I worked at the epa’s rmp reporting center from 1998-2004 through contractors. We processed risk management plans that facilities with extremely hazardous chemicals had to submit. The following experience happened in about 2003.

If a facility neglected to include their certification letter, the submission would be processed as “Incomplete” and the fact that facility had submitted their report, but that it was incomplete, would be posted for all to see. When the facility submitted their certification letter, the new submission would then be processed as “Complete”, but both submissions (with their dates) could be seen by others. This was not really a big deal — out of the 15,000 submissions we received, some thousands had been processed as Incomplete until we received their certification letters. In theory, they could be heftily fined, but this never happened as long as the epa could see they were making a good faith effort to comply. I only saw one or two fines, and this was only when they more or less totally blew off the reporting process, and even then the fines were pretty small, just enough to nudge them to comply.

We had the ability to reprocess a submission as if the mistake had never happened, but we only did this on the rare occasions it was our mistake. We had processed thousands of incompletes, and never once had we reprocessed the corrected submission as if the incomplete had never happened unless it was our fault.

Most of the facilities were fairly small. One of the biggest in the country was an Exxon facility in Texas. They had dozens of extremely hazardous chemicals in large quantities, whereas a typical facility only had one or two. Well, they sent in a submission without a certification letter. Not a big deal, we just processed it as incomplete, as was the normal practice.

I got a call from the guy at Exxon who submitted the report. He wanted me to reprocess it so that the incomplete wouldn’t show up. I told him that we couldn’t do that, that all he had to do was send in the certification letter and we would process it as complete, but that the public record would continue to show the superseded incomplete. He told me that under the Clinton administration he knew the head of one of the epa departments. I wondered to myself why he would think who he knew would be relevant.

He told me that if I ever come to Texas, that we could fry some shrimp in oil.

I’ve never received an offer like that from a submitter. I used to work in corrections, and inmates were very good at making threats so that the inmate knew it was a threat, the officer knew it was a threat, but that the hearing officer would see it in black and white and wouldn’t be sure whether it was a threat or not.

He asked to speak to my supervisor. I transferred him. Ten minutes later, my supervisor told me to reprocess the submission as if the first had not occurred. We had encountered the same situation hundreds or thousands of times before, and that was not our policy. I documented his order in the file and did as he said.

I always wondered what the Exxon guy said to my supervisor that would make him give an order like that.

I find it hard to believe that a lack of engineering is behind the fact that a full-sized family vehicle is not capable of achieving around 200 m.p.g. with all of the capabilities of current vehicles. Or that the implementation of electric vehicles isn’t practical with battery exchange stations substituting for gas stations. Surely I could manufacture something and demonstrate fesability. I’d probably be shot, but I could do it. The real problem concerns auto makers sitting on patents, cooperating with OPEC and converting over to efficiency without severe economic reprecussions.

Here’s an idea for a full-size family vehicle.

-Tear-drop shaped station wagen (like the magnum, but more aerodynamic {fairings and stuff})
-Small gasoline powered V4 w/ 2 cyl shut-off
-Turbocharger w/ bypass option
-C.V.T.
-Hydraulic Regenerative Braking via hydraulic motor/pump and accumulator
-Disk brakes as well w/ computer control
Heck, you could even throw in the energy storing suspension using hydraulics and check valves.

This is not nearly as difficult as some make it out to be. It’s all politics.”[/quote]

You have a very good point my friend. It is sad the games we must play to get anywhere.

I find it hard to believe that a lack of engineering is behind the fact that a full-sized family vehicle is not capable of achieving around 200 m.p.g. with all of the capabilities of current vehicles. Or that the implementation of electric vehicles isn’t practical with battery exchange stations substituting for gas stations. Surely I could manufacture something and demonstrate fesability. I’d probably be shot, but I could do it. The real problem concerns auto makers sitting on patents, cooperating with OPEC and converting over to efficiency without severe economic reprecussions.

Here’s an idea for a full-size family vehicle.

-Tear-drop shaped station wagen (like the magnum, but more aerodynamic {fairings and stuff})
-Small gasoline powered V4 w/ 2 cyl shut-off
-Turbocharger w/ bypass option
-C.V.T.
-Hydraulic Regenerative Braking via hydraulic motor/pump and accumulator
-Disk brakes as well w/ computer control
Heck, you could even throw in the energy storing suspension using hydraulics and check valves.

This is not nearly as difficult as some make it out to be. It’s all politics.”[/quote]

This makes tremendous sense! I once read a short story in Argosy Magazine (a questionable reference, at best) wherein a clock repairman in London designed a clock-work car to accept a main spring he stole. Drove around in it successfully. After his capture, the thrust of the the prosecution’s case seemed to revolve around his successful invention, not the theft. He was convicted, jailed and his plans confiscated, never to be heard of again. There’s probably an engineering problem that escapes me regarding a pure wind-up car. But hey, if we can develop the model, why not full-size?

