Cool-Factor Predicted To Spur Energy Conservation 130
An anonymous reader writes "Panelists at a recent technology expo argued about how to motivate people to conserve energy, dragging out all the usual suspects, from financial incentives to emotion appeals to 'save the planet.' However, one panelist trumped the status quo by noting that adding the 'cool factor' could make energy conservation fun via apps on smartphones and tablets. By making energy conservation as fun as a video game, the fickle on-again, off-again of human nature might just be overcome."
Doom light switch? (Score:3)
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Gives new meaning to the phrase "kill the lights", doesn't it?
Re:P0RN (Score:4, Funny)
if the light switch were shaped like a clitoris, men would be stumbling round in the dark trying to find it.
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Cool-Factor? (Score:2)
Because Smartphones... (Score:1)
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Considering that mine regularly prevents me from turning on a desktop or laptop I would agree with you.
Population (Score:1)
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Population is self-limiting (Score:3)
Economic power allows women to choose the size of their family, and experience shows that population growth levels out when a country achieves a certain level of prosperity. Condoms, birth control pills (synthetic hormones - bad for long-term health of the woman, but good for temporarily preventing conception or implantation), vasectomies (or wearing a testical-heater/nut-cup), etc - lots of ways to prevent babies. Even "Natural Family Planning" works pretty well, because there's only a few days a month tha
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There is another way to reduce family size: religion. If the Catholic Church and a large enough number of Imams decided to lighten up on contraception and recommend keeping family sizes down then potentially billions of people would listen.
Otherwise, as you say, we will just have to wait for these societies to mature and proper enough to reject religious views on offspring.
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Methane is an energy source, and methane from shit can be used to replace fossil fuels.
http://www.google.com/search?q=methane+digester [google.com]
Methane biogas is the future, baby! Renewable, far more cost-effective than nukes and obviously more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels.
Sadly, your major point is still right... it's unlikely we can continue to increase our population forever without triggering some kind of extinction event.
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The problem is that the majority of the methane (which has approximately 20x impact on the greenhouse effect vs CO2) is actually emitted right out the butts of livestock bred for our food & clothing. Either you're going to have to put a pipe up each animal to capture that, or we're about to have the world's biggest BBQ...
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Good point! One more reason to believe that biotech is the future, not clunky 1940s nuclear or 1800s petroleum tech. The only way to get better cows is to breed better cows, they won't spontaneously generate themselves out of a particle accelerator or a steam engine.
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Methane is an energy source, and methane from shit can be used to replace fossil fuels.
http://www.google.com/search?q=methane+digester [google.com]
Methane biogas is the future, baby! Renewable, far more cost-effective than nukes and obviously more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels.
Sadly, your major point is still right... it's unlikely we can continue to increase our population forever without triggering some kind of extinction event.
it's unlikely we can continue to increase our population forever without triggering some kind of population crash event.
FTFY
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the problem with voluntary population control is it selects for selfish bastards.
all the earth-minded people will willingly reduce their numbers, everyone else will continue to breed like rabbits.
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You do realize that this only has effect in 30+ years, right ? (Arguably it only has definitive effect once the current childbearing cohort starts dying off, so that means that if people have kids at 30, and live to 80, we're talking 50 years)
If you want to have a real effect through changing the population I'm afraid "direct intervention" (think socialist eugenics in the 1930's) is the only viable option.
But your idea sounds good, it is a horrible idea (because it will lower the amount of productive citize
Re:Population (Score:4, Insightful)
I was thinking
I'm not sure you were. ;)
tax credits for small families, and tax burdens for large families
People with large families aren't doing it for the money. Having kids is already a significant expense, and the tax breaks for kids don't really amount to squat in comparison to the expense.
The childless families are rolling in money by comparison. Both can work...
No diapers, no day care expense, no extra mouth to feed and clothe, birthday presents to buy, constant school fundraising/fieldtrips/hotlunch days/bookfairs, haircuts, dental work, glasses...
Nobody has kids to save moeny.
And throwing a tax burden on them won't stop them from having more kids.
The trailer park squad is having them because they make bad decisions... and they aren't going to consider the tax ramifications of unprotected sex if they failed to consider the pregnancy ramifications of unprotected sex.
The no contraceptives for religious reasons group isn't going to stop having sex or having kids due to a tax burden either... they'll just be poorer thanks to you... perhaps driven to live in trailers with the first group.
Finally its not like large families can 'right size' in response to the burden either, even if they wanted to.
Meanwhile... the childless couples will putter around in their sports cars and vacations with their disposable income augmented by tax breaks until they get old and apparently have to be looked after by someone elses kids. ;)
That said.. you said tax breaks for small families... so maybe you mean families of 3 to 5, instead of childless couples. And that's less caustic... but tax breaks for childless couples is demented.
If you want small families though, taxes isn't the way to do it.Education and prosperity is the path to smaller families.
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Childless couples put less burden on society, plus when they get old, they'll help the economy because they'll have to pay someone to look after them.
What they should do is have a tax break for 1, maybe 2 kids per couple, but after that give them exponentially increasing tax burdens. 3 kids, a very small burden, 4, a moderate one, 5 a large one, etc.
Families of 3-5 are good, because it's enough people to keep the population stable, but small enough that parents can devote more time and resources to their k
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they'll have to pay someone to look after them.
Unless they run out, and then society puts them in a shallow hole until they starve to death and then covers them with dirt. Oh... wait... no... society foots the bill.
What they should do is have a tax break for 1, maybe 2 kids per couple, but after that give them exponentially increasing tax burdens. 3 kids, a very small burden, 4, a moderate one, 5 a large one, etc.
Your missing the point, though. That won't stop stupid people from having kids. Trust me... the
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Your missing the point, though. That won't stop stupid people from having kids. Trust me... they REALLY didn't want to get pregnant and they couldn't bother to take the steps to prevent that... they are NOT going to be thinking about "tax breaks".
Tax penalties as birth control will work about as well death penalty for people trying to commit suicide.
There's nothing that forces parents to keep their children if they "REALLY didn't want to get pregnant". Around here, you can drop off your kid at any fire sta
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Around here, you can drop off your kid at any fire station, no questions asked.
And who pays to raise children dropped off at fire stations?
How would that solve ANYTHING?
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If the children are young enough, there's ten-year-long waiting lines for people wanting to adopt healthy children.
The problem is if 1) the children are too old; no one wants to deal with a foster teenager with severe emotional issues; or 2) the parents won't release their rights to the child. Lots of kids in foster care are like this: perfectly adoptable, but the stupid parents won't relinquish their rights, so they're stuck in "foster limbo" where the state takes care of them in group homes, but no one c
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If the children are young enough, there's ten-year-long waiting lines for people wanting to adopt healthy children.
Because poor drug/alcohol abusers living in trailer parks dropping off babies at fire stations are just the thing people are waiting 10 years to get.
Come on.
As for stupid parents not relinquishing their rights... the bond between parent and child is pretty strong. Instinct, genetic programmed, survival of the species mechanism for a few millions of years... that sort of thing.
You'd pretty much
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At first, yes. The effect is well-understood and well-researched, try asking google or wikipedia about "demographic transition".
Primitive societies, have high birth-rates, but also high death-rates, then living-conditions improve, and death-rates fall, but birth-rates remain, leading to population-growth. In the next-phase births fall too though, and so the new steady state is low-deaths AND low births.
Many wealthy nations today have birth-rates *below* the replacement-level, this is true for large parts of
Stop trying to be smart... (Score:2)
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Just gotta somehow link that energy saving light bulbs stimulate your libido.
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could be counter-productive. most energy saving bulbs are not dimmable, and we all know dimmed lights are sexier.
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Well, there are LEDs for that...
Hell, with the right LED setup, one can even do color changes to fit the mood.
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Just gotta somehow link that energy saving light bulbs stimulate your libido.
That will only succeed in selling light fixtures with for 100 energy saving bulbs.
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At which point do we get to call ecofascism by its proper name?
When it starts being anti-human, instead of pro-environment, which is also pro-human.
Slippery-slope fallacy is fallacious.
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instead of pro-environment, which is also pro-human.
I disagree.
Slippery-slope fallacy is fallacious.
If I believe the has already been crossed, it's not a slipper slope argument then. Now we are just arguing semantics. You want to call ecofascism "fluffy bunnies." I want to call it ecofascism.
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If I believe the has already been crossed, it's not a slipper slope argument then.
Logical fallacies have nothing to do with what you believe, and everything to do with what you say. Here is what you said:
Why not go for full necrophilia?... Let's get people excited about public hangings since it's people that cause all these emissions, right?
That is exactly a slippery-slope fallacy, unless you are claiming that these things have actually happened. If they haven't, then this isn't a line which has been crossed. Suggesting that crossing some other line (one you nevermentioned) will lead to this is pretty much a textbook slippery slope.
