I snapped this photo while driving southbound on California’s Interstate 5 recently. We all know that Prius owners tend to be a bit smug, but this vanity plate takes the cake.
Click for a larger image
Now before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I’ll point out that I own and drive an electric car myself. But I don’t go rubbing other peoples noses in my wattage.
The big fight that is going on at the moment is about “control” over energy distribution.
It’s a fight between big oil, local power companies and individual, decentralized private initiatives.
Implementing the new energies into existing distribution structures is key for Big Oil.
The local energy company looks with big greedy eyes at the shift from gasoline to electric vehicles.
If the hydrogen and/or the electric car becomes fact, big oil will build the hydrogen infra structure and an exchange system for battery packs.
For many individuals, depending on circumstances, the new technologies provide an opportunity to get away from the local power company and Big Oil’s Service Stations for fueling the car.
Honda for example delivers a hydrogen generator as a domestic application.
The system, the size of a fridge, converts Propane into heat to warm your home and provides hydrogen to fuel up your car. The fuel cel in the car has sufficient power to provide electric energy to three family houses.
If you go electric, you can add the necessary square meters of solar panels to your home and charge your car batteries at home, independent of the power company.
Anyhow, the business interests are tremendous as are the opportunities.
I personally think the internal combustion engine will survive much longer.
Engines will get better and efficiency will rise.
The carbon fuels will also get better.
Shell already markets a “clean diesel” made from natural gas (plant in Quatar).
I do not believe we already have reached peak-oil.
I have a few arguments for that.
Recently, huge oil fiellds were found in China, The Huzdar Region of Balochistan, Pakistan (Bolochistan borders with Afghanistan and the current fight for independance from Pakistan has everything to do with the oil and gas that has been found), Colombia and off coast of Brazil. Forget about the Arctic.
Natural Gas, read diesel oil and jet fuel, can be found everywhere.
If we only take the US resources into account that could secure domestic oil consumption for the next 118 years all those peak oil stories can be archived under the same hoax department as AGW.
Just remember that all the arguments that AGW believers put on the table to curb the use of carbon fuels, peak oil is one of them.
So my idea is to continue to drive our cars conventionally and wait until the current downsizing of nuclear plant reaches a level where you put a battery size nuclear core into your car so you can drive it for seven years without a refuel.
This way we can forget all about crummy in efficient and expensive windmills, the nitwit expensive hybrids, the low range inefficient electric cars that are unable to take a hilly road and return to the order of the day.
By the way, the mini nuclear power plant comes at container size and delivers power for 20.000 households and you can order it right now.
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/index.php?s=nuclear+power+plant
You simply put it in a hole in the ground for seven years and dig it up for a refill.
A Japanese scientist has found a way to extract plutonium from seawater so this energy source could last for ever.
The only thing we have to do is to convince the IPCC, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Friends of the Earth, Green peace, MoveOn, EPA, and all others at the list including the Nobel Prize winner who will be the new Secretary of Energy.
But hey, it’s worth a try and if you don’t do it for yourself…think about your children.
At his moment in time
Steven Hill (09:01:39) :
“The automaker won’t open its first Prius plant in the United States in 2010 as planned. Toyota Motor apparently doesn’t expect demand for cars to rebound until well past 2010–the automaker has pushed back plans to produce some models from that date”.
Yes and Nissan is planning a new US plant to produce… Category 5 trucks with gasoline and diesel engines, just as the Big Three have been doing for years.
What about them apples?
Do not stop driving them.
A big heavy and safe car uses a lot more fuel but what the heck at $ 1.67 per Gallon!
Driving an eco box is so…un American.
LarryOldtimer (09:19:45) :
Think of the benefits of Lithium contamination after an accident. There would be auto-treatment for manic/depressive (bipolar) and depressive disorders, all without the need for a doctor’s prescription. A real cost savings.
Stan W (08:54:32) :
JimB
“If we power a car with hydrogen, as the vehicle consumes the hydrogen, water is a by-product. Why can’t it simply be captured? It can’t weigh as much as the hydrogen that’s being consumed…so it’s not like we’re ADDING weight to the car.”
“Actually you would. The water is composed of the hydrogen you’ve just burned plus the oxygen you’ve taken out of the air. Not to mention the weight and complexity of carrying around a condenser to turn the vapor into liquid.”
The man-made water would contribute to increased cloud cover and thereby cause AGW in addition to an increase in sea level. Man-made water would be declared a pollutant and taxed in the manner of man-made CO2.
John McDonald (08:01:14):
Excellent points & description–and I’ve thought about the gun rack as well!
Somewhat OT: Both sides of the AGW have sub-groups whose arguments are purely emotional–the Alarmists trumpet the new ‘original sin’ of carbon consumption, and some of the ‘absolute deniers’ espouse burning as much fossil fuel as possible simply out of spite (Note: I would NOT describe the readers of this blog that way!!!)
Both sides have too many adherents who forget that markets reward efficiency–and the benefits of being the early mover.
It may be that a bankruptcy (or even dissolving) of the current Big 3 would be a the kind of destabilizing event that creates opportunities for smaller, more nimble private enterprises to deliver better products and services to the market–and develop, much as the Internet has, localized infrastructure (recharging facilities for plug-ins, diesel distribution, air compression for pneumatics, and hydro-compression for hydraulic hybrids) that is compatible with nationwide technical standards (think of how web servers of a wide variety link to LANs and WANs–and the Web). The market, like nature, abhors a vacuum (and I abhor Al Gore’s bad science on the AGW issue!)
In a time of a sputtering economy, shouldn’t we be lightening the overheads on business/job creation (taxes, regulations) and going full-bore toward abundant, inexpensive energy, even if that means using current sources (maybe some more refineries, nuke plants, etc.)?
Government doesn’t ‘create’ jobs (no offense to those taking home a gov’t paycheck); it simply grows the tax load through a flawed assumption that the machinery of the national commerce/economy will always be there, and always run strong.
A sick horse doesn’t want a heavier rider and won’t benefit from the increased burden.
If the AGW alarmists were really serious and not emotional, why don’t they start with what has a known, quantifiable effect on today’s citizens’ health and temperature–the UHI? Or better yet, how about clean water and plumbing for the poor? (No, I don’t want regulation, but if you’re going to hold a gun to my head to make me change my ways at least do it for something that has proven science–and benefits–behind it.)
Sorry for the rant.
Clarification: My personal belief is that we ‘skeptics’ are, by and large, very open minded about climate science–hence our love of WUWT–and that the ‘other side’ is almost completely closed to any debate. We are willing to be altered by what we hear, but will also put any data through rigorous testing before giving any hypothesis our blessing.
LarryOldtimer (09:19:45) :
The question I would have regarding electric cars with a lithium battery is . . . just how much lithium is there available for making large numbers of lithium battery cars in the first place? I would estimate that there isn’t enough, nor is there going to be enough to make even several hundred thousand lithium battery cars per year.
See the stock tickers SQM and FMC. Between them they mine (most? lots?) of the lithium used. It comes from old dry lakebeds in a very rare climate. (Chile and Nevada…) If prices got high enough we would likely find some other source, but then that ‘high enough’ price was kind of your point…
See: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=SQM
You can hunt up their production figures if you like. Their chart shows a bottom in and in incipient buy signal (coming soon?). 3% dividend. FMC corp up 6% today. I’d guess that the Ecuador & Argentine behaviours have moved folks more toward the non-latin stock… In either case, a sudden demand for 10x global lithium production would be hard to meet.
Also: My apology for the multiple posts on nukes above. For some reason when I hit ‘submit’ they just vanished… and I just HAD to diagnose it by repeated posting with different bits cut out to see if it was a filter of some kind… Didn’t expect the vanished ones to come back later. Sigh. Too many years hacking Unix for my own good…
LarryOldtimer (09:34:00) :
F=MA still works, and it is the rate of deceleration of the car versus the rate of deceleration of the passengers which causes the injuries.
