Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
Good ideas at the time.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


                                                             

Hummer Holding

Buy hummers and preserve them
  (+1, -7)(+1, -7)
(+1, -7)
  [vote for,
against]

As the price of gas rises, the price of large luxury vehicles falls. Many of these vehicles, especially the new ones, can be preserved fairly inexpensively. I propose a company whose business plan is to purchase large numbers of 2006, 2007, and 2008 new, large, luxury vehicles. The company would place them in long-term storage (thirty years should do it) and sell them later when algie-oil, TDP, liquid hydrogrogen, oil shale, or some other technology lowers the cost of fuel that they can burn.
Voice, Jun 16 2008

Baked http://bbrescareand...rd_06-11-2004_6.jpg
:-) [normzone, Jun 17 2008]

Another natural resource exhausted http://cgi.ebay.com...ntage-/390265587553
[mouseposture, Feb 06 2011]

Has the Earth run out of any natural resources? http://www.slate.com/id/2271817/
All the Cryolite has gone, apparently. However, "run out of" tends to mean "not economic to extract". [hippo, Feb 09 2011]

[link]






       Why wouldn't they just restart the Hummer assembly lines? Not only would the vehicles be new in the true sense, they'd also be made with more modern materials and technology.
phoenix, Jun 16 2008
  

       Ahh, but 30 years from now, a CLASSIC Hummer with all stock equippment in good condition may be a very valuable thing indeed. New new ones may not be so spectacular, and to be honest, storing a few hummers is going to be easier than mothballing a whole factory.
ye_river_xiv, Jun 16 2008
  

       Very funny idea - I actually LOLed! No croissant though.
phundug, Jun 16 2008
  

       Many have already been made. Certainly the factory can be mothballed, but what of the already existing hummers?
Voice, Jun 17 2008
  

       //Why wouldn't they just restart the Hummer assembly lines?// Perhaps they would. I would suggest, though, comparing a fresh-off-the lot 2008 Volkswagen Beetle with an equivalent-mint-condition 1968 Volkswagen Beetle.
lurch, Jun 17 2008
  

       So nothing to do with lobsters or minor 'eighties pop bands then?   

       I suspect that there would have to be preservation of a whole chain of processes to provide spare parts, and changes in vehicle legislation might make it difficult to use the same raw materials. Also, what if the materials are no longer available, e.g. indium? I'm not saying indium is used, just that some things are going to be gone.
nineteenthly, Jun 17 2008
  

       //algie-oil// Wasn't he one of Biggles' side-kicks?
coprocephalous, Jun 17 2008
  

       [|] Cars were designed to be driven. If you store a car away for any extended length of time, gaskets and rubber seals tend to dry out and rot. A stored car might be good for preseving body panels and other indestructable parts but for the most part leaving a car in storage is about the worst thing you can do to it.
Jscotty, Jun 17 2008
  

       Do you think we'll still have the douchebag problem in 30 years?
Noexit, Jun 17 2008
  

       Long term storage isn't a problem, just drive it into a big plastic bag and fill the bag with dry nitrogen. Without oxygen or water the car will keep for 30 years without a problem. The Cubans do it with all their tanks, etc.
MisterQED, Jun 17 2008
  

       But good god, why a hummer?!!!
kuupuuluu, Feb 02 2011
  

       There's one of these in my hometown I see regularly, with seriously blacked out windows. It just about backed over my car last week, but fortunately I had nobody boxing me in and I was able to backup, madly honking and cussing while the humvee just kept on rolling.   

       I'm going to have to install a firetruck horn.
normzone, Feb 02 2011
  

       //firetruck horn// sp. flamethrower.
spidermother, Feb 05 2011
  

       // Also, what if the materials are no longer available//   

       Just out of interest, can anyone name a material which we have actually run out of? Dodo feathers and Wollemia wood don't count.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 05 2011
  

       Why wouldn't dodo feathers count ? Anyways, the supply of crude oil is slated to run out in 150 years or so. Ice in the Arctic Circle will run out long before then.
FlyingToaster, Feb 06 2011
  

       //Dodo feathers and Wollemia wood don't count.// Why not? The feathers of now-extinct birds were a commercially valuable material, once, and the supply ran out, never to be renewed <link>. So what? Fashions in ladies hats changed.   

