Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:58:18 GMT | no comments
Anyone can walk into a wine store and spend a lot of money to get a good bottle of wine. However, for my wife and me the fun part about buying wine is trying to find a good wine for less than $20 – preferably less than $15. These are not easy to find, and we end up with a lot of wine that is fine, but not great.
That is why we were very pleased to find that the Boarding Pass Shiraz 2005 was a really nice wine for about $15. It has a high alcohol content at 15.7%, but the fruit was not overpowering and it has a particularly nice herbal undertone. My wife is not a big Shiraz drinker, but she also enjoyed this wine, so that means it must be good!
Posted in Wine and Whiskey
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:41:48 GMT | 1 comment
Many peak oil people envision that after oil becomes scarce, civilization will revert back to the way it was 100 years ago. In particular, they feel that large, centralized farms will not be viable and that only locally grown food will be available. I believe otherwise. I think that centralized farming is much more energy efficient than a multitude of local farms and will continue to supply the bulk of our food.
This was reinforced by some statistics I saw that showed that out of the total energy needed to produce and prepare food, only 14% was related to transportation of that food. Since this is a small percentage of the total energy usage, and electric vehicles could make this even more efficient, you can’t make an argument that transporting food is going to be the main problem after peak oil
(From University of Michigan: Food Fact Sheet)
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:02:17 GMT | no comments
Most people assume that teachers make very little money. In some parts of the country, this is very true. However, in the Cupertino Union School District in California (CUSD), teachers are paid some of the highest salaries in the country.
For instance, a first year teacher starts at $51,071 per year. After 7 years, they can make $62,321. After 15 years, it jumps to $80,836. (These last two salary brackets require additional semester units be completed.)
What about work hours? Their contract requires teachers to work 6.75 hours per day (7.25 hours with a 30 minute lunch) for 187 day s a year. However, teachers will often spend more time preparing lesson plans, having parent conferences, coaching a team or working on a school play. So let’s assume most teachers work a 40-hour week. But teachers only work for 187 days a years, less than the average of 225 days that most Americans work.
This means that teachers work about 20% less days. Factoring this into their salary gives the equivalent (using the figures above) of about $61,000, $74,000 and $97,000 respectively.
Reference: CUSD Teacher Salary
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:23:10 GMT | 1 comment
I have put over 1,000 miles on my Zapino since we got it last August, and I was wondering if I needed to get a battery management system (BMS) to keep the batteries going as long as possible. So today, after a pretty long ride where the indicator started to dip into the red, I took off the covers and checked the voltage.
The batteries were labelled:
Electier
Danwant Silicone Power Battery
6-DW-38Ah (12V38Ah)
Before charging, the voltage on all 5 batteries was between 12.58V and 12.61V. During charging, it was from 14.5V to 14.9V. Then about 30 minutes after charging was done, they were between 13.52 and 13.54V. This is very close and within specs, so it looks like the batteries are doing fine and don’t need a BMS, at least for now.
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:33:21 GMT | 6 comments
I was trying to explain to my wife how an air car worked, and with a smile on her face she said “So it farts as it moves forward?” Well maybe that sums it up nicely.
But do air cars really make sense? The information from the manufacturers seem like they are the solution to our energy crisis, and to everything else too [1]. But there are several fundamental problems with air cars.
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles, Global Warming, Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:18:13 GMT | 1 comment
There is a lot of oil in Canadian oil sands. So it is easy to believe that even when OPEC’s production starts to fall, Canadian oil sands can make up the difference. However, the problem is not the amount of oil – the problem is separating the oil from the sand which is a slow and resource intensive process.
According to the Master’s thesis of Bengt Söderbergh [1], natural gas availability is likely to limit oil sands production in the long term to about 3.6 million barrels per day (mbd).
David Hughes, a geologist with Natural Resources Canada, believes that the peak will never exceed 2.5 mbd due to natural gas, water, diluent and infrastructure constraints. [2]
For comparison, the U.S. uses 22 mbd and worldwide demand is 86 mbd. So it is unlikely the Canadian oil sands will be able to ever provide a significant amount of the world’s oil.
Read more...
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:07:28 GMT | 1 comment
Last weekend, the Saudi Oil Minister, Ali al-Naimi said, “From now there’s a line below which prices won’t fall.” Further, he added that the Saudis have no plans to expand oil production beyond the 12.5 million barrels per day it hopes to have by 2009.
This statement could be the first real admission by the Saudis that they can’t pump as much extra oil as they previously claimed, and a real sign that they have reached, or are close to, peak production.
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:08:56 GMT | 1 comment
Even while we continue to work on and define what Web 2.0 really is, many people have started to ask what is next; what is Web 3.0? Here is the answer: Web 3.0 is when all the Web 2.0 applications can start working together.
Read more...
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:11:04 GMT | 1 comment
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the scientific body that researches climate change for the United Nations (UN) and released their Fourth Assesment Report (AR4) in 2007. There are numerous experts participating in the IPCC, and a lot of good science is contained in these reports.
However, there is a big problem with the summary that is included with the IPCC report – the Summary For Policymakers (SPM). This summary is not written by the scientists themselves but by unnamed bureaucratic delegates from the participating countries. As such, they tend to oversimplify and bias the actual results contained in the full report.
So I found that the Independent Summary For Policymakers to be more balanced and representative of the actual report than the SPM itself. The ISPM was prepared by qualified experts, but who were not themselves IPCC chapter authors. The ISPM was subject to expert review and the reviewer’s responses are tabulated so there is a clear record to the extent that the reviewers agreed or disagreed with the ISPM.
Read more...
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:46:08 GMT | 5 comments
When companies talk about electric vehicles costing pennies per mile in electricity costs to operate, they are being truthful. However, with current battery costs and lifetimes, the battery replacement cost in an electric vehicle will be more than the electricity cost. Let’s look more closely at this.
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles