Slashdot Mirror
A Solar Race Around the World
garzpacho writes "In Switzerland, two teams are vying to be the first to circle the globe in a solar powered vehicle--one team in a boat, the other in an airplane. The boat, a two person trimaran, is the brainchild of PlanetSolar, who hopes to circumnavigate the world In 80 days. Solar Impulse is fielding the single-pilot plane, which will be capable of taking off under its own power and flying all night. Both groups hope to bring greater attention to solar power, which they believe is more appropriate for alternative transportation than for automobiles."
To heat and power a house, sure. But to power a vehicle? I'm not sure. Wouldn't that require a lot of energy collecting to get to a decent speed or produce power? I understand that the sun is out for a while so It's an almost constant power sour ce.
Maybe for a tram system where the power can go to both the engine and the track?
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Solar powered airplanes make a lot of sense, since they fly above the cloud layer. During a day flight, they're exposed to a lot of sun. If plane could use this energy to fly, it could cut down on the amount of fuel required to fly. Obviously you'd carry a full fuel load because you don't want to be caught in a bind if the solar cells fail, but imagine the savings if you could reduce fuel consumption by something like 30% during day flights.
Literally.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the wind "solar powered"? So humankind has been circumnavigating the globe in "solar-powered" boats for many centuries!
Note: I know some wind currents are driven by the earth's rotation, but the earth rotates because it's orbiting the sun, right? Still solar-powered!
I was thinking about building an automated solar plane that could stay up for weeks, but apparently it's very hard to do with current tech. There was an article a while back about such a plane, but they cheated by using thermals(bubbles of hot rising air heated by the ground) for lift and only stayed up for a couple days. As the energy to weight ratio of batteries improves, it should become easier.
If you want the links in english instead of having to click on the little EN..
l
http://www.solar-impulse.com/scripts/page7655.htm
http://www.planetsolar.org/planetsolar.en.shtml
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
...who hopes to circumnavigate the world In 80 days...
Does anyone else feel pain when reading that?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Everyone knows solar power is *WAY* more available during the day!
Wouldn't it be cheaper, faster, and more efficent to just use a sailboat instead of a solar-powered craft?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Solar Impulse is fielding the single-pilot plane, which will be capable of taking off under its own power and flying all night.
If you're flying around the world, couldn't you arrange it so it's always daytime?
---
watch funny commercials
Ok I'm bored and am going to complain about a slashdot summary - yes I know...
"Both groups hope to bring greater attention to solar power, which they believe is more appropriate for alternative transportation than for automobiles."
What? That doesn't make any sense. How does a plane flying around the world or a boat floating around the world affect my commute? I don't know about you guys but solar vs gas isn't what stops me from driving a boat or plane to work. That would be cool, commutes would be fun instead of boring traffic, though I bet if everyone did it there would be crashes galore (especially the planes). Plus - why do we have to choose solar power or cars - what I want a solar powered car?
To be fair, one of the teams (boats), for some reason seems to make this comparison. I doubt there are many places where what they say is feasable. I don't care how effecient solar boats are - I can't drive one to work and I bet very very very few people in the whole freaking world can (of course, there are some - but then I bet alot of them do so to avoid traffic. It's no big deal to hit 60-70 in a boat and no traffic, not to mention the "fun" factor. I know I would do so in a heart beat).
As to what the parent article said - I don't see why this makes a difference in perception. I find the challenge pretty neat and plan to follow it (no problems there - great geeky/tech story), but making it happen doesn't really change my commute in any way. Jeese, a wind powered boat made a world wide traversal a few hundred years ago (continent to continent a few thousand years ago) - doesn't make wind powered cars any more useful or practical. A solar transversal isn't going to change much either. Again - not that I don't think this is useful or neat (anything that advances our understanding is worth it - I'm fully aware that solving thier problems may lead to some great advances and wish them great success - I want to see our dependancy on oil vanish for a variety of reasons), if thier goal is to raise perception of solar powered commute this isn't the way.
