I believe the President is wrong in his effort to increase fuel efficiency in cars. He's beating a dead horse. When we entered the 20th Century, cars began displacing horse and wagon, despite limited access to fuel supplies. The time has come for electric to replace the use of fuel.
The President needs to challenge the industry to design a bottom mounted universal battery that can be easily replaced at Battery Service Stations, similar to Gas Stations. In this manner, we will not be limited to specific distances. When you start to run low, you stop and and get a quick change out for a fully charged one.
The car companies compete to develop more efficient electric cars and the battery companies compete to developa higher capacity battery. They start with family and commuter cars. Large scale production should reduce costs, though one has to wonder whether to believe their claims of costs are to be believed. Perhaps a new car company needs to be started, run by scientists.
The electric companies can work on making their proction more efficient and less polluting, while work continues on alternatives.
As an organizer for SEIU's Change that Works Campaign, I am working on building a network of community members who will engage Grand Forks in a conversation about Health Care Reform. I'm interested in hearing your take on one of the principles essential to successful Health Care Reform:
#3:Reducing Waste and Improving Efficiency
Aaron Quaday
Grand Forks Organizer -- Change that Works
aquadaynodak0470@gmail.com
Hi Folks,
I need your help to break through the beaureaucratic blockade.
TurbX is the only engine technology that has a practical possiblity of providing a substantial improvement in basic engine efficiency. TurbX is sound technology reviewed, tested, published and recommended by NASA, DOE Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee.
BUT-- The government has had a policy "We do not fund new engine cycles." I have been asking for a public review before congress to get this policy changed.
Why do you care? Funding TurbX would create many thousands of long term jobs, greatly improve our balance of trade, make us leaders again in the global engine market and substantially reduce CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, and eliminate dependence on foreign oil.
Why do you care? The economic and energy future of the United States depends on it.
Please write President Elect Obama (so far all I have gotten is form letter responses) and your congressman, and your senator, and your newspaper. To learn more see www.TurbX.com
Mike Wilson
With the high cost of gasoline and diesel fuel impacting costs for automobiles, trucks, buses and the overall economy, a Temple University physics professor has developed a simple device which could dramatically improve fuel efficiency as much as 20 percent.
According to Rongjia Tao, Chair of Temple's Physics Department, the small device consists of an electrically charged tube that can be attached to the fuel line of a car's engine near the fuel injector. With the use of a power supply from the vehicle's battery, the device creates an electric field that thins fuel, or reduces its viscosity, so that smaller droplets are injected into the engine. That leads to more efficient and cleaner combustion than a standard fuel injector, he says.
Six months of road testing in a diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz automobile showed that the device increased highway fuel from 32 miles per gallon to 38 mpg, a 20 percent boost, and a 12-15 percent gain in city driving.
The results of the laboratory and road tests verifying that this simple device can boost gas mileage was published in Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal published by the American Chemical Society.
"We expect the device will have wide applications on all types of internal combustion engines, present ones and future ones," Tao wrote in the published study, "Electrorheology Leads to Efficient Combustion."
Further improvements in the device could lead to even better mileage, he suggests, and cited engines powered by gasoline, biodiesel, and kerosene as having potential use of the device.
Temple has applied for a patent on this technology, which has been licensed to California-based Save The World Air, Inc., an environmentally conscientious enterprise focused on the design, development, and commercialization of revolutionary technologies targeted at reducing emissions from internal combustion engines.
According to Joe Dell, Vice President of Marketing for STWA, the company is currently working with a trucking company near Reading, Pa., to test the device on diesel-powered trucks, where he estimates it could increase fuel efficiency as much as 6-12 percent.
Dell predicts this type of increased fuel efficiency could save tens of billions of dollars in the trucking industry and have a major impact on the economy through the lowering of costs to deliver goods and services.
"Temple University is very excited about the translation of this new important technology from the research laboratory to the marketplace," said Larry F. Lemanski, Senior Vice President for Research and Strategic Initiatives at Temple. "This discovery promises to significantly improve fuel efficiency in all types of internal combustion engine powered vehicles and at the same time will have far-reaching effects in reducing pollution of our environment."
NOTE: Copies of this study are available to working journalists and may be obtained by contacting Preston M. Moretz in Temple University's Office of News Communications, 215/204-4380 or pmoretz@temple.edu.
A prototype of the original device is available for photos in Dr. Tao's lab at Temple, while the current device being tested on the diesel trucks can be viewed by contacting STWA.
