June 2008 Archives

I was stretched out on my deck tonight gazing at the sky while a storm rolled in.
I came to the conclusion that only the sun and the rain, as long as they fall above my property, are free. What comes from the sky above my head cannot be taxed nor can it be repackaged, marketed and sold back to me at compounded profit and then taxed.

Harnessing these things in my backyard, I could take control of my increasingly squeezed and controlled by corporate entity - life.

The secret is in the invention, not buying the product.

I am going to build a rain collection system to water my garden. I can tell you right now that it will probably take 40 years to pay for the parts since water is pretty cheap, but it will be an exercise in securing freedom and independence. A working sculpture of hope for my future.

There also has been growing demand for commodities from public pension funds and university endowments that invest via special products linked to commodities indexes. However, these investment flows could slow amid sharp criticism in Congress that they are helping drive up food and energy costs. wsj.com

it's easy to blame greed and corruption for the run on commodities that has pushed up the price of gasoline and food, but your retirement and college may be cashing in on commodities.

With the banking/financial industry a mess and real estate in decline, the number of investments that can make money are few.

The money goes where the money grows.

So Chuck has been using his scooter to commute to work since June 9. His Chevy truck has been sitting in the drive collecting dirt rings around the tires for two weeks straight now.

He has logged 320 miles. Had he driven the truck for those miles it would have cost him $126 in gasoline. After burning through a free tank of gas from the dealership, the scooter has cost about $12 in fuel.

Chuck admits that he is driving the scooter more than he would had he only had the truck adding that after getting back into the truck 6 liter truck after two weeks that it felt sluggish compared to the scooter.

Scooter shopping day 1
Scooter shopping day 2
Scooter shopping day 3

(Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record/ Sunday News)

Charlotte Halpin was 14 years old when she took a job at C.B. "Red" Klinedinst, a York bicycle repair shop. Today, the business founded in 1909, still sells bicycle parts. Halpin said that Klinedinst couldn't stay in business today because he gave everything away. His business and legacy lived on in one faithful employee of 64 years to run the business long after he was gone.

C.B. "Red" Klinedinst began his York business renting bicycles and grew into one of the largest York retailers of bicycles in it's hey day. The business expanded selling motorcycles and tiny British Sunbeam cars before downsizing back to bicycles.

Volkswagen AG. has started testing a new electricity-powered car engine and expects to launch the first cars fitted with it by 2010, chief executive Martin Winterkorn said.

VW said the technology allows cars to run on purely electricity powered engine for a distance of up to 50 kilometers (31 miles). hemscott.com

"While the e-motor on a typical hybrid model just supplements the combustion engine, the exact opposite is true on Twin Drive," Winterkorn said during the car's unveiling in Berlin. "Here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor." Start-stop technology will save power and regenerative braking will help generate it. wired.com

I just received a hard sell email from Pennsylvania Transportation Partners for leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It seems that their plan is the "only" source and "only" plan. It will create "safety". Perhaps the most telling part of the email is "there are more than $12.8 billion reasons to lease the turnpike". I can't help to notice a the Citi logo embedded below the PTP logo in the link penntransportation.com

If the turnpike is so desirable as a lease option it is because it will be so profitable for some entity. The people of Pennsylvania should profit long-term from the proceeds of their own toll road rather than a third party extracting profit. Sure we will get a pile of money upfront, but what will we loose in funding down the road when the profits of the lease are being funned to a private party for the next greater part of a century.

It goes on to say that the deal will help finish projects and there is even a YouTube video with two guys whining in traffic congestion bashing the turnpike commission for their 67 years of control of the turnpike that has prevented privatization...(and keeping a private entity from taking a long-term chunk of the money?)

Such a hard sell... demanding an open debate of more hard sell?

I have one question for the debate: If an entity wants the turnpike so badly because it can turn a profit, then why can't the people of Pennsylvania just keep that profit - ALL the money that we will pay in tolls over the next century and use ALL of it for our roads and infrastructure. And if it's so "badly" run, as the PTP seems to say, then WE can use our democracy to petition government and make a change.

Once it's leased and the money is spent, the long-term revenue potential for consumers is history.

According to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission:

(April 08)
The Turnpike has already provided PennDOT with $520 million in new funding under Act 44. By the end of April, the Turnpike will have provided a total of $750 million in new funding for local roads, bridges and mass transit agencies around the state. Over the 50 years of Act 44, the Turnpike will provide PennDOT with annual average payments of $1.67 billion per year - a total of $83.3 billion.

Below is a screen shot the Pennsylvania Transportation Partners appeal.

Joshua Tomel (age 25) doesn't think twice about $4-a-gallon gas prices. He doesn't have to.

"I drive by gas stations," Tomel, a graduate of St. John's University, said Wednesday. "I don't even bother to look. I am disappointed, though. If we had done something about this 30 years ago ... we wouldn't be out of gas. We would have had alternatives." newsday.com (6/08)

Oh but Josh.. we did.

Tomel's truck was made in 1997 by General Motors during the same time period as the fabled GM EV-1 (electric car) which were recalled and shredded. The truck was built with regenerative braking and a heat pump for cooling and heating.

During the 1990's manufactures were looking for ways to make zero emissions cars. California mandated a percentage of a manufacturer's fleet to be zero emissions in order to sell cars in California. Cost for development was defrayed by federal funding.

By 2003 the zero emission mandate in Califonia was all but swept away and so was GM's electric car program.

I was listening to a speech by McCain in Santa Barbara, California today. Gov. Schwarzenegger, who although he supports the Arizona senator, said he would not allow coastal drilling for oil and asked for exemptions to federal laws so that California can once again adopt standards stricter than federal standards.

-------------------
August 8, 2008

Joshua Tomel wrote me and added this response:

Paul,
Yes I know about that. The reporter neglected to mention that my true feelings about even getting this truck came about from seeing the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?". That quote that you put up was in the part about how I thought (about) Jimmy Carter's call to change and how we fundamentally got around went unheard and unloved.

Regards,
Joshua Tomel
Program Director
Long Island Electric Auto Association

Global oil demand on the rise

The Chinese government's recent reduction in gasoline subsidies (increasing price 17%) may squash an appetite for gas guzzlers in the world's rapidly growing second-largest auto market.

Rising affluence has boosted sales of SUVs and larger cars, while also causing a plunge in demand for cheaper, more fuel efficient autos. Sales of low-cost compacts, powered by engines of less than 1 liter, fell 31 percent last year, even as industrywide passenger-car sales jumped 22 percent. Sales of Great Wall Motor Co. Hovers and other SUVs leapt 50 percent last year, twice the pace of the overall auto market. (bloomberg.com)

Multiply that by 1,321,851,888 (July 2007 est.) people with expanding incomes and and you have alot of oil consumed.

Drastic conservation is the quickest and most consumer accessible way to lower gasoline prices.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service increased the mileage deduction today for the rest of the year by 16 percent to 58.5 cents a mile from the previous rate of 50.5 cents because of the rising price of gasoline. The change takes effect July 1.

Resident gardener Skip Brown, left, works with York Silver Bullet volunteer Pete Langkam of Penn Township on the garden plots adjacent to his home on East King Street in York. Brown said after buying a very expensive tomato at the grocery store recently, he wished his garden would grow faster.

Rising energy costs, climate change and improving standards of living in formally simpler countries are going to make food more expensive.

Corn ethanol funnels food into fuel exciting the speculation market, increasing the cost of all raw food like soy and wheat and those foods that simple food stock feeds like meat and dairy.

Personal and community gardens can take a bite out of food costs, provide a healthy food supply in the summer and doesn't need fuel to bring food to your door. A $2 tomato plant can yield many times that in produce thought the season.

It's just fun to watch things grow and have a tiny bit of control of your world.

(Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record / Sunday News)

Supporters of the York Museum of Art made a trip to the GoggleWorks in Reading. A tour of the facility and how it could work in York.

The GoggleWorks, in Reading is a 140,000 square foot space of artist studios, an independent film theater, offices, galleries and a cafe housed in a 19th century factory that made goggles and safety equipment.

The heating system is fascinating hybrid blend of a modern forced air chiller system tempered by a warm water loop through old cast iron radiators that were once heated by steam. The result is a combination of old world charm and modern comfort. However, vast expanses of marginally insulated glass and exposed brick help create a $250,000 yearly utility bill.

