Hi Roger and Engineer,

I appreciate your response, Roger, and just wanted you to know I did read it. Lots here to discuss.
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Engineer: Thanks and,

re: "...the 'Sustainability' proposal..."

Could you please let me know what you're referring to here?
Thanks.

Engineer-Poet,

Glad to see your in on the little "mini forum" of Aniya and myself! I wish we could get a string like this going with a few more participants.

First, on your assertion "Please note that the "hydraulic hybrid" systems and other hybrids only achieve huge savings in very short stop-and-go cycles, such as garbage trucks moving from house to house." I agree completely, that in steady state over the road work, the value of hybrids is greatly limited and will not make create nearly as much efficiency as in stop start driving, but they are not completely valueless there. I will return to that in a moment, but let's stay on the stop start driving in which they are strongest:

It is interesting to look at some of the vehicles that engage in a great deal of stop and start type work: You mentioned gargage trucks. Newspaper and mail delivery vehicles are similiar in use pattern, as are school buses, particularly in city school systems. Of course, delivery trucks and vans, such as UPS and FedEx, and Shwann's food delivery trucks would benefit.
A HUGE potential market is in city buses and cabs. One can see the possibility of a compressed natural gas or propane hydraulic hybrid bus or mini van cab vehicle. Nationwide, the savings could be considerable, and what we are after is to punch holes in consumption, without disrupting the culture before we move to methods of dismantling the culture. This should lead to a curve downward on consumption of oil and gas while "prosperity" in something close to it's current definition remains.

Now, to electric hybrids over the road, and also "plug hybrids: I do not now have it at my fingertips, but Car&Driver Magazine did a fascinating road drive in one of the Lexus Electric hybrid SUV's some year ago, from the coast of California up into the Sierra Mountains and back, typical "outing to the vacation home in the mountains" sort of thing.

They were smitten, and surprised, and these are guys who have a history of hard driving, not "tree hugger" soft peddlers by any stretch.

First, the electric hybrid, unlike the hydraulic hybrid, allows for longer range storage of power, thus, it becomes an exercise in long range energy conversion and return mathematics. Any round trip, no matter the distance, will involve uphill and downhill driving. The trip into the mountains was a perfect example, in that most of the trip to the cabin in the hills was uphill. Needless to say, the hybrid effect was nil, and Car&Driver testers were disappointed by the mileage of the hybrid going to the cabin. There they discussed the trucks economy performance with a Toyota technician, who sagely told them not to judge the SUV until they had made the full trip. On the way, back, the SUV, now going downhill out of the mountains, returned the lost economy, and more, delivering on that leg of the trip an economy performance far above predicted by the EPA stats. But, it was simply returning the power stored in regenerative braking, and gaining what could not be gained on the way up. The economy of a well designed hybrid is very good in all conditions, but it is much more of a "life cycle" performance, not a one way trip performance. Continued measuring of the vehicles performance indicates true efficiency, not shown easily in a one time short distance measurement.

The promise of the plug hybrid is of course far greater. Batteries that can withstand continued cycle deep discharge and recharge are the only hold up.

If one can build an electric car that is 50 by 50, that is to say, 50 mile range at 50 miles per gallon, then the idea of a 50/50 hybrid is well within reach. Does anyone doubt that a 50/50 electric car can now be built? That is a VERY low level to have to achieve, many electrics have done more.

In my own case, I commute 42 miles round trip. A plug hybrid could give me all of that off of my house current, but I would need a bit of recharge due to the need for extra performance (i.e., over 50 miles per hour by a small margin for the road part of the trip) but then we must factor in the regenerative braking effect, which would contribute some range.

This is why the Chevy Volt created such a storm of interest. It IS the car the nation needs. It can run if there is a complete lack of fuel. It could deliver the range. It could deliver the performance. The design, as defined by GM is the CORRECT path, being an all around usable, real car that could revolutionize the economics of fuel consumption. It is an ELEGANT DESIGN.