       More seriously, high-grade hematite ores were an industrially important material we ran out of. North American iron production was dependent on that resource -- but it was replaced by taconite ore.
mouseposture, Feb 06 2011
  

       On a local basis, places are always running out of a particular resource. The world is full of abandoned mines and quarries so the answer, Max, rather depends on who the 'we' is in your question!
DrBob, Feb 07 2011
  

       //the supply of crude oil is slated to run out in 150 years or so. Ice in the Arctic Circle will run out long before then.//   

       Exactly my point. Every week, we are told that we are "about to run out of" indium, tantalum, helium, berganitic ironstone, squalium, copper, palladium, anthracite, oil, horgenite, molenium and a million other things.   

       And yet we have not. Ever.   

       //high-grade hematite ores were an industrially important material we ran out of//   

       No, we didn't. We just learned how to access less convenient sources effectively. We have not run out of iron, and indeed it is so cheap that a living can scarcely be made from it.   

       We just don't seem to run out of things, ever. Somebody please give me a counterexample.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 07 2011
  

       //We just learned how to access less convenient sources effectively.// Less convenient sources of hematite? No. Less convenient sources of iron. You specified "material," and are now moving the goalposts to "element." Hematite is not the same material as taconite just because both can be used in the manufacture of iron. Aluminium can be substituted for copper in the transmission of electricity, but you wouldn't say they were the same material, would you?   

       We have run out of things, but found suitable substitutes (as in the case of hematite) or decided we didn't really want them (in the case of those hat-feathers). That's two counterexamples. Here are two more: Slaves. Guano.   

       It might be true that we've never run out of anything *that we could neither substitute nor do without* And it might be true that oil will follow that pattern as well.
mouseposture, Feb 08 2011
  

       //. You specified "material," and are now moving the goalposts to "element."//   

       Well, fair point. However, I am not really specifying "element" or "material", but really "stuff we need". We don't need haematite, we need the iron it contains, and we haven't run out of that. To put it another way - we have never suffered the predicted catastrophes due to running out of stuff. Not anything.   

       Nor have we run out of indium, gallium, IP addresses or any of about 25 other things for which I managed to find statements made one or two decades ago that we were "about to run out of them".   

       Incidentally, regarding slaves, there are more people currently in a state of slavery than at any time in history, according to the BBC. But, in any case, you wouldn't say that we have "run out of slaves" in the USA or UK - we have simply decided not to use them.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2011
  

       Psst! Max! We ran out of IPv4 addresses last week!
DrBob, Feb 08 2011
  

       And the world has ground to a halt as a result.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2011
  

       Soo.. not an advanced sexual method?
daseva, Feb 08 2011
  

       A lot depends on what you consider "advanced".
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2011
  

       //never suffered the predicted catastrophes due to running out of stuff// Now *that* is an assertion to which I can think of no counterexample.   

       Although there's a theory that Mayan civilization collapsed due to exhaustion of either hunting or agricultural resources. If true, would that be a counterexample? (Well, it may not have been "predicted," of course.)
mouseposture, Feb 09 2011
  

       Easter Island's society collapsed when they ran out of trees. [Max] I trust you don't extrapolate from "we've never really run out of stuff" to "we will never run out of stuff".
spidermother, Feb 09 2011
  

       We've run out of Cryolite, apparently (see link). Rare earths (Praesodymium, etc.) are another problem, but we haven't really run out of them: China has just locked up the world's supply. Rare earths are an example of something which is extracted for a big industrial need and the scale of this operation makes it economic for small consumers of rare earths to use them. If the industrial-scale need went away, they would be uneconomic and thus we would have effectively "run out of them" for everyone else.
hippo, Feb 09 2011
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle