[OT] Engine braking

[Adam Wilson]

On Thu, 01 Aug 2013 12:39:52 -0700, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:

> On 8/1/13 12:05 PM, Adam Wilson wrote:
>> If we've learned anything at the shop it's that people can't be bothered
>> with the facts. They seriously don't care if you have studies backing up
>> the environmental damage, they believe they are green and will take
>> those beliefs to their graves. Ideology is funny that way. :-)
>
> You betcha. Related, you destroyed the myth that engine braking is any  
> bad, but I bet money nobody changed opinions.
>

Indeed. :-)

> About green driving, Prius, and Tesla - it's all about what industry you  
> want to sustain. Everything that stands behind the Hummer as a road car  
> is an abomination, pure and simple. Of course I'd agree plenty of Prius  
> drivers are as snooty as it gets in a different way. Yet the reality  
> remains that the Hummer is an evolutionary dead end, and hybrids are a  
> stepping stone to a better future.
>

The most efficient/effective method would be to power the roads and then  
have cars draw energy from that. With battery storage for where the roads  
are unpowered. That way you could draw on the power generation capacities  
of Fission or Fusion devices without needing to stick one in every car.  
That would greatly reduce the amount of battery capacity needed for the  
average trips.

> My current car is a nice and economic Honda Fit. It is the very last  
> internal combustion engine I'll ever own - I hope my next car will be a  
> Tesla (regardless of what anyone thinks about it being a status symbol).  
> Buying a dinosaur juice-based engine at this point is as much fail as  
> buying a carriage with horses in 1915. I predict that internal  
> combustion engines will be seen in less than a hundred years as weird  
> inefficient contraptions, like we think of steam engines today.
>

Personally, I am hoping for Zero-Point Energy powered cars, or if not  
that, then at least a Mr. Fusion (apologies to all who don't get the  
somewhat dated cultural reference).

> Also, there is a beauty about electrical engines - their theoretical  
> efficiency is 100%, they are simple, principled, entropy-neutral, and  
> work on conservative laws. (Batteries are more unwieldy though.)
>
>
> Andrei


-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
Project Coordinator
The Horizon Project
http://www.thehorizonproject.org/