Explosion heard in London - political part

[Velociryx]

*shrug*

Believe what you want, Boris.

But when a viable alt. fuel cell comes from a private corp. that had little, if any public assistance, and not from some government lab, don't say I didn't tell you so.



-=Vel=-

PS: And yes, those private companies DID buy up patents to alt. fuel engines. And they still have them today. This will, in all liklihood, be the jumping off point for research.

What? You don't REALLY believe they destroyed all evidence of their existence, do you?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by BlackCat




Do you think that politicians that want's to be reelected make more sane choices ? Due to the anti nuclear power freaks it's very nonPC to even mention that as an alternative to fossile fuels here.

For sure politicians are no better, they are always seeking (re)-election. Funding of programmes will therefore suffer if it is politically expedient. They will also want to fund programmes that give results or they will cut funding. My point was directed at the argument that the free market will be more likely to give us the answers. It won't because it seeks the easiest route, not the best route.

That said, if there are no major political issues with developing, say, hydrogen fuel cells, then the fact that the research is a risky loss-leader means little as it will not prevent the project going ahead.

Even if it were all hurled at one company, you do realize that the sum is chicken feed to the amount that the first company will gain by perfecting, patenting, and marketing a viable alt. fuel source, yes?

That's all the incentive smart money needs.

How much money will they make? What are their expected cost-benefits.

If you say to a company, look we can make $1 million for sure over the next 10 years for an outlay of $1 million on a cheap solution OR we can possibly make $100 million in 20 years if we spend $10 million now.

No sane company would take the latter option unless they were forced to, or where given assurances through government grants or other 'charity/philanthropy' to cover their costs.

[Velociryx]

Actually, they'd probably do both....in classic entrepreneureal style.

Or...they won't, and someone else will come along who will (going back to Boris' earlier example of oil mavens buying up alt. energy engines and keeping them under wraps to protect their interests....those technologies were developed by others, when it became clear that the entrenched businesses were slow on the draw.

Yes...you'll undoubtedly see a number of "quick fix" technologies appear in coming years. In fact, a quick google search on "increasing fuel efficiency" reveals a whole lot of them, right now, but that doesn't mean that longer term solutions aren't already in the works. And this DESPITE the contention just made that the current administration isn't supporting it.

But it's happening anyways.

Imagine that.

-=Vel=-

[Dauphin]

I am in no doubt that a long term shift will arrive, but will it be the best solution?

A demonstrative example is the gauge of railway in use in most of the world. The current guage is pretty much the width of a mine cart. The wide guage was proposed and used on many of Britain's railways alongside the narrow gauge until a standardised gauge was required as a long term solution. After a series of tests and government review it was clear that the wide guage was far superior in terms of safety, stability and speed of carriage.

The narrow gauge was kept because it was more commonplace and cheaper to build. What I therefore am concerned about is that we accept the first solution, which will be the cheap solution, and do not implement the better solution.

[Velociryx]

We may...sure.

We'll probably never know with absolute certainty whether or not the solution we arrive at is, was, or will be, "the best." That's just the nature of the world we live in.

What we CAN say for certainty is that if someone hits upon an even better way after we have a viable alternative, it has just as much potential to catch on and work its way into the fabric of our lives (for a mundane example, consider music:

We start with vinyl, then migrated to the not-necessarily better 8-track (an audiophile would KILL you for suggesting that the 8-track was better)...then on to cassette, and finally arrived at the much better, digital quality CD (again, an audiophile would still swear by vinyl, and regard everything else as inherently inferior, but that's....a matter of personal preference, mostly)

The side stops along the way (those "quick fix, lesser technologies" ) were important in their way as stepping stones to get us to where we are today, sound wise.

And you can see that trend in almost every industry out there.

I suspect you'll be able to see it with energy as well (and in fact, you already can).

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

As an aside...I think it was Sandman who said earlier that the Market stood no chance in hell of being able to get us out of our oil dependence.

I find this interesting as it was "the market" (specifically a guy named Ford) who got us INTO that dependence, and that's not a bad thing (necessary, in fact).

And, in the same way that market forces created the current climate, they will create the solution.

It happens all the time.