I agree. And remember that while MV is conserved, the M is not evenly distributed, so if I take my share of MV with double the M, they take their share with double the V, and energy goes as V squared…. So I get 1/2 the delta V (thus 1/4 the energy) and they get a nice trip to the hospital…
Trying to absorb less energy with more mass is easier than absorbing more energy with less mass. You can do more with less, but it’s a lot harder.
A long technical way of saying the little car bounces off of the big car…
(First explained to me by my H.S. physics teacher. Mr. McGuire, who drove a Mercdes Benz Diesel and cursed the Nazi’s he’d fought as an Air Force Lt. Col. in WWII “But they make a damn fine car.” Most likely why I drive a M.B. Diesel… A fine man, deeply missed. I think he’s buried in Chico. Where’s that scotch bottle, I need to toast someone …)
woodfortrees (Paul Clark) (10:02:41) :
LarryOldTimer: It is possible to make a light, safe, car;
Agreed. But harder. And the physics don’t change, so for any level of technology the heavier car can devote more mass to the solution.
f=ma also applies to the probabilty of stopping before you hit something with infinite inertia!
That’s what the really big brakes and tires are for!! 2 x M so 2 x brake force. Easy. Dealing with a squared energy function is, er, harder.
Of course, if you get a head-on between a light car and a heavy one, the heavy one has the advantage, but then you’re into game theory…
Since the size of trucks and busses is not subject to the size of any game theory choices made by the cars, I’ll go with the larger car and get my fuel efficiency via other means… (My nearly 2 ton car gets low 30’s MPG on Diesel using 1980’s technology. And it’s a full size “saloon” (scotch in trunk 😉 A modern version (if one were ever made) with something other than German Cube aerodynamics would get even better. But CARB has decided that’s not to be…
Adam Gallon (10:21:11) :
Lighter car = better performance and handling.
You mean like a Yugo, Fiat, or Ford Fiesta vs. a Mercdes 500SL or even a Mercedes 300SEL or any BMW 7 series ? /sarcoff>
It’s not the weight of the steel, it’s the size of the brain that designed it. But more weight lets that brain do more interesting things… and more money helps the brain work a lot better two 😉
Pamela Gray (11:15:07) :
[…] it will have to hogtie me first. Hell, those little cars can’t even haul a hogtied female to jail.
You’re flirting again aren’t you? 😉
You might be a redneck if… your laptop is powered from your manure gas powered generator… You have to stop typing to fill your beer glass and feed the livestock in the back yard (GUILTY!) … Your truck is considered part of your living room AND your farm equipment … You have more than one generator, 2 inverters, a satellite dish AND a wood pile (guilty again!) … Your car is bigger than your bathroom and closer to the living room …
I could go on, but it wouldn’t be pretty 😉
Swedish bus and truck maker Scania has an interesting hybrid project for city buses:
Swedish bus and truck maker Scania has an interesting hybrid project for city bus:
and the link
Ron de Haan (11:58:30) :
The big fight that is going on at the moment is about “control” over energy distribution.
Yup. But quantity has a quality all it’s own… Distributed sources will always suffer a disadvantage relative to the ‘big boys’ simply due to financing costs if nothing else. Wal Mart is monster sized because it is monster sized and monster sized means it can purchase cheaper. The electric utility will always be able to buy solar cells or wind turbines cheaper than you can.
For many individuals, depending on circumstances, the new technologies provide an opportunity to get away from the local power company and Big Oil’s Service Stations for fueling the car.
And I can make my own biodiesel (and have) and my own ethanol (and have) and my own gasogen for producer gas and my own methane digester (and have) and… but at the end of the day it’s cheaper to fill up at the local gas station due to economies of scale. This will not change. (It’s that dismal science thing again. Sigh.)
Honda for example delivers a hydrogen generator as a domestic application. The system, the size of a fridge, converts Propane into heat to warm your home and provides hydrogen to fuel up your car.
This, IMHO, is the only way hydrogen can work. As a byproduct of cogeneration in some way.
Shell already markets a “clean diesel” made from natural gas (plant in Quatar).
