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What intrigues me about the Clarity is the hydrogen fuel cell version which, at present, is only being sold in CA. IMHO an easy to refuel fuel cell vehicle would be an excellent option.

With all due respect, this thread began with a post about Massachusetts phasing out sale of IC-powered cars. And, once again, most hybrid vehicles are not like yours. The 2021 Prius Prime which has the largest battery of the Prius models is only capable of ~25 miles in pure electric mode. https://www.toyota.com/priusprime/faq/

In your opinion, should that person sell his boat or rent a truck when he wants to pull it? Or should he ideally be someone affluent enough to own a truck that he only uses to pull his boat a couple of times a year? Similarly, when I tow a vehicle behind my MH I want it to be capable of being used in all possible situations. I don't care if it's only used a couple of times a month on lengthy daytrips into "rough terrain" but, for example, when I want to drive around the Grand Staircase Escalante I don't want to have range anxiety be a concern. EVs represent a good solution for many people for their daily driving needs. But IMHO we're a long way from the point where they are the ONLY transportation solution that many people will want. In coastal TX where we live during the winter there are very few charging stations available outside of major cities and there is plenty of "open space" where there are none at all. Maybe that will change over time, but, for now, having ONLY an EV would be very restrictive of one's activities.

I agree, but if you are bothered by using free wifi just turn on your phone's hotspot and use it for your banking and other sensitive transactions. The chance of someone intercepting a cellular transmission is infinitesimally small. Connect your laptop to your phone using a USB cable and you've further reduced the chance of being intercepted.

Yes, this is true for us some of the time. But just as likely, we're using the toad to explore Yellowstone or to drive to Tadoussac from Quebec or something similar. Driving 200-300 miles in a day of exploring isn't uncommon for us. Don't generalize that everyone uses their time and vehicle the same way.

I've explained that your C-Max is an unusual hybrid because it contains a battery pack large enough for a reasonable amount of electric-only driving. That's not the case for many other hybrids which can go only a very short distance before the IC engine kicks in. But, quite honestly, 42 mpg isn't all that unusual these days. My Hyundai Elantra routinely obtained 35 mpg in around-town driving.

You've missed my point entirely. When you're traveling on the highway at whatever speed you're not doing much in the way of slowing down and speeding up. That's where regenerative braking saves energy so on the highway you get no benefit from that. When you're driving at a constant speed most hybrid vehicles are just running on their IC engines and are pretty much indistinguishable from any other IC-powered vehicle. Most get pretty good gas mileage but that's primarily because most, if not all, of them are powered by small-displacement engines.

You have the version of the C-Max that can drive in a pure electric mode. Many C-Max's didn't have this feature. They were "traditional" hybrids that had only a limited ability to drive in electric mode. We had considered the C-Max before you version was available and decided that a regular hybrid didn't buy us all that much in open road driving. The real benefit of a regular hybrid is in the regenerative braking but if you're driving ~75-80 on the highway you aren't doing all that much braking!

I think you misunderstood me. The leak and the valve were two totally different issues. The leak was in the drain line way past the valve.

My kitchen sink is in a slide and there's a rather long flexible sewer line leading to a fixed standpipe. The leak was at a fitting where the ABS coming from the sink met the flexible pipe. Once I started looking, the leak was obvious--there was a small puddle! Since the leak was in a area of pipe that is empty when you aren't running the sink my theory is that it acted as an "unregulated air admittance valve". I can't prove this was the case, but the "burping" I was getting in the sink seems to have stopped by fixing the leak and replacing the valve.

I had had a similar gurgling problem with my kitchen sink a few months ago. In addition to replacing the air admittance valve which appeared to be clogged, I also discovered a small leak at a fitting in the waste line. My theory is that this leak could allow air to enter as well as water to leak out. All I know is that the combination of fixing both of these seems to have resolved my problem.

Got to get me one of those 6-foot canes! 😃

With all due respect, if you had a full understanding of the enormous task required to take a "breakeven demonstration" to an operational power plant then you wouldn't question why I predict that neither of us will live to see an operational fusion power plant. If you reread what I posted, I didn't say anything about a power reactor in 5 years. The SPARC folks claim breakeven in ~5 years. Even if I accept that as possible, a realistic date for an operational power reactor on the grid (not a government-owned prototype) would realistically be at least a decade later. That would be >15 years from now. If I was naïve enough to believe everything stayed on schedule, I agree I might still be alive to see that. But Murphy's Law says that the changes of that happening in 15 years is nil IMO. At this point I am taking myself out of this discussion now because you there is little point to further dialog.

