Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Hawkcreek wrote:It is obvious that this is just a propaganda ploy by the optimists to make people believe that existing technology can delay the awful consequences of Peak Oil until alternative energy sources can be put in place. Even if such a device could be mass produced, the energy required for manufacture would offset any possible savings. Any thinking person knows that the only reasonable thing to do, is simply put our affairs in order and hope for an easy death.

Hawkcreek wrote:It is obvious that this is just a propaganda ploy by the optimists to make people believe that existing technology can delay the awful consequences of Peak Oil until alternative energy sources can be put in place. Even if such a device could be mass produced, the energy required for manufacture would offset any possible savings. Any thinking person knows that the only reasonable thing to do, is simply put our affairs in order and hope for an easy death.

Where's the fighting spirit? Man. You are depressing. Take some damn prozac to boost your spirits or just be miserable all by yourself.

As the Buddha said, life itself is suffering. Just get over it. Everything you do in life, such as eating, is apparently just prolonging your agony. Best to stop eating and just starve yourself to death. Me: I'll suffer on a hybrid scooter. With all the SUVs off the road, motocycling will actually be enjoyable.

JayHMorrison wrote:

Hawkcreek wrote:It is obvious that this is just a propaganda ploy by the optimists to make people believe that existing technology can delay the awful consequences of Peak Oil until alternative energy sources can be put in place. Even if such a device could be mass produced, the energy required for manufacture would offset any possible savings. Any thinking person knows that the only reasonable thing to do, is simply put our affairs in order and hope for an easy death.

Anyone that talks about scooters and mopeds has self-serving thoughts in mind. Before jumping on me, consider an argument that would advance using regular old bicycles -- instead of scooters. I know a bicycle can get me around town as easily as a scooter; heck I can beat a car to work any given day on a bike.
So, no, no you say; a bicycle only appeals to a certain segment of the population, namely those with some physical mobility, endurance, and tolerance to inconvenience. Well the same thing applies to mopeds. Namely, that the only people that will use these include fair-weather types, non-shrinking violets, and some minority of commuters. Families, northern climers, and a host of others stay out of the picture. I claim that although mopeds have merits, they will not succeed to any greater extent than bicycles. Therefore, the appeal of improved gas-milage scooters, mopeds, and "minibikes" resides on those who would use them anyways. That's what's meant by my use of the loaded term self-serving.
Let's all move to Amsterdam!

trespam wrote:Me: I'll suffer on a hybrid scooter. With all the SUVs off the road, motocycling will actually be enjoyable.

I was thinking the same thing. If 80% of drivers were using a Hybrid Scooter or an all Electric Scooter, imagine the difference in traffic, parking, air quality, etc. It really makes you realize that you don't need to drive in that empty SUV for 40 miles per day. Other than the coffer cup holder, do you really need that big SUV to get yourself to work each day?

I would move to a EV scooter right now if they were available. My drive is only 14 miles each way and I like to drive early when traffic is low, then leave early before the afternoon rush. The key thing that makes this a realistic option is the fact that the energy to produce/manufacture a EV/Hybrid scooter has to be only a fraction compared to a full sized vehicle.

And the price to purchase is between $2,000 to $5,000. That is achievable for just about everyone. Forget about the expensive fuel cells or hydrogren refueling stations, etc. Gimme a Hybrid Scooter that gets 110 mpg. Or my EV Hybrid with a range of 50 miles per re-charge. I wonder if anyone has considered an ethanol or biodiesel version.

Hawkcreek wrote:Trespam - I thought I had been around long enough for most of the people on this board to be familiar with the tone of my typical post. I therefore thought it would be EXTREMELY OBVIOUS that my post was done with tongue in cheek. Just in case that is not obvious enough - I WAS JOKING!!! Did you hear the whizzzz as it went over your head? But thanks for being concerned about my welfare.

Hawkcreek, I picked up on the satire. But it was a close call. Emoticons are wonderful things for really driving home the point.

Perhaps I ought to consider going for a motorcycle license, hmm.

Fristing begins,

JayHMorrison wrote:I was thinking the same thing. If 80% of drivers were using a Hybrid Scooter or an all Electric Scooter, imagine the difference in traffic, parking, air quality, etc.

Imagine if people were using teleportation machines....

It really makes you realize that you don't need to drive in that empty SUV for 40 miles per day. Other than the coffer cup holder, do you really need that big SUV to get yourself to work each day?

No but the soccer mom wants one, to borrow the conventional wisdom.

I would move to a EV scooter right now if they were available. My drive is only 14 miles each way and I like to drive early when traffic is low, then leave early before the afternoon rush.

Except when it is rainy, damp, hazy, cold, snowing, hailing, etc.

The key thing that makes this a realistic option is the fact that the energy to produce/manufacture a EV/Hybrid scooter has to be only a fraction compared to a full sized vehicle.

Unless you divide by the number of potential passengers.