Now we are just arguing semantics. You want to call ecofascism "fluffy bunnies."
As far as I can tell, I'm actually putting forth arguments, and you're putting forth fallacie
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Considering...
Total darkness is still best in many cases.
Beauty is just a light switch away. In total darkness I look like Brad Pitt.
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There's no need for clever new strategies to promote adoption. If you want to sell something just give it sex appeal. Sex sells. Always has, always will.
But I think these people want to counter HotOrNot [hotornot.com].
Um, make it more expensive? (Score:2)
Nah, that'll never work.
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Money isn't cool? (Score:1)
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I can't think of any time when saving money was considered 'cool'. Smart, sure, but then again 'smart' was rarely 'cool', either. Most societies idolize overblown displays of wealth and physical ability, not thrift and intelligence.
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Most societies idolize overblown displays of wealth and physical ability, not thrift and intelligence.
They do? Yes, American society is totally just like this, but "most societies"? I'm pretty sure Asian societies have not historically had these traits.
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Right. And Native Americans are noble peace-loving people who lived happy, healthy lives, in harmony with the environment.
People are people. It doesn't really matter what culture they're from - our basic urges, desires, and shortcomings are the same. Don't believe the hype.
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Oh please. You're trying to tell me that China and Japan worship sports the way Americans do? That's complete bullshit. They have their sports, of course, but not the way we do with "sports bars" full of big-screen TVs blaring dozens of ESPN channels simultaneously, and the addiction that many American men have to them. They also DO value intelligence in a way totally the opposite of us. While we make fun of engineers, people in India and China consider it a highly respected profession, the way we do w
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Wait. We consider shystering a highly respected profession? Sense when? I didn't get the memo.
As to sports and Asia. BS. Asians will bet on anything.
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"Highly respected profession" and "lawyers" doesn't fit together very well, I think. Or did I just miss some irony?
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Depends on who you talk to. Among engineers and other technical people, no, lawyers aren't really well respected. Among poor people and less educated people, they think of lawyers almost like gods. Other more-educated people in useless jobs tend to think well of them too. Finally, just look at the voting public. Year after year, who do they elect to the highest positions in government? Lawyers. Look at who all the "intelligent" liberals voted for in '08 for President: a lawyer.
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I can't think of any time when saving money was considered 'cool'. Smart, sure, but then again 'smart' was rarely 'cool', either. Most societies idolize overblown displays of wealth and physical ability, not thrift and intelligence.
Well, maybe then we must make it that having energy conserving technology shows wealth. Make energy saving products expensive and look expensive. Then, gradually introduce less expensive models (but not too fast). Slowly the "if you have it, you must be rich" will turn into "if you don't have it, you must be poor". Which still is a great incentive to get it. And by the time that everyone (actually, everyone who could afford the non-energy saving equivalent) can afford it, it will be the normal thing, and no
Mandatory SMBC... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Governments using carrots and sticks to corral and constrain and align behaviour. It's not the immorality of governing organizations. It's the TRADE-OFF of governing organizations.
Try inner city Rio de Janeiro or a failed state (several to choose from in Africa) with no effective government, and
see what happens to the average chance of getting hurt on any given day.
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It is ok to jail/hurt someone who hurts people, but is it right to hurt someone who doesn't want to help someone? To me the answer is obvious, but to most people in the US the answer seems to be the opposite of my opinion.
Depends. I more or less agree with you, but evolutionary pressures have driven us to develop the tendency to punish not only those who directly harm the tribe, but also those who refuse to help the tribe. In small tribes, you could simply banish those who were useless - in modern society, we don't really have that option. Public shaming would have been one way to deal with such issues ... however, in the Internet Era, public shaming can be more harmful than imprisonment. I'm not sure how to deal with it
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Already seen in practice (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to gun the motor a lot more in the Rav4 just cause it was fun and there wasn't much reason not to (the difference in mileage and thus the difference in how often i had to fill up seemed pretty marginal) but now that i've got direct and immediate feedback playing with the mpg gauges is also fun, even if in an entirely different way, and now it's the marginal difference in time that i'm dismissing rather than the marginal difference in mileage. (And i still drive faster than i probably ought to, and i still will gun my car from time to time just for the fun of it, just nowhere near as often.)
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Not just the miles per gallon readings, but I've seen multiple car reviews talk about essentially a 'green meter', which purposefully (IMHO) tries to get people's mind into video game mode..
