Big thinkers and $$$ are at work on the energy situation...

[webbie]

Just listened to a podcast from this dude:
(broken link removed)

a young man who made 100's of millions in the software industry and was slated to become the next CEO of SAP, a world leading software company - but he walked away from that offer!

He decided that he wanted to help the world, and do something his kids would be proud of (and maybe follow) and also to follow his own passion of solving problems.

So he decided to conduct an experiment with the goal being to convert the entire automobile fleet in Israel to electric vehicles. You can read the story and learn the rest.....

Talk about forward thinking - he is saying once israel is done, we should do London, then 50 cities in China, etc.

I like a person who thinks big.

 

[jjbaer]

Just listened to a podcast from this dude:
(broken link removed to http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=16328)

a young man who made 100's of millions in the software industry and was slated to become the next CEO of SAP, a world leading software company - but he walked away from that offer!

He decided that he wanted to help the world, and do something his kids would be proud of (and maybe follow) and also to follow his own passion of solving problems.

So he decided to conduct an experiment with the goal being to convert the entire automobile fleet in Israel to electric vehicles. You can read the story and learn the rest.....

Talk about forward thinking - he is saying once israel is done, we should do London, then 50 cities in China, etc.

I like a person who thinks big.

Craig,

I agree elec is the way to go BUT......elec means more power plants, usually more coal plants, and while emissions are about 15-25% less at large plants (because there are fewer plants and emissions are more tightly regulated as opposed to trying to keep 100 million automobile tailpipes clean) we also get more mercury spewed into the air and other things that I think are far worse. So........the "overall total big picture" only gets better if we go nuke or when fusion arrives or if we generate more "green power" (solar, wind, etc) which doesn't pollute. Let's face it: going elec only "transfers" the pollution problem from tailpipes to large power plants......

 

[jjbaer]

coal plant produces more nuclear pollution than nuclear plant.

That's correct: because a little "background radiation" in a LOT of coal equals higher overall total release of a substance..... Also, the bigger problem is heavy metals like mercury. Then there's particulate matter the precipitators don't get and the S02, etc.......I know, I worked at one as a Mechanical Engineer for two years. So, until we shift our plants to cleaner methods of generation, elec cars only transfer most of the problem and, in some ways (mercury, etc) make it worse......Great for getting off the Middle East oil pipeline though since the USA has more coal than any other country.....

 

[BrotherBart]

Interesting article. On a side note, as someone who has done a lot of business with SAP going back to the early 90's, they will need wood stoves in hell long before their will be an Israeli running German software monster SAP.

Methinks he figured that out.

 

[senorFrog]

The statistic I've heard re SAP Software Implementations is that 2 out of 3 fail.

 

[BrotherBart]

The statistic I've heard re SAP Software Implementations is that 2 out of 3 fail.

Yep.

 

[Sandor]

Electrified mass transit is the only real answer out there.

 

[senorFrog]

Electrified mass transit is the only real answer out there.

Nuke em from space. It's the only way to be sure.