This is the GTL / CTL technology. Lots of folks are doing it. BP, Chevron CVX, Conoco Philips COP, even MRO (Marathon Oil) who have a very interesting bromine based tech. It’s substantially the same product that SASOL has made for 30+ years in South Africa (SSL) from coal.
I do not believe we already have reached peak-oil.
We have.
Recently, huge oil fiellds were found in China, The Huzdar Region of Balochistan, Pakistan (Bolochistan borders with Afghanistan and the current fight for independance from Pakistan has everything to do with the oil and gas that has been found), Colombia and off coast of Brazil. Forget about the Arctic.
Peak oil does NOT mean no more will be found, it just means that the rate of finding drops below the rate of depletion. It has. Yes, big finds. No, not bigger than depletion.
Natural Gas, read diesel oil and jet fuel, can be found everywhere.
Not a peak oil issue. Peak Oil is not Peak Fossil Fuels… I’d count Nat. Gas as part of the ‘alternatives’ to get gasoline and Diesel. Ditto coal.
If we only take the US resources into account that could secure domestic oil consumption for the next 118 years all those peak oil stories can be archived under the same hoax department as AGW.
Yes and no. Peak Oil as described by Hubbert is exactly right. It took us 100 years to reach the peak and we’ll be pumping oil (at every lower rates) for the next 100 years. A more or less symmetrical curve.
We will gradually turn more natural gas and coal into gasoline and Diesel (Modulo Obama…) so the Peak Oil Gloom & Doom HYPE is the same as the AGW HYPE. Coal derived gasoline and Diesel are good for another couple of hundred years. Then there is algae derived oil (millions of years) and nuclear powered synthesis of motor fuels (millions of years). There is no energy shortage and there never will be.
ANY shortage of motor fuels in the next few hundred years are entirely due to political decisions not to use natural gas and coal. Peak oil or no.
By the way, the mini nuclear power plant comes at container size
A city in Alaska tried to get one of these from Toshiba? but was shut down. They would have avoided some tens of thousands of gallons of Diesel fuel burn each year… There is still some hope they will succeed.
http://www.primidi.com/2005/02/06.html
A Japanese scientist has found a way to extract plutonium from seawater so this energy source could last for ever.
Um, that ought to be Uranium. Plutonium is mostly man made… But yes. The quantity that erodes into the ocean each year is less that what is required to power everything on the planet. We can take it out “forever”.
E.M.Smith (15:24:16) :
You are correct it’s uranium.
Thanks for your other comments, they all cut wood.
If you look at the whole show from a distance, people worry to much.
But they should be bit more careful about the crooked politicians they choose to represent them.
E.M.Smith (14:39:30) :
I’d hate to be the gov’t agent assigned to hogtie and haul Pamela to jail.
He might be left with an interesting story behind the scars. 🙂
Little Saturn SL2 vs. brand new GMC Sonoma pickup? The Saturn was totaled,
of course, but the pickup driver regretted not seeing us before the
left turn he made. See http://wermenh.com/saturn.html – complete with
physics. The replacement Saturn has 227 Kmi so far.
Mike said:
“It’s the federal tax credits that piss me off personally. (Don’t believe they are available here in Canada – could be wrong). I don’t give 2 hoots what you choose to drive. All the power to you. Just don’t do it on my dime. (Note: I recognize I don’t pay taxes down there). I tried to go to your link but it wouldn’t let me. That being said, if you are worried about foreign oil dependency, that quantity of risk, as interpreted by the market is built into the price of oil. Econ 101 – All future expecations are built into a product’s price; especially with commodities.”
Well gee Mike, I don’t much like subsidizing the cost of oil (via U.S. military deployments and expenditures in the middle east that secure the world’s oil supply). So I guess that really pisses me off. So think about that next time you are driving on the U.S. taxpayer’s dime. And last time I checked, “the market” wasn’t footing the bill for the U.S. military, it is me, the U.S. taxpayer. So how about sending us some cash from Canada?