Back to geeking out - my bet is on the plane. Unless it's *really* slow I can't see it beating the boat. Especially given the plane can fly a fairly straight line (even with air space restrictions) compared to the boat. As to which will be made first - my bet is the boat. If the motor fails you still get to float, a plane loosing power is deadly.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Isn't that how Desmond got stuck on the Island? Maybe we should be tracking these guys...
That is an urban legend: Solar panel on houses, for example, redeem their production costs after about 2 years (at most, depending on quality of the solar cells)
According to prophecy
Didja take a look at that website about the solarplane? All kinds of mumbo about "pushing the envelope", and by the language, it's pretty clear that anything resembling construction is a *long* way off.
But, any dolt could take a nice, efficient catamaran, replace the sales with a solar rigging and a trolling motor, load the boat down with some MREs, and start sailing.
Not saying it'd be pleasant, but I'd rather sit on a Hobicat than try to get through the night in an ultralight plane knowing that battery life would just *barely* make it through the night, with almost no margin for error. (and yes, I'm a pilot)
The kind of aspect ratio they're talking about would be mighty difficult to fly, since it would be very prone to flutter, and the difference between the cruising speed and the stall speed would be almost negligable!
Not to mention having to be both very lightweight and also very strong...
Scary!
Better to fuel up a general aviation craft on butanol call it "green" and be done with it! Really, when you read up on it, butanol is some seriously cool stuff.
1) It mixes freely with gasoline
2) It burns like gasoline, in cars unmodified,
3) It can be made from corn, wheat, cheese whey, just about any agricultural product or byproduct.
4) It handles moisture much better than ethanol.
5) It's possible to extract more energy (in BTU) as butanol from corn then as ethanol.
Seriously, the fuel of the future for the United States is here, and it's butanol. (Bio-Diesel is probably more appropriate for Europe, where they have many more diesel cars than the US which is almost all gasoline-powered)
Just as green, and much easier on the pilot!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Sorry, but I can't get up the slightest bit of excitement for a "solar" boat... First of all because they've been wind-powered for quite a lot longer than they've been diesel-powered. Secondly, because the ocean doesn't have any minimum speed-limit, so ANY ammount of energy will eventually get them where they are going (like a solar-powered blimp). And last but not least, because boats need a tremendous ammount of maintenance (unlike cars), which is where the bulk of the operating expense is... not the fuel (unlike cars).
The solar powered airplane sounds like a great idea, until you read that it has to FALL all night long to maintain its airspeed... That strikes me as being quite impractical for anything but an exhibition. So... interesting, but not showing how practical solar-powered planes can be.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
When I read that title, the first thing I thought of was Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Wind from the Sun," which details a race between space ships driven by solar wind.
ANYWAY. Haven't first thought of that, I then read the article, and somehow what they're proposing just pales in comparison.
If one airplane is above the other one does that mean they might go faster because the light that bounces off the bottom one will hit their plane faster than regular light?
Uh, no they don't. It takes about 8-9 years. Costs are more than just raw panels. They include inverters, installation, integration, and more, IN ADDITION to solar panels, which have recently gone up in price significantly. Besides, no one puts aerospace-grade panels on houses due to high costs involved. And even if they did, the increase in efficiency would not cover for the increased purchase cost. I challenge you to prove me wrong.
A blog like any other.
To add to the other poster, a solar pannel requires more engery to produce it than it will EVER make assuming a 10-20 year lifespan (very optimistic).
I've seen what happens when you enter a solar race...
you get stuck on some island in the middle of the pacific and have to push some stupid button every 108 minutes...
The best way for alternative fuel sources to become popular is for them to become economically viable. By buying a hybrid engine (a hybrid car, for example), you are providing downward pressure on fossil fuel demand, and normal supply-and-demand economics tells us that this will provide downward pressure on fuel prices.