But, then General Motors chickened out before they even began the game.
They started backing away. The batteries are not available. Of course, that story is so inane and ludicrious no one is buying it. The batteries are of course available. The discussion involves price points, and setting the consumer expectations as to how long the batteries should be warrentied.
The batteries now available will perform, and do a steller job, but for how many discharge cycles, how deep? The truth is the manufacturer of the battery, General Motors, and perhaps even the utility providing the power will have to be involved in protecting the consumer from a complete battery failure should that occur (they are possible) and will have to financially set the "break points". The government may be involved in incentive to all parties. Such is the complicated culture we now live in. GM and the battery makers are now trying to bleed the turnip, as we say in the south, to get every possible advantage from their efforts, and all the financial rewards it can deliver. There is no doubt the technology will work, you could build the drivetrain into a 1980 Chevette. What everyone involved is doing is trying to make it sound as difficult as possible in the effort to get more for doing it.

This is expected. But we must NOT let the larger picture get away from us. We must let GM and others know that we know what they are doing, and they, the battery manufacturers, the government, the customer and all interested parties must keep in mind that our national economy is at stake here. Declaring impossible what is easily seen to be possible is o.k., for a while, but others (possibly external international firms) are in the game too. If GM waits too long, they should expect no pity, no protection, and no bailout from the American people who they have had a history of dismissing.

To finish with your last point, "You're absolutely right about the standard of living issue; any claim that we must cut back and accept less leads to denial. This is why the "Sustainability" proposal is aimed at supplying 100% of current end-use energy requirements for transport and electric."

The difference between denial and acceptance is a thin one. I can tell an 82 year old man with both hips and knees already replaced that he should bicycle to the doctor, he just has to have WILL POWER! He is a baby, spoiled to expect to ride in a car! He is in "denial" he should accept less!

Of course, he is in reality, a reality that the young and vibrant don't like to see. In more primitive cultures, he would already be dead.

I work everyday with middle aged women, divorced or widowed, who are damm good at what they do, but what they do is rather narrow....office supervision, clerical work, office training in very narrow information based skills. The idea that they are going to become primitive farm wives at this late stage in life is "denial" of a high order. And these are not "rare" examples of how people live. They were educated for this from the age of high school, and there are tens upon tens of millions of them. They are the customers, the workers, the logistical backbone of a complex culture.

A collapse of the modern technical culture matters little in the thinking of these people and rightly so. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing they could do to survive it. It would be the same as if a meteor struck the Earth. There is simply NO possibility of many of these successful and hard working people making the type of change needed to survive. They, like myself due to the health issues mentioned above, must work for the advance of technology, the efficiency of a modern technical and advanced system is (and most average civilized people know this, it is why they dismiss the "primitive noble savage fantasies" out of hand) is what keeps them alive. If it ends, they end.

So many people misunderstood Dick Chaney's sentence in this regard. Hatred of the man caused people to dismiss the truth of his logic when he said "Our way of life is non-negotiable."

He was not throwing out a challenge. He was stating a fact. A great change or collapse forced upon the nations of the modern world is not negotiable, because it would death. I once heard a diplomat say "Just about anything can be negotiated, except one thing: My right to exist. If you set as your beginning non-negotiable term the position that I have no right to exist, then why would I negotiate? I'm a dead man if I do. I will fight to the death."

Make no mistake. What many call "powerdown" or the "collapse" or the "die off" or "life in the wilderness", or what some try to polity recast as "sustainability" will be fought to the dying breath. And why not? If the only option given by acceptance of the terms is death, then why not fight, and at least have a chance, or, at least die with dignity?

Toffler described this in 1980, in "The Third Wave", "the coming super struggle" he called it. And he knew then, what we know now: In the effort to survive, NO technical solution will be off the table.

What we have to work for, propagandize for, is "elegant technology", the kind that does far less harm than good, the kind that does not destroy humans and the biosphere, but includes it in the design, the kind that can be seen as beautiful in an aesthetic sense, and desirable by the citizens and customer.

We must reawaken the designers, the (to borrow your handle, pretty good...
the true "Engineer-Poets" :-)

Sorry to go so long, but to me this is the cutting edge, the fascination of the whole energy discussion. It all comes back to this: What kind of world do we want to live in? That is what will decide so much.

Roger Conner Jr.
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom