A better option would in my view be to forget about the combustion engine and go to a totally electric car. That way you can save a lot of weight. Since the motors can be mounted directly on the wheels you can completely forget about the drive train, axels, gearbox, exhaust etc (not to mention the combustion engine itself).
A pure electric car has been tried and it really doesn't work because of the range limitation. To get 300 miles on one charge requires 4000 pounds of batteries. And then it takes 12 hours to recharge instead of a quick refill. So how would anyone do a long trip anywhere?
The reason the plug-in hybrid would work is because it gives the best of both worlds with flexibility. Most daily driving would be pure electric grid power. 50 miles or less per day. Since the battery and range are smaller, recharging can complete within a few hours at night.
But for longer trips, the small gas/diesel/biodiesel/whatever engine can provide extended range. And that is when a gas engine is most efficient. Steady speeds on the highway.
A pure electric car has been tried and it really doesn't work because of the range limitation. To get 300 miles on one charge requires 4000 pounds of batteries.
100 miles is enough for commuting. I'm thinking about something like a 400-500kg two-seater which doesn't run faster than 40 miles per hour.
Peak oil is all about making smart choices. I know most Americans see a car almost as a constitutional right. Somehow the car manufacturers have planted the idea that a car represents freedom, and that without it your not free.
I'm sorry, but private transport has been a temporary gift, made possible by the presence of cheap oil. When the oil is gone private transport will disappear and we have to move on to more efficient ways of transporting ourselves.
From an energy perspective a car (even a hybrid) is a stupid idea. You spend all this valuable energy and resources at building a >1000 kg device to transport 80 kg of human from A to B in full comfort.
Ironically, the car is one of the few items we have good alternatives for ((trolley)bus, train, tram, metro, bicycle, louage).
They are not perfect, I know. Some form of medium distance transport must remain. I think that electric cars can fill that gap.
Peak oil is all about making smart choices. I know most Americans see a car almost as a constitutional right. Somehow the car manufacturers have planted the idea that a car represents freedom, and that without it your not free.
Freedom from geography maybe...
It depends on where you live.
The time I have spent working in Manhattan was without a car at all. Not a problem since public transportation is available. But subways and trains, and even busses are for small places. Here in Texas personal transportation is a must. I imagine our Australian members would agree that it's size that counts. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Aaron. I traveled halfway round the globe without a car. It would surprise you how many of those so called 'underdeveloped' countries have a very decent public transport system.
If you can set up a very good public transport system in countries like Libya, why not in Texas? OK, you need a bit of patience and ingenuity, but you get where you want to be in very decent times. Even if your destination is some small backward settlement in the middle of the Sahara.
It is not the size which counts. You say that you need a car because the public transport system in Texas is bad. My view is that the public transport system is bad because everyone has a car. There is no need for public transport (yet).
For the people on this forum who are serious about peak oil and want to prepare for it, I've got one advice:
Go to a country where they don't have the luxury of a steady oil supply. Go to a country where you have electricity only a few hours a day, where there are only a few cars, where you don't have airco or gas heating.
You would be surprised about the way people have learned to cope with these problems. It never seizes to amaze me how these people manage to find low tech, low cost solutions to improve their life. It's scrapyard science, but it works.
And many of the things they developed can be readily implemented here.
If you can set up a very good public transport system in countries like Libya, why not in Texas?
Libya:
679,362 Sq Miles
5,602,500 Population
Road conditions are poor, and public transportation, which is limited to occasional bus service, is poor. Taxis, which are available, are usually on a shared-basis. Rental cars are often old and poorly-maintained and are not recommended for long-distance driving. The sidewalks in urban areas are often in bad condition but pedestrians are able to use them.
http://www.1uptravel.com/travelwarnings/libya.html
SAFETY OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: POOR
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, WHICH IS LIMITED TO OCCASIONAL BUS
SERVICE, IS POOR.
URBAN ROAD CONDITIONS/MAINTENANCE: FAIR
Texas:
261,797 Sq Miles
22,118,509 Population
I don't think we can compare Libya & Texas in any meaningful way. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6555 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:13 pm Post subject:
Or just stick around the US and let the good times roll, soon enough I suspect folks in Texas and every where will wish their local was as nice as Aaron's discription of Libya.
Or Not. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Road conditions are poor, and public transportation, which is limited to occasional bus service, is poor. Taxis, which are available, are usually on a shared-basis. Rental cars are often old and poorly-maintained and are not recommended for long-distance driving. The sidewalks in urban areas are often in bad condition but pedestrians are able to use them.
So what. The buses don't have airco, adjustable chairs, inboard television, toilet or stewardess. But they drive on schedule.
The long distance taxi's are actually one of the most innovative public transport ideas I've ever encountered. They are (mostly Peugeot 406) stationcars, which are modified to hold up to 7 passengers. They have their own route and they depart when they have a full load.
Of course they are not comfortable at all (cramped, no airco, terrible loud music) and they always assign the worst seats to the foreigners, but they get you where you want to go.
Besides the taxis you won't encounter a car with only a single occupant, because every driver tries to get some paying passengers to drive with him. Which is an excellent way of getting around.
The only problem I've encountered in those regions is that the name signs are all in Arabic, which makes it hard to find your destination.
Quote:
I don't think we can compare Libya & Texas in any meaningful way.
The reason I took Libya is because it is one of the least developed, underpopulated countries I've ever visited. Subsequent embargo's have created a shortage of virtually everything. On top of that you have a climate that is not exactly kind to any form of transport.
