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REMAIN CALM. DO NOT RIOT
The Persian Gazelle is missing:
The first car from Iran to enter the World Solar Challenge has failed to arrive in Australia and is at risk of missing Sunday’s start in the Darwin-to-Adelaide race.
The Persian Gazelle, built by a team from the University of Tehran, is thought to be stuck somewhere en route to Australia, possibly Dubai.
Other solar vehicles suffered similar delays:
The French entrant, Sunspeed, has also encountered freight problems, with the car being sent to Sydney by mistake.
Wherever it was sent, let’s hope solar energy was the motive force. Anyway, who cares about some ray-powered French egalité wagon? It’s the Persian Gazelle we anguish over. The vehicle looks sleek and zippy, and the team’s slogan is compelling:
Oil is mortal, we’re in the land of sun.
In semi-related enviro-news, the Kyoto Treaty is toast. Check these comments from Tony Blair:
I would say probably I’m changing my thinking about this [Kyoto treaty] in the past two or three years ...
The truth is no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem ...
(Via WA editor James Waterton)
Oil is mortal, we’re in the land of sun.
Egads, there are greenies in Iran!!!!!!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 09 22 at 12:12 PM • permalinkThis would make Tony piss his nickers-
HURRICANE CHERIE..
Personally I think he’s lookin’ for a bit of attention-
So-
I Blame Blair. {has a better ring to it anyways-it’s about time Americans “share the wealth”.}
PS-O/T- Latham-boxers or briefs? I think this is about all he hasn’t illuminated on…
Posted by madawaskan on 2005 09 22 at 12:28 PM • permalinkeurope: screwed themselves with the euro, and again with kyoto (kyotoast?). europe’s quagmire?
Posted by benson swears a lot on 2005 09 22 at 12:40 PM • permalinkRemain calm? REMAIN CALM?! Good god, man, there’s an unaccounted for Muslim with a transportation vehicle on the loose out there!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 09 22 at 08:55 PM • permalinkEurope Quagmire??
When we and the USA buy turbines and generators for coal plants where do they come from? Japan and Europe mostly. Most wind turbines come from Europe. Just about all our shipping and oil platforms are built in Korea.
When we buy sulphur scrubbers and environmental controls they come from Germany.
USA 2 top car manufacturers are on the brink of bankruptcy while Japan and European cars continue to grow. What are the status cars - American? No they are BMWs and Mercedes or Ferraris. How many cars directly imported from the USA do you see on the road compared to cars from Europe and Japan. (Excluding Australian offshoots)
The USA is still a major industrial power and hopefully it continues to be however, if it remains in debt to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars to China it may not always be.
Blair is right - Kyoto is a dead duck. We made it this way. Its main value is the fact that at least some counties got together to agree to something. We really need cuts of 30% or 40% to do any good. Kyoto does not come close to this.
Its main value is the fact that at least some counties got together to agree to something.
If every country on earth got together to do something worthless and expensive, it would still remain worthless and expensive.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 09 22 at 09:52 PM • permalinkFor a new level in Kyoto moonbat lunacy, by supposedly educated people, look here.
The head of the Australian Medical Association complains that Australians are already dying from ‘heat’ caused by man-made global warming, and all because Governments didn’t do the right thing “20 to 30 years ago”. Oh, you mean just around the time when scientists were warning us about the coming Ice Age?
C’mon, Tim! I’m completely open minded about solar cars. If, by “solar” you mean cars without roofs, totally exposed to the melanoma-inducing power of the sun.
One day, if solar cars perform like the Atom, sign me up.
Posted by Matt in Denver on 2005 09 22 at 10:38 PM • permalinkUGH! Got the link wrong! It’s
Andrea, forgive me!
Posted by Matt in Denver on 2005 09 22 at 10:39 PM • permalinkIf every country on earth got together to do something worthless and expensive, it would still remain worthless and expensive.
In the words of Bob Geldof, “We have to do something, even if it doesn’t work.” Or in Ender’s case, “Even if it destroys our standard of living.”
Ender, have you ever heard the phrase, “The cure was worse than the disease?” And in this case, there isn’t even a disease. You want to amputate a healthy limb.
USA 2 top car manufacturers are on the brink of bankruptcy while Japan and European cars continue to grow. What are the status cars - American? No they are BMWs and Mercedes or Ferraris.
Lucky for Mercedes that the “Chrysler” part of DaimlerChrysler is carrying them.
BMW won’t be a status car for long with Chris Bangle designing them.
How many cars do BMW, Mercedes, and Ferrari combined sell compared to GM?
Nissan just got out of trouble recently, Mitsubishi’s on the ropes, Volkswagen and BMW and Mercedes have a growing reputation for expensive unreliability.
Toyota and Honda have factories in the US, employing Americans and selling cars to Americans.
Unfortunately, Matt, solar cars (i.e., cars that run off solar cells they carry themselves) are utterly impractical.
At Earth’s orbit, the sun’s energy is about 1410 watts per square meter.
The atmosphere filters out about 19% of this. “Average” cloud cover takes out another 35%, so about 44% of this 1410 watts (650 watts) reaches the Earth’s surface.
If your car is two meters by three from the top, and you covered the roof with perfectly efficient solar cells (and we’re nowhere near perfect cells) you could get 3900 watts from solar power. That’s a bit over five horsepower.
Actually, you’d get about 35% of that through the day, because your car is on a rotating sphere. Call it two horsepower.
If you keep the roof clean.
Solar’s got its uses. Running cars, unfortunately, isn’t one of them.
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 09 22 at 11:15 PM • permalinkKyoto was never anything other than a near-naked effort to enslave the industrialized nations of the world to the socialist nations. It would have increased emissions, rather than lowering them, once the socialist nations gained enough economic power to ignore their treaty obligations, something they have always been far more willing to do than even the Bush Administration.
As for solar powered cars… It would be awesome if someone created one that could do its thing cheaper and easier than internal combustion engines, but I just don’t see it happening in my lifetime.
Posted by Tatterdemalian on 2005 09 22 at 11:27 PM • permalinkI don’t know about Iranian solar cars, but they sure know how to make a bitchin’ set of wheels… look out Daewoo!
Posted by James Waterton on 2005 09 22 at 11:32 PM • permalinkHey John Nowak, I’m sort of a big fan of hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are my happy little friends. That Atom I linked to is a 300 hp powered 1000 lb car. Not exactly hippie transport.
When a vehicle can get me to 60 in under 3, it has my undivided attention. When the Persian Princess can do that, call me.
Posted by Matt in Denver on 2005 09 22 at 11:36 PM • permalinkWe’re still waiting for the first country to prove its good faith by returning to its status
before the industrial evolution. That would be much easier for China and India than for the U.S. and the rest of Britain’s spinoffs. China and India were preindustrial quite recently. They’re just barely into it, whereas it would be much harder for us to roll back all that idustrialization.
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Say, your security people ARE going to give that car a good going over, aren’t they? I mean, this Persian Gazelle thing wouldn’t possibly be just a Chevy Impala loaded with explosives, would it? You know the Iranian mullahs and their zany sense of humor . . .