SOURCE CONTACTS: Rongjia Tao, Temple University, 215/204-7651 or rtao@temple.edu Joe Dell, SWTA, 610/781-0795 or joedell@live.com
A group of scientists, engineers and other concerned citizens have formed Science Debate 2008 to ensure that important science topics are dealt with in the 2008 Campaign. One of the fourteen questions submitted to the candidates was regarding water scarcity.
Barack Obama has responded to the issue by promoting close collaboration to develop greater water efficiency and eliminate waste. His complete response is found below:
What can I possibly add to the Sunday morning talk show and newspaper discussion about this last week? What further confirmation can we possibly have that our country is on the wrong track? What possible excuse will John McCain come up with for his party's stewardship of the economy? What spin can cover up this unmitigated disaster?
I would not venture any real criticism of the bailout, to the limit of the murky outlines so far known, as it does seem likely to be necessary. Likely, but we need evidence. We need details. We need analysis. We need a critique. We need confidence. Confidence is what it's all about. But what confidence can Americans have, when 1.3 trillion dollars shift hands from the taxpayers to the manipulators, when the mediators in the transactions in none other than the kingpin of multi-tens-of-billion-dollar no-bid contracts? I would feel much better about this if we had urgent measures to improve the efficiency of our national economy, starting with the easiest thing to make major strides almost painlessly: I have written before about a complete transformation of our vehicle fleet to hybrid gasoline-electric technology over a 14-year period. There are other more difficult measures that we need to take. But if a trillion-dollar bailout is needed, let's take that with all the seriousness and all the action and sacrifice that behooves this national and global economic crisis. If we don't, this is just the beginning of our turmoil and decline.
First, make a clear distinction between health care and health insurance. They're different. Some insurance companies do own the means of production. They're called closed panel HMOs. Kaiser is an example.
The push now is to buy health insurance for the uninsured. The devilish detail is in how to pay for it. In a sense, we're already paying for it via the "hidden tax" in everyone's health insurance premium that's supposed to go for "uncompensated care." Don't count on it. Groups that advocate for the uninsured focus on providing new money to the system. However, there is a vast untapped resource that could do it all. It's the waste and inefficiency within the processes of providing healthcare. The main reason it persists is that there is no price competition for individual healthcare services. No one shops for the best price to have their hernia repaired. HMOs don't either. In fact, most hospitals have a monopoly on services within their locality. However, if we had effective price competition, prices would come down, and we could pay for all the uninsured with the savings. Providers would be forced to seek greater efficiency in their processes in order to compete. Estimates of the value run to 50% of current expenditures, but even the lowest estimate (5%) would bring enough savings to pay for it all. In addition, service quality would improve as providers competed for patients.
Let's take Al Gore's 10 year energy independence challenge, and look deeper into how we all personally can lend a hand. Let's do our part by lowering our own personal energy use and carbon footprint. Check out lowimpactliving.com and if you're in Seattle, join Seattle Renewables Meetup group. Whatever you end up doing, be a part of this historical action that goes beyond Gore and Obama and reaches our children's children's futures. Have an idea on creating the necessary "negawattage" that we're going to need in addition to generating renewable megawattage? Give a shout by comments on this blog.
--Aaron Campbell of Campbell Energy
I hope that in this general stretch, the Obama campaign latches on to some concrete facts about our reaction to 9/11, and shows how non-conservative that reaction has been. He can make an appeal to conservatives on spending, for which many of them are already mad at Bush. He has to be on the offense on national security, and one way to do this is to focus on the cost of the Iraq war and efficiency of our spending on national security. I'll try to demonstrate why there is a case to be made. Another message could be "Jobs vs. Iraq" to paint McCain into a corner on economy vs Iraq priorities.
Here's the context for my frustration. In recent decades we have always over-reacted to events, especially when we have had a simplistic and often erroneous understanding of grievances and political issues overseas. Our reaction to 9/11 has been reflexive, and dictated by fear-machismo rather than agility and intelligence. This over-reaction is made possible by our relative ignorance of realities, attitudes and opinions overseas, and our media's laziness in rectifying it.The financial inefficiency of our efforts is horrendous. And I'm not just talking about Homeland Security money for Wyoming. Tally up our expenditure in the so-called "war on terror" (the British govt, our closest ally, doesn't agree with this terror war nomenclature) and homeland security expenses that wouldn't have been approved if 9/11 never happened. My guess is that it's at least already $1 trillion given that direct war costs already exceed $700 billion:http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdfThen let's assess how much safety/security we have bought with that. That should be what we're getting, right? I think the most accurate way we can assess that is seeing by how much we have improved our reputation and reduced tacit support for terrorism, as well as a drop in how many of our citizens have died violently from foreign actors.Pew Global Survey (May 2008):http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17502
It's a mixed bag - attitudes towards the US have significantly deteriorated over the last 5 years among Muslim populations, but bin Laden's popularity has fallen too (probably due to internecine killings in Iraq).