Hybrids are a "half step" toward alternate energy sources. We need full steps. Want to help save the planet? Buy an SUV. Crank up those gas prices. This will help the case for alternate energy sources, by making them more economically attractive.
Same goes for Hybrid airplanes.
What do you think, can I win this argument?
Moon buggy. :)
FRA: STFU GTFO
All I can think of of Peter Griffin flying past the kitchen window in a plane, laughing.
What I'd like to see is an "open source" methodology.
If you want to make something happen in say, Linux, you can look at what someone else has already done, then tweak it to make it do what you need it to do. With our advances in bio-tech, surely there must be a future in bio-engineering some specific plant life to produce high amounts of usable energy. I know that there are bacteria that produce h2 etc. but the scale is insufficient.
What I imagine is, a plant that converts prodigious amounts of energy (ie bamboo can grow 6 feet in a day) and subverting that energy so that instead of producing growth, it produces a chemical that can be used to directly power an engine of some variety. An engine is defined as something that converts energy into work done.
In the end, we need a symbiosis to fulfill our transportation requirements. Back in the days, man used a horse or a cow, to pull a cart. The animal got its food from grazing grass which got its energy directly (but not completely) from the sun.
So why can't we follow that approach ? Utilise a very efficient system that nature has "designed" and subvert it to our own ends. After all, fossil fuels are only stored solar power.
Taking nanotech into account, it may be possible to create a muscle structure that when it is working generates an amount of electrical current. The muscle would get its "nutrition" from the chemical produced by the bio-engineered plant. The plant would get its energy from the sun. We could foster the initial growth of the plant in the ocean or tanks (for safety) much like an algae bloom, so we would only have to fill our "tanks" with a green goop once a month for example. The extra compounds the plant needs to survive (minerals etc) would be provided by the dead goop we have already used (think ginger beer plant). We still have to utilise the electrical energy more efficiently of course, but our motors are getting pretty good.
I realise this is all probably very naive, and I'm not a scientist in any way, at all ! But it seems to me that all our thinking has been towards shortcuts, ie. sun -> solar panel -> power instead of taking the natural route of sun -> plant -> food -> animal -> power.
We need to aim at creating a living system.
Maybe I'm talking out of my ninth planet, but the saying "haste makes waste" seems to apply as solar panels aren't very efficient.
Of course, you could say that my ideal involves many more stages and so is less efficient, but each stage would be as close to maximum efficiency as nature has got to already.
I'll get my coat.
The US DOE disagrees with you. I know who I believe more.
Next time you tank remember, it is all natural.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hindenburg :s
Because you can - or because you should?
it was like this with the earlier generations. Now the production uses less energy.
Clorophyl the stuff you see in the leaves of most plants use sunlight to generate energy. In fact, the plants have mastered the art of converting sunlight to energy which helps them grow. Why not use the same thing to power our machines ?
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
God, that's the old myth. It is tiresome. That is definitely not true for large solar panels, the energy payback is a couple of years.
Very funny Rex.
Because everything the government says is true, right?
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Okay, I hate to be a party pooper but sailboats won this races a few hundred years back. Winds are generated by the sun warming up the air, sailboats use this power to generate forward momentum. IE. Solar powered. A solar cell vehicle has to transform the suns energy twice before it is turned into forward momentium (Sun's radiation > Electrical > mechanical) so the systems aren't all that different or more complex. Sailboats just use the free energy that is already avalible.
I think this goes under "Pointless displays of useless technology"
Equatorial circumference of Earth ~ 25,000 mi
Duration of day = 24 hrs
Duration of "light" ~ 12 hrs
To get peak Sun ("noon") the whole flight time, the plane would have to clip along at:
25,000 mi / 24 hr ~ 1040 mph
Dawn to dusk:
25,000 mi / 36 hr ~ 700 mph
Note: C = 25,000 mi is actually at ~83,000 ft.
yep. Though I'm not convinced about oil shales (they are more a way to convert low grade heat into oil). And there is climate change to worry about too...
