Around The Country Without Gasoline

IronChefMorimoto writes "Autoweek has an interesting write up on an Australian man's 16K mile trek around the United States using anything but gasoline to power his variety of alternative fuel vehicles. Featured are bio-diesel Hummers and RVs, a solar-powered canoe, and an excrement-powered scooter." Note that if your car generates electricity, you could conceivably make a few bucks selling juice to the grid at peak hours.

Comments

Re:Better Yet

[bs_testability]

I would seriously try to ride a bike almost everywhere I went if I wasn't in constant fear for my life.

Spurious biodiesel bashing by Autoweek

[YankeeInExile]

I found most interesting that the only vaguely technical discussion of biodiesel in the puff-piece was a bit of bashing:

Biodiesel is more expensive than gas and eats natural rubber hoses and gaskets on older diesel engines.

What the article neglects to mention is that the dino-diesel sold in California also wreaked havoc with older diesel engines, and all left-coasters have already done the trivial job of modernizing their fuel systems.

Re: Killing Muslims

[Hiro Antagonist]

Do I get an invite if I don't think murder is wrong? :D

I got into an interesting argument with a fellow anthropology major[1] about this -- She says that "'Murder is Wrong' is the only 'cultural absolute'", and I say that it's a useless definition, as the definition for 'murder' changes between cultures. You could abstract the statement out to say, 'Killing is wrong in some context in any given culture.', but the definition is still useless -- every single culture has prohibitions on something, and knowing that all cultures have some sort of prohibition against killing in certain contexts is worth Fsck-All, because the definition is so vague.

It's like saying that the corner grocery store is a walk lasting between ten minutes and two years away, maybe. Utterly useless to anyone wanting to get to the grocer.

[1] Note that I'm considering a switch to biochem, mainly because I really hate all the fscking hippies in the Anthro department who can't understand that we aren't going back to teepees and granola.

Re:pedestrian czar needed

[Ricdude]

Sure, exploit our own resources for what, 30 days of oil at best? Remember the real reason for the 55 mph speed limit? To increase gas mileage (much lower wind resistance, as it goes up with the *cube* of velocity), so as to decrease our oil dependency. I know my car gets 42-45 mpg if I commute at 80 mph, and 45-48 if I keep it down to 70. If I could keep it to 55 or 60, I would probably crack 50 mpg. So if we could all just lay off the go pedal a bit, we could all reduce our need for oil, period. Foreign and domestic.

BTW, I think if you check the Sierra Club manifesto, you'll find they would rather we not be dependent on petroleum for energy at all. It's only a little slanderous to claim they "prefer" we remain dependent on the mideast for energy.

We had a wake up call in the '70's with regards to petroleum dependency. We hit the snooze button. Eventually, we will have to wake up and deal with it for real. You can start dealing with it now (drive fuel efficient vehicles, run on biodiesel, E85, live where you can walk or bike to most of your weekly needs), or you can deal with it later. It isn't going to get any cheaper to fix this as time goes on.