john s. gordon

Postal Service Set to Lead the Way in Deploying Electric Fleet

oilsand -
USPS 'as a business' began in 1971.
prior to that as a patronage agency of govt they had no capital budget.
in the 1930's each county seat in each state got a new post office building (paid for by the taxpayers) whether they need it or not. in many cases the courthouse & post office building were one & the same. some of the ones i have visited in columbia SC, knoxville TN, texarkana TX-AR (right on the state line), hagerstown MD are beautifully appointed.
in other cases (smaller towns) typically the P.O. was in a rented building built by an investor & the annual rent bill on a national basis was costing them a fortune. having separate capital and operating budgets after 1971 resolved that problem.
the USPS technical development center (TDC) here in merrifield VA has done some interesting things, in paper ink & adhesives technology, you probably noticed you don't lick your stamps anymore.
the design criteria for the local delivery trucks that you see all over were established by TDC. i believe the truck bodies are built by flxible (an operating usit of northrop grumman) in loudonville OH.
> jack

Postal Service Set to Lead the Way in Deploying Electric Fleet

JP -
these are not 'CNG test vehicles'.
they have been running the fleet here for at least 5 yrs.
oil stays clean, no need to change it unless you have nothing better to do with your time.
> jack

Postal Service Set to Lead the Way in Deploying Electric Fleet

the delivery vehicles shown in the picture are CNG powered.
proposed petroleum saving is zilch?
> jack

Auto Batteries: Short Term Revenue Growth Favors Lead-Acid by 6 to 1

well trendiness (and image) has always played a large part in determining automobile purchases - as opposed to truck purchases.
> jack

How Short Term Supply Constraints Will Impact Booming HEV Markets

i sense a problem with use of micro hybrid in the u.s.a since there must be a time delay in getting the engine started & then up to some useful rpm where some torque is being produced,
maybe european drivers are more patient but here if you don't peel out the instant the green goes on you are likely to be rammed in the tail by some dude driving a big heavy thing. ouch.
i have used a sort of 'micro hybrid' in the past, when waiting in a line of cars in summer & want to avold overheating. just turn the key off & restart manually when needed. just don't be @ the head of the line.
> jack

Why Pure Play Energy Storage Companies Could Double for Investors

mayasc - chinese are not so dumb.

if you want a machine to convert grain + leftovers into lean meat, pig is probably the most efficient machine.
> jack

Why Pure Play Energy Storage Companies Could Double for Investors

granted that johnson controls is not a pure-play storage player, still they have breadth & depth of expertise as well as manufacturing capability, don't they have some potential to participate in the development program you visualize?
> jack

Li-ion Batteries: A Speculative Field of Dreams

j adam - i lived in denver in 1944-45, we had an electric interurban (actually a wide gauge trolleycar) out to golden. i used to pack my picnic lunch, ride out to the end of the line, hike up table mountain, eat my lunch while enjoying the view, walk back down & ride back to the city.
> jack

Li-ion Batteries: A Speculative Field of Dreams

john p - stanley brothers were not the only people making steam powered automobiles.

don't forget the doble steamer - a mighty fine automobile. i knew a man in 1972 who was driving one to the office each day. disadvantage - you have to fire the thing up in the morning & raise steam before you can move out. advantage - an external combustion engine is a lot less polluting.
> jack

Li-ion Batteries: A Speculative Field of Dreams

"oil company should not control patent rights to electric cars".

this reminds me of the collusion in the 1920's in los angeles where general motors, firestone & union oil bought up all the interurban railways, sold the tracks for scrap (i think the japanese used the steel to make bombs for their war in china) and replaced the railways with stinky buses (built by guess who) fueled by petroleum (supplied by guess who) and running on rubber tires (made by guess who).
> jack

Lead-Carbon: A Game Changer for Alternative Energy Storage

like wow.
> jack

Lithium Unicorns and Alternative Energy Storage

examine geothermal waste brines for their lithium content.
> jack

Alternative Energy Storage for Global Warming Agnostics

man messing with the environment -

here in reston, virginia in 1968 we had box turtles wandering around all over the place. you had to dodge them on the roads (some of which were dirt).

of course everybody had to put toxic chemicals on their nice green grass to control the bug pests plus all the fertilizers (N, P, etc.).

then people started to notice that chesapeake bay was dying. wonder where all that excess fertilizer went?

then we noticed there were no more box turtles. they had eaten all the bugs that had been dining on the toxic chemicals. being @ the top of the food chain, the turtles bioaccumulated and either died or couldn't reproduce any more.

after all the humans are gone from planet earth the cockroaches will write books explaining how the humans bioaccumulated and did themselves in.
> jack

Alternative Energy Storage for Global Warming Agnostics

yes CO2 is requisite for plant growth, you also need water. given increased CO2 you very quickly run out of other essential nutrients: phosphorus, boron, molybdenum, read the label on the bottle of miracle gro they're all there. when a volcano burps it may kill all around it, but the nutrients in the ash provide essentials for plant recovery.
> jack

Alternative Energy Storage for Global Warming Agnostics

40 day supply in SPR is somewhat fictitious.
quality of much of the stuff in SPR is not up to snuff, it has to be blended with better grades of crude for many of the existing refineries to handle it without upchucking.
we've been buying too much of that venezuelan garbage (high sulfur, high resid).
> jack