Kevin Lenkner, executive director of YorkArts, envisions the York version of the GoggleWorks to be housed in a new facility where the money that might be spent on utility bills would go to programs and people.

I try to find little ways not to use energy and stretch the ever increasing cost of life. Some of the things we do have hidden implications to the cost of living.

I was reading in a Patriot-News story that the second highest cost after labor for Rutter's is credit card cost. I love getting my 1% credit back for using a credit card and paying it off every month, but how much payment to banks is passed along to everyone in a gallon of gas. What if i used cash for everything... what if everyone started using cash for everything....

I stopped washing clothes in anything but cold water. Just don't buy white. All my socks are black. Why use energy to heat laundry water. Why pay for energy that I don't need. I am going to buy a clothes line next; sun and wind are free.

I built an 8x8 flower box out of an old concrete slab in my backyard with a fitted rock wall. I planted wildflowers in it but the nature of a fast draining planter box is that it needs to be watered every day. I let the flowers die and have started a selection of cactus and succulents that winter in Pennsylvania. They bloom like flowers, are suited to the habitat and I don't have to buy water every day to keep them alive.

I used to buy a couple drinks at a convenience store every day. Now i buy a $3 organic 100% juice concentrate and make nine large recycled glass bottles of grape drink to take along each day. So my drink costs 33 cents each, has little waste and is much healthier than a high fructose drink.

The return of the Ford F-100

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp. is indefinitely halting a major overhaul of its full-size pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles as it deals with a drastic drop in sales of those products.

GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said Thursday the automaker instead will work on more modest updates and enhancements as it shifts resources toward higher-mileage vehicles.

Ford's next big pickup development doesn't come for a couple years, when it hopes to launch a smaller, lighter and more fuel-efficient pickup dubbed the F-100.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Oil prices sank nearly $5 on Thursday after China said it would raise gas prices by lifting subsidies that have been blamed for driving oil prices higher. The move could curb demand from the country's rapidly growing economy.

"The news out of China surprised the market," Ray Carbone president of Paramount Options, said from the NYMEX floor.

In the United States, gas prices fell for the third day in a row. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas fell two-tenths of a cent to $4.073 from $4.075 the day before, according AAA.

Not really a surprise. China subsidies their fuel price and fixes Chinese currency to promote their own growth, however, the rapid rise of fuel prices threatens their global export demand.

If an American family is pumping all their dollars into gas, there is no money left to buy Chinese goods that dominate local retailers.

Fear of market destruction forces correction.

There appears to be no "fear" of this (or few checks and balances) in the oil/political/speculation machine here to protect our own economy.

I was just listening to President Bush making an appeal to open Alaska and the coast for drilling. His argument is that this will provide price relief to consumers. He mostly blamed the Democrat controlled congress (controlled by Republicans for the first six years of his administration) for not acting. I didn't hear anything in the speech about conservation which would reduce demand and price.

The rebuttal after the speech:
An agreement to take more land will not effect price tomorrow, next year... it will take years to develop that oil stream. Oil companies already currently hold land leases on land about the size of two states (about 68 million acres,AP) in the United States that aren't drilled.

Keeping land and not developing it holds potential for oil investors and controls the amount of oil on the market keeping price high.

Some short term solutions to high gasoline prices not offered in the speech:

• Investigate illegal manipulation of the oil market.


• Impose a fee on oil companies for holding land already turned over by the American people and not drilled


• Open the strategic oil reserve a crack

However, all of these would reduce price not increase the inventory of oil leases shortly before a change in presidential power and ensure a long-term profit stream for the oil industry.

Roughly the size of a Toyota (TM) Prius, the Ox can travel between 125 and 155 miles before needing a recharge, and zips from zero to 60 miles per hour in about 8.5 seconds. Its lithium-ion batteries can be charged to 80% capacity in less than an hour, and slender solar panels integrated into the roof power the onboard electronics. Inside, the hatchback includes a bevy of high-tech gizmos such as GPS navigation, a mobile Internet connection, and a key fob that lets drivers customize the car's all-digital dashboard. Pricing has yet to be announced, but the company's current vehicles cost less than $25,000 businessweek.com

What is also interesting about the car, to be available here in 2009, is the company's ultra-lean manufacturing system that can build cars with a fraction of production costs of large car companies, allowing more regional production facilities that could cut transport costs.