If you can devise a basic working transport system in such a country than it must be possible to do it everywhere, even in Texas.
Joined: May 21, 2004 Posts: 158 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:35 am Post subject:
JayHMorrison wrote:
A pure electric car has been tried and it really doesn't work because of the range limitation. To get 300 miles on one charge requires 4000 pounds of batteries. And then it takes 12 hours to recharge instead of a quick refill. So how would anyone do a long trip anywhere?
They wouldn't.
Newsflash: Peak Oil will bring major social and lifestyle change. No longer will people drive their own vehicle 500 miles to the beach for the summer holidays.
They'll be going by train or bus or, if they're rich enough, hiring a petrol-electric hybrid or pure petrol powered car to do that. Or if they're going further than that (c.500 miles), they'll probably be flying if they can afford it (and it won't be cheap) or simply not going.
This will be a pain in the arse for those who like to go to the beach for their summer holidays, as well as for the ice-cream vendor at said beach whose business relies on these people, but it is hardly the end of the world.
I recall the reason once given for the lack of foresight that lead to a break-of-gauge at Albury (border town in SE Australia - the two states using different rail gauges) was that nobody in their right mind would want to travel from Sydney to Melbourne, and certainly not by train. If anyone wanted to make that trip at all, they'd do it by boat, in style.
Joined: May 21, 2004 Posts: 158 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:44 am Post subject:
smiley wrote:
If you can set up a very good public transport system in countries like Libya, why not in Texas?
It is not the size which counts. You say that you need a car because the public transport system in Texas is bad. My view is that the public transport system is bad because everyone has a car. There is no need for public transport (yet).
Go to a country where they don't have the luxury of a steady oil supply. Go to a country where you have electricity only a few hours a day, where there are only a few cars, where you don't have airco or gas heating.
You would be surprised about the way people have learned to cope with these problems.
Not surprised at all. Remember that for 5900 of the 6000 years of human civilisation, there was no such thing as electricity (or at least, certainly not anything as universal as it is now). For 5900 of these 6000 years, everyone had to do all their travel by train or bicycle, or what the North Americans call streetcars and we call trams.
And for 5990 of those 6000 years, there was no communication medium for ordinary people on opposite sides of the planet to exchange views on these sorts of things - certainly not in the group style we see here.
We didn't even start burning coal until the last 500 of those 6000 years.
So it doesn't surprise me at all that people in the third world manage to struggle along without these luxuries. But that doesn't mean I'm particularly keen on the idea of doing without them. So the sooner the people running this planet (or at least the people running my little corner of it) get serious about reducing our dependence on imported oil and either hanging on to our natural gas or at least making the Chinese pay a bit more for it, the more pleasant the estimated remaining fifty years of my time here are going to be.
I'm sure that the Libyan bus & car system works fine for the impoverished 5 or 6 million Libyans who use them. But for 22 to 25 million Texans commuting to their offices, homes and entertainment, it won't work.
Transportation sectors which are profitable need no help, like interstate busses or air travel. Companies actually compete for these services and supply all the transportation we require. But NO urban transport solutions are profitable anywhere in the US that I am aware of, and exist only through the local tax base.
Here in Houston we have city-wide public busses which are a reliable and popular form of locomotion for millions of Houstonains today, but without government subsidies, it would be slightly cheaper than a taxi, and of questionable benefit for our overall energy consumption.
I would also point out that savings in commuting energy does not necessarily equate to actual reductions in per capita consumption. What do we think will happen to the oil & gas we don't use by switching to mass transit solutions? It does not get saved in an account somewhere for us to draw on when we want, but is sold to other customers for... whatever.
The point being that there is no net savings per se, just a redistribution. It could even be argued that by making these transport systems more efficient, we encourage economic growth in these areas; growth that drives increasing energy consumption.
This is the main problem with O&G alternatives in general. Any gains through efficiency translate into more available energy. Energy to do what? Continuing growing the world economy, which means more energy consumption. It is akin to discovering another giant oil field tomorrow, which removes energy restrictions from our growth model. So we switch from peak oil, to peak <insert natural resource here>.
It's not so much that oil & gas will peak, or already has peaked. But our amazing consumption habits which are at the root of the problem. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Joined: May 21, 2004 Posts: 158 Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2004 11:50 am Post subject:
smiley wrote:
The long distance taxi's are actually one of the most innovative public transport ideas I've ever encountered. They are (mostly Peugeot 406) stationcars, which are modified to hold up to 7 passengers. They have their own route and they depart when they have a full load.
Of course they are not comfortable at all (cramped, no airco, terrible loud music) and they always assign the worst seats to the foreigners, but they get you where you want to go.
If you can devise a basic working transport system in such a country than it must be possible to do it everywhere, even in Texas.
That depends on what you mean by a basic working system. They had a basic working system in Ancient Rome. It involved horses and the like. It took however many weeks to get a letter from one end of the Empire to the other, but hey, crap happens.
I think we can do better than that in the 21st century developed world, peak oil or not, thank you very much.
Oh, and those things you're talking about are Jitneys. They're not innovative at all, they're a disorganised substandard service that appears in response to market forces when nobody in government has bothered to get off their arses and organise proper public transport AND the good citizens of whereever are too poor to acquire their own cars.
We used to have a lot of Jitneys in Melbourne. They provided crap service but got you where you wanted to go in a manner of speaking - absolute mode of last resort. When the car became affordable to middle income earners, all the jitney operators went broke in short order.
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