Thoughts Cubed™

Do you rent your car? Do you rent your home? Most people do not or are striving not to rent. Then why do we all rent our electricity? The majority of the public rents their electricity. Well it could be viewed that way, because you are really renting the ability of the power company to generate and deliver power to your home.

You are renting a portion of the physical plant, coal, nuclear, steam, hydro or Solar that generates the electrical power. Also you are renting the transmission lines that are used to move the power from the generating plant to your place of residence.

So why not buy your electricity just like you buy your car or your home. When we buy personal property that is more then we can pay out in one lump sum, we finance it over a period of time. But when that financial obligation is paid off we own that piece of personal property. Granted it takes a lot longer to pay off a home over a vehicle.

So do the same thing with your electricity. Buy it! For many of us that live in the sunbelt we can purchase our own power generating system. And once installed, it requires very little maintenance and does not emit any pollutants. The answer is photovoltaic panels. Ok, they are still kind of expensive, although the cost is coming down over just ten years ago. And the products are more mainstream and readily available today. Most system also will qualify for federal and state rebate programs or tax credits.

So instead of being a Dumb American and paying the power company every month for the rest of your life, pay yourself. Take that monthly amount you would pay out to the power company and pay off your solar system over time. Then when the system is paid off you will be getting almost free electricity.

Ok I guess I’m stuck on car stuff for a while.

But today, 6/27/2008 is the official day to drive your Corvette to work day. The “Drive Drive Your Corvette To Work Day” is in honor of the real birthday of the All American Sports car the Corvette 6/30/1953. Mid-American motorworks had sponsored this event for the past 8 years.

The tradition is, that the Friday that is closest to the real birthday of the Corvette shall be deemed “Drive Drive Your Corvette To Work Day”

So take that special car out for the day and drive it to work

They are back…the all electric vehicles. It has been almost ten years since Chevrolet produced the all electric S10 mid size truck and six years since the all electric Ford Ranger. Both Chevy and Ford finished their electric vehicles with Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. The best and most technically advance battery at the time, also the most expensive. BUT the trucks has limited public acceptance.

Some of the problem with these two trucks were long charging times and short driving distances. The biggest problem is you could NOT buy one. They were only leased. Some, of these electric trucks worked their way from being leased to being purchased. Only about 200 of the Rangers were sold and less than 100 of the Chevy S10 were sold. The rest were CRUSHED.

Have no fear the Phoenix MotorCars company is raising out of the oily, smoggy, soot of southern California. They are producing two all electric vehicles. The big new is they will be sold to the public. Not leased or available for fleet only. So as long as you have $45,000 you can own your very own 100% smog free truck.

The stats on the truck are amazing. Just the available driving range of 130 miles plus, is off the cart for an electric vehicle. And next year, 2009, ther will be and extended battery pack to increase the range to 250 miles. The brushless electric drive has no gears to cycle through and has regenerative breaking at 94% efficiency. This tinny 191 pound electric motor delivers a whooping 400 plus foot pounds of peak toque and 134 horse power. It will push this five passenger sport truck to in excess of 100 MPH and deliver 0 to 60 times around 10 seconds.

Phoenix MotorCars is using the NanoSafe™ battery. It’s a 35 kilowatts battery pack that is lithium ion based. The batteries can be charged in 10 minutes or less, but requires 480 volts. About the same time it takes to fuel a gasoline car. So you’re saying to yourself, who has 480 volts at the home. And I would say to you, who has a gas station at home. The point is, the 480 would be available at a recharging station just like gasoline is today. But with the electric vehicle you also have the option of charging it at home using your photovoltaic solar panels, for zero emissions.

People test driving the Phoenix MotorCars SUT have used words like smooth, strong, powerful, great, it is a real car. I cannot wait to get my hands on one of these little beauty and then I can tell the oil companies to stick it where the sun does not shine.

What a great time to be driving an American automobile. And your thinking… you got to be nuts, with the price of gas these days and low MPG ratings. Every fill up is $50.00 bucks plus.

My thoughts are baised on a trend that we have not seen in 40 years. Just look at the horsepower race that is going on. We have not seen cars being built with this much horsepower since the muscle cars of the 60’s and early 70’s. Detroit is building cars with 4 hundred, 5 hundred and even some with over 6 hundred horsepower.

The current top dogs being the Dodge Viper with 600 horsepower and Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 supercar with 630 horsepower. Ok their sports cars. So, you ask, what about the mid-size sedan 2009 Cadillac CTS-V with 550 horsepower, it is over the top! All of these cars have horsepower that years ago would have been considered exotic and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just look at the Porsche 911 GT2, with 501 horsepower at almost 200 grand. You can buy the Corvette ZR1 for a little more than half of the Porsche and you get over 600 horsepower not the measly 501 the Porsche has. Or get your hands on the CTS-V, that will do a sub 4 second 0-60, for under $70,000.

Who knows what will happen in the next few years? With all the government regulations hitting for higher Mile Per Gallon ratings hitting. We might be seeing the auto manufactures dropping all these great horsepower numbers to achieve the average fleet MPG rates being regulated by the government. So you better run out and drive one of these power house now.

So even though Gas prices are high, and I mean sky high, it is still great to be driving an American car with all this horsepower.

May 25, 2005 a senate panel votes, unanimously, to encourage ethanol production. The Panel was lead by Senator Jim Talent (r-Mo) in a response to higher gasoline prices. The oil industry opposed the plan clamming that the wide use of such a policy would lead to higher food prices.

Then that same year, 2005, Congress instructed the Environmental Protection agency to enforce the Renewable Standards Act. Which required at least 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels be added too and blended into our existing fossil fuel by the year 2012. And so starts the process that is giving us higher food prices today.

Now jump forward to 2008 looking at two staple we all need, back in Feb 2006 corn was $2.28 per bushel just a few months ago Feb 2008 the price per bushel rose to $5.46. This is almost double the cost in just 24 months. Wheat another staple food item was $3.48 per bushel in Feb 2006; now in Feb 2008 it is $11.21/bushel.

Why is the price of basic food elements climbing so fast? Because we are burning our food crops to fuel our cars, trucks and lawn mowers. So we cause a shift in the food paradigm. We create an entirely new use and market for crops that are scarce in the world today. Maybe the crops are not scarce today in America but large parts of the world are starving. People are dying every day because they do not have any food.

Then here in America, not only do we waist food, but now we burn our food crops for transportation. The rest of the world is watching and now trying to import more food crops. They just want to protect their own countries food supply. The result is again, more pressure on the food supply that results in higher prices. We are truly dumb americans.

We need to stop the push for ethanol as a renewable fuel before we all starve to death. I would rather have the option of not filling up my car at $9.00 a gallon for gasoline opposed to not being able to eat.