Three years after this post was published, I published an update here.
The most recent version of an air-powered car, first introduced by Guy Nègre in 1991, was featured on Shark Tank recently. Robert Herjavec is willing to invest $5 million into Zero Pollution Motors provided that they negotiate a North American license from Guy's company, Motor Development International. Currently, ZPM only has a license for Hawaii. Autoweek covered the story here.
Don't expect to see these cars on the road any time soon. Guy has been flogging this idea for over 20 years now with only prototypes to show for it. In 2007, he announced that Tata Motors had licensed the technology and would manufacture cars in India but a visit to Tata Motors' Web site shows no mention of air-powered cars. To my knowledge, Tata has not sold a single air-powered car.
Most people see the appeal of the concept. Where is the problem? It's in compressing the air for the car. Compressing air produces heat, which is typically lost, reducing efficiency. On the flip side, in the car, expanding the air absorbs heat which means the air needs to be heated, reducing efficiency. One way around this is to capture the heat and store it in a battery, using that energy to heat the air when it is used in the car. The end result is that an air-powered car is not sufficiently energy efficient to be practical.
I could see using air power in situations where energy efficiency is not a factor but convenience or access to compressed air is. For example, in an electrical power plant, the waste heat from the boilers could be used to compress the air, reducing the overall energy cost.
Part of the Shark Tank pitch was the concept of using "turnkey micro-production factories" to build the cars locally. With the car already being impractical, saddling it with an unrealistic manufacturing model will surely doom it. Just as Tesla has one manufacturing plant, only one manufacturing plant is needed to serve North America.
One final point: Neither Ethan Tucker or Pat Boone, the presenters on Shark Tank, appear to have any experience building or selling cars. Ethan, at least, is listed on the management page of ZPM.
I wish Mr. Nègre the best, but the physics are against him.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Amtrak crash in Philadelphia: A possible scenario
Thanks to reporting by the New York Times in this story, I have put together a possible scenario of the events leading up to the crash of Train 188:
1. The train leaves the North Philadelphia station and accelerates at maximum power to a planned 80 mph.
2. A rock strikes the train, damaging the windshield.
3. At some point, the engineer is supposed to take the throttle to idle and then apply the brakes to reduce the speed to 50 mph for the curve.
4. However, the engineer is distracted by the rock striking the windshield and doesn't start braking at the correct time.
5. Still accelerating at maximum power, the train continues past 80 mph to 106 mph.
6. The engineer regains concentration, realizes the train is going too fast, and applies the emergency brake.
7. But it's too late. The train tries to go around the curve at 104 mph, derails and crashes.
A Septa and an Acela train were also hit by rocks about the same time. Note that the engineer in the Septa train that was hit was shaken up enough by the incident that he couldn't continue driving the train.
1. The train leaves the North Philadelphia station and accelerates at maximum power to a planned 80 mph.
2. A rock strikes the train, damaging the windshield.
3. At some point, the engineer is supposed to take the throttle to idle and then apply the brakes to reduce the speed to 50 mph for the curve.
4. However, the engineer is distracted by the rock striking the windshield and doesn't start braking at the correct time.
5. Still accelerating at maximum power, the train continues past 80 mph to 106 mph.
6. The engineer regains concentration, realizes the train is going too fast, and applies the emergency brake.
7. But it's too late. The train tries to go around the curve at 104 mph, derails and crashes.
A Septa and an Acela train were also hit by rocks about the same time. Note that the engineer in the Septa train that was hit was shaken up enough by the incident that he couldn't continue driving the train.
The rock throwing has continued for many years. It's one of those
things that the authorities don't worry about until someone dies. With this accident, eight people have died. The problem will now be fixed.
Friday, May 1, 2015
Computer camps for third graders
Recently, I got a call from a mother whose son wants to learn about computer programming. His school offers classes but they don't start until the fifth grade and they won't make an exception for her son who will be a third grader in the fall (seven years old). I found two summer day camps in the Cincinnati, Ohio area that have camps for third graders. (Note: The summer camp folks look at the grade your child will be in in the fall.)
I don't know much about these camps and this is not a specific recommendation. The main reason I'm posting this is to reassure parents that seven years old is not too early to begin learning about computers, whether it's developing games or writing programs.
One set of camps are offered by Classroom Antics. The camps range from Junior Video Game Design (ages 7 to 9) to Stop Motion Animation (ages 9 to 13).
Another place for a variety of scientific camps, including programming camps, is CINSAM at Northern Kentucky University.
