I would not have believed this had I not seen this come from this idiot’s Senator’s mouth. Take the three most inefficient and subsidized things in government today, add them together, and there’s no way that spells SUCCESS. It does spell FAIL though.
From Fox News website (via C-SPAN)
As the potential collapse of the United States Postal Service looms on the horizon, one Senate Democrat has proposed an unusual plan to solve the crisis.
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) looks to harvest the electricity that windmill farms produce in order to power a new fleet of battery-operated postal delivery vehicles, replacing the previous ’25 to 30 years old’ ‘dilapidated’ vehicles.
The Senator admits the idea is “out there” but concludes that “we need to be thinking boldly, and the postal service needs to do that”
Watch the video:
If you are a constituent you need to sound off. The stupidity of this idea is not only robust, it is unprecedented. Electric vehicles do better on long hauls and commutes, stop/start a thousand times a day at each mailbox, not so much.
They’d be FORD’s (Found On Road Discharged) the first day.
(h/t) Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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Heh. “Out there” is right. And people thought Postage Due was wild.
I’m surprised, too. I hesitate to contradict Anthony, who actually owns an electric car, but I think he’s mistaken about the utility of electric vehicles in start-and-stop work.
/Mr Lynn
Well, if they just put little windmills on the vehicles they could make the electricity as they drive. Maybe put some little propellers on their hats, too. /sarc
DirkH says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:16 pm
It’s only “part of what the workers cost” because the unions have inflated the pensions. I see no reason that government employees should get a dime more than what I and millions of other workers will get when we retire—Social Security. Instead, they will retire on much more money than I’ll ever see.
Claiming this is not an issue is indeed sophistry …
w.
Andrew Newberg says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:45 pm
““They’d be FORD’s (Found On Road Discharged) the first day.”
I thought it was Fix Or Repair Daily…”
There was also Found On Road, Dead. (Happy ex owner of a Ford Escort Turbodiesel).
Mr Lynn says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:38 pm
“I beg to differ; it’s a good idea (the cars, not the windmills).”
Electric motors require a huge current from standing start to normal running speed, and since the number of stop starts is high, and the fact that recharge time would be only in short bursts between stops, the batteries would be discharged quite quickly..
Yes, you are correct. There is some issue with the recent payments USPS is supposed to make to the retirement system.
The real issue is not the straw men that USPS keeps throwing out under the bus.
USPS’s problems are that it expanded hugely during the massive boom in both first class and third class mail. Incredible amounts of people were hired to move this country’s mail. At the same time, USPS was aggressively researching and implementing automation. That is, the ability to sort and handle mail mechanically.
The good news is that USPS (and many other countries Postal Services) succeeded.
The bad news is that mail volume started dropping in the 1990s. First class mail was the first to see the decline. Recently even third class (bulk also colloquially called junk), has been dropping as advertisers are finding email much cheaper and cost wise a very successful advertising method.
Back in the late eighties and very early nineties, a Postmaster General named Tony Frank promised, as in agreed, the unions of the USPS workers a “no layoff” clause.
This no layoff idea and promise combined with a massive automation of the mail stream means that for USPS to keep all of those workers, productivity drops. “Work always expands to fit allowed time.” This isn’t to say those workers are not working hard. USPS also employs an immense staff of postmasters, supervisors and managers; their job is to make sure all of those employees work hard.
What USPS has far to many of is postoffices and processing centers. USPS could easily do away with thousands of postoffices and many of their processing centers. Yes, this would certainly impact the staff at those sites.
The real reason USPS has not addressed this issue is because the USPS greatly fears both the American public and their legislators. NO legislator wants USPS to close a facility in their area while they are in elected office. Following that main reason, USPS management has an inability to really believe that the mail stream is vanishing and to take the necessary steps. So, like so many others they blame their ineptness on Congress and want to be bailed out.
The big magic monopoly granted to USPS is the care and delivery of personal messages which is the basis for first class mail. America’s founders reasoned that freedom depends of safe secure communications between people.
USPS probably should have grabbed onto email as it birthed and sought to enforce the same protections given to first class mail. Maybe it will still figure this part out.
