#OT# More BS on oil supplies

With turbines, it's all about operating temperature. No ceramic turbines yet; I predicted them 25 years ago after researching and writing about new ceramic technologies, but fortunately I didn't put any money on it.

As a Pratt & Whitney Aircraft engineer once said to me, "son, there are engineers here who would sell their mothers for another 200 degrees." d8-)

The peak combustion temperature in a piston engine is almost twice as high (Kelvin) as the peak temperature in a gas turbine. That's why turbines are limited in efficiency. The stationary applications getting those huge efficiency numbers (61% is now the record, with a new GE turbine set) are actually from combined-cycle turbines that run a steam turbine with the waste heat.

-- Ed Huntress

They should have been paying better attention then Ed. I did the first ceramic stators for the F-22 in 1998/99. Honeywell, and they are still a customer, has had them in production in Mesa Arizona for several years now. What you don't want to ask is the price but the latest production versions of the plane have about 40 percent more thrust. I think if you can find an on lone history somewhere you'll see the jump in the spec. for the system. LOL

See me later, I really have to boogie.

JC

I should have pointed out I was talking about automotive turbines, and rotors are the hard part because there's no practical way to cool them in very small turbines. The P&W reference was an aside about operating temperature of gas turbines in general.

The hope for automobile/truck turbines was for Norton's polymer-mixed injection-molding method for silicon nitride. They could make them fairly cheap, and they did have some good prototypes they made for the driven turbines in turbochargers. But there was enough diamond grinding involved to bring them to finished dimensions that they never got the car makers interested. The aircraft turbine people showed some interest but it never caught on, for reasons I never tracked down.

OK.

-- Ed Huntress

On Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:37:28 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

You're kidding, right? There have been no radioactive releases from there, have there?

I lived next door to (15 crow-miles) and swam downstream of the San Onofre nuke plant for 34 years and never knew it was there other than the occasional test of the warning horns. Those were highly publicized prior to testing so nobody got hurt or panicked.

-- We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. -- Albert Einstein

It all depends if you regard yourself as an American citizen or a "Citizen of the world."

Far too many of out governmental officials (e.g. "trade representatives") and CEOs are now "Citizens of the world" even though their salaries and pensions are paid by the US taxpayers and nominally American corporations.

I'm kidding, right. But not about the size of the crabs. They'd make a good nightmare. Did you ever see the movie "The Loved One," where Mr. Joyboy tells about his bad dream, in which the lobsters are tearing apart Mom's flesh? (Mom weighed 400+ pounds.) I think these are the critters.

Hmmm. This explains a few things. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

On Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:43:47 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

Warmer waters breeds larger wildlife, but that's not always a bad thing. I wouldn't mind getting a kilo of meat off _each_ crab leg.

Turd. ;)

-- We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. -- Albert Einstein

The magnificent 'Big Red' Ford's US experimental 600hp gas turbine truck did a couple of coast-to-coast promotional trips in the early sixties. And what a beast...it managed the trip at an average 40mph delivering a eye-watering 2.9mpg. Well fuel was cheap then.

In the mid-nineties Volvo unveiled its Experimental Concept Truck which had a constant speed gas turbine engine powering an electric generator and traction motor. Thus the GT's greatest positive attribute---i.e.best efficiency at a constant speed and load---were fully utilised.

Now Turbine Truck Engines of Florida is sucking up R&D dollars on development of their "detonation cycle" gas turbine with regenerators (heat exchangers to preheat the intake air and reclaim some exhaust heat) that they claim will increase fficiency by 30% or something like that..

I'll believe it when I see it. Currently the best technology out there for over-the-road transport is propane augmented common rail turbo-diesel.. Not aware of any manufacturer using even that technology on a large scale.

I know where you are going. The sum of money in social security is so large that the government would end up having an interest in about every publicly traded firm and also other countries treasury bills and stock. That could prove unacceptable to many people.

I know that.

So you are saying if keeping gas at 4 dollars proves good policy, government will willingly give up the additional revenue when the price of oil rises? Since I'm predicting the future, 'feelings' or 'gut check' matter.

Well when we are getting it cheap, I'd rather drain theirs. Our exploitable physical resources are a huge part of the wealth of this country.

About half the people don't mind taxes at all since they really don't pay them. That is a dangerous point to be at.

Got to maintain that 50% of Americans that don't pay taxes.

I'm a fan of less engineering. The power to tax is the power destroy.

Let them eat cake?

The rich or upper middle class will still have their SUV's. The well off get to be flattened. Btw, the less well off will be running tin cans that have been lightened up to achieve higher cafe numbers so more of the SUV's can be sold. That is a distortion.