Drake Planetarium also has camps that involve concepts related to programming. Once you display the page, click on "2015 Summer Camps" for more information.
There may be more camps that I'm not aware of. If you are connected with a summer computer camp, drop me a line and I will update this post.
Please provide feedback in the comments. You may comment anonymously if you wish.
Updated May 17: Added Drake Planetarium.
I don't know much about these camps and this is not a specific recommendation. The main reason I'm posting this is to reassure parents that seven years old is not too early to begin learning about computers, whether it's developing games or writing programs.
One set of camps are offered by Classroom Antics. The camps range from Junior Video Game Design (ages 7 to 9) to Stop Motion Animation (ages 9 to 13).
Another place for a variety of scientific camps, including programming camps, is CINSAM at Northern Kentucky University.
Drake Planetarium also has camps that involve concepts related to programming. Once you display the page, click on "2015 Summer Camps" for more information.
There may be more camps that I'm not aware of. If you are connected with a summer computer camp, drop me a line and I will update this post.
Please provide feedback in the comments. You may comment anonymously if you wish.
Updated May 17: Added Drake Planetarium.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Guest blog: Does single payer health care work? No!
A guest blog by Daniel Artz
For those of who think that Single Payer is the solution to America's health care system, here is how Government run single payer health care works. Surprise — it DOESN'T!
Fox News: New VA scandals call into question agency's ability to clean house
Bruce’s response: So you must support Obamacare, which is specifically not single payer.
Bruce’s response: So you must support Obamacare, which is specifically not single payer.
Daniel: Obamacare may not be the stupidest thing Congress has ever done, but it certainly makes the top ten. And yes, I agree that the American health care system was fundamentally broken BEFORE Obamacare was enacted, but Congress never spent one millisecond on the all important question of WHY. Instead, it simply assumed that the problems with health care were the result of "market failure."
But America hasn't had anything resembling a free market in health care in more than 60 years. It took more than 6 decades of misguided and ill-advised government policy to make health care the wreck that it was, and there is a LOT of blame to go around. The States bear at least part of the blame, with intrusive regulations of the insurance industry and barriers to entry for medical professionals designed and enforced by — who else — medical professionals. Then there are barriers to entry for hospitals and clinics with "certificate of public necessity" requirements and regulations that require unnecessary capital investments that make small hospitals uneconomic.
But the Federal Government created the lion's share of the problems, first when it decided to make employer-paid health insurance a tax-free benefit. This created some very adverse incentives for overuse of medical services. Then we added Medicare and Medicaid, currently accounting for nearly 40% of all demand for medical care, where reimbursements are set not based on demand and supply, but on legislative fiat. And every time Congress discovered that Medicare and Medicaid were going well over budget, it decided to "fix" the problem by reducing reimbursement rates, completely oblivious to the impact that would have on private-payor pricing.
By 2010, reimbursement rates for both Medicare and Medicaid were less than 80% cost of service, meaning that health care providers could ONLY stay solvent by either fraudulently billing in the Government programs, or jacking up pricing way above cost-of-service rates for private payors. Most medical care providers did both.
There were a LOT of other really stupid government policies that helped drive health care costs sky-high, including the bureaucratic cesspool that the FDA has become, driving costs of pharmaceutical products through the roof, and the completely idiotic Medicare Part D that Bush pushed through Congress (President Barack Obama is an incompetent boob, but George W. Bush was no shining light either). So, the health care system was a mess before Obamacare, but the mess was created NOT by "market failure,” but rather by Government failure.
So, in an ill-advised attempt to "solve" a problem largely created by inane government policies, Congress (without a SINGLE vote from a Republican, mind you) decided to double down on stupidity and pass Obamacare. If you take even 30 seconds to think through the premises of Obamacare, you'll see that it can NEVER work as intended. It defies the basic laws of supply and demand. First, the assumption that Obamacare will reduce health care costs by adding 30 million new insureds to the market without doing anything at all about supply of health care providers — does that make any sense at all?
If I told you that Government was going to fund a program to buy free milk, at the rate of a gallon a week, for 30 million Americans who had previously been unable to get milk, do you think that program (adding demand for an additional 1.5 Billion gallons of milk every year) will drive prices for milk up or down? If you foolishly guessed that it would drive prices down, Congratulations, you are foolish enough to be a Democratic Congressman!
Then we get to the whole issue of health insurance. Don't get me wrong, I think health insurance is a good idea, but ONLY for medical care which falls within the essential rationale for insurance — i.e., low risk, high cost events. When you start requiring that insurance cover routine and elective procedures, like annual physicals, contraception, vaccinations, etc., you are grossly misusing insurance, creating very adverse economic incentives, and driving up the costs of BOTH the insurance AND the routine medical care.
