The Tesla is powered by 7,000 Li-Ion laptop batteries for an output of
200 kW.

A similarly powered 300 kW electric tractor (10,500 batteries) would
turn a 400 hp articulated 22 gallon/hour diesel tractor every which
way but loose in a tractor pull which apparently is vitally necessary
education as well as entertainment for those too ignorant do basic
IEOR calculations.

Running either tractor wide open to work a square mile at 0.5 mph
would take 3 months of 7 day work weeks at 8 hours / day.

It would also require 17,000 gallons of diesel.

Today the cost is "only" $80,000 for the diesel.

In 2 years, with the price of hydrocarbon fuel spiraling by 30%% a
year, that cost will be $150,000/yr.

In six years the cost of the fuel will be half a million dollars.

And that's just for one field.

Maybe if we have massive truck and bus conversion to natural gas --
include farm tractors in Pickens plan -- the price will "only" be
$350,000/field in 6 years.

Ignoring the other glaring errors in your post and concentrating only on
this part, you are projecting the cost of hydrocarbon fuel to continue to
spiral up and at the same rate.

A few questions for you:

1) How many oil future contracts do you own? Surely if you believe what you
post here you must spend every spare penny you own in the crude futures
market buying up all that you can.

2) Where is your calculation on what the price of electricity will be when
everything switches over as you advocate? I haven't seen anyone address the
fact that when the demand for electricity far outweighs the supply then it's
price will skyrocket much much faster than hydrocarbon fuels.

On 23 Jul, 23:03, BretCah...@peoplepc.com wrote:

On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:17:58 -0700 (PDT), disgoftunwells
yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Might wanna take a look at http://daybrown.org/farmath/farmath.html
A team of oat burners will pull a moldboard plow at 5mph, covering about
7.5 acres/day. Mite try 3 oxen with a double bottom at 3mph, but get
10 acres/day. And oxen dont need oats.

If the proverbial schitt hits the fan, I'm gonna walk into a pasture
with a hatfull of corn, and walk out with oxen following me cause they
dont mind me stroking them while they eat, and they want more.

There are also horses that still have the full set of instincts to be
worked as draft animals. Right now, one farmer grows enuf food for 100
people. With draft animals, one feeds 25. That's still not that bad, and
its a system that has worked for thousands of years.

With diesel and petrochemicals, they expect 155 bu corn/acre. Farmath,
in 1885, got only 21 bu corn. But, I was born on a farm, and remember
draft animals getting 45-48 bu/acre with what we now call 'organic'
methods using better hybrid seed. And it aint that hard to produce the
hybrid seed with organic methods.

On 26 Jul, 01:19, John Larkin
highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:02:16 -0700 (PDT), disgoftunwells
yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

re cables to power electric tractors...

see "center pivot irrigation"

If they can do this, they can figure out how to get a cable to a
tractor.

Mark