We all like a fireworks display. Whether it be New Years (especially in 2000) or Independence Day, these pyrotechnics awe us with their climbs in the air and their explosions of colorful fury. But usually we see these only at holidays, especially the two I just mentioned. Why not celebrate every day? Why can't we shoot fireworks at unlikely times of the year, such as March?
This is the theme of Stephanie Corby's song Fireworks in March (if you click on that, click "music" after you get there). The song was about a fireworks display that occurred inexplicitly in March somewhere in New York City. Normally fireworks don't go up in March, not even for Easter or St. Patrick's Day, so she thought it notable enough to write a song about it.
I saw a similar display yesterday, on 2005 April 15. I was at a Science Museum of Virginia skywatch where I was showing Jupiter, Saturn, M-37, and M-3 to the public through my 8-inch Nexstar 8 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. All at once someone shouted "fireworks!". I looked across Broad Street and I saw them. Emanating from some invisible house beyond the other side of the street, I saw fireworks go up in the air. They were small, and produced mainly a bright star when they exploded.
What were they celebrating? Skywatch? But not too many people had come to Skywatch on a cold night. Maybe they were celebrating the filing of income taxes, as April 15 is the deadline. So shall we shoot fireworks every April 15? Are we glad we don't have to mess with taxes any more? Maybe we shoot fireworks instead of filing our returns, or maybe fireworks protest the imposition of taxes on us. After all that was what happened on 1776 July 4 was all about, and on the anniversary of that date we shoot all kinds of fireworks, which I will report on in this blog on 2005 July 4.
But in the meantime I saw Fireworks in April. And, like Stephanie Corby, somehow I feel enlivened by that event.
A Journey through Blogrealm
Blogtrek
Blogtrek
2005/04/16
2005/04/12
An answer for the peak oil problem?
Recently I have stumbled on a possible answer to the peak oil problem, which threatens a huge crisis in the future: Plugin hybrid vehicles, or PHEVs. This is not the final answer to the problem. Our civilization is still in trouble. But it postpones for years the day of reckoning on energy. Maybe then we can find something sustainable.
I hit the answer after driving my new 2005 Toyota Prius a while. If I go slow enough, only the bright yellow arrows on the display flow, indicating that the car is running on the electric motor. During this time it is not using any gasoline. But I need to be careful, as the dull orange arrows indicating gasoline can come up any time. Further, many times when the Prius uses gasoline, a green arrow indicates that this gasoline is charging the battery. This is why you don't have to plug the car into the house current.
But that's too bad in a way. It still runs on gasoline, and it gets good gasoline mileage only because it makes maximum use of the energy used in driving the car, especially braking. If it could be plugged into the house current, the motor would last longer, and less gasoline would be required. So I wondered why my Prius could not be plugged into house current and run solely on battery power when doing local errands. Most trips are short ones, so most of the time it would run on battery.
This would cause a huge drop in the car's gasoline production. Only the long vacation trips would require gasoline, and maybe not if hotels provide charging stations. That's a 90% drop in the most gasoline-using nation on earth. This much of a drop certainly would put a dent into the gasoline scarcity caused by peak oil.
This type of car is called a plugin hybrid, or PHEV. If most everyone used these, hardly any gasoline would be consumed in everyday activities. That would cause a huge drop in the demand for oil, perhaps 50% in the US and maybe the world as well; even China would want the new PHEVs. We would have the curious situation of the world in oil production decline after reaching the Hubbert peak, only to have demand lowered so drastically that a glut occurs.
These changes could be cataclysmic. US automakers may go bankrupt, and huge mountains of useless old cars, especially SUVs, would crowd the junk lots. So that solves the oil problem, at least for a while.
But it will return. Production will continue to decline, and with drastically lowered gasoline prices (maybe 50 cents a gallon?) everyone will want to drive all over the place. Eventually demand will exceed supply anyway. Further, the energy is not saved. It is merely shifted to the power grid, which runs mostly on coal and nuclear energy. There is plenty of both coal and uranium around, but both are finite fuels, and so the danger is that when the demand-supply point is reached again, it will affect not only travel, but electricity as well. Massive blackouts could occur in the 2010s.
But it buys us some time. This time should be used to get us used to using less energy, and it should be used to find renewable ways of generating energy, perhaps by solar and wind.
I hit the answer after driving my new 2005 Toyota Prius a while. If I go slow enough, only the bright yellow arrows on the display flow, indicating that the car is running on the electric motor. During this time it is not using any gasoline. But I need to be careful, as the dull orange arrows indicating gasoline can come up any time. Further, many times when the Prius uses gasoline, a green arrow indicates that this gasoline is charging the battery. This is why you don't have to plug the car into the house current.
But that's too bad in a way. It still runs on gasoline, and it gets good gasoline mileage only because it makes maximum use of the energy used in driving the car, especially braking. If it could be plugged into the house current, the motor would last longer, and less gasoline would be required. So I wondered why my Prius could not be plugged into house current and run solely on battery power when doing local errands. Most trips are short ones, so most of the time it would run on battery.
This would cause a huge drop in the car's gasoline production. Only the long vacation trips would require gasoline, and maybe not if hotels provide charging stations. That's a 90% drop in the most gasoline-using nation on earth. This much of a drop certainly would put a dent into the gasoline scarcity caused by peak oil.
This type of car is called a plugin hybrid, or PHEV. If most everyone used these, hardly any gasoline would be consumed in everyday activities. That would cause a huge drop in the demand for oil, perhaps 50% in the US and maybe the world as well; even China would want the new PHEVs. We would have the curious situation of the world in oil production decline after reaching the Hubbert peak, only to have demand lowered so drastically that a glut occurs.
These changes could be cataclysmic. US automakers may go bankrupt, and huge mountains of useless old cars, especially SUVs, would crowd the junk lots. So that solves the oil problem, at least for a while.
But it will return. Production will continue to decline, and with drastically lowered gasoline prices (maybe 50 cents a gallon?) everyone will want to drive all over the place. Eventually demand will exceed supply anyway. Further, the energy is not saved. It is merely shifted to the power grid, which runs mostly on coal and nuclear energy. There is plenty of both coal and uranium around, but both are finite fuels, and so the danger is that when the demand-supply point is reached again, it will affect not only travel, but electricity as well. Massive blackouts could occur in the 2010s.
But it buys us some time. This time should be used to get us used to using less energy, and it should be used to find renewable ways of generating energy, perhaps by solar and wind.
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