Alex wrote: > I see no future even for my personal all-electric "vehicle park" :-). With > maximum speed 45 km/h they are banned from most municipalities. Not that I > like driving at 120 km/h, but such a 45 km/h vehicle should have a > designated lane, like bicycle, and I don't expect this to happen in the > nearest future. The electric-powered Tesla sports car runs as fast as a Ferrari, is cheaper in use, but costs a lot! No electric vehicle I know of, bar those three-wheeled oddities that one occasionally sees on in bike-lanes, just goes 45 km/h here! Most electric cars are based on normal cars (small GMs, et cetera), but due to their heavy batteries, don't have very good load-carrying ability! >From a resource-point of view the so called moped cars (most built in Italy) are a much better option. They have a small two-cylinder diesel boxer - same as used in many garden tractors - and have a maximum legal speed of 70 km/h (same speed limit as mopeds in the European Union). They use very little fuel, and are small, thus use very little resources. Sadly, they are pretty expensive, due to the small series production. >> Heavy transports on land should all be electric train-based, > ... and banished out and away, underground :-), 'cause nobody but deaf or > permanently high on dope would be able to live next to the tracks. Even > those light trains are annoying enough, when they dart past your window from > 6 am to midnight or to 1 am, every 30 seconds in rush hours, considering > both directions. Not to say that busy street with cars is better. I live near a highway, with a very busy railway line a bit further off. One train equals more than a thousand cars (as there is usually just one or two in each car), or up to 200 semis, and I can tell you that the noise from all those trucks far over-power the trains! But high-speed trains, so loved by environmentalists as an alternative to aircraft, sure are a pain to those living next door, especially if the ground is clay, as the equivalent to sonic booms travel through the ground as the train screams past. Been onboard a train that got into harmonics with that vibration - among the scarier experiences in my life. I thought we would derail, but we didn't. Everything was a blur, you couldn't stand up and reading was definitely out! > And the nuclear power stations should be built where the consumers > are (human or industrial), not in far-away places, where > only those totally innocent, will be in harms way! > Chernobyl nuclear station in Ukraine was fairly remote from Western Europe, > and yet, with agreeable winds, radioactive cloud reached Finland and Sweden > a few days after the disaster (weakened and dissipated already, but enough > to register). Not that I'm against nuclear stations at all - just to note > that there is no place on this planet that can be considered far away enough > to be completely ignored. Coal smoke and dust from China goes around, > because the globe is round (obvious, isn't it), and settles down where you > don't want it, and so on. Yes, we all learned a lot about Cesium and Becerel then, and about nuclear power plants not so endearing sides, especially when people make mistakes. The mushrooms were inedible in many parts of Sweden after that, and animals that love lichens, and mushrooms - like roe deer and rein deer, could not be used as food. Worst off were an area in the geographic center of Sweden, where the fish for years on (at least a decade) were inedible (the deer problem just lasted a few years). But the area around Cherbonyl itself was much worse affected, where still today the radiation levels are sure to give you cancer, just by being there, unless you have the proper protective clothing and do the right procedures. Oddly enough one type of mammals thrive: the common moles! There is a US researcher that have studied the moles around the failed, leaking, plant itself, and the irradiation has somehow changed the moles genetics, as the professor explained it, dormant genes (from a prehistoric mole type, perhaps) had been activated and the result is big, happy moles, with lots of healthy siblings :-)! So watch out, one day we'll all be surrounded by these Super-moles! For more nuclear plants are sure to leak, just sit back and relax (isn't much else for us to do, is there?). Tord S Eriksson PS All the best! -- Be Yourself _at_ mail.com! Choose From 200+ Email Addresses Get a Free Account at www.mail.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Jan 06 2009 - 07:14:47 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:31 PDT