And the price to purchase is between $2,000 to $5,000. That is achievable for just about everyone. Forget about the expensive fuel cells or hydrogren refueling stations, etc.

Including the 6-year old. I hear they are coming out with training wheels for the new Honda models.

Gimme a Hybrid Scooter that gets 110 mpg. Or my EV Hybrid with a range of 50 miles per re-charge. I wonder if anyone has considered an ethanol or biodiesel version.

A gallon is still a gallon. Seriously, most of the original mopeds had a pedal-power startup. Has anyone ever tried to pedal one of these? Try carrying around a gallon of liquid on a bicycle. Face it, bicyclists will continue to ride bikes, and a small proportion of motorists will switch to mopeds and scooters.

Web, I don't think you are going to make it through this. The species that can learn to adapt will survive and thrive. You are not looking promising in that regard.

WebHubbleTelescope wrote:

Gimme a Hybrid Scooter that gets 110 mpg. Or my EV Hybrid with a range of 50 miles per re-charge. I wonder if anyone has considered an ethanol or biodiesel version.

A gallon is still a gallon.

A gallon for an SUV is worth about 15 mpg. A gallon on a hybrid scooter is worth 110+ mpg. 733% more distance per gallon. Not bad. It sort of makes one wonder if biodiesel, ethanol might be able to reach those levels of production if we only need 1/7 the amount of fuel. Or if someone has an EV scooter that doesn't need any liquid fuel and just recharges from the grid each night. That scooter is powered by Nuclear, Wind, Coal, Solar, Hydro, etc.

Who knows when it happens, but if the economics of gas become too expensive and this type of transportation is available and affordable, this is a realistic option for many people. And with the higher level of fatalities from bike crashes, that helps to solve the over population issue also.

Jay, good find! I'm with you on this one. And I got your humorous nudge about population reduction, as with Hawkcreek's item about curling up & dying. Look folks, "one size fits all" is an obsolete way of thinking. Sure you won't get people in Buffalo New York riding scooters to work in blizzards. So What?

Take one commuter who switches to a scooter for 9 months out of the year, and drives a car for 3 months (winter). Assume the car gets 20 mpg and the scooter gets 110 mpg. One scooter-month of fuel is 18% of one car-month of fuel. Nine scooter-months = 1.62 car-months of fuel. Add that to the three winter car-months, and you have 4.62 car-months of fuel per year. That's 38.5% of the fuel consumption of using the car all year, or a 61.5% reduction for that one commuter.

Now assume 30% of commuters do this. Now you have 30% x 61.5% = 18.4%. Overall, for the entire population of commuters, an 18.4% reduction in fuel consumption. Round that up to 20% to make an easily remembered round number. Sure, it's not the magic bullet. But it's a piece of an overall solution.

Now also assume you can take 10% of commuters off the road entirely, via telecommuting, and another 10% switch over to public transport, and now you have another 20% reduction. So now with scooters, telecommuting, and public transport we have 40% fuel reduction in commuting. What I see in the household garage of the near future is, a hybrid station wagon, a couple of hybrid scooters, and some bicycles. And a family that's a lot more aware of its transportation choices.

What's also necessary for any of this to work is to stop building sprawl that calls for long travel distances for commonplace tasks such as grocery shopping. Sprawl is an artifact of "done-it-before" investment policies, which in turn are rooted in the phenomenal success of "Levittown" style developments after WW2. The idea that people "prefer" living in sprawl is as preposterous as the idea that people "prefer" their Model T Fords in black only.

People "choose" to live in sprawl so long as the market does not offer competing alternatives. Wherever and whenever that competition arises, demand rapidly outstrips supply. Look up "neo-traditional town planning," or go to www.dpz.com (Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., the leading firm in this field; there are many more, two of whom are clients of mine). Case in point: "Village Homes" in Davis CA, based on neo-traditional planning concepts; originally the banks were highly skeptical; but the entire development sold lightning-fast and property values rose much faster and higher compared to those of sprawl-developments. The same case obtains for other instances of this type.

Now that I think of it, another piece of the puzzle is the question of dollars staying-put in local economies. When consumer dollars are spent in locally-owned stores, the owners reinvest locally. When consumer dollars are spent in WalMart, those dollars are literally transferred every single night back to the head office in (....where?... a search of their website Investor Relations page doesn't seem to say!): those dollars don't stay in the community, the profits don't get reinvested locally.

In fact, in California, the state i.e. the taxpayers, subsidize WalMart to the tune of $2,000 per employee per year: WalMart pay is so sh*tty that its employees need various forms of public assistance just to meet basic family needs. So that's more money being sucked out of your local population and transferred to "wherever WalMart comes from."

Bottom line is that chain stores suck money out of local economies, and WalMart is only one case in point. To make an area economically viable, you have got to have constant reinvestment of profits locally, and high turnover of dollars within the local population.

