Serge's Jabber » Serge’s Blather

Compressed air the real alternative energy car

Serge — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:24:30 +0000

I know that many of you probably got this e-mail at the height of the gas prices this summer.

With fuel prices touching nearly $150 per barrel, it was time we heard of some breakthrough that would try to think out of the box and get away from the limited range electric car. India’s largest automaker Tata Motors is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle, the car that runs on air, compressed air to be specific. The Air Car uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. The Air Car, called the MiniCAT could cost around $8177 US in India and would have a range of around 300 km between refuels. The cost of a refill would be about $2 US.

When I looked it over I thought that this would be a brilliant move forward in alternative energy vehicles.
I knew that this could work because of my previous work history in underground mining. A lot of the equipment from jackleg drills, mucking machines to massive diamond drills are used underground and powered by compressed air. These are not manby pamby weak-kneed toys but industrial powerhouses.

Years ago as an underground miner I remember clearing hundreds of tons of rock and ore by using a mucking machine to load underground trains. These were run on compressed air being pumped via airlines from the surface. The compressed air acted as the propellant used to activate the machines pistons. This worked similarly to a gas engine that would use an internal explosion to force the pistons. The great advantage of compressed in the limited underground environment was that instead of producing a noxious exhaust like internal combustion engines emit, the air motors exhausts cold air that could in turn be breathed safely by the miners. No carbon emissions. I have first hand knowledge that this technology works.

I remember a story overheard as young on how an inventor had produced the prototype for the 100-mile to the gallon carburetor. I thought this was a great advance in automotive technology. I asked when the inventor was going to release this product. What I was told is that the oil/automotive companies had quashed the amazing product by paying millions to silence the inventor. It would have cut to deeply into their profits. This is one of many Urban Legends that I would hear throughout my adult life.
What I’m afraid of now is that the automotive giants or the oil companies could actually kill this innovative product. Think about it. A really competitive product that doesn’t use any gas or electricity. I can see why the oil companies would be terrified but with the Big Three screaming for bailouts why are they not at the forefront of this technology. Why did it need a brave investor from India to back the research for this product?
If were serious about ending our dependence on a single major fuel source ( OIL) or depending on weak and limited range replacements ( electric cars) this is the first real alternative I have come across. I will be keeping a very close eye on this technology and will cross my fingers that it will succeed.

Air Car! Runs on compressed air!

Air Car by Guy Negre on CNN

The Big Three Bailout

Serge — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:05:30 +0000

Hello everyone. After a three-month absence I’m back.
They say nothing kills a blog faster than not keeping a schedule. If this blog had any readers it would have suffered dramatically but I don’t think anyone noticed that I wasn’t there for a while. Anyway here I am and today I’m going to broach the proposed Automakers government bailout and other tidbits.
Seems like Canadian interests in Detroit and Washington are considering a bailout of the Big Three automakers. Most polls that I have seen in recent days indicate that the public are not enamoured of using their tax dollars to bailout private companies.
Most workers in the States make an average of $15/hour and government would want taxpayers to subsidize the companies whose autoworkers make $75 dollar/hour. Doesn’t seem quite fair does it.
Now the automakers are claiming that failing to help them survive the current financial crisis would hurt average families and deal a “catastrophic” blow to the economy of both Canada and the US.
They say that if one automaker is allowed to go bankrupt, the entire sector would crumble because they share the same suppliers, resulting in millions of lost jobs and diminished government tax revenue.
If you think about it this is throwing money at companies that have failed to fix their businesses over the years and will only delay their bankruptcy. They have claimed that they have lost billions of dollars and eliminated 500,000 U.S. jobs over the past 15 years. These were in the good years of massive prosperity in North America. Do you think that maybe there is something wrong with their business plan? All this is happening while the unions in Canada are unwilling to budge from their positions in the hope of helping their own employers.
Remember the $75/hour jobs. I think they might have a little manoeuvring room and lend a hand instead of letting taxpayers take all the risk in bailing them out.
What’s really curious is that government is ready to throw bucketfuls of money at the automakers but did not offer the forest industry a sou for their bailouts.
The forest industry in Canada is larger that both the automakers and the arrow space industry combined. When their industry started to fail several years ago they knew that they had to adapt or go out of business. The BC NDP government in the 90’s actually tried a $400 million dollar bailout of Skeena Cellulose. It failed miserably leaving the taxpayers of the province holding the bag. Several years and thousand of job losses later the industry id now lean and mean. They may not be selling many 2X4’s but they are ready to take on the world when the time comes.
Instead of asking for handouts now would be time for the automobile industry to cull the deadwood start being innovative and start looking at he future not as a black hole but an opportunity to produce better more affordable products that taxpayers are genuinely happy to buy.

Beware of the carbon tax.

