Your 2 cents, And you want change?

[unjonharley]

Efficient your ugly rear end. The piston engine is so 1920s.. It only burn 40% of it's fuel. The other 60 go's into the air..It takes only 1% of a vehicles power to move the driver down the road..

What the hell do you want with a 300 hp car.. The speed limit is 65 mph.. The public is not ready to go any faster.. 40 00 people have been killed every year sense 1945. The number one killer is speed.. Tx. has 85 mph on one road.. They just cleaned up a 100 plus vehicle pileup. The ass were driving the speed allowed in a fog bank. I may be a good driver but the other guy is piloting a 4000 pound. bomb

Yes you have been trained and told what car you should have from the time you were in diapers. In your case still in diaper..

It's time to stop beating the same old drum.. I suggest, the only way to force change is to hit pocket books hard..

[Elliot]

While these two old buddies reload for another friendly round of the fish-slapping game….

As I see it… The problem is not anybody’s longer-lower-wider Detroit Belchfire 500, but the fact that half our population drives 30 miles each way to work five days a week, year in and year out. That’s nuts! Society should be organized so most people could walk to work.
I know, that does not sound immediately practical, but we need to start thinking in those terms.

[gyre]

Speed is almost never a cause of an accident.
Where it contributes, it is usually due to differential speeds, left lane bandits, etc.

No one with open road has ever gone as slow as 65 mph on a texas highway.

[theCryptofishist]

That is happening, or starting to happen, Elliot. The Fruitvale in Oakland is apparently very successful as 'transit oriented development', and there's a lot of that kind of chatter around my office. To be sure, we don't have a lot of power to force that to happen, but we do have partners with more power.
Of course, it's likely that in many couples one will be unable to find work that near home.

[ygmir]

I agree, Elliot.
so much of our country is based on cheap fuel and the ability to move far and fast, in comfort.
Seems the European model, were most live close to work and can also take mass transit.

The problem is, of course, we love our suburbs (mostly),or what of them we can get.
So many folks do not want to live in downtown Detroit (or name your big city)........so, they buy in the outskirts and spend hours per day commuting.
getting people to live where they work, or near (even if we have the ever so efficient bullet train from Merced to Bakersfield), is a key.

[gyre]

There are more issues.
So called "flight" was legislated.

I'm looking at rural now.
Meanwhile millions of square feet of space sits empty in the city, with artificial markets propping up fantasy prices.
The only extra cost for me, besides some tax variations, is gas and time.

It isn't that hard to discern retail and real prices.
Real estate agents try to convince me that most sales don't count.
Appraisals don't count them, even real appraisals.
As long as anyone is stupid enough to buy that story, they'll pay too much.

The current model is wildly self destructive here.

[Elliot]

I'm thinking that factories and offices may not need to be so huge and centralized to be efficient. The cost of all that commuting -- in all respects, including pollution, national energy security etc -- must be counted as part of operating the factory. But that's hardly part of any corporate business plan today.

While I'm on the soap box....
We have a similar situation with houses. There is some progress with "green" construction, but it's a drop in the ocean. For a century, the concept has been to build a cheap house and keep it livable by pumping large amounts of energy into it continuously. While, if we build a house with enough insulation and thermal-mass, and heat-exchange ventilation, it won't take much more than body heat to keep the place warm.

Same in summer -- people have huge electric bills for air-conditioning -- on houses with black roofs, such as my former home in Sacramento, built in 1992. When I held my hand above my head I could feel heat radiating thru from the attic. No excuse. (I installed an attic ventilation fan, with corresponding inlets; it helped a good deal.)

[BAS]

One word: Overpopulation.

Agreed; pretty much everything comes back to overpopulation.

We would already be going off planet if the space program had been in private hands instead of gov.

Well, there hasn't been much to keep private industry out of the space program, except for a lack of profit. I recall the L5 Society trying to put up a space habitat, with the goal of making a lot of money, and it failed. Then there were a whole lot of start ups in the late 1980s-early 1990s, and they failed. So, it seems to me, that so far only government has been able to swing the huge, non-profitable development phase which comes before the profit making point private industry needs to survive. Harvard says that the next quarter's profits are all that really matter, but, until (maybe) recently, that first profitable quarter has been a LONG way off.

[gyre]

You're right about efficiency.

Attic ventilation can reduce ac bills by 90%.
I intend to superinsulate at least two rooms, even if it may be a short term residence.
Radiant heat can reduce heating bills too.
Comfort is key, not room temperature.

Mass is a bad idea in most places though, due to temperature changes.

Fuller said we build modern houses using medieval practices.

[theCryptofishist]

I'm thinking that factories and offices may not need to be so huge and centralized to be efficient. The cost of all that commuting -- in all respects, including pollution, national energy security etc -- must be counted as part of operating the factory. But that's hardly part of any corporate business plan today.

While I'm on the soap box....
We have a similar situation with houses. There is some progress with "green" construction, but it's a drop in the ocean. For a century, the concept has been to build a cheap house and keep it livable by pumping large amounts of energy into it continuously. While, if we build a house with enough insulation and thermal-mass, and heat-exchange ventilation, it won't take much more than body heat to keep the place warm.

Same in summer -- people have huge electric bills for air-conditioning -- on houses with black roofs, such as my former home in Sacramento, built in 1992. When I held my hand above my head I could feel heat radiating thru from the attic. No excuse. (I installed an attic ventilation fan, with corresponding inlets; it helped a good deal.)

Yup. We need to get back to passive solar.

Look, I'm not clever here, but you're right Elliot.

[BAS]

I rather like the Earthship style home-- as off grid as one can get these days, earth sheltered, built in greenhouse. That is one of the multiple projects I would like to undertake, but can never seem to come close to getting the resources together to even begin.

[gyre]

Get any enclosed building.
Build a separate interior shell, with no contact to the walls.
Add insulation and radiant barriers.
It can even be done in 8x8 foot cubes that can be moved with you.
Superinsulation may use several feet of insulation though.

Cork was once used and cotton seed.

Or buy an ice cream trailer.
Add an attic.

[BAS]

Around here, it is the land which is the problem. Earthships aren't all that expensive to build, if you want to put in the labor. (Actually, the labor appeals to me. Built right, one of those things should last a few hundred or so years, probably more.)

[gyre]

Aside from labor, soil and humidity are an issue here, though it's been done.
An earth banked home in midtown didn't last thirty years.

[Captain Goddammit]

Unjon, I need a 300 horsepower car to get as far away from you as possible, as quickly as possible.
Crotchety ol' fart.
It's looking like I'll actually see you again next year.

[knowmad]

[burner von braun]

When I was a young man, I worked for an architect, drafting passive solar, earth bermed houses which were fairly inexpensive. They had a poured concrete floor, back and sides which were earth bermed, and standard framing for the front and roof. We put windows, the door and closet space (air pocket insulation) toward the south-facing front. Thermal mass fire place in the central area on some of them, otherwise a wood stove. The roof overhung the windows at just the proper amount at our latitude to block the sun during summer months, but let in the lower winter sun's rays for heat. Particular attention was paid to proper drainage. They were great, and energy efficient, but people tend to want 'normal'.

As far as I know they've held up well..
Perhaps their day will come..

[gyre]

It's an old norse design, more suited to extreme cold.
There are just easier ways.
In a suitable location, it's not an impossible approach.

Eliminating windows, or most of them is desirable though.
If people had any grasp of how costly they are, they might.
If I built from scratch, I would virtually eliminate windows and use the cash for a glass patio.
Other people have pointed out that windows for visibility, used also for ventilation, is outmoded by a thousand years.