I had totally forgotten about that joke! But it has been consistently true for >6 decades at least. I'm not sure that many people understand that the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the predecessor of the Department of Energy, was the developer of nuclear energy, its marketing agent and its regulatory authority. From that it's not hard to see that there were some inherent conflicts. 😃 The AEC was focused with getting nuclear power onto the power grid so there would be "power too cheap to meter!" Yes, that really was an AEC slogan in the 1950's. Nuclear energy was marketed as a salvation for civilization. In 1958 the first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States, Shippingport, was opened by President Eisenhower as part of his Atoms for Peace program. As nuclear power continued to grow throughout the 1960s, the AEC anticipated that more than 1,000 reactors would be operating in the United States by 2000! Believe me, the number of power reactors drove AEC (and then DOE) policy through the 1970's (until Three Mile Island and Chernobyl). When I was in DOE in the mid-70's those of us in "technology planning" had to constantly "negotiate" with the nuclear policy team to get them to agree to the number of power reactors expected to be online in the year 2000. That's right, US energy policy was being driven by AEC's marketing forecasts!! It was obvious by then that there would never be 1,000 reactors online in 2000 but we were forced to accept numbers like ~250-500 because policy was still be driven by the investment in nuclear power. One result of this "mania" to build new reactors was that the technical issues being encountered in the operating reactors were downplayed and kept out of the press--at least until Three Mile Island occurred. Nuclear reactors are extremely complex systems and it's not surprising that new technological challenges were being discovered as the operational systems aged. But the drive to have hundreds of reactors online by 2000 was the imperative so there was no time to rethink the underlying design. Despite the fact that both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were caused by human errors, not technological failures, they were inevitable IMO because development was being driven by marketing! What I've been harping on here is that I would hate for fusion to be captured by another market-driven program rather than being developed in accordance with good engineering practice. Fusion is even more complex and difficult than is fission and fusion power plants will be very expensive and technologically challenging. IMHO anyone who claims otherwise is a huckster! I want fusion to succeed, but I don't think there are any shortcuts!

Back in ~1980 a good friend of mine on Capitol Hill called me one day to ask "how many quads of energy (quadrillions of BTUs) would fusion power provide to the power grid in 2025?" because his boss (a Congressman) was being lobbied by folks who were convinced they could have a power plant operational by 2000. These folks didn't consider themselves hucksters; they too were associated with major universities. I told my friend that he could confidently tell his boss that the answer was unequivocally "zero." Turns out I was right. I'm not saying that this new approach to fusion power won't be better than all the previous ones that have been tried, but I can say unequivocally that I won't live to see a fusion power plant on the grid and you probably won't either. In fact, if we don't take the time to thoroughly test such a device through at least most of a life cycle we run the risk of repeating all the mistakes we made with nuclear energy. The issue I raised of induced radioactivity is not in any way affected by the use of "high temperature superconductors" and that's just one of many engineering challenges that would have to be overcome. Furthermore, given the public's general mistrust of anything that smacks of nuclear energy I think the licensing and permitting hurdles will be monumental. I'm not in any way saying that the folks at MIT are hucksters but they are technologists enamored with their new creation and the investment dollars they see coming in. The fact that they're from MIT doesn't impress me all that much; my PhD (in physics) is from Harvard and my thesis advisor won the 1981 Nobel Prize. None of that will pay for a single cup of coffee at Starbucks, but it's my way of saying that I'm not real impressed by these kind of claims until they're a lot more advanced than these are at present. Heck, they're saying they'll achieve breakeven in 2025; the hucksters I dealt with said they, too, would have breakeven in 5 years, only that would have been somewhere before 1980 and I'm still waiting.

The "lower assembly" in a Coleman is specific to the heat pump, as you have surmised. We had two Mach 8+ heat pumps installed to replace old A/Cs and they work just fine. If you had someone install them why not go back and have him fix his mistake?

