electricity at the time).

The ballast inside the base of a CFL is designed to work at exactly 60 oscillations per second (my local grid is 59.9hZ, which is close enough), and counts on it for proper excitation of the photons lining the tube. Anything lower than 60hZ will make the ballast work overtime to try to keep an even excitation of the photons (which stops the flickering), and anything over 60hZ will cause the resistors and gates in the ballast to be pushed past their service limits.

You can see if this is your issue by watching a Kill-A-Watt for a few hours while you have its display set to Hz.

[stuffy]

thanks for the info bailout, i was unaware of this (and also almost completely ignorant of how electricity works, lol)

[seriousfun]

Don't forget that in the US, a business can deduct up to $25,000 from their tax as equipment expenses on a vehicle over 6,000 lbs. This is a significant reason why large SUV sales have skyrocketed. It is a regressive tax, benefiting only the wealthy (the poor can't afford big SUVs, except by going into massive amounts of debt).

People perceive large SUVs to be safer than small cars like our Yaris, but they are only safer relative to other behemoths (I'd rather be hit by another Yaris than an Escalade - lucky that when my first Yaris was totalled it was by a tiny Chevy compact pickup). People are delusional, and rationalists.

Some people also drive these to impress - they like how they look in them to other people, and think that they look smarter, handsomer, sexier, wealthier, etc., sittin' high in a Hummer. Large cars served this purpose for half a century, fell out of favor by the early '80s with the first gas crunch, and SUVs simply took the place of long-and-wide Lincolns, Cadillacs, etc., except for those driving $100k+ German cars. We all know that our Yaris isn't bling and isn't a statement of our worth (net worth or how much our mother loves us), but we're certainly making a statement that we are consuming less.

We also show that we have nothing to prove about our d*** size! I guarantee that all those 5'3" guys sitting in Hummers are compensating for something!

[kurokoma-kun]

Originally Posted by seriousfun

Don't forget that in the US, a business can deduct up to $25,000 from their tax as equipment expenses on a vehicle over 6,000 lbs. This is a significant reason why large SUV sales have skyrocketed.

I learned about this last year when a friends boss bought his daughter a Hummer as HS graduation present and wrote it off his biz taxes!

In Tennessee, a vehicle over 10,000 lbs gross weight is exempt from emissions test, one more reason the very biggest big-ass trucks/SUVs are so popular here...

[grampi]

What gets me about all this stuff is there are viable alternatives to fossil fuels available - researchers just need to get busy developing them to the point they become more abundant and affordable than fossil fuels. What are they waiting for? The time to get serious about developing alternatives was 30 years ago when we had our first energy crisis. Had they done so, we'd be driving hydrogen powered vehicles by now. Instead, nothing was done, and now we're in the mess we're in. All I can say is something better get done pretty quick or we'll be living in the stone age again before long!

[seriousfun]

Originally Posted by kurokoma-kun

I learned about this last year when a friends boss bought his daughter a Hummer as HS graduation present and wrote it off his biz taxes!

In Tennessee, a vehicle over 10,000 lbs gross weight is exempt from emissions test, one more reason the very biggest big-ass trucks/SUVs are so popular here...

Good point!

SUVs are not held to the same safety, emissions, and efficiency standards as smaller cars. All these stupid laws stem from a time, before the report cited above, when large vehicles were essentially only for business purposes (except for the occasional Suburban for...suburbanites).

These laws all take advantage of the poor self image and ego problems of so many Americans. These laws are collusion between government, oil companies, and the big auto manufacturers. This is not a free market. These are not the laws of supply and demand in practice.

[brickhardmeat]

Fuck the Stone Age

URANIUM baby!

[blacksan]

Originally Posted by brickhardmeat

Fuck the Stone Age

URANIUM baby!

Nuclear Yaris!

[seriousfun]

Originally Posted by brickhardmeat

Fuck the Stone Age

URANIUM baby!

Yes, nuclear, once:

We can elect a president who knows how to pronounce nuclear.

And when we figure out what to do with waste byproducts that remain toxic to us for a half-million years...

[blacksan]

Originally Posted by seriousfun

And when we figure out what to do with waste byproducts that remain toxic to us for a half-million years...

The same thing we do with it now.....

[brickhardmeat]

Originally Posted by seriousfun

Yes, nuclear, once:

We can elect a president who knows how to pronounce nuclear.

And when we figure out what to do with waste byproducts that remain toxic to us for a half-million years...

Nuclear Waste


At a time when its accumulation is accelerating and no plan for its permanent isolation has been developed anywhere in the world, nuclear waste is an unsolved problem.

Toxic Avenger for President

[Jem_hadar]

this thread is serious business LOL!

[88ShelbyZ]

What I love is how GM is touting there new Volt as the be-all, end-all in high MPG, super efficient LEV vehicles, when they actually produced something just like it, perhaps better, in the mid 90s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EV1

Granted, the EV1 was in no way perfect, it only held a charge for about 30 miles, and topped out at 80mph, but with advances in battery technology, if GM had kept with the EV program, the EV1 or other EV prototypes could be reaching insane levels of efficiency. There was a gap from 2003, when they killed the EV program at GM to 2007, when they showed the Volt concept which could have been spent on development. Hell, GM, and every other American car company, is hemorrhaging money right now, might as well put what they have left to good use.

[seriousfun]

Originally Posted by blacksan

The same thing we do with it now.....

Ahhh...leave it to poison our grandchildren on an unimagineable scale...

[blacksan]

Originally Posted by seriousfun

Ahhh...leave it to poison our grandchildren on an unimagineable scale...

It was in sarcastic jest as there is no easy answer and I don't pretend to know the answer. Unlike so many self righteous assholes in the world I readily admit that I am human, make mistakes and hope to do something worthwhile before I leave this earth.

[seriousfun]

I knew you were being sarcastic.

I was stating the truth, to the larger audience.

[churp]

Does anyone honestly feel that an EV/hybrid/hydrogen or much of anything will be produced anytime in the near future, that will be more cost efficient than our Yaris? So far most of the hybrids initial price pretty much cancels energy savings, and money in my pocket is what I'm comparing here.

[blacksan]

Originally Posted by churp

Does anyone honestly feel that an EV/hybrid/hydrogen or much of anything will be produced anytime in the near future, that will be more cost efficient than our Yaris? So far most of the hybrids initial price pretty much cancels energy savings, and money in my pocket is what I'm comparing here.

nope, It will take a quarter of a century at the least to see any palpable change. There will be a gradual galvanizing effect of current energy pricing that most people will shine on in a few years. The Eastern Europeans have lived with this for years and it is our turn. I hear folks bitching, but still get passed by people all day long driving 80 like gas is free.