More Americans have died and been injured from the "war on terror" efforts than were by 9/11. We have lost around 4,500 American lives (and over a million lives of non-Americans) in response to the murder of 3,000 Americans, when a handful of Americans (and non-American civilians) were at risk of death if we reacted with covert ops and law enforcement instead of military resources to hunt down the perpetrators.
It's not good enough to argue that since 9/11 we haven't been attacked at home, and hence better off - we were also not attacked at home for a much longer period before 9/11 - for no extra "war on terror" expenses. (This is a counter-point we need to make for every recitation of "we haven't been attacked since 9/11 thanks to Bush") The last time we were attacked at home was the 1993 WTC bombings. Eight years before 9/11. It hasn't even been seven years since 9/11.
Given these results (our reputation among the relevant populations + bodycounts of our people), how can we argue that we are safer now for our $1 trillion? Maybe $10-20 million of intelligence effort spending would have acquired the same degree of extra counterterrorism capability we have now. That's about 1/50,000th of the $1 trillion. Even if that saves 1,000 lives (it hasn't) that's 100x too much money, at $1 billion/life. Insurance data indicates, as an economy, we value US lives at less than $10 million each.
There has been no proportionality assessed - of actual risk to us. We have spent out of fear, not to appear weak, and lobbied for our share out of greed for taxpayer loot. The only cities at real risk are NYC, DC, LA and Vegas. Cities Islamist radicals will be able to brag about because they can find something in it to despise about US power and culture. But we've spent very well in many other cities and on peripheral projects.I wouldn't call it merely an over-reaction. I'd call it a criminally negligent waste of taxpayer money and blood of our citizenry. No business would be allowed to lose MORE than X resources to fix a loss of X resources, and spend $1 trillion to accomplish that amazing feat!
But we have. And we think we're smart? The rest of the world is leaving us behind economically, and here we are, mired in a crusade from another time because of fear, ignorance and ego, while debating evolution, the science of global warming and abortion. The rest of the world has moved on. We lead no more.
Healthcare
If you want universal healthcare, wouldnt the only efficient way to do it be similar to a country like Japan? There it's just all handled through the government and taxes. Yes, taxes are higher, but you get to walk in to any hospital and leave without any money out of pocket. My friend who studied abroad for a year there had an operation for almost no money! Their country as a whole is MUCH healthier than ours. Basically you get rid of the insurance companies completely because you would be paying the government instead which reduces bureaucracy costs and eliminates the money insurance companies took for profit.
It just seems to me that the best way to regulate healthcare price and medicinal prices would be to take away the profit side of it. Businesses should NOT be profiting of of HEALTH!
Oh well thats just my view.
One of the easiest and most significant things we can do as individuals to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (or demand for nuclear power) while also saving money in the long run is to replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. Yet in the US, only 11% of households have at least one compact fluorescent bulb installed. Why?
An article today in "USA Today entitled "The shape of lights to come? Not everyone's buying it" explains the consumer (mis) conceptions behind many people's reluctance to make the switch. The article also explains that for most of these objections, for most applications, it is really no longer an issue due to improvements in the technology.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-28-light-bulb_N.htm
To begin with, let's talk about Obama's challenge to have hope for change - change that we can believe in. What's wrong with hope? Has it become such a trivialization to say that we hope for a better world? No. That we hope for our loved ones' safe return when they are overseas in armed conflicts? Of course not.
Yet, to hope for a President that wishes to create more change, change the 'business as usual' approach from lobbying by large corporations, forgetting the small person in America, who constantly struggles, more and more over the last 10-15 years, to make their means and salaries go toward ever-greater ends and payments - this type of hoping is not alright? Nonsense. The natural cynicism and open-heartedness of Americans should be galled by such suggestions.
The problem seems to be in hoping for any type of improvement in our ability to effect change and the 'agenda' at the level of the federal government. As a former auditor, I listened with rapt admiration to the former long-time and popular Illinois Auditor General Robert G. Cronson, when he recalled that, democracy might not be the most efficient form of government, but it was the best-laid plan we had to work with. And it is. I was lucky enough to live with a sightline of Lincoln's tomb, passing the Old State Capital every day on foot, in Springfield, Illinois. I know what hope is.
