smoothsilk’s Recent Comments

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  "nano phosphate lithium ion"

  Firstly, that is a super bike.  Accolades!

  In regard to the new-generation of products that are using nano technology, however, I do have a work of caution.  

  I hope the recycling process somehow is able to prevent the spread of the nano-sized particles into the atmosphere. Take a look at this brief news-brief from NRDC at http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/06sum/asknrdc.asp:

  Laboratory and animal studies suggest that nanoparticles, partly by virtue of their size, can damage brain cells and cause precancerous lesions and inflammation of the lungs, for example. NRDC is working with federal agencies and other public interest groups to expand safety testing for nanoengineered products; in the meantime, it may not be a bad idea to avoid products labeled as containing microfine or ultrafine ingredients, including alumina, titanium dioxide, or zinc oxide

  Of course, the article was in reference to a question about sunscreens that use nano particles of zinc oxide, and thus isn't dealing with batteries, which are enclosed systems {and thus whose contents are not applied to the skin(!) in normal situations :-)}.  

  Of course, since nano-technology is already in our world, I am not about to eschew it when dealing with items like batteries.  But as was the case of lead, or polyvinyl choloride monomer etc. etc., the public was misled for decades about the need for caution. I hope that we're not being misled about nano-particles as being "perfectly benign." And I hope we don't start having problems down the road with these new substances as more of it gets into our environment over time.

  While the batteries themselves are recylable, we might end up with yet another bizarre pandora's box if the recycling process isn't able to prevent these minute substances from spreading everywhere.On Ultimate Seattle hybrid plug-in posted 2 years, 5 months ago 25 Responses

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  Europe: so far ahead of us

  Here is a link to an excellent film about
  some areas in Europe that are doubling the efficiency of their current power plants (among other things):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klooRS-Jjyo

  From the film, Kees den Blanken of Cogen, Netherlands:
  

  
  "The combined generation of heat and electricity is great stuff, because there you find true efficiencies . . . because electricity generation automatically cogenerates a lot of heat . . . and if you use that  . . . to heat homes or industrial processes . . . you double the efficiency that you have in using [just] the fuel."

  It really blows my mind how idiotic our entire energy -generation/consumption model is here is the USA. Unlike Holland (and most of Europe), our power-generating stations are far bigger and centralized, and thus far removed from most of the homes and businesses that could use the normal "waste" heat from the generating process.    

  Even in the sixties, before I had quite reached my teen years, I often read in car magazines like Motor Trend and Car & Driver and Road & Track about the "grossly" more efficient internal combustion engines of the Europeans, who started using things like fuel-injection and overhead camshaft technologies long before we did.  We considered such things "exotic" and prohibitively "costly," not because they were, but because we were spoiled (rotten) by the endless glut of cheap gasoline.

  I always marveled that here were folks that (usually) liked to drive faster than Americans, and yet -- at the same time -- had so much more finesse and rigor in their approach to automobile transportation (and this was before I knew much about their trains, trams, bicycles etc.).

  I recall in particular an interview with the Mercedes-Benz engineer, Rudolf Ulenhaut (not sure of the spelling there) in Motor Trend. He laughed at the way his most famous project, the 300 SEL 6.3, got around 16-18  miles per gallon, and yet was the fastest production sedan in the world at the time, while a far slower Caddilac, Buick, Lincoln etc. often averaged in the 10-14 mpg.

  And of course there was the famous French Citroen SM (a Citroen with a Masserati engine), as well as so many others, including the much smaller, cheaper cars.

  It is nice to know that our Euro-cousins have broadened their efficiency to other areas, and done so with such success.  Too bad, though, that Daimler-Benz and most of the other auto manufacturers haven't kept up with the Japanese very well.On Good stuff posted 2 years, 6 months ago 1 Response

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  Interesting

  The link to the Energy Information Administration was very interesting and informative.  

  However,  the Dilbert cartoon (from the other link) implies that people who buy fuel-efficient cars do so only because they want to reduce "the nation's dependence on foreign oil," and not for other reasons, like reducing their own dependence on oil(and perhaps waste and pollution too).  

  What is missing from that cartoon is the fact that many people (such as myself) love efficiency in cars, appliances etc. simply because it is inherently beautiful (to us, anyway), just as any great feat of engineering is beautiful.  