With all due respect, I invested a chunk of my professional career helping to manage the DOE fusion energy program. Suffice it to say that even if the experiment being described produces net energy gain there are monumental problems to be solved before a reliable fusion power plant could go into operation. For example, the fusion community has for decades avoided discussion of maintenance of the reactor once it has gone "live." Despite the claim that there is little actual radiation produced by fusion, compared to nuclear fission, the entire device will be "bathed" in 14 MeV neutrons and gamma rays which result from the fusion process. When the neutrons bombard the metals in the structure they will become radioactive. Sure, the radioactivity is much less than what you get from used fuel rods, but it isn't trivial. Figuring out how you would replace a several ton radioactive magnet is something that simply hasn't been focused on. I'm not saying that the problems are unsolvable, but they aren't simple, either. People haven't focused on how you make a power reactor out of a tokamak because it isn't worthwhile until you demonstrate breakeven power. IMHO the greatest mistake in the introduction of nuclear energy for power generation was rushing to commercialize reactors before they had been run through an engineering life cycle. Many of the technology problems that were encountered would have become evident if a decade or more of operational testing was conducted. Instead, the Atomic Energy Commission, which both the developer and the marketing entity for atomic power rushed utilities into constructing power plants when the first demonstration power reactor at Shippingport PA had barely become operational. It was not at all surprising that problems such as hydrogen embrittlement showed up after multiple years of operation, problems that could have been anticipated and dealt with if proper prototype testing had occured. IMHO if we rush fusion into commercial use we will encounter the same sorts of issues as bedeviled fission power plants. Those plants developed reputations for poor reliability because their operators were learning as they were going without knowing what would happen as the reactors aged. Hopefully, we will learn from our past mistakes, but when I read press releases such as have been posted here, I see potential for the same mistakes to be repeated. RV, before you get gung ho about this company, I suggest you start by reading up on KMS Fusion of Ann Arbor MI which predicted it would have a commercial fusion power plant in the 1970's! KMS had scientists and powerful politicians as backers and it's CEO (Kip Siegal) had the misfortune of having died while testifying to Congress (literally). For a number of years his death secured KMS a steady stream of federal funding, until it became evident that it's dreams weren't going to come true. Next you might want to read about the University of Rochester's fusion program under the direction of a charismatic leader, Moshe Lubin, which also claimed it could achieve breakeven if only it had enough federal funding. Lastly, you might want to read about the Lawrence Livermore Lab laser fusion program of which each successively larger machine was going to be the one needed for breakeven. Eventually, because breakeven was never achieved even with the huge Nova laser system, the program regrouped and declared itself a nuclear weapons simulation program which meant it was classified and hidden from public view. Don't get me wrong, I am a strong proponent of fusion as an future energy source, but I have personally experienced multiple "hucksters" whose promises have been far larger than their capability to deliver. I fear that his could easily be another one of them. Joel

Here's a chart that is illustrative of the differences between "real 5G" and DSS 5G. Although the chart is a year old, the data is still reasonably current. The bars on the left are typical of the speeds that can be achieved with mm wave 5G. The yellow bar is the sort of speed that can be realized when using what some people call "less than 5GHz 5G". And the two bars on the right are typical of "low frequency 5G". Considering that I recently measured a 4G download speed of ~130 Mbps with my Pixel 5, DSS 5G won't offer all that much of an improvement, at least, not at first.

That's why most of the 5G currently being discussed is NOT the millimeter wave 5G that is better suited to high density urban locations. Most of what the "Big Three" carriers have been talking about lately is what is known as Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) 5G and it involves using a portion of the 4G spectrum for 5G transmission. The downside is that the speeds aren't as high as what you might have expected for 5G but you'll have service a lot sooner. The newer phones such as the iPhone 12 and the Pixel 5 can receive both mmwave and DSS 5G. Here's an article that describes DSS 5G in more detail: DSS 5G explained

One issue that rarely gets mentioned in threads like this one is that some Medicare Supplements provide out-of-US emergency coverage ($50k). I don't believe Medicare Advantage plans necessarily have such coverage. It's not a huge benefit and it is on a reimbursable basis but we like to summer in Canada and this keeps us from having to purchase supplemental insurance. IMHO the bottom line is that some people don't mind having "managed care" plans and some haven't had good experiences with them. We've had a number of PPOs and an HMO during our working years and our experiences have varied. For the ~10 years we've been full-timing I've enjoyed not having to ask a doctor's office "do you take [specific insurance] plan?" We haven't had a lot of emergencies while traveling, but we've had a couple plus a few more complex problems. I like not having to even think about "what will my out of pocket costs be?"

There's a lot to be said for grocery shopping this way IMO. We'll probably continue doing at least some of our shopping this way even when things go back to somewhat normal--it's easy and saves time. The other day we arranged for back-to-back pickups at Walmart and our local H-E-B. Between curbside pickup and Amazon/SamsClub/Walmart delivery there's little reason to go to a store.

I totally agree and Governor Newsome and others who flaunt their own pronouncements should be taken to task by voters at the next opportunity! My wife is a retired critical care nurse and she is adamant that those who choose to ignore public health guidelines should have "DNR" tattooed on their chests so that we don't waste precious medical resources resuscitating them! It doesn't keep them from hurting others in the meantime, but there's no reason that we should waste resources on those who don't care enough about others to "wear a f---ing mask!"

A lot of black tank recipes are designed to ensure that the walls of the tank are "slippery". That's the reason for the use of Calgon, Dawn, etc. Washing soda is an inexpensive low-suds detergent that appears to accomplish that objective.

Sorry, I should have been more precise in my wording. I add the borax and washing soda each time I drain and flush the tank.

To this discussion, I'll add my own "recipe" which is to put ~2/3 cup of borax and ~2/3 cup of washing soda into the tank after each flush. Washing soda is a low suds equivalent to the dawn that is often recommended. I also use a cup of Pinesol for odor control. We try to use Scotts, but during the "shortages" in the Spring we did use what was available. I have a clear section in my drain system so I can observe the flow. Use of other tissue created more "clumps" than we get when using Scotts, but it never became a problem. When we're stationary as we have been for ~6 months we dump and flush about every ~6 days with a 50 gallon tank.