doin’ sum cruisin’

I love old tech,,, Love the old Southbend lathes over some of the more modern (And sometimes, more accurate,,,,) lathes. May be the romantic in me,,,

maybe I’m just old skool,,,,

and then I find nuggets like this’un

That there is over 120 year old tech, sorta complex by modern standards, but then, everything on it is ANALOG,,, (other than the charge controller that was added for the modern battery bank) Watch the vid, Jay even tells us that, other than remaking a cover,(porous aluminum, a common problem up into the 70’s) the engine is COMPLETELY ORIGINAL,,, over 120 years old original: just cleaned up and resealed.

If this world want to go all electric, they are barking at the wrong cat. Hybrid would be the way to go. Engines are most efficient at set rpms, emissions are much easier cleaned in a finite range of temps, Electric motors are TORQUE MONSTERS and torque is what gets things moving.

And I ain’t gonna lie, my brain has been fantisizing over how to convert Buffalo to hybrid. ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 😦 ) Like a little 3 banger turbo diesel running a 4k genny to power the actual mover,,, direct drive to differential or even dually motor direct drive wheels. yeah,,, money money money,,,,,

BUT IT AIN’T NEW IS THE POINT! Even in that Vid, Jay says that electric vehicles were more common than the gas versions, until Ford came along and undercut EVERYTHING,,,, (His wife drove electric because no gears to change,,,,)

This isn’t new thinks to me. I started researching all electric back long ago, even have a few books on it from BEFORE Tesla was a thing,,, Worked on a few hybrids as well when I was still turnin’ wrench and why I know all about those “Orange cables” that you don’t wanna mess with if you don’t know much about ‘lectric,,,, maybe not, even if you do,,,,

What I do know: the whole wanting to turn our shipping fleets all electric is just flat stoopid,,, (looking at you Gruesome!) First off, look at modern rail transport,,, those engines are ELECTRIC TRACTION MOTORS powered by giant diesel generators (HYBRID!!). They work great, but think about how much they pull on those tiny steel rails. A pair of engines can haul kilotons(mega?) of frieght long distances for micro dribbles of fuel, but to get that load moving takes JUICE!!! LOTS OF JUICE,,, That shit don’t fly in stop-go traffic situations. To fubar that system by conversion to ‘all electric’ will shutter many business models, not just some unconfirmed mythology called climate change.

While we await Shipstones technology to come to reality, we have options available to us,,, ONE: go hybrid for those areas where DISTANCE and LOAD are factors,,, raise the efficiency of the fuel engines to maximum peaks. (there are physical limits to be sure, but we aren’t really all that close to them currently) Not to save the climate, but to conserve resources for longer,,, I don’t totally buy the ‘peak oil’ arguments, but that large reserves are getting thin is undeniable. (look how many have come back ‘online’ after setting for a decade or two,,,, It DOES happen.) TWO: let the ‘townies’ use the electrics for the 3 minute jaunt to the stores. Most gas powered engines don’t get warm enough to be fully efficient in the short jumps most people use them for. I can’t tell you how many engines we ‘cleaned’ during tune-ups and what the intakes looked like using inspection cameras; coal mines aren’t that dark,,, (exaggerated, but man, they were BLACK!!!) In those ‘close to home’ scenarios, electric makes sense. Here locally, in town, a lot of townies use golf carts for scooting around, keep ’em plugged in when not in use and they have the range to hit several points over several hours and can easily move a fam of four and a load of groceries,,,, (weather permitting with open cockpits,,,)

For us out in the sticks,,,, hybrid would make sense,,, the convenience of a fillup, with the torque of electric for power, no need to tie into a grid to charge things, and in a pinch, can plug the car into the house for power when the grid does go down,,,,

It just blows my mind how old the ideas are,,, Tesla, (the man, not the company) was onto things that we should have ran with,,, I can’t even imagine where we would be today, if this had taken off. (though the peak oil thing, that I don’t buy, would be an unknown IMO.)

as for the whole renewables argument, these past two years, that has taken a serious hit when myth impacted reality,,, Europe has been closing wind farms and reactivating turbine generation facilties. I don’t know how many Nuke plants they have planned, but they don’t have the resistance to those that these shores have. The Nordstream incident woke up A LOT of people to what really makes things tick, and people LIKE having power on demand, not rolling brownouts, or freezing their tuckus’es off when old man winter comes calling.

The Narrative is dying, its doing a lot of damage on the way out, but people are seeing REALITY and that gives me hope that our current troubles are of limited duration.

And maybe some of our solutions are located back in the past, like that 120 year old automobile above .