  It is important to understand that while embracing "alternative" energy sources, or buying more efficient appliances and vehicles etc. etc., might reduce the amount of money to terroists (or what not), that isn't the primary reason many of us do it.  We do it because we love doing things the best way we can, and owning a great product, rather than one designed and slapped together by drooling idiots (-: .  (If I was a genius engineer -- which I'm not -- I think I could do a lot better than what manufacturers usually produce).

  As any fan of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead knows (though you hardly have to be a fan of her or her novels -- in fact you can be a vehement socialist to see this), you must primarily "love the doing" to really be successful -- not how that "doing" may benefit others, or the environment, or "world peace" etc. etc. (and not that you don't want those things -- of course you do!)

  This principle is also in places like the Bhagavad Gita, such as when Krishna admonishes Arjuna not to "think of the fruit" of action when he acts.  Likewise, the Zen are said to focus on the archer's form in their archery lessons, and not on hitting the target (though that is part of the ultimate goal, obviously).

  The problem I find with most capitalists these days is that they seem to think that people love "green" items (like hybrid cars) purely because they "help" others --  out of some outrageous, self-abnegative, do-gooding altruism (or from some sinister plot to appear altruist, when their secret agenda is actually power over others, like Rand's infamous Ellsworth Tooey did), when most of us do it because such products take more intelligence to produce.  The fact that the ultimate effect is very positive (in my opinion) is simply the result of that greater intelligence that is put into such products.

  In short, I find the Dilbert cartoon rather irrelevant and insulting! (laugh)On Oil diplomat or man of the people? posted 2 years, 6 months ago 14 Responses

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  From AP, April 15th

  Just wanted to post a short update from AP on the Chavez/ethanol/de Silva situation:

  
  By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON,  AP Business Writer

  However, even if all arable land on Earth were turned over to biofuel production, it still would not meet world demand for oil, so Chavez is joined by many experts who caution that promoting ethanol as a substitute for gasoline is environmentally misguided.

  Venezuela still plans to expand its own ethanol production for use as a fuel additive -- and reduce dependence on Brazilian imports. Venezuela's $900 million plan envisions becoming self-sufficient in ethanol by 2012 by planting 300,000 hectares of sugar cane, manioc and rice and building up to 17 processing plants.

  Other Chavez ethanol projects include a January agreement with Ecuador to study jointly commercializing ethanol, and a February deal with Cuba to jointly build 11 ethanol plants.

  Chavez denies any conflict with Silva, and Garcia in turn said the Brazilian leader is coming to the summit on Margarita Island "in peace and love," to promote ethanol "not as an ideological fuel, but simply a fuel."

  Chavez and Silva plan to meet before the summit Monday to praise the construction of a petrochemical complex involving the Brazilian company Braskem and Pequiven, a division of Venezuela's state oil company.
  

  For the complete article:
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070415/ap_on_bi_ge/venezuela ...On Oil diplomat or man of the people? posted 2 years, 6 months ago 14 Responses

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  Nuclear Power Plants

  Nucbuddy wrote:

  ..I count 47 U.S. commercial electric power reactor units that are more than 30 years old

  As I stated in my post, I relied a lot on Mark Zepezauer's 1996 book, Get the Rich off Welfare. Since that was published over 10 years ago, that should help explain the discrepency. In addition, one of your links is to  nuclear power plants across the entire globe.  Mr. Zepezauer's book only was dealing with US power plants, and the rules of licensing as they existed in this country when he wrote that book.  Evidently, some of these licenses have been extended beyond their original duration.

  What is obvious to me is that nuclear power isn't cheap, as if often claimed (citing the cost of uranium alone, without factoring in the tens -- if not hundreds -- of other factors, is very misleading).  For brevity, I left out some other major economic considerations, such as the fact that the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods is very expensive (and paid for by the taxpayer). Another: every year we spend millions on just studying the feasibility of the Yucca Mountain storage facility, and this is money that could easily have been used more productively.

  Nor has the MSNBC story garnered any comments:
  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11996239/

  Nor the Department of Defense study cited at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Ote7_5.htm

  For that matter, the History Channel program, titled, "Alternative Energy" also mentions that the entire electrical needs of the USA could be met with solar thermal technology by filling a 100 square mile area of the Nevada desert with solar trough collectors.

  The problem with the "alternative naysayers" is that they refuse to even examine the immense potential of other methods, and their relative cost compared to nuclear.On Roughnecks have it really rough posted 2 years, 6 months ago 23 Responses