Energy, Gasoline, batteries, solar, where is the money?

I was driving to work this morning and saw a sign. "BIG OIL" 80.1 cents per liter. Just last night, it was 73.9. We have the same Canadian PM. We have a new President, but he is in charge of what can only be described as a foreign country.

The last time I entered the USA was a month after 9-11. The same border guard met me at the gate. When I pulled up there was 3 people. One National Guardsman with a M16 was walking all around my car. They asked me to open the trunk, I looked up and told them, "this is a 1984 VW, there is no electric anything, if you want to open the trunk, hit the button yourself, it is unlocked and there is nothing in it." With that the Guardsman hit the button and looked in their for a few minutes. The Border guy looked down at me and asked where I was from and continued to give me the third degree. I looked over at the three of them and said," I have lived in the house across the cove for 40 years. I have lived and worked in Fredericton for 20 years and I have driven across this border for more than 40 years. What happened to you guys? Did you forget who your friends are, I'll never be back again." With that the older guy remembered that the family had been in the same house, since 1930's and had been across the border all that time and never caused a problem. Finally the Guard guy stopped pointing the gun in my direction. I have never been back.

A Foreign country, the New York harbour price of oil, sets the price for all of Canada. Why? Is it because they know better than we do? Do we not have a stock market, that could function for this? We produce more oil than the US, at least that is what we are being told by Alberta. If that is true, why does not Alberta set the price for oil. They are selling it to the USA. A Foreign country, using thier own definition of Canada.


Venezula - produces oil too, has national oil companies and sells oil to its people, at the cost-plus arrangement of 30 cents per liter or so. They offered to sell oil to US states directly, a couple winters ago, to get cheap fuel to senior citizens who needed to stay warm but could not afford the high price of USA fuels. Funny eh! Venezula was making a profit!?

Alberta is making a profit! Not a foreign country.

Nova Scotia and NFLD are not countries either, but I have had to pay $1.45 per liter in order to put Canadian fuel into my Canadian car.

I am told, that is becasue of the Americans. Which ones? The ones who could not get out of New Orleans when they were flooded? The ones who got stuck in a Football stadium until the filth was so bad they had to move everyone out again to some where else. Or the ones who put thier money into Ponzie schemes and were dupped by already wealthy, Con- artists.

Batteries is the technology needed to store energy to allow it to be kept and used at a later date. It is not static. Lead-acid loses a percentage of charge each day, until dead. NiCad are not much better, 5% to 7% per day. NiMH are somewhat better, but are shorter on the life span and only lose about 4% per day. Lithium is the best of the bunch right now, at 2% to 3% loss per day. However, put Lithium batteries in a confined space and the battery pak has problems with heat. Heat makes fire and you have all seen the flaming Laptops on YouTube. If we could get a really great storage device/ technology that would make running electric cars that much better. Don't hold your breath on this though. Technology gets bought and shelved to keep the old tech making money.

Solar Panels have had some great movement. Efficiency is the issue and once this is tackeld there have been some great improvements made in the last 10 years. That said, it has been bought up and the price increased to keep it in line with other current technolgy. Don't you just love it? [I'll detail the 2 technolgies and give Eff notes for each. You can buy surplus stuff, but the Eff is low compared to the newest of the panels. ]

Money - Well - it's not with Canadian oil companies, cause they can do stuff, but they run out of money very quickly. Look at the oil patch right now. Even with the economics down, they have the infastructure sorted out. All it is now is turn the crank and the oil runs out the pipe. To me, it appears that the problem is effiency again. Lots of losses along the line. There appears to be no heat recovery systm for a lot of these oil process systems, WHY? NOT?

Oil Companies - look at the quarterly reports of profits made by USA oil. Look where they are drilling and if they are working anything real. Taking mideast oil and processing it is just a shell game. The shieks are making money and are happy. The energy monster needs to be fed and it is ingrained that the most efficinet way is to use oil.

Look around, there are grass roots mechancis working on all kinds of stuff that gets a lot more MPG than any big 3 company has built. Some have Carb tricks, some have other stuff attached. Some are just large BELT-Sanders with big Battery paks and still go for a good distance. Whatever it takes, it will get better, through back-yard mechanics and the internet, there will be better answers come out.

Just keep watching!

Cheers - David - mileage varies depending how you drive. If you pak your own parachute, make sure you knwo what your doing! Do eat the yellow snow, or the white snow with brown flecks.