While I think you are right... there is a question of whether or not we should tap into Oil Shales. That does not solve the problem or releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere. Incidently for folks who are not aware of the oil shales its worth the time to google about it. The largest known deposits dwarf the middle east and they are in the Rockies so Canada and the US are sitting on it. Production becomes profitable around $40 a barrel if memeory serves so they are in the middle of some serious ramping up of production. Gas prices will get worse... but we are already well beyond the worst sustainable price with known alternatives. We probably will never see sub dollar a gallon but we should be able to get back under 2 and stay there for a while. There is a similar technology with coal but the sustaining price is a good bit higher... not sure if we have hit that point or not.
Your idea about plugins being charged from home solar arrays is nice but rather unrealistic. Solar panels have a hard enough time just powering a house much less a car. To give you an idea think of it this way. The average home consumes somewhere around 15 kw-hr a day. That is 50hp for 30 minutes.... just enough that it might cover the average commute from a midsized sedan but not much else... and you would still need power for the house. Size of the array is cumbersome in both cases... about 5000 sq ft for an array that can deliver 15 kw-hr in a day at current tech. Bump up panel efficiency, lower cost per watt, make more power stingy electric cars, and you might be able to do it. But for now its a pipe dream.
I have hopes for bio-diesel and ethanol. Though the source for ethanol has to come from a higher yield source than corn. There have been some studies into switchgrass and perhaps a genetically engineered bug/algea or something with massive yields that could make it more than sustainable but could in fact drive energy prices into the floor without overly impacting our usage of farm land. My reservation about bio fuel is the mixing of our food supply and energy supply in land useage. That is something that will make us even more dependent on current climate norms. A bad year with crops could mean soaring fuel AND food costs. Combined with the super scare stories regarding the rapid loss of genetic deversity in crops and its not a pleasant thought.
Hydrogen has a bigger problem than storing it... in fact I think worrying about storage now is akin to putting the cart before the horse and counting chickens before they hatch all combined. We have to find a way to generate the stuff that makes it feasible as a means of energy storage first. Right now the only real possible answer is nuclear power where hydrogen is used as a power storage method. Solar might help but I doubt it is ever going to be a solid primary power source... unless perhaps the conversion efficiencies get on up around theoretical max.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Given that fossil fuels are just biologically condensed solar power, I'm not sure there's room for a "first" here.
For that matter, wind is driven by differential heating of the Earth's atmosphere by the Sun, so Magellan might have a claim on being first with the boat variant.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Your idea about plugins being charged from home solar arrays is nice but rather unrealistic. Solar panels have a hard enough time just powering a house much less a car. To give you an idea think of it this way. The average home consumes somewhere around 15 kw-hr a day. That is 50hp for 30 minutes.... just enough that it might cover the average commute from a midsized sedan but not much else... and you would still need power for the house. Size of the array is cumbersome in both cases... about 5000 sq ft for an array that can deliver 15 kw-hr in a day at current tech. Bump up panel efficiency, lower cost per watt, make more power stingy electric cars, and you might be able to do it. But for now its a pipe dream.
Yet people who do this sort of analysis professionally say that a 1.5kW peak array can offset the CO2 emissions of a car. Bikes are a better solution though.
Would be curious to see their thinking. 1.5 kw peak is all of 2 hp. Peak time per day is generous at 6 hours which is 9 kw-hr per day. Barring something like 10 such arrays per vehicle in use I do not see how that could be expected to reduce carbon emissions equivalent to what cars produce.
An average car engine puts out 100hp easy. While you don't use that full power often you do use on average around 20hp to sustain highway speeds and a good bit of it during acceleration. Even at idle you have an engine producing better than 5hp that is doing nothing but sitting there. Granted electrics solve some of those problems but unless you want to drive something on the order of a solar racer you are still going to drive something requiring a bit more juice than a 1.5 peak array is going to provide you.