Have you recently traded in your SUV or pickup for a smaller vehicle?

Yes, I had to because of gas prices
--- 11.57 %
No, because I was already driving a smaller car
--- 46.05 %
No, and they've have to pry my cold, dead hands from my SUV's steering wheel
--- 42.36 % %

York Daily Record/Sunday News daily survey yesterday.
Total Votes = 380

Thanks to the 11.57% who have downsized their vehicle and reduced consumption. You have put in motion the machine that will reduce the price of gasoline for the rest of us.

You have reduced the flow of oil from a few countries that don't like us very much reducing their power over us and reduced the flow of imports over exports. A few oil companies won't make as much extraordinary profit from you and you can breath easier knowing that the smaller engine you are driving is pushing out fewer pollutants.

(Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record/Sunday News)

The York County Balloon Festival finishes off with a perfect flight.

Hot air balloons rise on the principle that hot air rises. Place the hot air in a container and the container becomes lighter than the air around it. It takes a huge amount of energy to get the balloon aloft, about the equivalent of 2-3 BBQ tanks. Once the balloon is underway it's hight is maintained with small blasts of heat.

It's not a very efficient ride given the number of people it can carry and the speed it travels, but an often silent, historical experience.

It has a 100 cc engine, zips smoothly through traffic, can cruise up to 55mph, gets close to 100 mpg and has a price point under $3000. It has the support network of Harley dealerships in most every major town and people want to buy it because it's a domestically produced scooter that is designed by us to help us get ourselves out of a fuel crisis.

Ok, I know this doesn't exist and people will tell me labor costs are too high here to build something that cheap and it doesn't fit the Harley image... but Harley has made everything from golf carts to bomb casings and Holiday Rambler recreational vehicles.

A flag waving on a domestically produced, super-economy machine would bring a new found smile to many.

I tend to over think purchases. After looking at everything everywhere, we decided to purchase this new 2007 Honda Elite 80. The Elite, assembled in Mexico out of Japanese parts is about to disappear as Honda will replace it with an Indian made scooter with more storage and probably a slightly larger engine.

The Elite is a lone scooter survivor of the 1980's Scooter market and has been marketed here since.

It's somewhat 1980's-ish looking and definatley doesn't scream steal me. It has a long track record of durability, a dedicated parts network and even in a doomsday scenario there will be parts on EBay for the next 30 years because they have has such a long production run.

I had the honors of taking it home. The 80cc engine goes up and down Mount Zion hill at 35-40 mph and the scooter can hit 50mph on the flats. It as a variable speed transmission and an automatically engaging clutch. It engine breaks down long hills.

Not something you would want to take on Interstate 83 or the the Rt 30 bypass, but very serviceable for most any other road. It will out accelerate most cars and is rated at 115 miles per gallon. The one gallon fuel tank had 88 miles and 1/4 left on the gauge, so i don't doubt it will hit the mark.

We figured out that to run the truck to work five days a week costs about $56, while the scooter costs under $4. The crankcase holds about 2 cups of oil.

Also see:
67 mpg motorcycle grocery getter camper (greenmesh 05/2008)

So Chuck checked out a local East York used car dealer turned scooter franchise and presented me with some figures. The Chinese made Roketa scooters sure have a low price point.

Scooters haven't been a big sale item in the U.S until the recent gas crisis. I remember my father buying an Austrian made Puch moped in the 1970's during that gas price escalation. Today, the Motorcycle Industry Council estimates that 50% of the world's scooters originate in China. In many parts of the world, a scooter is the dominate mode of transportation. Honda actually sells more motorcycles than it does cars.

