September 26, 2009

Thinking About Friends in the Land Down Under

Thinking about my friends in Sydney who suffered through awful dust storms this week. Makes you understand how little control we have.

Thanks to Tom Hide for the wonderful photo.

August 19, 2009

How come the DOE just can't figure out and publish cost per mile?

As with many things that our government "drives", the shell game is underway so that individual American citizens will not have the clear, unbiased information that would allow us to make really smart choices as we invest billions of dollars "retrofit" the 100m+ car and truck fleet we own. We should demand and get better.

August 12, 2009

Putting Our Tax Money Where It Might Actually Mean Something

Really telling piece in Earth2TEch today about the significant site and permitting delays being experienced by Brightsource, one of the most promising solar thermal plays.

This is a private company that is focused and well funded. They have closed deals in the gigawatt range with two of California’s largest utilities. They will be able to supply a portion of the renewable energy that these utilities need to meet state mandates.

So you would expect that federal and state officials would be doing everything that could to help companies like Brightsource to come online. Instead, a one year project has taken over two. Maybe instead of using our tax dollars to builld bike paths and pave small airfields that are never used, we should be allocating the money to make sure that our government does not get in the way of our real national priorities. What do you think?

August 10, 2009

Americans need to stop shouting at each other and learn to count

Interesting note in Earth2Tech today about a new EV R&D effort among the 10 largest Chinese automakers (by sales). The group called T10 Electric Vehicles will jointly research and develop power trains and components for plug-ins. While this is a long term play and you can never predict how successful a multi-company consortium will be, it is obvious that the Chinese automakers and the government are serious about dominating their own burgeoning domestic auto market and foreign markets as well.

This is yet another example of wake up calls for American companies, the American government and every individual citizen that is being ignored while we squabble with each other like we are still the center of the global economy and the "enemy" is other Americans who don't agree with us. In this area, as with many others, the long term numbers are already against us. Over the next decade+, the Chinese domestic auto market will dwarf our own. The same is true in India. Unless they just screw up, they will use this numerical advantage to fund innovation and manufacturing capability that can become an overwhelming competitive barrier that our crippled auto industry is unlikely to be able to overcome.

I cringe very time hear an American politician, from the right or the left, who still talks about our "leadership" position in the world and how much "better" our economic and political systems are than those in place in other parts of the world. We are continuing to drink this "kool-aid" while we scream at each other about things that will mean nothing in ten years.

We are squandering the tremendous wealth and way of life that was built with the blood and sweat of previous generations of Americans and which we were supposed to shepherd and grow for our children. Do you think there is any chance we will wake up and start paying attention?