Xrlq’s last blog post..Deflated Reality

The story here isn’t the monumentally naive and ignorant statement Obama made, geez people should be used to THAT by now, the story here is the raving sycophantic press that leaps to defend him even if it means bending the facts so far that they are indistinguishable from fantasy. The appropriate reaction to Obama’s statement is amused contempt, which is exactly what McCain’s team offered. Good for them.

The best indication of how idiotic Obama looks on energy policy is how many people listen to Paris Hilton’s “ad” and say “You know, that actually makes more sense than Obama’s”.

CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Angry liberals?

You have been ‘lanched. Congrats.

The oil companies have leases on 68 million acres on which they are not drilling (well that is the figure in the news).

Of course what if there is no oil on those acres? Or what if it is unprofitable due to the size of the reservoirs or other factors? One possibility – deep sea rigs are in short supply due to intense offshore drilling activity. More rigs would be built if the reservoirs are especially profitable and those very profitable reservoirs are probably not in those 68 million acres.

The idea that oil companies are screwing themselves makes no sense.

Is that the same thing as saving, or wasting, 3% of the 20 million barrels the US uses every day? I don’t think that it is. It strikes me that the fuel wasted due to underinflation would be a much smaller amount than that, since it’s a 3% impact on gas mileage rather than oil consumption.

These curves would not reflect the spectrum of maintenance attitudes of owners as much as reflect the dynamic cycle of maintenance. There will always be an x% of vehicles at the y% of out-of-tune vehicles, dirty air filters, or underinflated tires. Each of Obama maintenance tips, of course, have a different elasticity for improvement which should be kept in mind. Tire inflation is a simple item to control, rather unlike the elasticity of keeping your vehicle in tune which is much more dependent on schedule and cost, than it is on monitoring how far awhack it is from optimum.

We might be able, via moderate improvement in attention, to squeeze change the shape of the curve towards more efficiency, if it could be shown that the current level of attention significantly below a reasonable par now, but I think the degree to which the gallon or barrel savings numbers are bantied is way in excess of what could or can be effected.

Take for instance the Obama tire inflation recommendation. Realize that as soon as you leave the air pump and pull out of the gas station, your tires are on a downward spiral towards significant underinflation. It may be a tiny valve stem leak, or the pothole and sunken manhole cover you hit on the way home and the six you hit to and from work everyday. If you check your tires every three months, finding at least one to fit the "significant" category, you’re part of the Obama total gas saving solution, but that does not make you the answer to the full bbls per day savings solution, and tomorrow when your neighbor checks hers, she will not be either. In reality, if everyone increased their attention by a day, we would saving z bbls per day or if we caught by sight the signifcantly underinflated tire one day earlier than we used to, it would save some minute fraction of bbls/day. But on the whole I don’t think we’d be saving the amount that’s becoming the meme.

And note, as for the statistic on number of vehicles with underinflated tires suggests, only a fraction, 3%, of passenger cars estimated, via the study, to have all four tires underinflated. Remember that, ballparking, the 3% savings is when all four tires are underinflated, not one. Back to the study — 13% of passenger vehicles are estimated to have two or more tires significantly underinflated. This means that 87% of vehicles are estimted to have only one tire 8 psi or more below recommended. Now it is likely that the many of those tires on those 87% of vehicles having only one probably have another three underinflated tires, it’s just that those three are 4, 5 and 6 below. but a significant number probably only have one. In any event, what exactly is the inefficiency percentage for those, because it is certainly way below the 3% applied to calculate national bbls/day savings?

At this point, I’ll note two things. First, a simple kicking up of all significantly underinflated tires to recommended will not give provide the savings calculated. On the other hand, too, the attention put on this subject will probably increase the ballparked savings much more, for a short period of time, as we all scamble to check and pump up our 1, 2, or 3 psi underinflated tires. We might actually get the amount estimated for a week or a month, but the regimen to maintain this effort can likely over the long haul be moved from something like checking every two months rather than every three, meaning the savings is probably going to be much less than the static calculation.

Take the tune-up recommendation through the same review as I did for tires and I think you’ll realize that, in the dynamic view and because of the significant cost and time associated with both monitoring and servicing, the bbls/day savings thrown about is much more over estimated. Keep in mind not the 100,000 miles before service allowance you mention is for the newer models, but as, according to wiki, age of US vehicles range from "38.3% were older than ten years, 22.3% were between seven and ten years old, 25.8% were between three and six years old and 13.5% were less than two years old." It may be some time before 100,000 is the norm and that higher standard only helps with some of that 4% efficiency improvements.

I think the overall point is that in the set called national car operation, 100% is the maximum efficiency and it can never be attained, only approached, so the questions is what, like unemployment, is the reasonably acceptable national inefficiency, where are we in comparison to that, and what at what cost can it be improved voluntarily and also by tech improvements.

At this rate, it’s just a matter of time before Obama announces that an apple a day can extend your life expectancy by 200 years, only to have these media hacks claim he was right because some obscure bureaucrat in the Eisenhower Administration once said apples are good for you.

Xrlq’s last blog post..Deflated Reality