The one I saw recently on a CNET car review did I think a green leafy image, and the circle of leaves grew as you were driving less lead-footed (and I think they went from blue to green).
Re:Already seen in practice (Score:4, Interesting)
Nissan Altimas have the MPG meter, and I notice I do try to keep it as high as I can when I have it on (though I rarely do. There's more important info screens on there, and for some reason they decided to make the fonts on each one huge so you can't put them all on at once).
But I just wish we could get an accurate gas gauge. If people (me, at least) could tell that this trip used 2.168 gallons, they'd know it also cost $8 and they might think about doing things differently. For now, all you know is that your last ten trips used something like 3/8ths of a tank. And a tank in this car is, uh... 18.3 gallons? Maybe? Times 3/8ths is, uh... Fuck it. If I need gas I'll get gas.
A real-time meter that says your flooring it and slamming on the brakes every 10 seconds just cost you 0.2 gallons over 30 seconds (or whatever) might make people a little more conservative.
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If your car can only burn .2 gallons in 15 seconds floored (assuming half brakes, half gas) then your car is lame.
You need a bigger engine, cams and more boost to be cool. Not liking this fact doesn't change it.
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When it comes to cars I couldn't agree more. Vehicles constitute a status symbol where spending too much money makes people feel better. Screw the cool factor - that's what makes people buy inefficient vehicles and drive in a wasteful fashion.
I used to be scared driving next to sports car-driving idiots who insist on getting to 80mph in moderate traffic while leaving only half a car length of room in front of them. Since I upgraded a car which shows my MPG, I watch their brake lights flicker constantly a
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the ones on the BMWs are there to make you feel guilty for hitting that sweet second gear so hard.
my transition from 1988 corolla to 2002 325i was a rough one.
rippity rap (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe we could do one of those rapping songs the kids are so keen on these days?
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Maybe we could do one of those rapping songs the kids are so keen on these days?
And broadcast it on the blog they all twitter?
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Forever cool (Score:1)
Because people never change their idea of what is cool....
Compete against yourself (Score:3)
When I commute, I want to be able to glance at a gasoline usage meter and see how much I've used up to that point and how it compares to the same point on previous commutes. Then I can compete against myself, similar to the "ghost" in Mario Kart.
OP might have something (Score:2)
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Nice straw man. Do you really believe that? Conservation (hey, that looks like "conservative") is positive when it's performed voluntarily, or agreed on by a community-- not when it's imposed on people at their own cost of property and freedom. That's what conservatives think.
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The problem with energy conservation crowd (Score:1)
a) overly expensive due to the cost of batteries
b) total crap if you need to get anywhere over a certain distance due to the inability to "charge a tank" quickly, the idea is to improve public transports and have people use cars for long-distance travels for which other options suck.
Second important on
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Second important one is excessive house heating. That one has an appeal too - don't heat as much , and/or insulate your house, and you'll save money, and quite a lot
Not enough. To make it economically worthwhile, it needs to have a payback time of 3 years or so.
Most people don't stay in their house much more than 5 years. Worse, these days with the mortgage meltdown, a lot of people don't even own their house, they're renters, and probably won't be buying another house for 7 years or more.
Making improveme
Turning the heating down, (Score:1)
And nobody was talking about solar panels or other overly expensive methods anyway - polystyrene plates for wall insulation are reasonably cheap, and they do deliver.
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In urban areas public transport is very effective, fast and low on energy consumption. however, it has to be subsidized, because car travel is subsidized a lot. Plus, people do not count all cost for the car when they compare it with public transport, but only the gas.
For midrange distances you can use trains (at least in Europe) they are save, fast and you can relax or work while you ride.
The only area where public transport does not work very well is the country side. There cars can be more usable.
However
Dumbing down? (Score:2)
I thought Idiocracy is just a movie, but when we really have to sell a sustainable way of life with coolness, I start to doubt that. On the other hand, this would make Europeans pretty cool compared to people from the US. ;-)
Well d'uh (Score:2)
It's been demonstrated tons of times that when you make something fun, people go for it.
Just look at Volkswagen's The Fun Theory [thefuntheory.com] project for proof.
Broad sticky solutions are hard (Score:2)
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0-60 has been measurable for decades.
The problem is going slow will never be cool. Going fast will always be cool.
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this is a problem of human nature that everyone likes to feel superior. the reason scarcely matters.