Then we get to the "community rating" provisions of Obamacare. Those requirements have NOTHING to do with the efficient and affordable provision of health insurance; they serve only one purpose - to force young, healthy Americans to subsidize older, generally wealthier Americans, a highly regressive intergenerational wealth redistribution scheme. Insane. No, I most definitely do NOT support Obamacare. I think it demonstrates the economic illiteracy and moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party.
But America hasn't had anything resembling a free market in health care in more than 60 years. It took more than 6 decades of misguided and ill-advised government policy to make health care the wreck that it was, and there is a LOT of blame to go around. The States bear at least part of the blame, with intrusive regulations of the insurance industry and barriers to entry for medical professionals designed and enforced by — who else — medical professionals. Then there are barriers to entry for hospitals and clinics with "certificate of public necessity" requirements and regulations that require unnecessary capital investments that make small hospitals uneconomic.
But the Federal Government created the lion's share of the problems, first when it decided to make employer-paid health insurance a tax-free benefit. This created some very adverse incentives for overuse of medical services. Then we added Medicare and Medicaid, currently accounting for nearly 40% of all demand for medical care, where reimbursements are set not based on demand and supply, but on legislative fiat. And every time Congress discovered that Medicare and Medicaid were going well over budget, it decided to "fix" the problem by reducing reimbursement rates, completely oblivious to the impact that would have on private-payor pricing.
By 2010, reimbursement rates for both Medicare and Medicaid were less than 80% cost of service, meaning that health care providers could ONLY stay solvent by either fraudulently billing in the Government programs, or jacking up pricing way above cost-of-service rates for private payors. Most medical care providers did both.
There were a LOT of other really stupid government policies that helped drive health care costs sky-high, including the bureaucratic cesspool that the FDA has become, driving costs of pharmaceutical products through the roof, and the completely idiotic Medicare Part D that Bush pushed through Congress (President Barack Obama is an incompetent boob, but George W. Bush was no shining light either). So, the health care system was a mess before Obamacare, but the mess was created NOT by "market failure,” but rather by Government failure.
So, in an ill-advised attempt to "solve" a problem largely created by inane government policies, Congress (without a SINGLE vote from a Republican, mind you) decided to double down on stupidity and pass Obamacare. If you take even 30 seconds to think through the premises of Obamacare, you'll see that it can NEVER work as intended. It defies the basic laws of supply and demand. First, the assumption that Obamacare will reduce health care costs by adding 30 million new insureds to the market without doing anything at all about supply of health care providers — does that make any sense at all?
If I told you that Government was going to fund a program to buy free milk, at the rate of a gallon a week, for 30 million Americans who had previously been unable to get milk, do you think that program (adding demand for an additional 1.5 Billion gallons of milk every year) will drive prices for milk up or down? If you foolishly guessed that it would drive prices down, Congratulations, you are foolish enough to be a Democratic Congressman!
Then we get to the whole issue of health insurance. Don't get me wrong, I think health insurance is a good idea, but ONLY for medical care which falls within the essential rationale for insurance — i.e., low risk, high cost events. When you start requiring that insurance cover routine and elective procedures, like annual physicals, contraception, vaccinations, etc., you are grossly misusing insurance, creating very adverse economic incentives, and driving up the costs of BOTH the insurance AND the routine medical care.
Then we get to the "community rating" provisions of Obamacare. Those requirements have NOTHING to do with the efficient and affordable provision of health insurance; they serve only one purpose - to force young, healthy Americans to subsidize older, generally wealthier Americans, a highly regressive intergenerational wealth redistribution scheme. Insane. No, I most definitely do NOT support Obamacare. I think it demonstrates the economic illiteracy and moral bankruptcy of the Democratic Party.
Daniel Artz resides in Sunnyvale, Texas.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Don't say "never again" ever again
Today is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Union. Postings on Facebook contain the phrase, "never again." Feel free to remember the Holocaust but don't say "never again." Maybe never again for Jews, but there have been dozens of massacres since World War II, including one this month where between 600 and 2,000 people died.
Wikipedia reports 32 massacres since World War II of 500 or more people although I admit that these aren't on the scale of the Holocaust. The Khmer Rouge tried to match the Germans, killing between 1.4 million and 2 million people with another 650,000 Cambodians starving to death. This happened in the 1970s and 1980s, within the lifetime of many people reading this post.
