152 comments on DrumBeat: July 1, 2006
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152 comments on DrumBeat: July 1, 2006
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GAIA Host Collective
Voltate Forum: an online EV Forum Community
and
EV Photo Album: Our Electric Cars on the Web
here's the search by "type bicycle"
It's interesting to see what the EV enthusiasts are up to.
Here's an idea. Put together an e-moped and carry solar panels. As you park it you set up said solar panels to partially charge the battery pack as you work. More expensive, you could solar-ise a hybrid car the same way. It would take its exposure to the sun as you work before you take off at the end of the day. Not perfect, but it would help. Those solar race cars are such that they are used during the day - exactly when cars are parked. Since cars are used for commuting missions instead of a "rayce" it would actually help a bunch.
In the mean time, I welcome the bit with sugar being used as fuel by making it into booze fuel. That'll get companies to use Splenda to sweeten processed food and it'll cut calories. Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sugar and adds no calories as it's inert as far as metabolism. What the government (or a really rich fuck) could do is buy the Splenda patent and make it open-source like Linux. That way, Splenda will replace sugar in the food all but instantly. That'll help cut down on the obesity problem. Where would you want sugar to be used? In your SUV? Or to make you fat? Put those damn calories in the E85 tank!
Fat is another food item that would be better used as diesel than to make people fatter. Trans-fat would be better used to power a jet plane than used in food. Bio- jet fuel, anyone? Where do you want your trans-fat? In your fried chicken, or to push that RJ140 you are riding in? My prefernce is to put it in the tanks of that RJ140 plane.
The problem is that while making low-calorie food would be great in America, lots of people worldwide NEED those calories lest they starve to death. Given biofuel techniques, it is possible for competition in the market for those calories. While Americans can afford to reduce calorie intake as they pilot those cars around, poor people in Africa (and elsewhere) can't afford to take in less calories. They are already starving!
- Take conventional battery-powered model airplane.
- Tow a sqare meter (or thereabouts) of lightweight but durable photovoltaic material behind the plane.
- Connect the strip (or maybe a few broad ribbons) to the rechargeable battery.
Now, if I can get this to work in a model airplane, why not a real one?In my science fiction novels some planes are electrically powered, while others run on ethanol or refined vegetable oil powering diesel engines and a few jets. Brazil already has quite a number of ethanol fueled small airplanes.
Let the daydreams begin...
The trick is to get enough area exposed at roughly the correct angle to the sun. I think speed will have to be kept low to keep wear on the sail-like solar panels reasonable.
I have a private pilot's license and am planning to take up soaring after I finish Volume 3 of my science fiction series. In Volume 2, gliders are essential for the heroes to defeat the Forces of Evil.
As for poor Africans, isn't one of the problems of peak oil that even with an abundance of food in North America, there is no way to get it to them? For that matter is feeding them really even ethical in the long run? If the population has overshot the carrying capacity of the land, rushing in with food aid only helps to seal the hopeless fate of future generations and causes even more environmental destruction.
Local food production is going to be a key success factor in the future. Very likely it will determine who lives on comfortably and who will be remembered only in references to the "Great Population Collapse"
Sustainable Food, Renewable Energy and Social Unity are going to separate the winners from the losers after we go over the peak. We can shed consumer culture. We won't like it, but we can survive without it.
Our current ethics, as practiced. People starve today, not because there is a shortage of food (we still have 57 days global buffer) but because of a lack of (economic) demand, ie, the starving cannot afford to eat.
It is all good ... the Invisible Hand has a higher purpose which we mortals are incapable of comprehending ... If the Invisible Hand deems it right for some "less fortunate" among us to depart their Free Market existence here on Earth and move on to their exponentially accumulated pension plans in the Spreadsheet Sky ... then so be it.
Who are we to question?
Yes, there are some instances where the Invisible Hand does more good than harm.
There are other instances (ones which economist unapologetically sweep under the rug as "market failures") where the Invisible Hand fails abysmally.
Peak Oil is a huge example of market failure because we, as the minions of the Hand, keep investing more of our scarce resources and limited time into a way of life that is destroying the planet via GW.
I wish for more of it at home where we are stuck with inefficient government organisations in many service businesses.
The problems result from
http://www.gizmag.com/go/4430/1/
(I'd say Moped, but what they sell as 'Mopeds' now never seem to have pedals anyway.) Everytime I look at what kind of combo of small vehicle and electric powering I'd want to design, I end up seeing the bike and bus as the answer to most of my travel and shopping needs.
This guy's design is encouraging, but I think it would make a lot of sense to not be carrying your generating capacity with you. That's just more weight your batts are pushing. I'm sure this is a big benefit of Elec Rail over Elec Cars, since the storage batteries add an incredible amount to the vehicle's mass.
Any desent bike would get you there just as quick!
The scooter has driven 700 miles without pluging-in, my bike has more miles on!
http://www.solartekcorp.com/images/walkaround1.html
I'm currently designing the structural details. I'm showing a 40-50 round trip commute on the power captured by the solar panels in the parking lot (full sun days only, of course).