There's no reason to be depressed ...

American individuality already keeps a lot of people from taking trains/subways/busses or succumbing to car-pools...

Most jobs can be done remotely, with the proper high-speed network connections, and thanks to broad-band, that's already here - I already do that... so my V10 gets very little mileage, same with my '97 Cougar.

The thing is, we'll still be doing the same things, but with vehicles that are not power the same as they are now.

Not a biggee...

 

Cesspool ? Obviously you haven't been to the gulf ! You have to stop listening to the eviromental wackos ! The only thing you see in the gulf are the platforms , no oilslick , no spill and no dead sea life . In fact sea life abounds around the platforms .


I don't think more oil refineries are the answer. In much the same way I think Asbestos is a great product with lots of uses, but I'll stay away.[/QUOTE]

Sooo , how do you suppose we meet the growing demand for oil ? There hasn't been a refinery built in this country in years ! The ones we do have are being run at capacity so if there is a problem at one of them we have shortages and higher prices .

 

Most jobs can be done remotely ? Yeah , it's out sourced off shore ! Look at all the service jobs that are being sent to India , heck even Mc Donalds is out sourcing their drive up windows ! What happened to our industrial jobs is now happening to our service jobs ! But it's not a biggy !

 

I've only seen the gulf and have never explored offshore. The river running through my town classified "dead" for years, but you couldn't tell by looking at it. I did worked with a couple guys that did oil derrick work on the gulf that told stories, so they weren't environmental wackos - more like derrick wackos? What happens in the field stays in the field.

I realize the Mississippi river causes much of the pollution in the northern gulf. That's why I said cesspool and not oil slick, although there have been a few of those over the years, hasn't there?

From what I know of the oil industry they will work things at capacity no matter what. Even if they increased the number of refineries by 40%, I doubt they would run them 9 to 5 and shut down early on friday. No matter the number, they will always be at capacity. Whether increasing production here in the US would drop prices, I don't know. The industry does work as a monopoly, so they can charge what they can get I guess. A quart of motor oil doesn't cost much more now than it did 20 years ago, yet gas keeps doubling, so someone out there has savvy business sense.

Personally, I think Hydrogen will be a good fuel source once they get the bugs worked out. Wind is a cheap source of power if it's kept in-house. Tidal power is coming along. I saw a tidal generator in Nova Scotia a while back that's been there for years. Sure, it doesn't put out that much power, but think about starting a vehicle from the 40's compared to today - do you get in a new truck, pull the choke and let it warm up a bit, so you won't die when you take off? Nope, let the oil pessure build and off you go. Things tend to improve over time, (except fast food.)

I think it's going to take time and tenacity to make it work.

 

see... if we all rode motorcycles instead of driving v10s and 7.0 psd's....



if i ruled the world...

 

blackf3504dr, just curious...why do you say the rail industry sucks far too much tax money?

 

I'd venture it's because the rail industry is subsidized by the federal gov't... Amtrak wouldn't be here if it wasn't for subsidies...

 

Very true ! In the whole exsistence of Amtrack it has never shown a profit .
How many private companies could operate for 30 years like that ? The rail industry does not pay any road use taxes on the fuel they use but they do get a cut of the pie ! kwob , I don't know how old you are but before deregulation came to the trucking industry , if your company wanted to open a new route to sevice a customer you wold have to apply for authority with the ICC ( no longer around ) and the rail roads would contend they would be hurt by you if you got the authority you were seeking . This was a way for the rail road to stifle compitition . Just for fun do a Google search on Yak Fat ... It was in the 60s when a trucking company went before the ICC to get autority to haul yak fat ( no such thing ) , well , the rail indutry came before the ICC and said they would be hurt if the trucking company was granted this authority because they all ready hauled thousands of tons of yak fat a year( remember there is no such thing ).... The ICC denied the request by the trucking company , to which the trucking company held a press confrence to show how ridiculous the whole proccess was . In 1981 deregulation took effect and you no longer had to show "just cause" to get authority , it was the demise of the rail industry and the regulated "common carrier" trucking companies . The rail industry closed routes and ripped up track leaving much of the country with out rail service because they could not compete on a level playing field . The common carriers that could not adapt also fell by the roadside ( play on words ) . Freight rates came down and hundereds of new trucking companies were started . which bring us to today and an out dated rail system that consumes large amounts of tax ( our ) money and for the most part doesn't pay it's way .