We as a country simply can't keep this from happening. Massacres will keep on happening indefinitely. Repeatedly saying "never again" will not change this. So don't do it.
Wikipedia reports 32 massacres since World War II of 500 or more people although I admit that these aren't on the scale of the Holocaust. The Khmer Rouge tried to match the Germans, killing between 1.4 million and 2 million people with another 650,000 Cambodians starving to death. This happened in the 1970s and 1980s, within the lifetime of many people reading this post.
We as a country simply can't keep this from happening. Massacres will keep on happening indefinitely. Repeatedly saying "never again" will not change this. So don't do it.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Back into stocks
Back on September 22, 2014, my brother, on my recommendation, sold the stocks and S&P 500 index fund in his IRA and captured a gain for 2014. On January 15, he got back into the market with two stocks and an S&P 500 index fund. Here are his new holdings:
The purchased share cost includes the charge for the purchase.
I know the 3.2% gain in eight days is unusual and also unexpected. I'm not excited about it.
Cepheid (CPHD) is a "a molecular diagnostics company [which] develops, manufactures, and markets integrated systems for testing in the clinical and non-clinical markets." One thing that makes their machines different is that the sample being tested stays completely in a testing capsule. There is no need to clean the machine between tests and there is no risk of contaminating the machine with the sample or having cross-contamination between samples.
Cepheid has been awarded a grant of up to $3.3 million to develop a test for Ebola by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. If this is successful, it will be the fastest test on the market and will cause the stock to appreciate. Of course, in an emergency room situation where the patient must be quarantined if infected, the speed of the test is important.
My brother picked GoPro (GPRO) because the stock dropped 12.2% on January 13 due to an announcement of an Apple patent relating to cameras. I felt that this patent had little or no bearing on GoPro's value and recommended a purchase at the lower value. The stock is up a bit but hasn't fully rebounded.
Why this post? I think I might be good at picking stocks. There's only one way to tell: Actually buy some stocks and post your purchases publicly as a matter of record.
| Fund or Stock | Symbol | Purchased Share Cost (Jan. 15) |
Current Share Value (Jan. 23)
|
Gain/(Loss) To Date
|
Percentage Of Total Funds
|
| Cepheid | CPHD |
$53.79
|
$55.02
|
2.3%
|
40.0%
|
| GoPro | GPRO |
$50.08
|
$52.51
|
4.9%
|
38.2%
|
| Stock Index Fund | FUSEX |
$70.55
|
$72.66
|
3.0%
|
18.8%
|
| (S&P 500 Equivalent) |
1,992.67
|
2,051.82
|
3.0%
| ||
| Cash | SPAXX |
$1.00
|
$1.00
|
0.0%
|
3.0%
|
| Totals |
3.2%
|
100.0%
|
The purchased share cost includes the charge for the purchase.
I know the 3.2% gain in eight days is unusual and also unexpected. I'm not excited about it.
Cepheid (CPHD) is a "a molecular diagnostics company [which] develops, manufactures, and markets integrated systems for testing in the clinical and non-clinical markets." One thing that makes their machines different is that the sample being tested stays completely in a testing capsule. There is no need to clean the machine between tests and there is no risk of contaminating the machine with the sample or having cross-contamination between samples.
Cepheid has been awarded a grant of up to $3.3 million to develop a test for Ebola by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. If this is successful, it will be the fastest test on the market and will cause the stock to appreciate. Of course, in an emergency room situation where the patient must be quarantined if infected, the speed of the test is important.
My brother picked GoPro (GPRO) because the stock dropped 12.2% on January 13 due to an announcement of an Apple patent relating to cameras. I felt that this patent had little or no bearing on GoPro's value and recommended a purchase at the lower value. The stock is up a bit but hasn't fully rebounded.
Why this post? I think I might be good at picking stocks. There's only one way to tell: Actually buy some stocks and post your purchases publicly as a matter of record.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Milestone today: 30,000 page views
Today, I celebrate 30,000 page views for this blog (according to Google). That's only 101 days since I celebrated 20,000 page views. I'm glad to see that the pace of page views is accelerating. Google is supposed to be filtering bots and scrapers so these should be real people viewing my posts.
When I look at the home page for my blog, Blogger has a "Blog Archive" which isn't an archive, but rather a chronological index. I'm going to look for a format that allows me to separate active posts (those that are still relevant) and archived posts (those that may not be relevant but I want to keep for historical reasons).
I also need to go through my old posts and update them. I will spend more time this year doing that before writing new posts.
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