New scooters can be purchased in four ways:

---Mainline dealerships that carry familiar nameplates.
---Independent motorcycle repair shops that carry a line of scooters.
---Business entrepreneurs (often car dealerships) that offer a line of (most likely Chinese made) scooters.
---Internet purchase with drop shipment (usually Chinese made)

My neighbor Chuck drives a Chevy Pickup with a 6 liter engine that gets 11 mpg. Last week he saw my light on around midnight and came banging on my door. It seems that the money he had budgeted for gasoline has gone beyond that budget eating into food, vacations and everything else. He got the truck to pull a camper and uses it to commute to work.

"This guy at work bought a motorcycle and I was thinking, why spend $9000 to get 35mpg when I can spend $1500 on a scooter that gets over 100 mpg."

This is coming from a man who loves big Detroit iron and has a truck named Big Red. Ford was right when they said there is a structural difference occurring in the market. Yes. Basically, people can't afford to eat or go anywhere so they are rethinking life.

I have owned three motorcycles and have shopped for them endlessly even when I wasn't in the market. There are so many varieties of motorcycles and it can be confusing, but the scooter market in the Spring of 2008 is a strange combination of backyard entrepreneurship and an evolving supply and demand issue.

A wide assortment awaits the buyer from major makes in motorcycle dealerships to Chinese-built platforms that come with many different names and seem to have a lot of the same parts.

Follow along on the scooter adventure and see what we bought.

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Republicans thwarted Democratic-supported legislation that would increase windfall- profit taxes on oil companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. as Democrats set their sights on tighter energy trading scrutiny.

Democrats fell nine votes shy today of 60 needed to proceed to debate. The White House Office of Management and Budget today threatened a veto of the measure.

The proposal, announced last month, would have imposed a windfall profit tax of $10 billion to $12 billion this year on oil companies, according to Senate Democrats. It also included new margin requirements on oil-futures trades, and aimed to outlaw price gouging as energy prices have soared to records.

It's catch-22 legistation guided by people with a broken moral compass. What is really worth thinking about here is whether the balance of greed and government control are entirely out of whack; the personal interest of individuals in power to grab every last penny available rather than acting in a way that may sustain rather then destroy the bed they sleep in.

Perhaps we have lost the checks and balances of a free market. Perhaps the moment has come where you need to take the knife out of the child's hand, one who has already poked out both eyes yet is still running around the room grabbing for candy.

I ran across Todd Leader of Windsor Township at the street rod event this weekend and his 1948 Jeepster convertible. The rag top had been stored for years and was destined for salvage had he not given it a home. It was an interesting find for me in the sea of plastic reproductions with large late model V-8 engines.

The Jeepster was produced by Willys-Overland after WWII as a way to market the Jeep name to someone other than farmers and people who needed to climb over logs. It was the civilian car version of a name made famous by a war.

Unlike the Hummer that came to pass many decades later, a simple Jeep of the 1940's was an efficient, small foot print climbing machine. The Jeepster followed this path.

Leader's Jeepster has a 4 cylinder engine of just over 2 liters. A three speed manual transmission is coupled with a manual overdrive that according to Leader can attain 35 mpg. The Jeepster also didn't have an oil filter, because according to marketing of the time saved the consumer one quart of oil. Of course, most engines of that vintage with the lubricants available needed overhauling by 60K miles anyway.

And Whoa...! a 1941 Willys with a supercharger and a big block V-8. That might just be gallons per mile! Um, yeah...not the original drive train for that Willys.

The York Daily Record/Sunday news has launched a "green" page though the ydr.inyork/ydr web portal.

(Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record / Sunday News)

Name: Pete Vaughn
Age: 33
Lives in: York
Father of: Gracyn Haley Vaughn, 22 months

Nobody told me that being a dad would mean I would use on-demand 24-7 to watch Mickey Mouse and Pingu over and over again.

Nobody told me I could throw out my alarm clock or that I would be waking up with The Wiggles.

Nobody told me I would eat what my daughter eats, including meals made up primarily of lima beans, blueberries and "puffs."

Nobody told me the Revs' mascot DownTown would be a household name and staple. Nobody told me I had to fold toddler laundry.

Oil hit tickled $140 a barrel Friday.

A First since 1991, demand for gasoline will fall 0.3 percent this year. This represents thousands of barrels of oil a day. Demand usually increases 1% a year.

