Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"F. George McDuffee"
wrote in message
...
On Mon, 1 Feb 2010 19:51:07 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:
snip


So principle, yes, possibilities -- I'd have to see. It's easy to
say that this is what we have to do. It's much harder to say how
we can do it, in terms of politics as well as money.

http://tinyurl.com/ylkbqga

Gosh. A $189.00 book, and only five left! g

If I need another topic, I'll look into it. Meantime, it looks like
a subject just as big as the one I'm working on, and more difficult
because it's moving faster.

Can you tell us the Reader's Digest version? d8-)

I don't have a crystal ball.
There are, however, several clear trends that are increasingly
obvious though.
One that you have probably noticed is the shift in emphasis away from
personal transportation.
Kids today, for example, are far less concerned about squiring
themselves around. Increasing numbers of teenagers and young adults
aren't bothering to
obtain a driving license until doing so can't be avoided. Personal
transportation is an expense they avoid and an annoying use of
capital once
they can't. Purchases are based almost exclusively on functional
value blended with the desire to minimize any outlay of capital.
This, for American's, represents a fundamental cultural shift. We
are maturing as a society and our economy reflects this.

Government has always lead the way into the future, not just in
America, but
the world. Silicon Valley was built by entrepreneurs but they
leveraged technology that flowed from the investments made in basic
research funded or
encouraged by Uncle Sam that was leveraged by the private sector.
Cisco, for
instance, is the result of the transfer of intellectual property
from the public to private sector.



For the record, here's the kind of junk that starts populating my
mind when we start talking about a subject like this. You mention
all-electric cars; my question is, with lithium-ion batteries?
Maybe. Maybe not. And fuel cells -- they've been working on them
for over 40 years. When are they going to make one that someone
could actually buy?

You could buy a vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology
today. Ford has been running a small fleet for several years now,
for example. What
is lacking is an application of national will.
Tom Friedman wrote an interesting piece about his experience at
Davos this year. Did you see it?

Yeah. I'm a skeptic about command economies, even hybrids like Japan
30 years ago, or China now.

The San Francisco building code will soon be revised to require that new
structures be wired for car chargers. Across the street from City Hall, some
drivers are already plugging converted hybrids into a row of charging
stations.

In nearby Silicon Valley, companies are ordering workplace charging stations
in the belief that their employees will be first in line when electric cars
begin arriving in showrooms. And at the headquarters of Pacific Gas and
Electric, utility executives are preparing "heat maps" of neighborhoods that
they fear may overload the power grid in their exuberance for electric cars.

"There is a huge momentum here," said Andrew Tang, an executive at P.G.& E.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/bu...ctric.html?hpw


--
John R. Carroll