Ref: My post waay above–one of our “kickers” for our ‘power units’ is a set of antennas that safely retract via use of a lightning detector. Tesla invented a cruder version of this–his antenna did not retract, for example. We figure about a year or so before we can detail to the public our improvements. (And I’m old—and may not see the finished version…Oh well….) ;#)

Additional: Whatever happened to that 200-mile range compressed nitrogen vehicle built by the U of Washington?…

I had a couple of thoughts concerning auto motation and power supply problems in general. First off let me drop this link to a site that gives a (biased) view of solar power supplying all the worlds energy. It ignores some major facts, such as line loss during transmission etc, but still is interesting to think about. The page is here http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/solar_power_world.php

Ok. Momentarily ignoring the silly, unreal way the idea was proposed, there is some merit to the thought. Obviously a centralized power center has no chance of working. Way way too inefficient. So. Figure using roof space for solar panels all over the us. That helps some. On the interstate shoulders, and anywhere else that it seems apropos. (I have a dual reason for this that i’ll get to in a moment). Give tax breaks to consumers for excess energy produced by their personal solar systems. (theres some of this going on already) This would help offset maintainance costs. The excess energy dumped into the grid would allow utilities (Ie solar/wind farms) to more easily manage costs, and provide energy more affordably to industries/individuals with no power equipment. (also we’re of course for the monent ignoring any and all environmental impact, and logisitical problems.. And idiot drivers running over solar panels..)
On the environmental side of things one comment. There is concern that “absorbing” that much surface heat would have a large impact on the environment, but I disagree to some extent. That conservation of energy thing keeps cropping up. Sun makes energy. Energy goes into batteries/lines. Energy is used. Heat is the biproduct. This is a WAY oversimplified viewpoint im sure, but has at least some amount of truth to it.
Ok so we have solar everywhere possible and are generating excess energy (add in solar, some nuclear (or nucular if you’re the president)). How do we move to electric cars? Well as long as we’re adding solar collectors to the highways, why not use a bit of that energy? For short jaunts, cars should have their own power source, and limited range. Electric of course. Wanna take a highway trip? Drive your car to the freeway, hop on. Road sensors (or an onboard ID transmitter which is a scary thought) “talks” to bulkheads on the road. Pass location x, bulkhead x+1 generates a magnetic field yanking your car forward using some energy. We’re now AT the next X and x+1 hits again. Basiccally we’re talking a glorified rail gun for cars. You still have brakes for safety, but are essentially free spooling down the road. While you’re driving you aren’t using any of your cars battery, with the right design, (panels only on the northward side of the road so as not to block sunlight to the road itself) your car can top its batteries up while you cruise down the freeway using the national infrastructure. Unfortunately for cost purposes, I imagine it would have to be some type of toll system. Get on the road, the system logs your start point. Get off the road it logs your end point (or again, if the car has an ID, it could log it, but people would start hacking things immedietly to get free rides) Then based on car weight (which could be calculated based on energy needed to keep your car at the speedlimit?) used power can be charged to your account. If your home system makes enough excess, your trip could potentially be free.

Ok. Let the flames begin. :) And yes. I know its most likely not feasable. Still curious to know what people think.

I understand the reasoning behind some of the more paranoid conspiracies dealing with oil industry, but
they totally ignore the profit motive. To my knowledge, correct me if I’m wrong, the various car manufacturers are for the most part independent publicly traded companies that are not owned by the big oil conglomorates. If someone comes up with a safe, pratical, relatively economical, car that get 5-10 times the current level of MPG it will sell quite well, not to mention the same technology could likely be leveraged into more efficient generation of electricity.

The point is, profit is to be made. Companies diversify in the hopes of maximizing profit.
Imagine you are a billion dollar company. You come up with a real pratical car that gets 300 mpg.
You think you can’t put on an education campaign that forces the politicos to basically make your
technology mandatory?

(It happened with reformulated gas in california, and that stuff doesn’t really seem to work.)

Pushing out something that would reduced/eliminate dependance on foreign oil would be very, very
popular. Imagine a campaign where you could paint your opponent as being in thrawl of OPEC, it gets
people off the dime almost as fast as anything to do with drugs or money for old people.

(Or at least making it look like money for old people ala the drug program mess we have now.)

What would happen is that the government would do something along the lines of raising oil taxes to
deal with inevitable drop in the cost/barrel once super fuel efficient cars arrive.

Sadly we are still quite a ways before we can tell OPEC to pound sand.