Something more optimistic… Because the new work/live space that we have is more than big enough to do car work in (it has a garage door into its main space), I’ve been thinking about doing that. I thought about different power systems –
- Electric, my original plan… Costs $10,000+ to do for dubious performance. Too expensive for too little benefit.
- Biodiesel, which many have suggested… What’s the point? I don’t really see a huge savings environmentally over an efficient diesel or gas engine.
- Traditional Gas Internal Combustion… An efficient engine will get you 40+ mpg, but of course it still uses gas pumped from the guts of the earth and all the troublesome politics and infrastructure that comes with that.
The solution that I really like is gasification, which I know I’ve posted about in the past. Basically what this process does is convert coal or biomass (wood, garbage) or other carbon-rich materials into a gas mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (ie. wood gas). The nice thing about this gas is that it can be ignited in a normal gas internal combustion engine with very little modification. According to Wikipedia, 1 kg of wood produces the equivalent of .365 litres of petrol, so a car that gets 40 mpg (for example, a VW kit car) would get about 4 miles per kilogram of wood — or about 7,000 miles per cord (4′x4′x8′) of wood. With wood costing $175 a cord, that’s quite bearable — to say nothing of how much free waste wood and biomass is out there. If you assume gas costs $2/gallon, then the gasification system actually costs you 50% less. Oh, and emissions are also lower.
So on that note, I’m really thinking about picking up a small gasification system like the ones offered by ALL Power Labs, because it seems to me like the most sensible “alternative power” vehicle is a hybrid gasoline/gasification driveline with a home gasification system (rather than mounting it in the vehicle itself)
German Adler Diplomat 3 with Gas Generator
ALL Power Labs Gasification Kit
Wood Powered Sports Car?
You can purchase ALL Power Labs’s for $350 to $2395 depending on how complete you’d like it. Gasification is being rapidly re-discovered — it was last popular in the West during WWII when gasoline became hard to get, especially in Germany — and I suspect many will discover that it makes a lot more sense than many of the options on the table for powering automobiles (and many other things — this is also how low-emissions coal power works).
I watched They Live again today, and it’s as relevant now as it was in the eighties — more so, probably.
I think it’s “funny” that we think that the economy can be bailed out… As I understand it, new money is created out of debt, and that debt is paid off (and later amplified) by increases in productivity and consumption. Essentially a global bubble slash pyramid slash Ponzi scheme. However, we’re hitting a point where birth rates are flattening out and the scheme isn’t growing fast enough to support itself any more, so the system is starting to malfunction. It’s so deeply integrated into everything though that I don’t know how we can extract ourselves from the system.
The level of CHANGE needed seems way beyond what people will tolerate… I feel like the bailout is built around this idea that “everything is going to be just fine” if we just plug our ears. You can’t inject money into a flawed system to save its users any more than you can pick yourself up by your shoelaces.
But still, we have more wealth than we know what to do with… We make more food, shelter, and luxury than the people of Earth can use. I read recently that Sacramento, which has a huge homeless population and is thinking about “making permanent” its tent city simultaneously has a huge rental vacancy rate — so the problem isn’t that we can’t provide for people, the problem is that our system chooses not to. But we are technically able to do it.
So I don’t know…
Some silly mind-game articles were linked on Slashdot today that make the claim that if humans have free will, then subatomic particles have free will as well. Even if I buy the idea that subatomic particles have an element of randomness, so we’re not a purely predicable physical machine — which I don’t actually buy and certainly is not the same thing as “free will” — I still don’t think that this raises any possibility that we have free will — just that we’re unpredictable… Free will is at best an illusion that arises from a massively complex, but still ultimately deterministic, system.
I think on a metaphorical level I agree with the Hindu dualistic notion that matter has no freedom, and that the soul lacks any control over matter, and that enlightenment is comes from understanding that the two worlds never interact… except of course I feel that the “soul” is an illusory construct.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
See, this is why my drive has Truecrypt.
From a conversation Nefarious had with a new friend at the park…
Nefarious: I’m almost six. How old are you?
Georgia: I’m a big girl — I’m four.
Nefarious: When did you turn four?
Georgia: On my birthday!
Haha.
Anyway, as I said a little while ago, I think people these days are missing out on a lot of literary references because of the lack of religious education, but I figured that also extends to classic Americana like Brer Rabbit stories, so I’ve been searching those out online and printing them and Nefarious and I have been reading more than ever. I wasn’t sure if she was going to be into these old stories, but so far they’ve been a big hit. Another good source for free kids stories online is the Project Gutenberg Children’s Bookshelf, which has lots of classic fairytales, mythology, and more. I’m actually half considering getting an ebook reader because I’ve been doing so much online reading lately.