Granted, this is one of the bedrock, foundational industries of the whole economy, and thus, orders of magnitude more important, but the mechanism that will drive the change is still the same.

-=Vel=-

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I am in no doubt that a long term shift will arrive, but will it be the best solution?

A demonstrative example is the gauge of railway in use in most of the world. The current guage is pretty much the width of a mine cart. The wide guage was proposed and used on many of Britain's railways alongside the narrow gauge until a standardised gauge was required as a long term solution. After a series of tests and government review it was clear that the wide guage was far superior in terms of safety, stability and speed of carriage.

The narrow gauge was kept because it was more commonplace and cheaper to build. What I therefore am concerned about is that we accept the first solution, which will be the cheap solution, and do not implement the better solution.

Hate to say it, but you are totally wrong.,c the standard guage isn't based upon mine charts. There has been several railway lines that use a more narrow with than the current standard width and they probably stems from such mine charts. The standard guage has a totally different story. despite it's seemingly absurd argumentation, I think that the following link gives a reasonable explanation.

http://infobluemountains.net.au/rail/horse-ass.htm

I don't think that you can invent a correct way to do things from step one - further research may descide that the original descicion despite it was made upon false assumptions was wrong.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by BlackCat


Hate to say it, but you are totally wrong.,c the standard guage isn't based upon mine charts.

http://infobluemountains.net.au/rail/horse-ass.htm

Given that Stephenson, the father of the railways, worked with mine carts and tracks I would find the use of Imperial Roman wagon wheels to be a little odd, unless they happened to derived from the same source for some reason.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dauphin


Given that Stephenson, the father of the railways, worked with mine carts and tracks I would find the use of Imperial Roman wagon wheels to be a little odd, unless they happened to derived from the same source for some reason.

He might have worked with mine charts, but I guess that he was not narrowminded and could see that what was good in underground not nessecarily was good on the surface. My guess is that he looked at a horse coach and desicded upon those dimensions when he designed his first surface steam engine train.

Besides, whats wrong with the asumption that charts are build to messure up with two horses side by side and roads accordingly ? Actually, I find it pretty logic.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Velociryx
As an aside...I think it was Sandman who said earlier that the Market stood no chance in hell of being able to get us out of our oil dependence.

I find this interesting as it was "the market" (specifically a guy named Ford) who got us INTO that dependence, and that's not a bad thing (necessary, in fact).

And, in the same way that market forces created the current climate, they will create the solution.

It happens all the time.

Granted, this is one of the bedrock, foundational industries of the whole economy, and thus, orders of magnitude more important, but the mechanism that will drive the change is still the same.

-=Vel=-

Sounds like it's inevitable.

A good way to reduce oil dependency would be to improve public transport, even though the free market isn't much good at delivering it.

[Velociryx]

GePap likes to deal in inevitability, not me...but the trend is certainly there, and can be seen throughout the last two hundred odd years of my own country's history, and certainly back much farther than that, so yes...I'd say that odds are incredibly on our side.

And I agree...public transport would be a decent way to reduce dependence...won't happen in the States, because people here love their cars, but a good thought. Hell, even a partial measure to keep cars out of downtown areas (and using mass transit IN those areas) would be easy to legislate and enforce, and see some savings right off the cuff.

-=Vel=-

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by BlackCat

Besides, whats wrong with the asumption that charts are build to messure up with two horses side by side and roads accordingly ? Actually, I find it pretty logic.

The purpose of the railway was to do away with horses, and so the width would be better determined by the size of the steam engine in my opinion. But that's me.

[Velociryx]

PS: The market is *excellent* at delivering mass transit transportation.

The problem, however, is that demand isn't there, and there's no profit in it.

That can (fairly easily, in certain specific instances--see above) be changed, at which point, you'd see several private companies leap forward to take the reins.

If the climate isn't there...if the profit isn't there...no, the market's not gonna budge.

That's not exactly a secret tho.

The trick is...to change the rules.

-=VEl=-

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Dauphin


The purpose of the railway was to do away with horses, and so the width would be better determined by the size of the steam engine in my opinion. But that's me.

Uhmn, no. The steam engine was supposed to replace the horses, but why should that make any change to the load drawn ?

[Dauphin]

I don't understand the relevance of your question.