“Jeff Alberts (15:30:09) :
FWIW Tim, I don’t have a problem with anyone driving any vehicle. It’s when someone drives a specific vehicle and then derides others for not being as foresighted or “green” as they are. This happens with other vehicles besides Priuses (Prii?), like the silly Smart Car.”
I’m not deriding anyone’s car, Prius drivers or Hummer drivers. I just want people to pay the full cost of oil, inclusive of subsidies such as the military one.
“Jay (15:40:27) :
“Wow – nothing like a Prius to get people foaming at the mouth.”
Sorry, Tim. Guilty as charged. Seeing a Prius on the road is like having Algore, Hansen, and the entire California state government encapsulized next to you….
I can relate a little bit. One of my cars is a Porsche….”
LOL Jay. I understand. Just know not every Prius driver is a left wing wacko.
I am curious. My questions remained unanswered. It seems highly implausible to me that you’d just happen to have a camera handy to take a photo of a car you just happen to be passing, and that you would actually have the inclination to concentrate on photographing instead of driving. The EXIF data says the photo was taken on 2008/05/02, so why the statement that it was taken ‘recently’?
REPLY: I can understand the skepticism. I carry a camera on all trips I make. As you may know, I operate the http://www.surfacestations.org project and this happened to be a trip to survey stations. To me recent meant in the last few months. With LCD Displays on the rear of cameras now, and large megapixel resolution, getting this shot was quite easy. Aim in general direction as seen on LCD, snap, then crop out what you want from the large megapixel image.
Here is the original image before cropping. Notice the spots on the windshield in foreground. Bugs I think:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/100_1501.jpg
I find it curious though that you question me and demand such details when you don’t even have the integrity yourself to put in a valid email address in your post x@yyy.zzz is not a real email address. – Anthony
Thanks for the further info. I notice that in the uncropped version, the car on the right, that looks to be a little over twice as far away as the Prius, has an almost totally illegible number plate, while the next car up the road, probably three times as far away, has a completely illegible plate. Whereas, if I crop out the ‘suckers’ plate and reduce it in size even by a factor of four, it’s still easy to read.
But if you say it’s entirely real, I’ll take your word for it. Plenty of things in photographs may look anomalous at first sight, and as I say, I was just curious. I wasn’t ‘demanding’ any details, and I don’t see how putting in a false e-mail address should imply any lack of integrity. Should I hand out my e-mail address to anyone who asks for it?
REPLY: Well if you simply put your valid email address in the post, I could have emailed you directly. Email addresses allow me to contact people that comment with questions or responses. It seems a reasonable courtesy to expect. – Anthony
Oh I know, Tim. I wasn’t trying to imply that you were, but that some greenies do. No offense intended.
RW (09:54:06) :
That looks to me as though the camera focused on the Prius, a sensible thing to do. I considered that the optics might be lame, as in less sharp on the edge of the field, but if that were the case I’d expect to see some distortion too, and I don’t. Looking at the center line and road grooves, I think there’s some camera and car motion effects that do some odd things, and I think the camera is actually focused _before_ the Prius which would exacerbate focus for more distant cars.
I think Anthony’s car is just before an unseen while lane marker, that would put the Prius 2.5 markers away. The Yukon is 7 markers away, the next car 9 or 10.
I don’t see anything other than some odd effects with grooves that would warrant any suspicion, and the grooves ought to be explainable with a bit of camera motion, car motion, and the scan speed of the image sensor.
Your “electric” car gets all its energy from gasoline. It just uses the energy efficiently, by better managing the relationship between potential and kinetic energy and actively trading one for the other with less dissipation and loss. Most of the added efficiency comes from regenerative braking. A bit comes from the efficiency of an electric motor in acceleration relative to a heat engine doing the same. nevertheless…all the energy comes from gasoline.
Ric Werme (19:40:16) :
RW (09:54:06) :
Thanks for the further info. I notice that in the uncropped version, the car on the right, that looks to be a little over twice as far away as the Prius, has an almost totally illegible number plate, while the next car up the road, probably three times as far away, has a completely illegible plate. Whereas, if I crop out the ’suckers’ plate and reduce it in size even by a factor of four, it’s still easy to read.
