When I get hit by a self-driving car, I’m suing everyone in sight for 8 trillion dollars
If I survive, that is. At the end of the day I won’t be unreasonable though and would probably settle for $500 billion-ish. Not that litigiousness is a good thing. I roll my eyes like everyone does at the stories about millionaires being created by dumping hot coffee in their laps, or slipping on ice, […]
Stop fighting, start planting trees
Is anyone else out there exhausted by ridiculous environmental arguments? The topic isn’t ridiculous, but the entrenchment is. We’re getting nowhere and everyone is just getting more riled up. It’s like an argument about the best sushi, except that the loser loses his job forever. The green side sees fossil fuels as the ultimate enemy, […]
Elitism and energy – maybe progress is a whole lot easier when you’re rich
A funny thing happens when the price of gasoline increases and stays there for a while – people of lesser means often find themselves driving big, new-ish fuel hogs. I know, because I’ve been there. How does that work? Well, in periods of low gasoline prices, few people care about mileage and sales of big […]
Rising oil prices not only hurt at the pumps, they set up interesting anti-infrastructure wars
Rising oil prices make a lot of news. In the old days, whenever it happened the affected parties were well defined – those that produced oil loved higher prices, and everyone else hated them. It was such a simple world. Now however the dynamics are much different. Consumers still hate higher gasoline prices of course, […]
Rethinking efficiency – it’s not an engineering problem, sometimes it’s a mental blockage
I once read about a very clever fellow who devised an extremely simple but effective home heating system. He laid some hoses on the ground, open at one end some distance from his house, and the other ends running into the windows. He piled manure on the hoses, which decomposed as manure does and threw […]
Public Energy Number One 