Monday, May 23, 2005

Fun fact

From Can hybrids save US from foreign oil?:There are 300 million or so people in the U.S., and 60 million or so of them are school-age kids. So, approximately, every single adult in America owns a car. One out of every 1,000 of those adults owns a hybrid vehicle right now.

Totally unrelated but also interesting is this tidbit from Factory egg production: What this means is that there is one laying hen for every single person in the United States. Somewhere in the U.S., there is a laying hen that, essentially, has your name on it. You eat all the eggs that your hen produces.

Comments:
I think the whole poultry industry is slightly disturbing when you think about it too hard.
 
And the fact that I hardly ever eat eggs makes me wonder where all of mine are going...
 
I had pet chickens as a boy. We ate the eggs and the chickens died of old age pecking around the chicken yard. Had a pet rooster too. Also died of old age. Not many chickens get to do that now.

I eat chicken now so I am contributing to what was described. Sad.
 
Re 'hybrids': I like RUF - see it at www.ruf.dk - blzbob
 
Hybrids are the 1/3 solution; they get rid of about 1/3 of fuel consumption.  But technologically they are more like 60% of the way there.

The 70-80% solution is the gas-optional hybrid, or GO-HEV.  The GO-HEV allows drivers to eliminate fuel use for the first 10-30 miles after a recharge; this can account for well over half of all driving.  People are already building them out of Priuses; had Bush not killed the PNGV four years ago, people would be converting cars from Detroit too.

The 100% solution is the electric vehicle.  The GO-HEV is an evolutionary path; as traction batteries get cheaper, cars will use bigger and bigger ones and need the sustainer engines less and less.  Eventually makers will offer the sustainer engine as an option and buyers will stop selecting it.
 
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