Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2009 10:42 pm So I pick up this Harvard Business Review for an airport read and there is this interesting article:

http://hbr.org/2009/11/how-to-jump-star ... onomy/ar/1

A main point is that if we are ever going to advance with clean energy, we have to think of entire systems and not just bolting something onto an existing thing and calling it an environmental advance.

An example cited was a company called Better Place. I think a reasonable and brief summary would be this.This guy wants to help push electric vehicles. He is thinking about it. One problem is the battery. It cost a lot. The current cars are marketed with a 10 year warranty. To have a 10 year life, for reasons which I do not understand the battery can only be drained 50% before recharging. So he started thinking about separating the battery from the car. They developed a battery pack that could be changed in two minutes. Then Bill Clinton asked if they could not make the price so low that it would be a barrier to entry for others. He asked if they could make the car free. That led to the cell phone business model where the equipment is free and the fees are for the service. Our hero then began to think of the idea as selling 'miles driven' as a cell phone company charges for minutes used. The idea has been tweeked with stuff like recharging batteries at night so the utility can balance their load. He needed a demo market for this approach. He found the perfect one. The average person only drives 20 miles a day. It was small enough and populated enough that there would be a lot of customers in a small area, making infrastructure easier to build and cheaper per person. The government there was progressive and very interested in doing anything to reduce the potential for oil to be used as an economic weapon. Also, almost the only time a vehicle leaves the place is when it is stolen. And that place is - Israel. He has won government and some large company backing. They are now building the infrastructure for re-charging across the country.

How is this for thinking outside the box, moi?

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2009 10:42 pm So I pick up this Harvard Business Review for an airport read and there is this interesting article:

http://hbr.org/2009/11/how-to-jump-star ... onomy/ar/1

A main point is that if we are ever going to advance with clean energy, we have to think of entire systems and not just bolting something onto an existing thing and calling it an environmental advance.

moi621 (imported) wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:12 am How about an area where, ideas can be dropped like pearls.

Ideas that should make someone rich or do it better.

Okay, here is my first.

The government should establish a standard battery dimension and connectors for electric automobiles.

Moi

please drop pearls on this thread

nullorchis (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:41 am Well, I didn't even get past "" to read any further.

"THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD..............."

Everybody is moaning and groaning about how much THE GOVERNMENT is sticking its nose into everything and how our freedoms are being over run etc. etc.

WHY should the government do it?

It IS possible for business to establish standards, in spite of the desire to be unique for a competitive edge.

Sometimes business has to battle it out, like Betamax and VHS, or Blu-Ray and whatever lost out to Blu-Ray.

Sometimes business doesn't have to battle out a standard in the market place. It takes awhile and a lot of negotiating but Industry wide standards are created and agreeded upon in ISO. http://www.iso.org/iso/about

Standards will of course always be in a state of development so we will have to live with old standards for awhile as new standards are developed and adopted.

What standard can you think of that is INTERNATIONAL everywhere.

The government's role in American society is so all encompassing now. And this coming from a liberal. The conservatives have been so busy developing laws telling us what we can't do I have just begun to feel stiffled by and tired of government meddling in many areas where it just seems the government should not be involved.

Abolish the Bureau of Weights and Measures ! ?

Moi <joking>

bobover3 (imported) wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:57 pm Just a note -

There are extensive and detailed international standards in electrical engineering, especially for data communication. That's why the internet operates globally, as well as telephone calls. There's a branch of the UN, the International Telecommunications Union, headquartered in Geneva, that sets these standards, with input from member nations. The UN may be ineffective in international politics, but it can be highly effective with non-political subjects.