 

Funny thing, but when I was driving cross country in a big rig, I remember seeing trains that were miles long hauling nothing but truck trailers.

Mostly CRST trailers but there were some others.

 

Yep , intermodel ... It's cheaper to take loaded trailers that don't have to be at their destination at a set scheduled time ( say within two weeks ) and set them on a rail car . But unlike the train , my ( and your ) truck was ( is ) not subsidized by federal tax dollars , we have to make or break on our own !

 

The nations freight railroads are not subsidezed by federal tax dollars.

The original transcontinental railroad was largely funded by the federal government. And the federal government (and state governments) continue to provide funds for certain railroad projects as well. But freight railroads are also the only mode of transportation that today is largely self-sustaining without continuing government investment.

Amtrak is another story altogether...

 

One moderately wild idea that was rattling around the back of my skull is to mount paddlewheels on or inside barges to drive generators wherever they were anchored at.

They would need shore power connections to transfer energy off them, and into the grid. Such a rig could be used in rivers, without too great a risk if the banks flooded.

Rather than squeezing a river through a dam and its turbine generators, they would be on top of the water, be dry-dockable to repair, and could be brought on or offline as individual units. They seem small-scale to me, but might be cost effective if existing barges were converted from other service.

Alternately - "Power Piers" could be built. Piers, with some sort of generator and paddle wheel arrangements that used river water flow to drive them.

The ideal small scale application would be a unit that could be deployed on a houseboat, or other riverine vessel to provide power simply for the use of the boat. Any time it was anchored, it would be charging batteries - as long as it were anchored in flowing water or currents.

The curious part of it is - if energy were being taken from the water and used for other purposes, is energy necessarily removed from the river. Energy isn't free, it transforms from one sort to another, so where is the loss and what form would it take?

Does the river slow down? Does it erode the banks? Does it cause the river to change in some way?

It seems to me that if "Kinetic" energy in the water is transformed into "Electrical" energy and sent off to someplace else, it must have some effect on something somewhere... Energy has been absorbed from that source! But what that means in terms of overall waterflow I have no real idea just yet. I suppose enough such devices might cause a river to swell its banks, but it seems like it would take a lot of them.

Squirrely idea, isn't it?

The reason water flows in a river is primarily due to the effects of gravity itself as it moves from one point to a lower one. The rate depends on obstructions, friction, width of the channel, and other factors. This supposes that "Gravitic" energy is transformed into "Kinetic" energy in the first place, but we are told gravity is a constant.

It is thermal energy and wind currents (a product of thermal energy) that carry water vapor up into cloud formations, and inland to condense (precipitation) and flow into river channels.

So ultimately - thermal energy contributes to river flow...

Given that gravity is constant, the action of transporting water to a higher level is sufficient to maintain it.

Therefore - I put it again:

IF energy is removed (kinetic or otherwise), WHAT energy is lost or used in the process? In the thought model above - the river, I think, must definately have lost some of its energy. Gravity will eventually accellerate the water again (restore its 'kinetic' energy) - there is nothing else to act on the water in order to restore the kinetic energy to it...

Does it follow then, that gravity itself is a form of energy? (you see where I'm going with this?)

AND - if gravitic energy is expended in the process, then what? Can gravity be used up? (!)

OR - what restores 'gravitic' energy....


RIGHT THERE is where it all goes off the deep end, folks!

 

There are small under water turbines that do just that you can buy right now and they avoid floating debris.

It might slow the water a bit right there and cause a little sediment build up near by.

You would have to almost plug it to make it swell much

Gravity is a constant and it is half of the free energy equation after the cost of equipment that is.

There goes that other half of the equation in the form of free solar energy.

Now you're getting the idea!

Yep!

Yes!

Take a magnet and see how many times it will pull a piece of metal before it's used up it's magnetism?
The answer is that it wont!

The smart end of the deep end, unfortunately the lonely end as well.

 

NOTE: I relocated this particular discussion to the general forum as a seperate topic
"Is Gravity a Form of Energy?"

It turned into a particularly interesting topic...