The Oil Drum

Good question since I haven't done it yet. Apparently step 1 is remove the waxy coating of the unbroken seeds using hot water. I'm not sure if the wax is a lipid however. Step 2 is mush the seeds and heat them in hot water (maceration) and squish the oil out (think coffee plunger) which should float to the top to be poured off. After filtering out the debris process into biodiesel via normal methods. Use the leftover mash on the compost heap.

That's how I think it works. The questions are whether the acreage yields are adequate and the seed gathering takes too much effort. It could be that if algae experiments fail we are already close to peak lipids based fuel ie using plant oils and chicken fat.

Has that got something to do with Feng Shui?

Losing your toes to frostbite on Everest won't be the badge of honour when every third person has the same problem.

They've got a lot of ways of doing it in Amsterdam, Copenhagen and similar cities, but one way's being reproduced here in Melbourne in one street (from little things, big things grow, Paul Kelly told us).

Notice that the cyclists are physically separated from road traffic, and that the parked cars act as a barrier. Important also is the raised area between the car parking and the bike path - they call that the "car door swing zone" and the benefits are obvious to anyone who's ever cycled by parked cars.

And all without any research by the CSIRO:)

Check out the Copenhagen bike blog, Cyclelicious.

We jog between the rail (when we are not having a Mardi Gras parade) on the St. Charles Streetcar Line in New Orleans (bicycles are banned by general consensus since hey are dangerous mechanical devices likely to drive over people) and the concreted section of the Canal Streetcar Line has become a de facto bikeway as well.

Best Hopes for Non-Oil Transportation,

Alan

I've been cycling every day in the Hague for the last few years. Generally cycle paths are separate from cars and trams as in Copenhagen, but there are quite a few places where all three share the same space. The biggest hazard for bikes, is inadvertently getting stuck in a rut - getting the front wheel stuck in the tram track, when trying to cross at a shallow angle, especially in the wet. I tasted tarmac last week in these circumstances.

I don't find cycling with trams a problem, they are slow to accelerate and very predictable. Not dropping your wheel in their tracks is the only issue i can think of. Some heroic cyclists hold onto trams for a free ride up hills, which if designed for could be a sane thing to do.

I ride on the same roads as trams all the time, and don't find them any problem at all - so predictable.

Separate bike paths are good on a road with no cross-streets and driveways. On other roads they look good, but can cause problems - the devil is in the detail of the intersections. Often the "separation" unexpectedly disappears, and motorists find newbie cyclists popping out near the kerb as they are looking in another direction.

I've ridden the Swanston St Copenhagen-style lanes, and they have this problem too. The lane disappears at the frequent intersections.

If you ride for transport in a city, bike lanes are no substitute for skills, awareness and experience in merging with other traffic, "taking the lane" etc.

And don't ride in the door zone, unless you're going very slowly! Use your merging skills to take the lane (when safe) instead.

I wish I could remember where I read it, but I once read a writer from the late 19th century talking about how London had X horses and therefore X million tonnes of horse shit to clean off the streets every year. The writer calculated future likely population and growth in per capita wealth to arrive at a calculation of likely number of horses and volume of horse shit, and said that this would be a big problem in the future, having enough people to shovel horse shit, and getting enough feed into the city, he reckoned they'd have to import the stuff.

Kind of quaint, really. I wonder if people will look back on our speculations in the same way.

You ALL forgot this one:

and, yes that really is (are?) humans standing behind it...it's a 15 inch gauge locomotive.

It from the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway in England. The locomotives can travel at up to 60 kph (about 40 miles per hour), but are usually run at speeds of about 40 kph (25 miles per hour). The local school uses the railway as a form of mass transit, because it's much cheaper to run than a bus, and the kids respond favourably, too.

Trains and trams are great for some forms of commuting but there is always going to be a big demand for personal transportation.

That's very true. But whether there will be much energy-assisted transportation for the individual is not just a function of demand, but also our ability to find power for it.