Moving a ton or more of mass at 40-65mph is a very energy intensive task. Electrics have not been overly successfull at reducing the amount of weight needed in a safe car because of the current limitations of battery technology. Hybrids in fact are HEAVIER than their non hybrid kin.
Feel free to proove me wrong and point me to these people in the know claiming a 1.5 peak array will be enough to replace carbon emissions from cars. I happen to have devoted a fair amount of time to this issue myself though I claim no special status. I am fairly certain of myself when I say the idea that a single such array would counteract a single car is perposterous. a 1.5 peak with 6 hours of peak time would only drive the average vehicle down the highway for less than 30 minutes.... and thats only if they had an electric drive. I might be enough to reduce by a significant fraction... half at best. But not all.
I wish bike commuting was more practical.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Solar need not mean solar panels. It's trivially easy to make a number of large flat surfaces of relativly reflective stuff, point them at a heat engine and get your power that way.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Lets use 8kWh/day as a base line, as that is what my parents average over a year with their 1.5kW peak array.
/day, which is 3 times what my parents get out of their array (note here that cars are rarely more than 15% efficient at converting petrol energy to motion).
A simpler and smarter way to work out the numbers is to use the fuel itself:
my wife's car uses 20L/week when she commuted to work (she now catches the train).
20L*(8.76kWh/L)/7 = 25kWh
I'm not sure what difference using purely electrical cars might have, but some conversions:
the GM EV1, by all accounts a very nice car to drive, averaged 0.19 kWhr/mile, our 8kWh would thus give 42 miles/day, which is certainly further than any of my collegues drive commuting.
However, the claim was that PV could offset the CO2 of a single car. Our local power requires 1.3kg CO2/kWh, or 10kg offset per day. That's 70kg CO2/week, or 20kg C/per week. That's more than 20L of petrol (perhaps close to 40L of petrol)!
The basic message is still however that we need to reduce our addiction to cars and cheap energy.
Bike commuting is perfectly practical, people just don't want to do it. Combined with suitably designed public transport and I suspect people would actually rather use it than cars (oh so more convenient - I can ride to my office rather than parking a km away and walking that instead).
I propose special low 'buses' with a ramp at each end and parking bays for bikes angled up the middle with a ramp towards the side. When people want to get on the bus slows down and people ride up the ramp at the rear into a parking bay. When they get off they just ride off the front of their parking bay (even while the bus is moving slowly)
Longer links might be connected by trains that hop 50km or more at a stretch, travelling at high speed (say 350km/hr) with suitable loading system for bikes (hopefully ride on/off).
However, even with all this in place, people are going to drive because the habit is so ingrained.
Bikes are practical within a certain scope. But between lack of facilities to shower/change at work, suburban commute distances, and Inclement weather it has severe limitations. Hell inclement weather can take out whole seaons in some areas (harsh winters). And lack of driver awareness can make it a daily life endangerment. Sure these things can be overcome. But until they are then biking remains in many areas (particularly here in the US) very unpractical. You would have to be suicidal to bike my commute to work as the most direct route invovles several miles on a 6 lane road (not highway) and several major intersections populated by cell phone talking IDJOTS who can barely tell they are trying to merge into a hummer much less a schwinn. And there is no alternative route that is any better. They all have to deal with the overpass somewhere not to mention most of them add several miles to the ride.
Reagarding your numbers. Kind of curious what kind of car that was. Considering you are talking liters and klicks I gather European. 5.25 gallons a week for commuting is a good bit better than the average here. And 42+ miles a day isn't very uncommon for my colleagues. I know several that have that to cover one way. In fact the biggest problem with most Electric vehicle ideas here is that they would have extremely small margians on the daily range for many people's commutes. I have one of the shortest commutes of anyone I work with at about a 20 mile round trip.
However, had never really looked into the numbers for coal to provide Kw-hr and resulting carbon emissions. I suppose in that sense such an array could manage to replace a higher percentage than I thought of a single car... just not the same as saying it would be sufficient to power a car. now if they would just get the cost per watt for panels down....
