And the Good Book Begins:
The future is descending upon us like a hammer or a Messiah. Now is the time to choose. The nations and corporations of this world must adapt to the changing global environment. The two fattest truck drivers of this revolution are declining oil supply and environmental concerns. We the Passengers aboard this (itinerary/vehicle/momentum...) are essential to the forward progress of evolution within the domain of transportation. Our cronies at Toyota and Honda are already slaving away to bring the consumer all of its needs relating to electric automobility. The stories of these corporate heroes shall be recounted luego. Politics. Economics. These may, or may not, depending upon your ideology, play a role in driving the truck. They may, as we like to call it, be the truck’s “DJ,” or the driver’s fake identity on his license, as in they could be just entertaining distractions that mislead. The outbreak of rampant technology has made it possible to travel in electric, or, mostly electric vehicles and 400 mile per hour trains that levitate magnetically (Maglev) in mid air. Of course, this Revolution has its origin in physics-the King of both Homoeconomicus and Homopoliticus, not to mention Homomelnikus. In the following dissertation of sorts, you will read testimony of experts such as Rush Limbaugh, Mr Kerry, some environmentalists, Michael Jackson, some Japanese people, and even Dubya. Physics shall be interspersed.
If you are intelligent enough to listen to sages like Rush Limbaugh, you will probably be of the opinion that global warming is a fraud made up by loco environmentalists so that people will listen to them, out of fear. Less blessed people like Bush and Kerry say (in politic-speak, -say- has a different meaning) that this is a problem and must be remedied by investment in alternative energy technologies, primarily hydrogen. President Bush has invested 1/200th of the US military budget, or 1.2billion greenbacks, in hydrogen fuel-cell technology. Kerry says he will do more. Bush is also attempting to divorce his friends in Saudi Arabia by exploiting domestic oil fields in Alaskan wildlife reserves (ANWR). This take is proving to be very difficult due to polygamous relations with tycoons like Cheney-Halliburton and Condi Rice from Chevron. Promiscuous?
Kerry says yes. Kerry might be more honorable to the causes both he and Bush allegedly promote. For example, he encourages the purchase of hydro-electric vehicles, and, like Bush, promotes tax incentives as a vector for consumer access to them.
In conclusion to this: . politicians are not very dependable, but unfortunately they are in the front seat of the vehicle transporting the Revolution. So they need to learn how to f*cking drive.
Because politics and politicals are worthless, we must focus on economics and economicals. Tax breaks are helping along the progress of Nuevo Edad technologia. Globalized companies such as Shell and individual consumers of automobiles take advantage of these tax breaks, which serve to create a sort of artificial increase in demand for les technologies du Nouveau Age. Market doctrine dictates that oil will become scarcer and also more expensive to produce (since all of the cheap oil has been drilled already). However, while supply decreases, demand is exponentially increasing because of China, Hummers, and India. Since oil will become more expensive, this will enable other alternate sources of energy to compete with liquid black gold. Some companies have taken this lesson to heart and are already well on their way to diversifying their energy sources. Shell is one of these companies. They even manage to invest more in hydrogen technologies than the entire US government. Money is the real driver of this revolution (and all others and everything), and the fat guys are just figureheads.
The Dutch oil giant Shell has taken the initiative over its American counterparts by investing large sums of money in alternative energy, including hydrogen, wind, solar, and biomass, which is growing plants for fuel, and geothermal, which takes advantage of heat under the earth’s surface in areas such as hot springs. Environmentalists say that Shell is not only taking notice of the future economics of energy production, but also of public opinion about global warming and environmental protection. Shell’s vision for the future includes offshore wind farms, both because the wind is stronger at sea, and because there are no people there to protest at the intrusion into their environment.
The second hero is Honda. It’s market weapon is the Insight, which, when viewed closely, is actually quite insightful. So what’s inside the Insight?
The Insight is a parallel hybrid (explained in the future of this paper) that combines a 1 liter, 3 cylinder combustion diesel engine with an ultrathin permanent electric motor for unprecedented efficiency. It also has a perfect aerodynamic (beautiful?) shape and uses the lightest available materials (for example aluminum) to maximize the result of engine output. The aluminum frame makes the car body 40% lighter than its steel (not so) equivalent. This may not be very fun if your Insight happens to encounter an Escalade SUV made of pure steel in the face, but we are confident that the engineers at Honda have compensated. Honda’s rival on the small island off China (Toyota) has installed programs into their hybrids that communicate with each other and enable them to avoid such unpleasant encounters in the face. And now a message from your friendly government:
•A different, yet familiar driving experience
The Insight’s hybrid system is seamless and
transparent – you just fill the car with unleaded gasoline and drive it like
any other car. With the highest fuel economy of any car on the road, the
Insight represents a different approach to passenger car technology. The car
looks and feels sporty, but offers important environmental and economic
advantages.
(Office of Transportation Technologies, U.S. Department of Energy))))))))(*)()(*)()(*)
Toyota is the Hercules of the truck-driving gauntlet. How does one achieve this status, an enterprising American might ask. Well, just ask Mr. Takehisa Yaegashi, “father of the hybrid”, which makes him God and the Toyota hybrid Jesus. Who’s the Virgin? I don’t know, but he might, because God is pretty omniscient. Yaegashi started hybriding in the 1970’s, while all the other prophets were busy getting high. For this reason, Toyota has a 4 to 5 year competitive advantage on Honda and is well ahead of every other auto-manufacturing firm in the business. When in a place of tranquil recollection, he smiles. While Honda boosted their Insight by making it as light as possible, Yaegashi revamped the Toyota Prius with ooberpowerful electric motors and batteries. He also added a smarter power controller that was able to better regulate the flow of electricity between the batteries, the breaks, the electric motor, the generator, and umm…the holy ghost. (And the three men I admired most: the Father, Son and the Holy ghost, they caught the last train for the coast the day the oil supply died.) For all of the people who care enough about the environment or the future of civilization, or something, Toyota is coming out with a fancy-shmancy Lexus hybrid 2K5 that has a V6 engine that will deliver power rivaling a V8 engine, while at the same time managing the fuel efficiency of a compact coche. Those Islanders, gosh.