The biggest decline since 1942, Americans drove 11 billion miles less in March than they did the same month in 2007. The Federal Highway Administration only started to track this figure in 1942.

Bus and train ridership is up 3.3 percent in the first quarter of 2008

Toyota's Camry outsold Ford's F-Series pickup for the first time since 1992.
St. Louis Post Dispatch

Toyota has developed a new fuel cell hybrid, powered by hydrogen, that can travel more than twice the distance of its predecessor model without filling up, the automaker said today.

The improved model's maximum cruising range is 516 miles compared with 205 miles. Fuel efficiency in the FCHV-adv was improved 25 percent. The new fuel cell vehicle can also start and run in temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold temperatures are a big technological hurdle for fuel cells.

The vehicle will be available for leasing in Japan later this year. Rival Honda Motor Co.'s revamped fuel cell vehicle for leasing in California is rolling off a Japanese factory floor later this month.
(AP)

The Philips 42PFL5603D is high definition 42-inch LCD that consumes between 60 and 80 watts, which is about as much as a standard incandescent bulb.

Comparing against other HDTVs' default modes, the closest competitor was a 27-inch LCD at 105 watts. In the Philips' screen size class, by comparison, the closest 42-inch plasma measured 188.26 watts and the closest 42-inch LCD measured 134.04. asia.cnet.com

Multiply that by millions of households and millions of hours of operation and you have alot of conserved energy.

The technology behind the miserly TV is variable back lighting. An LCD television screen is really a grid of tiny gates which take almost no power to run. The illumination tubes that project light through the gates consume the most power.

The Phillips technology is like having a little man in your TV working a dimmer switch. A scene in a dark cemetery needs far less light projected trough the tiny gates than does a surf scene on a Malibu beach.

The television is also RoHS compliant, meaning it is virtually free of the six major heavy metals including lead, mercury and cadmium.

The internal combustion engine driving your car is a pretty inefficient method of converting energy into motion. Friction from air resistance and motion along with heat dissipated from burning fuel all take your money in exchange for nothing. That car heater sure feels great in January, but most of the time that engine heat is lost to the atmosphere while we all do our part heating the outdoors.

Loughborough University and the University of Sussex, both in the UK, has concluded that using waste heat from light-duty vehicle engines in a steam power cycle could deliver fuel economy advantages of between 6.3% and 31.7% greencarcongress.com

The idea of pushing energy into water and creating steam is nothing new. Railroads built this nation with the steam engine, however paying a premium for energy has reawakened this old trick.

Clean Power Technologies claims to have successfully achieved a 40% reduction in vehicle fuel consumption.

Other uses for exhaust energy recovery is truck refrigeration. Traditionally, a small combustion engine uses fuel to cool the trailer during transport. A steam hybrid system would take wasted heat from exhaust gas and created steam that would power refrigeration.

Abdul Mitha, CEO, and Mike Burns, CTO, of CPT demonstrated a steam engine running on the free energy recovered from the exhaust of a Caterpillar truck engine and explained the 80% fuel savings achievable in refrigerated trailer applications. tradingmarkets.com

(Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record / Sunday News)

Margaret Justice talks about the murder of her daughter Tracey Nicole Green. Green was shot multiple times by her boyfriend Brian Green in the garage of her home in York Township.

Brian Green was upset and arguing with his girlfriend, Tracey Nicole Green, when she returned to their York Township home early Tuesday morning, police and family members said. The yelling woke up Tracey's 16-year-old daughter, Anglecia, just before 2:45 a.m. Anglecia went downstairs to find Brian Green with a gun and her mother in the garage, according to the account Anglecia told police and her grandmother, Margaret Justice.

Paul Kuehnel - York Daily Record / Sunday News

Life is no bed of roses, and don't expect everything to go wonderfully. There will be hills, but be prepared for the valleys. That's how life works.

That realistic, no-nonsense yet compassionate need to prepare kids for the future earned Tresa Diggs the respect of many people in York County.

On Sunday, those colleagues, co-workers and friends threw the York City School District superintendent a retirement party at the Country Club of York.

After working in the city school system for 37 years, Diggs, who said she grew up in the district, wasn't at all sad about leaving. But, she said, she will miss the students. She calls them, "my children."