Last case in point: In the Oakland California ghetto, the average dollar changes hands twice before leaving town. In wealthy Marin County, the average dollar changes hands twelve times before leaving town. Every time a dollar changes hands it does work, it helps people create wealth. The longer it stays, the more wealth it creates along the way. The point of this being, what's good for energy policy is also good economics: local means greater efficiency, local means reinvestment, local means greater turnover of dollars, greater creation of wealth.

So here's a piece of a possible future: nuclear, wind, and solar power, hybrid and electric scooters in use most of the year, a short trip to the store for fresh groceries, local ownership, and real prosperity. All it takes is the will to make it so.

2 years ago Volkwagen presented a protytype of a 2 person-car (trunk of 80 liters) that consumed about 0.89 Liters / 100 km = 265 mpg (yes, really!)
jpg
Airbags, Heating, Automatic gear etc. included: jpg

Length: 3.65 meter, width 1.20 meter
Top-Speed: 120 km/h = 75 mph jpg
For most commuters and business travelers it would not be too bad.

JayHMorrison wrote:

AdvocatusDiaboli wrote:Jay, solar panels are so weak it would have to sit there for weeks. It would probably never charge because below a certain level of charging no capacity is built up.

link If that car can maintain an average speed of 40-55 mph continuously, then I suspect an EV scooter sitting in the sun all day could build up some charge over the course of a nice sunny day. Especially when it has a nifty solar panel cover that unfolds for parking lot duty. Either that or re-charge outlets will have to become common in parking lots. That is feasible. While you are shopping at our store, here is a validation ticket for your EV re-charge for 2 hours.

The car you show has solar panels the size of several sqare meters. I doubt that a motor scooter could have even a square meter of effective solar paneling.(or even half a square meter)
That means that you'll have maybe 50 or 60 watts(Probably less).
The battery capacity of the scooter will probably be at least 2 kwh.
I don't know if you can feasibly load a battery with a 0.05 capacity current, especially if the current is only available for so many hours a day.

AdvocatusDiaboli wrote:The car you show has solar panels the size of several sqare meters. I doubt that a motor scooter could have even a square meter of effective solar paneling.(or even half a square meter) That means that you'll have maybe 50 or 60 watts(Probably less). The battery capacity of the scooter will probably be at least 2 kwh. I don't know if you can feasibly load a battery with a 0.05 capacity current, especially if the current is only available for so many hours a day.

Then I guess I will just have to put a quarter into the EV Recharger Meter © 2004in the parking lot at work or the mall and plug into the grid.

JayHMorrison wrote:Web, I don't think you are going to make it through this. The species that can learn to adapt will survive and thrive. You are not looking promising in that regard.

Where did I go about attacking you personally? And you sink to the depths of demeaning my existence. All I did was counter points that were attached to your name.

The average commute is going to be 5 miles each way on a scooter. So at these MPG we will use 1 to 2 cups of gasoline a day per person. Now consider that the average person needs 1/2 cup equivalent of the caloric content of oil to survive and that that 1/2 cup (by some estimates) needs 10 x the subsidy in petroleum assistance to produce. Therefore, 5 cups equivalent per person.

We have to do a real net analysis to see that we are going to reach an Amdahl's-like limit in energy conservation by going to scooters.

What's with the talk of bio-diesel and ethanol all the time? This stuff gets subsidized by petrochemical dollars, and does not have a net benefit. It probably has a worse MPG in real-world terms.

WebHubbleTelescope wrote:What's with the talk of bio-diesel and ethanol all the time? This stuff gets subsidized by petrochemical dollars, and does not have a net benefit. It probably has a worse MPG in real-world terms.

Biodiesel plants that are specifically designed for it, and that are continuous production (not batch), have been shown to have an EROEI of 6.7 so far.

JayHMorrison wrote:

WebHubbleTelescope wrote:What's with the talk of bio-diesel and ethanol all the time? This stuff gets subsidized by petrochemical dollars, and does not have a net benefit. It probably has a worse MPG in real-world terms.

Biodiesel plants that are specifically designed for it, and that are continuous production (not batch), have been shown to have an EROEI of 6.7 so far.

Typically, more energy from non-renewables goes into making ethanol than comes out. As for bio-diesel, think of this analogy. I have got a material called leadgold, which is much more valuable than the plentiful lead. Of course leadgold contains nuggets of gold, which the clever person will determine is the reason it is more valuable. So replace lead with waste vegetable oil and gold with diesel and you have the wonder fuel called biodiesel. The emperor has no clothes.

WebHubbleTelescope wrote:The average commute is going to be 5 miles each way on a scooter. So at these MPG we will use 1 to 2 cups of gasoline a day per person.

Read this article, then re-compute your math for the amount of gasoline a day per person using this: link

JayHMorrison wrote:And with the higher level of fatalities from bike crashes, that helps to solve the over population issue also.

gg3 wrote:Jay, good find! I'm with you on this one. And I got your humorous nudge about population reduction, as with Hawkcreek's item about curling up & dying.

I wasn't trying to be humorous.