RW, please notice that the other plates are about 1/10 the area of the prius plate. In digital photography that can cause characters to dissolve into pixellated blur. Reducing the size of an image isn’t as important as reducing the pixel count. If the original had the small plates at a pixel limit, they are blurred, no matter the physical size. Also, center of a lens is always more sharp then edge, often by quite a bit, especially in recent non-pro non-35mm cameras. Like 1/4 to 1/8 as sharp. Add to that the effect that rotation of a one handed hold with an edge place shutter release imparts and the plates near the edge being more blurred is expected. There is no difference in sharpness of other insignia on the vehicles vs. the plates on each vehicle at least as far as I can see in the image.
That looks to me as though the camera focused on the Prius
Yup.
Looking at the center line and road grooves, I think there’s some camera and car motion effects that do some odd things
[…]
I don’t see anything other than some odd effects with grooves that would warrant any suspicion, and the grooves ought to be explainable with a bit of camera motion, car motion, and the scan speed of the image sensor.
The groove cutting machine in California has a random motion built into it (so that motorcycle tires don’t get ‘stuck in a rut’ – SHUDDER – bad memory of early parallel grooves of constant depth and a motorcycle tire with straight ribs…) so the degree of depth, ‘wobble’, and everything else about the grooves tends to ‘come and go’ unpredictably. (And I’m glad for it, even if my present M.C. tires have no parallel ribs… I still get the willies on grooved pavement even though the state responded to MC rider protests and went to the randomizer). The look of the groves don’t tell you much.
The shadows place the sun medium low on the horizon. 5pm?. Most recent digital cameras hang out at about f4 to f5.6 unless pushed elsewhere (the small sensor size makes this ideal, with wider apertures suffering soft focus, if they are available at all, and smaller apertures being diffraction limited). The depth of field at f4 to f5.6 would soft focus the more distant cars, and the limited light of an afternoon to setting sun with high speed shutter to reduce motion blur pretty much says f4 (ish) to f5.6 exposure (never trust the meta data in forensics…) though again, a bit of lab time would give a better answer than eyeballing it.
I see nothing in this picture that is suspicious. [Nikon D50, a couple of 35mm Nikons, Canon FTQL (ancient) F1 (ancient), several Minolta 7000x series and 5000x series (damn it), and several misc. minor cameras plus darkroom equipment (now obsolete, damn it again) and many 10s of thousands of pictures taken, mostly badly, and I have taught forensics class at Sacramento State) though I have to say that with modern software a digital image can be made to show anything and without access to the original bits it’s hard to prove.]
My take on it is that if this were a fake it would have taken far too much time to make than it would be worth to make this quality. I also think I’ve seen the same car, though I can’t place exactly where… (Sacramento? Stockton? Kettleman City? ) or when. (Vague memory of a chuckle while near highway hypnosis.)
The light, shading and direction on the plate are all ‘correct’ (though I can’t explain the shadow the car is in. Truck on the shoulder? Billboard?) as are the relative sharpness of the car and plate. There are no errors of color temperature nor of lighting source. The shadows and highlights are all correct. There are no unexplained reflections. The resolution seems consistent between the plate and car. I see no aliasing that is out of place. The plate image is of the same plane and orientation as the surface it is on. There are no proportion artifacts and no cropping artifacts. Looks good to me.
RW, as someone who’s professionally paranoid (they WERE always out to get me and and the log files showed it…) I’d suggest that you need to moderate your caution. At least get a valid, though unused day to day, email address. It’s not very hard to pick up a gmail, or whatever, account that you just don’t read very often. And cut Anthony some slack. The work it would take to fake the picture just isn’t worth it to someone who has as much on his plate as he has…
I’ve spent far more time on this than it deserves and I’m ready to move on.
REPLY: FYI I boosted the sharpness and brightness a tad in the cropped photo, to make a better presentation for the web page. No other enhancements were made. The original photo is as posted. If I recall correctly the shadow is an overpass we just went under. The photo was taken south of Fresno on I-5. – Anthony