Fisker Electric Invades 1850’s Frankfort

Posted on 02/07/2012 by Grumpa Joe

I received a rude awakening this evening and I lost a bet too. After supper, I mounted my trusty Gold Rush recumbent bicycle and gave my legs some punishment. Since I haven’t ridden seriously in several years I am limiting my rides to five or ten miles. This evening I rode to the library and from there into town. The total distance logged was 4.5 miles. I would have ridden further except for an unusual sighting. As I passed the Grainery building on the Old Plank Trail I spied an unusually beautiful sports car. I passed by a few feet when the old “what’s wrong with this picture” mechanism went off in my head. I stopped to go back and take pictures. What was wrong? The car was plugged in to an outlet. The Village of Frankfort decided to be the first village with a public charging space for all-electric cars. That’s how I lost the bet. When I first learned of the Village decision to install the charging station, I bet a friend that it would never be used, and our tax dollars wasted.

I parked the bike and started snapping pictures with my smart phone. Then I heard someone call  my name. I looked up to see an old Folks on Spokes friend whom I haven’t seen in eight years. We stood admiring the car. Bernie is a Science teacher and is very pro green movement. He lectured me on how this car is the future of our country. I lectured back to him that it will be at least another hundred years before the electric car is practical enough to want one. He argued back about the new product curve. Yes, new products follow a cost vs volume curve that is very flat when a product is introduced, but as sales continue, the volume curve begins to slope up, the price begins coming down and the curve gets steeper. Eventually, we all have  one of the products and they are so cheap no one can afford to make them except in third world countries where labor goes for eighteen cents an hour. As we argued the merits pro and con for the electrics a man walked up and unplugged the car.

“Are you the owner,” I asked him.

“Yes I am,” he announced proudly.

“You can thank me now,” I replied.

“Why.”

“Because my tax dollars went toward building your Finnish car.”

“Oh, they didn’t go toward this one, they are going into a new model that hasn’t been built yet.”

The discussion went on for another fifteen minutes. I learned the car can get this guy all the way to the Sears Tower in Chicago (35 miles) where he works, but he needs a charge to get home(the total all-electric range is fifty miles) . If he runs out of juice a small gas-powered engine turns on and runs a generator to charge the batteries.

“How much does it weigh?” I asked.

“Fifty-five hundred pounds. It really rides nice and solid.”

Just before he got in to pull away he offered that I am getting hit twice, because Frankfort uses an honor system to collect for the electricity he used to charge.

The charging station has pictures of all the major credit cards on it, but no collection slot to swipe the card.

“I have an APP for that,”

He just made me want to run right out and buy one of these suckers. My friend Bernie will probably do it.

“There is probably an MP3 player feeding a V8 rumble noise to bystanders,” I said.

“Naw,” said Bernie, “they make a whirring sound.”

The Fisker whirred out of the lot and into the night. I wonder if he will make it home now that he has to use headlights?

Finnish Electric Car

Fisker

Electric Car Charging Station in 1850’s Frankfort

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Has the EPA Met the End Of Its Usefulness?

Posted on 23/03/2012 by Grumpa Joe


It figures, Obama caves on the Keystone pipeline and it is a joke. It is not April Fool’s Day yet “O.”

Today, I drove west on US Route 30 through a construction zone. This road is the original cross-country highway across America stretching from New York to San Francisco, but now it is a local road replaced by Interstate eighty. It doesn’t really matter which direction I drive, the road is under construction. It is a nightmare slalom course through colorful orange barrels. All along the route there are signs, paid for by you, and me declaring “WETLAND NO INTRUSION.” Often they attach them to a temporary fence stretched across a property in question. Route 30 crosses several creeks, forest preserves, and genuine wetlands. Each area is defined by a fence that is patrolled by the EPA for intrusion . What in the world does it mean, and what protection does it afford to you and me? With a little research I determined that the EPA intention is to decrease the impact of a project on a wetland.

So, here I sit in the Department of Transportation Office designing a major road improvement that widens a road from two lanes to four. My road crosses several creeks which means I have to build more bridge lanes to cross. Now how in the world do I do that without encroaching on the wetland? The EPA wants me to minimize encroachment. As an engineer, it is my job to get the project done to specification on time, and within the estimated cost. Why would I destroy more stream than is necessary to build my bridge? Isn’t that I am building a bridge evidence it is not my intention to destroy the creek? Why do you make me add cost to survey the line of allowed encroachment, build a fence and hang a sign to remind me where the line is?

A sensible engineer would lay a couple of pipes across the  span and fill in over it to create a roadbed.  In doing this he gambles that pipes he laid will accommodate the largest rush of  water nature supplies. If he loses the road floods and or washes out. In order to prevent that he builds a bridge which minimizes restriction to water flow. He doesn’t need a stupid reminder from the EPA about his responsibility. His job is to keep traffic moving safely and quickly.

How many road projects are there in America, and how many creeks and wetlands with fences and signs?  The cost is horrendous. So what?  Well, I just paid my 2011 income tax and I’m pissed about my contribution to the cause.  I am not in the one percent being picked on by Occupy Wall Street, and Obama, and by now I am probably no longer in the middle class since I haven’t earned a penny in ten years. Every dollar I pay in tax hurts, and every dollar I pull from my 401K advances me a bit closer toward  SSI and Medicaid. All you youngsters out there better be praying that I die off  before that happens or the burden of providing for my welfare will fall upon you. That is why I say get rid of the EPA, and a number of other burdensome agencies that have no useful purpose in society other than to harass the citizenry, and stop real progress from happening..

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