Excellent is subjective. It was reasonably inexpensive. Seldom let me down and gets me to work and somehow hasn't rusted out on my Northern Michigan roads.

I'm sure it is a fun car. Of course the entry price and price of repair parts might be a bit more than I want to pay for transportation.

I would hope these engineers designing cars had experience in all the competitors product. One the joys of flying somewhere on business was getting to try out a new car (rental) at my employers expense.

Well if I was driving my 68 Plymouth with limited slip, I could blaze my own trial but that cars days are over. Studded tires are illegal here btw. I'd buy and mount them in a heart beat if legal.

Yes, the Beetle was a good snow car. And if the heating system still worked, warmed up pretty quick.

I'm showing that Libertarian side again.

Actually minivans are pretty good idea for large families.

I notice a lot on the road now. I don't know the typical price of a Hummer but I have a feeling if that didn't scare off the buyer, the gas tax won't either.

Taxing to death is close to outlawing and it takes a legislation to create a tax.

Well, those that went to elite schools have been running this country for years. Look where we are now.

I'm wiping my coffee off the screen atm. God only asked for 10%. Btw, the Treasury will always accept donations if you feel you are not paying enough.

What? I think we better look at those that thought their house was a piggy bank. The people I know that are standing on their hind legs and providing for themself just want to pay the thing out.

Credit Default Swap isn't something us blue and grey collar types were responsible for. Y

So we are back to the war on the middle class.

Government engineers by force. Companies have to sell you a product. Big difference.

Happy New Year btw,

Wes

There are only so many things a government can invest in, as a passive investor. So they spend it on the "investments" that improve infrastructure, or education, basic science, etc. There are no "trust funds," as you're doubtless aware.

If we had a good policy, the tax would slide a bit with market prices -- but only a bit, because, if you just taxed the difference between market price and some target figure, the suppliers would have no incentive to keep their prices down. You actually would have a counterproductive incentive if you did it that way.

Most of the policy ideas for a gas tax set a floor price, and then have a declining tax rate as market prices rise. But the declining rate is only partial; higher market prices must result in higher prices at the pump. You can't just flatten the pump price.

The more we tax it, the more it drains theirs. They need an income and lower prices means they have to pump more oil. At least, many of them do, including Venezuela.

But the object is to reduce our dependency. With cheap prices, you just perpetuate it, no matter where the oil comes from.

Sure. But you won't have much left for very long if you don't shift the price to encourage less use of oil, and more use of alternatives.

That doesn't stop tax increases from being the third rail of politics. Advocating a tax increase has killed many political careers.

Nonsense! Practically everyone pays taxes -- sales taxes, payroll taxes, gas taxes...and property taxes, either directly or, if they rent, indirectly.

I don't know where you got that aphorism, but it's a silly one. Of course it can provide the power do destroy. But without it, there would be nothing worth destroying.

What's the problem with getting involved in your politics and making things happen the way you think they should? That's the way this government was designed to work. If you don't, it doesn't work. And if you don't get involved, you have no room to complain.

Let them drive something that makes sense. They're already getting tax deductions for their rug rats, fer chrissake. d8-)

If you're going to have multiple kids and you want to drive a big car, you'd better make a big income. If you don't make a big income, then either don't have all those kids, or don't expect to be able to drive a car that you might have if you were loaded.

I have a hard time following you here, Wes. On one hand, you sound like a libertarian, on the other, like an egalitarian. Big cars and big SUVs are for people with lots of money. If you don't have lots of money, then don't expect to live like you *do* have lots of money. I don't, but I have no problem with people who have lots of money buying what they want. If it hurts me -- and sucking up gas at 12 mpg hurts me because they're driving up demand for oil -- then those people should pay for that external cost they're imposing on the rest of us. Tax 'em. If they buy a big house, it's no skin off my nose. So tax rates on real estate values should actually decline somewhat as prices go up. They may be soaking up slightly more services than I am (it requires more fire engines to put out their house fires ), but not a straight multiple of their house value.

I assume you mean that the *less* well-off get to be flattened. You bought that argument from GM and Ford really well. They LOVE that argument. They don't want you to think about the fact that they could build safer small cars, or that we could simply reduce the number of multi-ton barges on our roads and increase our statistical chances of remaining intact by a large margin.

CAFE is a distortion that produces several unhappy incentives. Taxing fuel is a lot better.

Sure. You pay more for excellent cars. I wouldn't buy one, but I'm a card-carrying cheapskate.

I agree. But they did not. I happened to sit with these guys in a lunch cafeteria at IMTS, and I was appalled at what I heard. They didn't know much of anything about their competition, and they didn't care. They were good and pissed off by the time I left and they were glad to see me go. d8-)

In my travels and coverage of the car manufacturing industry I've heard that refrain more than once.