Serge — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:01:52 +0000

Here in BC we’re already seeing the repercussions of implementing an extra cost on energy. In the northern part of the province the switch from expensive oil furnaces to cheaper traditional wood stoves has seen a revival since the tax was introduced in July.
The carbon released by a wood stove, though certainly natural, is higher that oil burning furnaces. So the purpose of the tax, to reduce carbon emissions, has actually backfired and introduced an unplanned increase in atmospheric carbon.
The provincial Liberals have made the mistake of implementing the carbon tax on the same week as the price of gas rose to $1.49 a litre. During the first week of July the talk show lines were burning with anger from concerned citizens wondering when the ever growing energy carbon tax cost were going to end. We’ve seen the cost of everything from automotive fuel to heating and bread rise dramatically with no end in sight.
Now Mr. Dion has an even more pervasive carbon tax plan to sell to Canadians. He also mentioned that it wont cost anything to implement. If you believe that just remember the gun registry. The federal Liberals under estimated the project, which was meant to cost approximately $119 million, ended up costing over two billion dollars to implement. Documents obtained by the CBC now estimate the program cost at $2 billion. Now guns were a very limited subject. Imagine the cost of implementing a tax on something as pervasive in everyday life as energy. If he ever does introduce his version of the BC carbon fiasco I would suggest Mr. Dion crouch down as low as possible as not to get hit by the coprolite as it hits the fan.
The Liberal party in BC enjoyed a 12 point lead over the NDP before the introduction of the carbon tax. They are now very worried that their approval numbers may approach their rivals. In recent “man on the street” interviews, ordinary people are actually saying that they will not vote in the next provincial election because the two parties are both bowing at the same carbon tax alter. The voters of BC are extremely worried that the government of the day is willing to sacrifice their livelihoods and lifestyle to the politically expedient surrender of the environmentally charged carbon tax.
Mr. Dion thinks he can do better than Mr. Campbell.
Good luck with that Mr. Dion.

BC’s Carbon Tax

BC’s Carbon Tax

Were Canadian, we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore but we’re not going to complain too much or too loudly. Not right now anyway!

Serge — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:36:51 +0000

In a recent poll by Ipsos Reid, carried out for Canwest News Service and Global Television, 71 per cent of Canadians are “really angry or upset” about skyrocketing gas prices. Duh!
Among other things were mad about our taxes, were mad about the lousy airline services, were mad about ticket surcharges were mad about text messaging fees, where even mad at Tibet, well not at Tibet really but it what’s happening in Tibet. On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, 43 per cent are angry about the Chinese government crackdown in Tibet.
It seems we have pent-up frustration, and we don’t have an outlet for our anger. Well I’ve got a couple of outlets, but I don’t think that it’s polite to mention them in mixed company. According to a new poll on the national outlook by Ipsos the angry population consists of two groups; 1 — 20% of the total — we’re the ones who are doing something to show our frustration and then there’s the other — 35% — who are bottling up their anger because they can’t “do anything about it.”
Baloney!
Gilbert Murphy is a 74-year-old horse rancher from the Williams Lake area. He had this to say about the above statement. “In the early days, when the Second World War was on, nobody wanted to fight Canadians. We had a reputation as a fierce bunch of fighting people, proud people. But politicians have made us into a wimp nation,” he says. http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=a69ee56d-a30f-4ea4-9a77-5f3df13f8006
Gilbert, I couldn’t agree with you more. That was exactly the case when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s.
Whenever the Liberals were in power between the 70s and late 90s there seemed to have been a definite diminishment of Canadian morals in the worldview. I still remember Jean Chretien’s facial expression when interviewed on American television about the horror that just occurred in New York after 9/11. The looks of disdain, if not in his words were very distinct in his expression. It was as if he was blaming them for being attacked by terrorists. Don’t quote me on this, but I think He mentioned something about their own foreign policy was to blame for their recent Injuries .I was extremely embarrassed for my country. It was as though I had just told my neighbour that all the people that were killed that day were their own fault. I was extremely happy to see that man defeated at the polls.
Recently, a London England newspaper reported that the only decent leader at the G-8 was Stephen Harper. I’m not exactly sure that that’s true, but it sure makes me feel prouder to be a Canadian than I did seven years ago when the Liberals were in power.

Getting back to a mad Canadian. My pet peeve of the moment is the gas prices that we’ve experienced in the past two or three months. One consolation is that we’re not the only people on Earth are suffering. Gas prices have gone up, if you don’t count some subsidies, equally throughout the world. It is causing major hardships in all sectors of our economy.
There seems to be a glimmer of hope on the horizon. The price last week went down from $149 per barrel to $123 per barrel. What really burns my butt is the fact that when the price of a barrel hits its high mark it only took the gas stations half a second to raise the prices to $1.49 a litre in my area. Now it’s been nearly 2 weeks since the price dropped by more than $20. Their sure taking their sweet time to bring it down to even $1.40 a litre.
I am happy that the population seems to be disturbed with what’s happening in the world around them. I would just be happier if they would be a little bit more vocal about it.

Serge

How to get respect fron the inlaws

Serge — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:08:01 +0000

Hi and welcome to my new blog. The reason that I’m starting a blog is to attempt to retain my wife’s sanity at family gatherings.
It seems that I have a tendency to give my opinion way too often at family gatherings and the only one that seems to agree with them is my mother in-law, Now that’s one hell of a woman. Anyway my wife has a penchant to try the change the subject when the air in the room starts to thicken with discord. She recently suggested that I could find some kindred spirits writing a blog and therefore leaving the siblings free to enjoy a turkey dinner without the fear of a Serge induced heartburn.
Well I’m willing to give it a try but I’m sure my mother in-law will complain because the lack of volitile discussion might be missing from the dinner table.
Hope you enjoy this and please e-mail me with dinner topics I can share with the outlaws.

Thanks

Serge J. Dupuis