01 January 2014

Another Fascinating Invention by Men!

Guys,

In the past, my company has partnered with Tesla Motors, America's premier EV builder.  As such, I take interest in what Tesla does.  No, I'm not an environmental whacko, but kicking the expensive gasoline (or petrol for our British friends) habit would be nice.  I drive an economical vehicle, and I spend $50-$55 a week; that equates to $2,500-$2,860 a year.  That's a lot of money!  Ergo, I'm a bit of a Tesla fan, and I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of their Model E.

In any case, I don't have to tell you that diesel vehicles, especially larger ones, are dirty.  That goes for city buses too, the subject of this video.  I know, I know; diesels are a lot cleaner than they used to be, but still.  To address the pollution of diesel powered buses, many cities in Europe use trolley buses, but they require overhead lines for power; that limits where they can be used, because they can only run where overhead lines are installed.  They cannot be used anywhere like an internal combustion powered bus can.

That was until now!  ABB has come up with an electric bus that can run all day long, and can do so without overhead lines.  How did they do this?  One, they charge it overnight at the depot; this provides the bulk of the battery's charge.  Two, they charge the bus at its termini, which are at either end of its route.  Finally, they do a flash charge at every third or fourth stop; in 15 seconds, they top off the battery while the bus is picking up or dropping off passengers.  The beauty of what ABB has done is that this would require minimal changes to a transit system's infrastructure.

What you'll note in the video is that men invented this; men saw this through to completion.  As Camille Paglia has said in the past, if we left invention up to women, we'd still be living in grass huts.  Now, enjoy a video about the fruits of male ingenuity at its finest...



Male ingenuity at its finest-you gotta love it! Until next time...

MarkyMark

8 comments:

Carnivore said...

That is really cool. Chicago had a network of electric street cars (i.e. running in tracks in the street with overhead wires) but most tracks were abandoned after WWII and the routes were converted to electric buses with the tracks being paved over. I still remember the electric buses but the problems were the clutter of the overhead wires and if the contact jumped off the wire, the bus came to a stop (there were no batteries). In that case, the driver would get out and move the contact arm back on to the wire. The electric buses were replaced with diesels sometime in the late 60's or early 70's and all the wires were taken down.

The video shows a promising system which would make electric buses practical.

cecilhenry said...

These accomplishments show clear and unmistakeable evidence of discrimination against women!!

Surely women would have done 50.45% of these developments. ITs not fair. They should probably not be allowed to do more work until women catch up to their satisfaction.

And there you have liberalism in a nutshell.

Seriously, a great accomplishment with such fast recharge times.

Sterling Allan was on Coast to Coast AM talking about FREE Energy research. Very promising and exciting. Worth checking out.

Hour1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2qf2SAvA0o

Anonymous said...

How long before the man-haters insist the ideas were actually developed by the Illegal cleaning ladies in the research labs, and stolen by the men?

You laugh, but the demons said Einstein's first wife actually developed the Theory or Relativity. This was based on a pussy-begging letter he wrote her before they got married, in which he said his work depended upon her, or something like that. You know how it goes, hoping to get some.

Anonymous age 71

Masculist Man said...

Mark, at bit off topic:

Have you read about this: http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/feminist-corruption/john-the-other-is-a-traitor/

My take: http://mensrightsboard.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-hit-piece-on-jto-that-should-have.html

Anonymous said...

This looks really cool! Will have to keep an eye out for further information/developments. I hope that the power used to charge them comes from hydroelectric or solar, or the "green" factor is negated a little. I guess that would depend on the region. (The video may address this already, but it's not loading at the moment so I just read your summary.)

--Sarah

MarkyMark said...

Sarah,

Even if an electric vehicle (such as the bus here) gets all its power from a coal fired power plant, it still leaves a smaller carbon footprint than a comparable ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle does. This is because electric motors have about THREE TIMES the efficiency of a comparable ICE.

An ICE will only achieve 20%-25% efficiency. That is to say, that out of the potential chemical energy in a gallon of fuel, only 25%, at most, will go to providing propulsion; the rest will be dumped as waste heat. An electric motor will achieve about 60% efficiency. Ergo, even if you use coal generated electricity to charge your BEV, your carbon footprint will still be a lot smaller than that of a comparable ICEV.

MarkyMark

MarkyMark said...

Sarah,

The electric bus in this video is running in Geneva, Switzerland. I don't know what kind of power generation they use there. Even if it is fossil fuel generated electricity, the greater efficiency of electric motors vs. ICEs will mean a greener vehicle.

MarkyMark

Anonymous said...

Mark,

Oh definitely--these are MUCH more efficient than internal combustion, to be sure. That's why I said negated only "a little"; I meant only as compared to the alternative power plant. But the good news is that Geneva (at least according to a quick glance at Wikipedia) uses ONLY power generated via renewable means. Better and better!

--Sarah