Mr Lynn says:
April 25, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Starting a vehicle from a dead stop takes a lot of energy. Starting a gasoline engine takes almost no additional fuel with today’s fuel injector technology. However, if your electricity is “free” and tax payers are buying the new electric cars…
I’ve owned two different houses on two different coasts in the last 21 years, and I’ve had community mailboxes all that time.
Electric vehicles do better on long hauls and commutes, stop/start a thousand times a day at each mailbox, not so much.
Huh? I thought electric vehicles with Regenerative Braking would fair comparatively well in start-stop uses such as mail routes. Diesels are for long haul. …. At least that’s the myth I learned from Scientific American over the years. So what’s the current scoop?
REPLY: Regenerative braking only recovers a fraction of the energy, that fraction can vary anywhere from 10% to 90% depending on conditions, speeds, and design…my typical experience with my electric vehicles is about 25-35%. – Anthony
Mike says: April 25, 2012 at 7:19 pm
Biden and now this guy? Maryland, can you do a little better please?
—————
This guy’s from Delaware not Maryland. Please don’t accuse us of sending this
clowngentleman to Congress.[Unfortunately, Maryland sends more than its fair-share of “useful idiots” to Congress as it is.]
OMG. Words cannot express the amount of FAIL contained within this one video.
First, we start with the grossly inefficient Postal Service
Then add to that two unproven and inefficient energy technologies
And the result is supposed to be one grand super efficient system? Right….
I think someone is relying too much on the power of fairy dust, unicorn farts and wishful thinking.
How about work vehicles like electric forklifts? They spend all day starting and stopping.
Then there’s regenerative braking, as Stephen Rasey mentions above.
And, of course, you could keep the electric motor running at a modest speed, and just push a pedal, engaging a belt drive. That would save the starting surge on the battery.
Time for some real-world experience!
/Mr Lynn
Just like gov’t grants for climate change, lets think up a way to throw billions more at a failing business plan.
The only thing Democrats excel at is getting elected. Nothing else is on their horizon unless it somehow is tied to their inane ideology of saving the planet or creating nirvana.
Too bad they fail miserably at eveything else.
When I drive freeways and surface streets with my Prius, the battery stays charged. I save $1,500 a year on gas. Yay.
When I drive downtown (here in San Diego), and stop and start at the lights and all the stop signs, my battery empties very quickly – Postal Service vehicles stop and start WAY more I do on their daily routes.
Ergo: Regenerative braking, which I have, is not enough to recoup the energy lost with all the stops a Postal Service car must make.
Carper is right that the idea is out there. Maybe it would work on the Moon if you replaced wind with solar power.
Less gravity = less power to move vehicles
Less air = less resistance to movement
No clouds = more sun to convert to power
And there is no one to deliver mail to so 28 miles should be a fine range.
The Post-normal science NASA might even be able to make it work.
Drole! Programmed failure is what the gummit does best. They plan it, implement it, and it goes over the cliff with all our money in it. Carper’s no slouch, but he’s not the one driving the little car in the big clown parade.
Postal vehicle are old and dilapidated…. or senators from Delaware?
You can use a flywheel system for stop/start if the stops are of short duration. Where I live the mail truck parks, the mailman delivers mail in the surrounding blocks, the truck moves several blocks, mailman gets out and delivers more, etc. The truck is parked more than it is driving in my neighborhood.
Well, maybe if the state had a more competent congressional delegation the state could grow a little and maybe absorb some of those Eastern shore counties. I frankly think Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne’s, and Caroline counties might rather be part of Delaware anyway. /sarc
The demise of the US Postal system has featured on Australian television recently.
Our ‘corner’ Post Offices are part of a franchising system, where the owner/operators are independent business people that work to a set system that really works well, the operators seem happy and enthusiastic. Rural area deliveries are contracted out and operators provide their own transport, definitely not electric.
http://auspost.com.au/working-with-us/postal-outlets-and-retail-operations.html
Slow news day?
CV says: April 25, 2012 at 7:55 pm I’m surprised this clown didn’t suggest putting windmills atop the new electric vehicles to recharge them as they drive.
20 years ago, one of the US railroads put solar-electric systems on railroad cabs to power the night lights.
Chris B says:
April 25, 2012 at 7:15 pm
It’s no wonder the watermelon’s have buffaloed so many Democrats. Hopefully this guy is not the sharpest knife in the democratic drawer.
No, but he *is* the sharpest light bulb in the knife drawer…