The trick was to get one or two of those J.C. Whitney fans that you stuck under the back seat, which drew air through the heater jackets on the exhaust pipes and blew it into the car's windshield heaters and floor vents. They were $15 each and they made all the difference. They sold a lot of them in Michigan.

Sure. I had one for 15 years. I sometimes wish I had it back.

Well, then, don't tax it to death. Just tax it into a deep coma.

Hmm. How about, the most powerful country in the world, with one of the strongest economies?

God didn't offer us aircraft carriers, MRIs, air traffic controllers, or the Internet. He didn't do medical research or transportation research; nor did he run a police force or fire department.

Sure. And you can write it off on your taxes. d8-)

The people who are standing on everyone else's legs own three or four houses free and clear. d8-)

Of course not. Most of them wouldn't know how if they wanted to.

I don't see much evidence of good sense from people at the bottom of the economic scale, Wes. Mostly what I see is people playing by other people's rules, which is why they're at the bottom of the economic scale.

We are back at the fact that if you want play like you have money, then you'd better have money. If you clerk at a grocery store or work in a tool crib, don't expect anyone to feel sympathy if you can't afford enough gas for your Ford Expedition.

You can always decide not to use gasoline or buy food in a supermarket. You can hide in a bunker if you want to. Otherwise, you can hardly turn around and spit without being under the thumb of big corporations everywhere.

You too, Wes. I've started early. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

Daniel Webster and John Marshall.

Google is your friend:

Joe Gwinn

Except that's not what Webster was arguing. He was arguing FOR federal taxation power over the *states*, in McCullouch v. Maryland. He wasn't talking about the value of taxation in general. Nor was Marshall, who essentially quoted Webster.

The irony here is that the example you're citing is the origin of the jurisprudence concerning the Necessary and Proper clause of the Constitution, which says that the federal government can override any state law that interferes with federal power.

As I said, of course it can provide the power to destroy, if that's how it's used. Without it, used properly, there's nothing left to destroy. By taking a quote out of context Wes has flipped its meaning on its back.

-- Ed Huntress

Ed, you asked where the "silly aphorism" came from. Now you know.

Joe Gwinn

Right. Thanks for the silly aphorism reference, Joe.

The funny thing is that I remember McCulloch very well, but not that quote. The case was about federal supremacy -- which was affirmed by Marshall's decision. I think the aphorism has taken on a life of its own, stripped of context, and that people who quote it would be nonplussed to learn what Webster was talking about: the authority of the federal government to set tax and banking policy, over the heads of the states.

-- Ed Huntress

I don't know that Webster would agree with you here. I think that while there was a specific case then at hand, the statement was general. It's clearly true. Let's say that by some mistake a SUV-hater is anointed King, and immediately imposes a very large annual tax on SUVs. How long will SUVs survive?

Joe Gwinn

As Justice Holmes said, "hard cases make bad law." McCulloch was a hard case -- one of the series of cases that attempted to sort out the relations of the states to the federal government, with absolutely no Constitutional guidance to go by.

Generalizing the specific arguments used in hard cases leads to absurd conclusions. Of course the power, as Webster said, "an unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy," is a great power that has to be used judiciously. But Webster argued several cases affirming the federal power over the states. What he was talking about was the danger of destroying federal power by unlimited power of the states to tax. That's the irony here, which is lost on the small-government conservatives, particularly those who rail against the federal government.

Hopefully, not for long. d8-)

There are two ways SUVs can die out. One is by driving us all into penury by driving ever deeper the hook that the Arab states have in our throats. The other is by shifting the supply/demand curve by making them very expensive, hopefully by means of a gas tax that will help us get off our dependency.

Which do you prefer? Do you like sending $700 billion/year to Middle Eastern countries that want to destroy us? Is that your idea of the benefit of letting the market determine the outcome?

-- Ed Huntress

Indeed. the statement is most valid.

Ed just doesnt like to think about the implications and tends to try to avoid them.

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

You guys are so full of yourselves!

So SUV's are the problem now?

Not the way that cities are laid out with centralized shopping miles from home?

Or poisoning the gas supply?

My Blazer USED to get 26 MPG on the highway. But that was before king corn was legislated into the fuel supply. It barely gets 24 now.

But I still love it - because I can get in and out without contortions.

(shaking head sadly)

Yeah, they're a problem.

Nope. That's a case of having your home in the wrong place. d8-)

What the hell are you talking about, "poisoning"?

Oh, so they've poisoned the gas supply with ethanol. Hell, I drink it on purpose. d8-)

You've got yours, Richard -- all 5,000 pounds of it.

-- Ed Huntress