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I'm sorry, but I can't help but feeling smug when one of my dumb neighbors complains about how he's spending hundreds of dollars a month on gas for his jacked-up V8 pickup truck, and I'm spending less than $50 for two 30mpg cars. I probably wouldn't feel smug but for the fact that idiots like that complain so much after making stupid choices, and then they refuse to make smarter choices that would alleviate the problems they're complaining about.
There's a lot of people where I live who just HAVE to have a
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For example, a new office building could be made so that all its walls and roof are covered with solar panels, underneath which water pipes run - light is converted to extra electricity and hot water. Start a program to outfit regular house roofs with solar panels, too, and try to get people to get and drive electric cars in cities to ease the load on the electrical grid and make the air clean to breathe.
Because these things all have enormous capital costs. Money doesn't grow on trees (unless you're the Fe
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Yes, that's a problem with how America does things. If it can't be used to make huge profits, a perfectly fine idea gets ignored. Businesses would much, much rather sell people on a $1000 "Energy Star" dryer (LOL) than a $5 clothes line. Too much of our economy is about selling us the most expensive fixes for our problems, and making up more problems for us.
Have had half a dozen window sellers try to persuade me to spend $6K to $14K to upgrade all our windows to fancy double or triple pane ones filled
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Must be nice! I spent that much in one month during the winter, and my house is properly sealed and insulated (by 1990s standards). Obviously, you either live in an ideal climate or have a house that is already very efficient. Certainly in your case, new windows do not have a short ROI and this is true for most houses.
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Yes, that's a problem with how America does things. If it can't be used to make huge profits, a perfectly fine idea gets ignored. Businesses would much, much rather sell people on a $1000 "Energy Star" dryer (LOL) than a $5 clothes line.
Actually, the problem I discussed wasn't about "huge profits" at all, it's about 1) problems endemic in the home mortgage industry, 2) problems with the mentality of the average home buyer (wanting the biggest house for their dollar and ignoring all else), 3) the simple fact
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Suffer? No. We become acclimatized. Supposed to be healthier too. I find 85 F quite comfortable in the summer, and 68 F in the winter is just fine.
The pay back on electric solar panels can be as bad as 80 years. If the panels degrade over time, they may never pay for themselves. I'd like to do it, but after technology brings the prices and risks down a lot more. There's a real possibility that panels could indeed be improved by 100% or more in the next 5 years. Meantime, we can get more bang for t
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Suffer? No. We become acclimatized. Supposed to be healthier too. I find 85 F quite comfortable in the summer,
Sorry, I evolved in a cold climate judging by my skin tone, and 85F is not comfortable at all. There's nothing healthy about living in heat near your body temperature.
Cars on the other hand are frustrating. We can make huge improvements in the fuel economy, but we don't.
No, we can't. It's beyond the laws of physics. We're pretty close to the limits of efficiency already. There's just no way arou
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I'll stick to just the automotive issues.
No, we can't. It's beyond the laws of physics. We're pretty close to the limits of efficiency already.
Do you really believe that? It's true that recent safety regulations have made it more difficult to save weight, but we're nowhere close to exhausting the weight reduction possibilities with cheap materials. No need for exotic, expensive lightweights. For example, all cars still carry spare tires, despite flats being less common. We could change how we handle flats. There is still much in the engine bay that can be reduced. Can toss the power steering and not o
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Do you really believe that?
As long as we keep building cars the way we do now, with stamped and welded sheet steel, and modern safety standards, and internal-combustion engines, yes. Obviously, some kind of new super-high-capacity fast-recharge battery technology would be a complete game-changer, but that always seems like it's "just over the horizon", just like nuclear fusion which is always 30-40 years away (i.e. a moving target).
No need for exotic, expensive lightweights. For example, all cars still car
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There were large vehicles long before power steering. Just had high ratios on the steering wheel.
Aluminum is not an expensive, exotic material. And we're looking at the practicality of using more magnesium.
I have driven my slow car on the freeway. It's nowhere near as bad as you make out. The average loaded 18 wheeler needs over 60 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 60, would you call that dangerously underpowered? Doesn't sound like you appreciate just how fast 0-60 in 5 seconds is. That's modern mu
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There were large vehicles long before power steering. Just had high ratios on the steering wheel.
No one wants to go back to the days of huge steering wheels, and even then they certainly were hard to steer, especially for women. Just ask your grandmother. Higher ratios also aren't much fun to drive, with having to turn the wheel so much. Do you really think you're going to get people to abandon power steering to save 10 pounds of weight (probably the typical weight of a modern EPS motor)? You can go ta