-Pat
The Weekly Tech

My parents also went through the Great Depression, and raised pigeons in the back yard to eat and sell for food. I’m not cut out for living in those harsh conditions either.

However, consider the source of the dire predictions of economic doom – these are the same people who stand to benefit from this massive transfer of wealth from us the taxpayers to them the financial speculators. Just as with the Iraq war, it behooves them to scare the US public with apocalyptic predictions so we give them what they want. I’m not as sure that avoiding a bailout would be as catastrophic; we certainly have seen private solutions take place over the past few weeks as JP Morgan Chase bought Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns, Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch, Warren Buffet bought into Goldman Sachs, and now Citigroup has taken over Wachovia.

Also think about the structure of the current bailout. At the very least, it should contain provisions that force the players in this situation to show their cards; we need to know how many of these bad instruments are out there, what their nominal values are, and who’s holding how much. The basically unrestricted plan in Congress right now lets the people who brought us this fiasco to hold all the cards while they’re trying to sell us their bad mortgages and their derivatives. It’s not a setup that gives me confidence that we as taxpayers will be paying reasonable prices for the mess they’ve made.

I don’t want a repeat of the same financial meltdown caused by the exact same policies and ideologies that existed then.

Imagine, if you will, China, Japan, India, the Middle East and Europe deciding to cash in their trillions of dollars in Treasury Bonds–which the US government currently does not have the resources to pay — all at once because they no longer believed in the financial viability of the U.S?

Where would this country be then?

I’m not a bot, I know you care about the democracy of our government, so we need to get this done. There are 6 Presidential candidates this year all of which are qualified and capable of winning, so why are there only 2 people on the debate! Bigotry, two party bias! Let’s flood the email inbox and the phone lines with: Open the Debates.

It takes 5 mins. Please help me make a difference . Below is a script but please feel free to appropriately modify it to support your candidate .

Step one:

Call Barack Obama at 866-675-2008.
Hit 6 to speak with a campaign volunteer.
Once connected, politely deliver the following message:

Hi, my name is …

I was wondering if Senator Obama, being a believer in equal opportunity and equal rights, could insist that Ralph Nader and other ballot qualified third party candidates be included in the upcoming Presidential debates?
After all, Nader is on 45 state ballots.
And he’s polling well nationwide. And he could help Senator Obama challenge the corporate Republicans.
True, Ralph would critique Senator Obama for his corporate ties also. But isn’t that what democracy is about? Could you please leave this message for the campaign manager? Thank you.

Step two:

E-mail Janet Brown jb@debates.org, the executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Here’s a sample e-mail:

Dear Janet Brown:

Greetings. You must be busy. Preparing for the first Presidential debate this Friday. So, I won’t take much of your time. Just wanted to let you know that the American people were not born yesterday. We know the deal. Take that little private corporation that you run. Controlled by the two corporate parties. And funded by big business. For the purpose of excluding independent minded candidates. Friday, two Wall Street candidates are scheduled to be in the ring. Barack Obama and John McCain. The one candidate who represents the American people, Main Street, if you will, will be on the outside looking in. So, here’s a simple request. Drop your exclusionary restrictions. And let Ralph Nader into the debates.
It will be good for your conscience. Good for the American people. (I believe it was The League of Women Voters that called your corporatized debates “campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity, and honest answers to tough questions.”) And good for democracy. Let the American people have a real debate for once. Main Street vs. Wall Street.

Thank you.

Signed
your name.

One major difference between a Better Place charging infrastructure and the current gasoline “charging” infrastructure is that the first is a monopoly; the second is not (especially since Standard Oil was busted up).

The range extension technology of the Chevy Volt is such that after the battery is drawn down to a threshold (20%-30%), the gasoline engine kicks in to recharge it. Unlike the 2-mode Prius, the gasoline engine does not drive the car; it can thus be tuned to its optimum operation solely for charging the battery. The battery can also be charged from regular home circuits; I’m assuming 110V/10 or 20a circuits. I could be wrong on that.

If charging stations begin to pop up to charge cars like the Volt, that would be great. Consider how different that would be from a centrally managed infrastructure like Better Place; instead, different businesses would crop up offering different payment models, locations, etc., but all to the already existing standard of 110V (in the US). Consider Recreational Vehicles (RVs) and boats; they can hook into power at RV parks and marinas, no matter their make and model.

I’m very worried about monopoly – a monopoly actually has the potential to kill electric cars by offering the opportunity to artificially affect prices for the battery technology and charging stations. It also means location and charging transaction information is all in one place; do you want any one entity (including the government) to basically know where you are at all times?

Now I’m clearly out of the loop here. I hadn’t even heard of the Chevy Volt. Let me make sure my understanding is correct: the range-extended technology means that for a given range (40 miles you said, I believe) it runs only on electricity. After that point it uses gasoline (only gasoline or with the help of electricity? I’d assume only gasoline) to power it until it can be charged. Can it only be charged at home? What equipment is required to charge the vehicle?

From what I see here it sounds like a definite step in the right direction- the ideal being no gasoline, of course. When we get to the point where everyone is driving a car like the Volt, then I believe we will find that charging stations naturally begin to appear in the place of gas stations, especially as technology advances so that the range of the cars on electricity is further extended.

But a program such as the one proposed for Israel would both ensure and expedite the process. And if it works in Israel, great! So maybe it wouldn’t work in many parts of the US, so what? It’s not proposed for the US right now either.

Now, it’s clear that you’re very worried about a monopoly being created. Is this warranted? Yes. But frankly, all it requires is some provisions in the contract with the government (as you suggested). And, in the long term, it would almost certainly be controlled. So while it is something which we should be aware of, I personally don’t believe that it should stop us from adopting a new technology. But that could just mean we have different priorities.

First, your ad-hominem attack about not being engineers is puerile; even worse, it’s wrong.

Second. I’m arguing as a proponent of range-extension plug-in hybrids, in opposition to the byzantine infrastructure proposed by Better Place. I don’t care which charge-storage technology is used in cars; that’s part of my opposition to Better Place. They give the impression of proposing a whole special-purpose infrastructure for delivering charges (via sockets or fresh batteries) to cars, with the hope that they can use that to get an ROI on their investment. As you succinctly point out, the current crop of plug-in electric cars and hybrids are being designed to be charged without a huge investment in special purpose infrastructure. And by not “standardising” on one company’s “vision”, car companies continue to be free to experiment with capacitors etc.

Third, you bring up Hydrogen as an alternate fuel – but you’re the only one who mentions this. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a non-starter for the reason you point out (among others): building out a special purpose infrastructure to deliver Hydrogen is ridiculous. But that’s exactly what Better Place seems to be proposing – a special purpose charging infrastructure to support their special cars.

Finally, you suggest people shouldn’t “go back to the horse and buggy”; I find that the most puzzling of all. As a proponent of plug-in range-extended hybrid technology, how am I going back to the horse and buggy? Or perhaps I’m excluded from your exhortation?

I thought it was clear that I’m not arguing for perpetuating the gasoline engine as a means of propulsion; I think 2-mode hybrids like the Prius are yesterday’s news and should be retired. I’m on board with cars exclusively using electricity for propulsion. It sounds like you could even be on my side, but it’s hard to be sure.