There are varying degrees of ways to power The Truck’s motor including electric vehicles (hydrogen), magnetic trains, and geothermal, wind, and solar; although solar is likely to be more useful later on when humans need to colonize and mine other planets in the solar system with spaceships that absorb the sun’s rays. Currently the most useful of these many methods is hydrogen used in fuel cells to power electric motors in hybrid automobilias.
Hydrogen is the simplest element and is therefore simple to understand and master. However, since we must manufacture it, pure hydrogen fuel cell engines are not yet viable in the capitalist world because it costs 4 times as much as gas, but new technology is changing that like a hammer. Suppose the hammer smashed down upon one of these new hybrids. Well, what you would see would be a hydrogen battery, also called a fuel cell. These fuel cells are remarkably efficient and (unlike their human counterparts) true to their word. Meaning, that they are pretty self-sufficient, and so not need to depend upon Saudis for life support. How does this “fuel cell” work, one might ask. One might answer: A fuel cell is a device that converts hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O2) to water (H2O), and the byproducts produced (which are a little bit more useful than water vapor) are electricity and heat. Fuel cells power motors through direct current (DC) voltage. Some problems with reliance on hydrogen energy are that it is somewhat difficult to store and redistribute. However, courtesy of the Japanese, we now have reformers, machines that convert various fuels into hydrogen, which can then be injected into your car. Natural gases, as well as methanol are good prospective drugs for this addict. The reformers are built into the cars, but some companies are working on having the hydrogen stored in the car, which would increase efficiency. The oxygen can be jacked straight from the atmosphere if we still have trees by the time this technology becomes widely available.
Here is a table of the
pros and cons of hydrogen addiction
|
PROS |
CONS |
|
98% less pollution |
Currently 4 times as expensive as natural gas
|
|
No combustion motor
so a lot less noise |
You can’t travel as
long of a distance because there is less capacity
|
|
Cheaper to maintain |
Currently no “hydro refuel stations” to re-energize |
|
Engine and
batteries more durable than their gasoline counterparts (1 million mile lifespan) |
Currently not as fast as gas-energized cars • |
|
Establishes energy
independence for countries |
|
In addition, normal
gas-powered cars have the inconvenient habit of sitting around in junkyards and
leaking battery acids and other delectable chemicals into the soil after their
lifespan has expired. The lifespan of
hydroelectric vehicles is considerably lengthier so this quandary of chemical
leakage and rabid consumption of vehicles would be reduced in magnitude.
There are three different types of hybrid engines used by most companies today, and these are they:
All of this speak of hybrids is fascinating, but the real future of transportation lies in public transportation, mainly trainsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Already in Japan we can see this phenomenon evolving because there are lots of people there. The world will soon look like Japan because lots of people are being born always (Seriously. So many it’s just plain hard to count. Just die already.) The real key to this rhetoric is that if many people need to travel it is more efficient to use a single apparatus. In the name of Darwin, it is technological evolution revolution. Efficient or beautiful?(1) Or are they just synonymous? Hamlet was wrong. We are, not are not. Therefore, the premier is the Question.(question 1: Efficient or beautiful?. Question 2: To be or not to be?)
Trains.
The new age train, which levitates between 0.5 and 4 inches above the ground, is called MagLev technology, conceived in a small island off the Chinese coast. It has components. First, a magnetic field is created by large metal wire coils along the track that repel the bottom of the train which also has heck of magnets, and this allows the train to gravitate. As the train moves along the guideway, the charges of the magnetic field change constantly to push the train from behind and pull it from ahead. Since the train does not touch the ground, there is nearly no friction and this allows the train to reach ludicrous velocities. The train is powered by a large electrical source that is not a traditional combustion engine and therefore does not use fossil fuels, making it more ecologically sound. Rival versions of the MagLev are currently under development in Germany and the island off China. Sushi!
So basically, the future lies within this Truck we have so oft spoken of., and the Money God. So, it appears, on the surface, that the Truck is being driven by the 2 fat guys: environmental concerns and depletion of oil supply. But really this can be reduced to greenbacks. Also in the front seat are politicians, who are pretending to help drive but are in reality just ignorant and slightly confused, not to mention tainted by the greenback. In the back of the truck, chilling with Che, are US, the passengers. What’s powering the truck now are private companies like Toyota man, and the government has power to do many good things but is not good at doing them, so we need to hijack this truck via mass privatization so that it doesn’t continue along its course of collusion and collisions. The government wastes so much money at QuickStops (myopic temporary appeasements that show no long-term planning) that it doesn’t have enough to pay passage into the FreeLand (through long-term solutions), so we must find an alternate route along the underground railroad. Yeagashi is Harriet Tubman. In Paris, metro passagers use only 1/7th of the energy that American automobile drivers use. This is monumentale because it saves a lot of energy, and more importantly, money. While hydrogen vehicles will help increase energy efficiency and decrease infernal spewing of chemicals, the key leap must come from public/private mass transportation that will get people across cities, states and countries very fast with little energy expenditure. Planes, for the most part, will soon be extinct, and floating trains run by electricity and magnets will replace them.
I, more precisely, we, hope this Truck doesn’t CRASh, like I, or-more precisely, we are, or will be-soon…Peace. Or something like it. VIVA LA REVOLUCION!