Maunder minimum

[Bill, KD0HG]

  We do not need multi-ton, gas-guzzling, road hogging tanks for our solo-commute to work .

Why do you feel compelled to tell me what I need?

Terry:

No one is telling you what you need. Don is stating an opinion that a fuel-efficient vehicle is appropriate transportation under many or most circumstances. As far as safety is concerned, my observation is that I see a great many more rolled, smashed and crashed 4X4s and SUVs along the side of our winter roads than 2WD cars. Not a scientific statistic, of course, but a practical observation on my own part and that of our Highway Patrol.

Perhaps someone needs to look at how many more thousands of traffic injuries might have occurred due to people overconfidently driving their SUVs way too fast for road conditions, because it happens here all the time.

The possibility exists that when you look at all the angles, you're no safer in a large vehicle than a more agile and controllable one with the latest safety technology.

In a head-on, of course, the vehicle with the larger mass wins, otherwise there are significant advantages to the other. If you skid and hit a fixed object or go off the road, you're equally in trouble. The larger vehicle offers no advantage.


When conditions warrant, I drive my 4-ton diesel F-250 4X4. If I need to work in the hills on a barely-graded road or in deep snow, it's mandatory. But it's a dinosaur. It doesn't have even close to the control and road feel that our 1-ton Ford Focus has. The near 30 MPG we get with it is a bonus.

If you want to look at an impartial rating of relative vehicle safety, look at the insurance industry's statistics. They're the ones that have to set appropriate premiums based on reality.

http://www.iihs.org/ratings/default.aspx

You will see that size and weight have nothing to do with how safe a vehicle is. But things like computerized stability control do. The Toyota Tundra is statistically the safest pickup to drive, my F-250 didn't even make the insurance industry list. Neither did trucks by Kenworth.

here's Money Magazine's list, again, no correlation between size and safety:

http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/autos/iihs/index.html

And this has nothing to do with drilling oil wells or refineries.

-Bill

[AF9J]

I dont care about pollution

Im an air-conditioned gypsy

Thats my solution

Watch the police and the tax man miss me

Im mobile

Oooooh, yeah, hee!

Thank you Mr. Townshed!   

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[k4kyv]

  We do not need multi-ton, gas-guzzling, road hogging tanks for our solo-commute to work .

Why do you feel compelled to tell me what I need?

I'm amazed at how the self-anointed among us want to restrict my freedom of vehicle choice based on the flimsiest of "science".

With less than five percent of the world’s population, we consume about one quarter of the world’s energy resources.  If we don't take our own measures to reduce our consumption in the near future, the rest of the world is going to take the measures for us.

... atmospheric CO2 which, by the way, is naturally produced when every mammal on earth exhales.

When mammals exhale and excrete, we emit CO2 that was derived from the plant matter we consumed, directly or indirectly, from food.  The plants that grow the food in turn, consume CO2 excreted by animals and break it down into carbon, the major component of plant matter, and release oxygen back into the atmosphere, which animals must breathe to survive.  It is a closed cycle, and the carbon content of the atmosphere remains constant.  But when we burn petroleum products, we are re-releasing carbon back into the atmosphere that was bound up in deep underground reservoirs for millions of years, until it was pumped out in the form of oil, thus increasing the net carbon content of the atmosphere.  In other words, burning petroleum products tends, to a greater or lesser extent, to revert the earth's atmosphere back to a previous era that existed millions of years ago, long before humans roamed the earth.

My opinion is FWIW, that the jury is still out on whether or not, and to what extent, this is affecting the climate.

[ka3zlr]

FB....Then Let the rest of the world Take measures....Let them..who ever them is..regardless...."Savings" is an elusive illusion...saving what for what..to do what..i can save my wheat for my animals on the Farm for winter feed..that's a good thing..but will be consumed eventually...I can Save my earnings in the bank for a rainy day...when needed..it will be consumed....my reasoning is this...the only way any of this is going to work irregardless of what quantity is left for production..is,,,Everyone has to do a part..and I'm not seeing it at all...and we never will..Try talking to a Soccer Mom she can't have her Fav Humvee anymore..Haa Haa Haa Fat chance there..

 The only way "We" are going to get out of this money pit is to advance..Burn it all and Burn it Soon...Then ...when there's none left..we'll go another direction...

besides..i haven't Seen one Sign Yet...on any gas station that says.."No Gas"...

[k4kyv]

In the meantime, I'll do my energy-guzzling with incandescent lamps and full-carrier AM transmitters, but save on fuel costs while driving my Mazda Protégé.

[WD8BIL]

With less than five percent of the world’s population, we consume about one quarter of the world’s energy resources.

We also feed half the world and our private charities do more around the world than all the other nations combined and we're the first to respond to disasters around the world and.....

I'd call it a fair deal.

[k4kyv]

With China revving up its own highly polluting industrial revolution, largely paid for with US dollar(ettes), and India following in its footsteps, how long before they take the same kind of  "measures" with petroleum products, as they already have with copper?

As in the case of my stock of spare tubes and audio transformers, I am glad I installed my radial ground system back when I did.

[k4kyv]

The most likely measures will simply be to drive up prices until we have no choice but cut consumption, barring some major flare-up similar to what happened in 1974 with the OPEC embargo. 
 
But supply could be interrupted in other ways, too.  For example, corrupt regimes in countries like Nigeria could finally be overthrown and and oil production be halted until a new government and  distribution of petroleum revenues is restored.  At present, the people of that country are starving and the infrastructure is in a state of disrepair, while a few "officials" are pocketing the cash.  There have already been guerilla attacks on US and European run oil facilities.

