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[destron0]

I posted a week ago about the car chase/foot pursuit caper. Well, I got some more info on the guy and everything is starting to make a lot more sense. Turns out he is a 2-striker and it is not impossible that he will get his 3rd based on the events of the chase. I also spoke with the red light camera guy (he blew one of the lights that takes your

Comments

[jimmyjoke]

I don’t have time right now to read through the 300-something posts on the thread (a project for next week) but here are some thoughts:

- Solar energy is so abundant. To not want to try to harness as much as possible is a gigantron waste.
- It is clean.
- It is intuitively the most logical kind of energy we could choose to rely on.
- Its development could engender a whole family of neologisms that begin with helio- (cool).
- Its mainstreaming could engender a wave of sci-fi wherein astronauts travel to Mercury and Mars to plant solar cells in their soil... which ultimately backfires (cool).

I am so ready to get off work, by the way.

[afternoonjazz]

I agree with your assessment of biofuels. Ethanol takes so much energy to refine-doesn't it use coal or oil in the process? The agricultural lobby should look into making low-cost versions of their amazing technologies to help mechanize agriculture in developing countries, but that's a different matter.

As for hydrogen, I was not aware of the points that you made, but I must claim ignorance other than the pitch, which of course sounds good. I read about a compressed air-powered car in India. And there's always recharging your electrical car with your wind/dam/nuclear-supplied energy at home.

At the electronics convention in Vegas, they had a solar charger that you could plug your various appliances into and which holsd a charge for 10 hours. That's cool.

[destron0]

Re: compressed air car. Very interesting, I hadn't heard of that. It looks like it is being made by Tata, the same company that is putting out a $2500 gas car in India this year. Range 125 miles, max speed 68 MPH

[jimmyjoke]

Regarding the fuel economy of a 2003 hybrid Honda Civic:

"I expect the car to have about 45 mpg... The main way which the car conserves gas is that it turns the engine off when idle, so the mpg is a lot higher in city driving where there are frequent stops. Highway driving, I feel, is not any better mpg than a non-hybrid version."

[an e-mail response from Stephen to my question about his car.]

I knew it had to be much greater than 33 mpg! But yes, it seems that highway driving winnows the difference in mileage, especially if you're still going 75-100 mph. My car gets up to 41 mpg (I achieved 40 mpg on a tank, once), but usually it hovers around 34-36 because I commute on surface streets.

Sorry, this was somewhat irrelevant to your post.

article re: biofuels

[jimmyjoke]

now the world knows!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html