It is important to remember, that, generally, there are efficiencies that can be gained in administration, and there is always agenda to be affected by persons committed to improving both our own lives and the management of our environment and resources, products and relations with other nations.
This seems to be where President Bush's administration has failed. And was President Clinton's administration so very effective in these areas? No. Recently, however, the problems have been exacerbated: we have been cut off from hope - that the federal administration will be accountable for itself, will review and revise its approach to de-regulating the environmental regulatory structure, will attempt to comply with a system of laws designed to enhance individual freedom and protection, will seek to re-visit its position on issues of international human rights concerning detention and imprisonment, will work hard to help coordinate improvements in the nation's infrastructure that are a foundation for generations to come.
The entire mindset of America has thus become cynical, and its doubts routed out by media wolves, and chased around, underneath the tables and chairs of solid and responsible logical discourse.
I believe in hope. I believe that hope for a better world is one of the only things that will save us from nuclear self-annihilation. I also believe in truth, truth about crime, truth about the criminal intent of those called 'terrorists' and the need to route out criminal networks, no matter their creed. I believe that immigrants should have hope: hope for better lives in their own countries of origin, as well as hope for chances to immigrate to lands with more opportunities for them to succeed. I believe we can and should help make all these hopes possible.
But in general, I believe that having someone with a moral and ethical heart, and a good grasp of what it takes to put together an effective and efficient administration, is what this country needs. That person will make the opportunities available for those with good ideas. The positive must be brought forward, while, as we know, the mistakes of the past must be corrected, over time, and with great effort.
And I pray for a change that makes my own appearance, as an American abroad, something I can be proud of, instead of something that consternates the senses of ordinary Europeans. We are an example by how we behave in the world. We must emphasize a moral code now. I don't see that coming from Mrs. Clinton.
America’s budget deficit and the level of its debt to foreign lenders have been growing at unsustainable rates. As we pay ever more for imported oil, imported manufactured goods, and even imported food, we borrow more and more from the governments of the countries that sell us these things. Remember reading about the days of company towns and the worker who sang, “I sold my soul to the company store”? Today it is increasingly America, as a nation, that has sold its soul to the foreign company store. The factories have largely gone already, and now we are selling our ports and our highways to foreign buyers because our federal and state governments are desperate for money. What’s left is a “service economy,” where our people serve each other restaurant meals, provide child care services for each other, mow each other’s lawns, and – until clients discover that they can get equivalent services more cheaply from the rapidly growing pool of educated workers in other countries -- provide consulting services to foreigners, all in order to pay for a portion of the goods we import.
In recent years, Americans have given up their privacy and various legal protections in the name of Homeland Security. But how secure is our homeland if we cannot survive without the goodwill of foreign lenders? What would happen if foreign nations withdrew their U.S. loans of some $9.2 trillion ($9,188,300,000,000)?
The Shared Economic Growth proposal, explained at www.sharedeconomicgrowth.org , would turn this situation around. By making America the investment location of choice, both U.S. and foreign companies would bring cash here, hiring Americans and boosting the growth of our economy as a result. By increasing our economic efficiency, the proposal would give our economy strength and stability, improve our balance of trade, and strengthen our tax base. It would help to improve U.S. innovation both by encouraging companies to place their research and development efforts here and by making investment capital readily available to innovators with good ideas.
America cannot be a free nation if her economy is held hostage by foreign lenders. Shared Economic Growth can end this dependence.
Wouldn’t that make you feel more secure? You can help to make this a reality. Visit www.sharedeconomicgrowth.org to see how. And insist on a candidate who offers solid, practical proposals for change.
Call it the Robin Hood approach to gas consumption. California drivers who buy new Hummers, Ford Expeditions and other big vehicles that waste fuel would pay a fee of up to $2,500. And drivers who buy more fuel-efficient cars - like the Toyota Prius or Honda Civic- would receive rebates of up to $2,500, straight from the gas-guzzlers' pockets.
That's the provocative proposal from a Silicon Valley legislator whose "Clean Car Discount" bill is gaining momentum, sending car dealers into a tizzy and sparking passions among motorists.
A feebate program could be established for all new passenger vehicles sold in the United States. Fee-bates provide a direct signal of the value of efficiency to consumers in the sticker price. A fee or a rebate is assigned to each individual vehicle type based on a fuel economy benchmark set annually for each vehicle size class. Buyers of more efficient vehicles re-ceive a rebate; buyers of less efficient vehicles pay a fee. Feebates should be designed to be revenue, technology and vehicle size neutral in order to preserve customer choice.
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