How much copper wire, flashing, plumbing and ground strap have you bought lately?

[ka3zlr]

With China revving up its own highly polluting industrial revolution, largely paid for with US dollar(ettes), and India following in its footsteps, how long before they take the same kind of  "measures" with petroleum products, as they already have with copper?
As in the case of my stock of spare tubes and audio transformers, I am glad I installed my radial ground system back when I did.

What "measures"? China will soon surpass the U.S. as the number one user of petroleum products/gasoline/diesel and that's a big part of the reason gas is high now. Bidding competition on the open crude oil market. China isn't going to slow down on anything until Americans quit feeding the fire via WalMart.

Well Actually there isn't going to be any slow down, baring any interference like Don says, But the actual Backers and Suppliers for this industrial revolution are American..and International Bankers.

Wealth is created through the Debt process, Asia finally woke up...

[WB2RJR]

In 1970 my good friend, John Caruso and I went to Europe.

The price of copper was $1.44/lb. Why do I know that? Well, while in the UK, a place where the copper penny was very large, and there were 240 pennies to a pound. Making 1 UK penny = to 1 US penny. If it took less than 144 UK pennies to make a pound you could buy them and make money selling them for scrap copper. That was in fact the case as we took the pennies to a UK Post Office and had them weighted.

The present price of copper is $3.50 a pound. So now that you have been told this is VERY HIGH. Please compare it to the increase you have paid for other items. How about a car. I could buy one in 1970 for about $2500. Can you buy one now for $6000 or so?

In 1981 I was paying $1.55 a gallon for gasoline. I just bought gas in Pinedale, Wyoming for $2.99 today (high because we are in the middle of nowhere). In 1980 I bought a brand new Ford F-150 4X4 with a 302 for $7150. DO YOU THINK I CAN GET ANOTHER F-150 FOR $14,000-$15,000 TODAY?

Along with about a million other people in the US, I work in the Oil and Gas industry. I am my own Oil company, along with consulting for larger Oil and Gas companies. Over my working career I have seen us keep the price of energy the same or LESS for you by us working harder and smarter.

My reward for this work and that of my companions is to be trashed by socialists on every web site I can think of. (Yeh, we are all in a giant conspiracy to screw you)

BTW any fool can look up the history of the Earths CO2 content or its mean temperature. (It's been 72 degrees for 90% of the last 600 million years. It's presently 58 degrees, hasn't been this cool since the glacial-interglacial periods of the Pennsylvanian-Permian......Hmmm only time the CO2 content was this low as well)

Be Thankful morons like Al Gore aren't finding energy for you..........you'd be frozen in the dark today.

73

Marty WB2RJR

[k4kyv]

In 1970 my good friend, John Caruso and I went to Europe.

The price of copper was $1.44/lb. Why do I know that? Well, while in the UK, a place where the copper penny was very large, and there were 240 pennies to a pound. Making 1 UK penny = to 1 US penny.

That was 1970?  I recall when I was there in the mid-60's, the pound was equivalent to $2.40 USD.  But I also remember that they devalued the pound around 1968 or 1969.  I was living in East Africa then, and indelibly etched in my memory is the big B&W cover photo I saw on a Paris Match magazine displayed at a news-stand, showing the look of angst on the face of a British businessman on a street of London, upon hearing the news of the devaluation.  IIRC, the pound dropped over night down to $1.40 USD.

Regarding the price of copper, you could say the same thing about the audiophool-driven prices of tubes and audio transformers.  Look up the original prices in old catalogues and electronics magazine ads from before WW2 or the early post-War years.  Enter those prices into one of the on-line inflation calculators.  Compare the results with the going prices of those items to-day.

In any case, it cannot be denied that copper took an explosive hike in price a couple of years ago.  Maybe it had gradually become under priced and we became acclimated to bargain-basement copper, just as we became acclimated to pennies-on-the-dollar prices of radio parts as WW2 surplus became plentiful. According to the industry, the price of copper recently went stratospheric because of high overseas demand, particularly from China.

Repeating what I said, as far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on the global warming and CO2 issue.  I'll base my final opinion when I see clear scientific data, not drivel from political windbags from either end of the political spectrum.  If there were presently any irrefutable physical evidence out there, pro or con, you can bet it would be published by reliable sources.  Most of what we hear to-day through the popular media is speculative at best.  Those who smugly claim to "know" the answer already, are relying on faith-based information, i.e., based on faith in their pet viewpoint, probably political and not scientific, regarding the issue.

It just makes good common sense to use energy and all other resources frugally.  Unfortunately, we live under a waste-based economy.

BTW, I am hearing now that the new sunspot cycle has already begun, and that it is expected to be a  good one.  Wait and see...

[k4kyv]

I recall  during the 60's some kind of controversy near Chattanooga, at a place called Copper Hill, GA.  Don't recall the issue involved, but it was in all the news.  Not sure that it involved copper mining, though.

Our political leaders and our corporate executives have let "offshore" grab us by the BA's, and now it has come back to bite us in the arse.

Whatever the previous and current price of the metal, copper roof flashing is now practically unaffordable.  I just saw an ad in RadioWorld (the BC rag), for soft-drawn copperweld radial wire.  The ad described a product that has the physical characteristics of solid copper, but is much cheaper because it is mostly steel.  Normal copperweld is so springy that it is hard to work with.  They claim that with normal soils, the stuff will last for decades.  That may be true, depending on the soil; I occasionally uproot some of the #10 copperweld (the springy kind) that I buried back in the early 70's, and although green and pitted, the copper jacket is nearly intact.  I suspect that New England soil would have eaten it by now.