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
But between lack of facilities to shower/change at work,
:) We get about 6.5L/100km, thus we're talking about 300km travel per week. That's 60km/day or 40 miles. I doubt anyone needs a bigger car for commuting to work (I'm not talking about tradesmen or taxis or whatnot), indeed motorcycles are quite adequate for most travel (after perhaps solving the weather problem with a cowl).
easily fixable.
suburban commute distances,
Chicken and egg.
and Inclement weather it has severe limitations. Hell inclement weather can take out whole seaons in some areas (harsh winters).
With modern fabrics I don't see this as being a problem. wind is a problem, but that is fixable by suitable bike-road design (screening trees, bike-tube type things, etc). I've riden in -20C in canada on a still day and still got hot and sweaty.
And lack of driver awareness can make it a daily life endangerment.
What is the relative dangers of cycling vs driving? Most fatal bike accidents are caused by cars, if more people rode this would tend to drop. I'm sorry that your goverment made stupid decisions about transportation, it will probably cost a lot to fix, perhaps involving dramatic loss of living standards in the process. Perhaps you could join a group to try and fix the problem?
Considering you are talking liters and klicks I gather European.
Actually, it is a Toyota starlet, a 6 year old hatchback made here. A surprising number of countries use litres... most in fact
now if they would just get the cost per watt for panels down....
Yep, people often mistakenly wish for higher efficiency, but in fact lower $/W is more useful on earth.
easily fixable.
You expect me to stuff a suit into a backpack? When you work in blue jeans and a t-shirt, sure, go for it. But I don't.
suburban commute distances,
Chicken and egg.
So what is the solution to this? Spend billions in infrastructure on something that most people are *unwilling* to use? I'm an avid cycler (I'm doing my first sprint triathlon this year), but even *I* don't want to bike 20+ miles back and forth to work every day...
And as a computer consultant, my customers are all over the place. I can't move near *all* of them... Not everyone is a consultant, but people change jobs a *lot* faster than they change houses...
and Inclement weather it has severe limitations. Hell inclement weather can take out whole seaons in some areas (harsh winters).
With modern fabrics I don't see this as being a problem. wind is a problem, but that is fixable by suitable bike-road design (screening trees, bike-tube type things, etc). I've riden in -20C in canada on a still day and still got hot and sweaty.
So I'm going to ride 20+ miles to work in four inches of snow? How about on ice? Here in Michigan, last winter notwithstanding, it is *typical* to have a *number* of snowstorms of at *least* 4 inches of snow, not to mention frequent freeze/thaw cycles that leave patches of ice everywhere. I don't know that Pearl Izumi is going to be able to fix that problem... Cars can drive through 4" of snow--even unplowed. Bikes can't: not practically, anyway.
Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
It was spinning when it formed so it'sa gonna keep spinnin 'till something big enough comes along to stop it.
That "something big enough" is already here. It's called tides. The difference in the force of gravity on the near and far side of the moon have locked it into a 1:1 rotation:orbit configuration with the earth. The same will eventually happen with the earth and the sun. Of course, it will take a much longer time, but barring external influences, it will happen.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Calm down, you need a chill pill! Your concerns are very superficial, mostly indicating unwillingness to change lifestyle. I know people who ride to work and wear a suit. They've solved the problem (and are thus perhaps smarter than you).
Snow and ice is a problem, but I can think of 3 different solutions off the top of my head. Perhaps you should read what I wrote again?
Or perhaps you could have read more carefully what I initialy stated. Yes your right that these issues can be overcome to a great extent. But the fact remains that currently those changes are not in place. And they require far more than just an individuals desire. Sure it all starts with one person... but it would take a massive change in current culture for it to become anywhere near as plausible as you seem to make it out to be.
I do think you dismiss the impacts of weather a bit to blithely. So you can deal with -20c great. You going to honestly say a majority of people will EVER consent to that so long as a car or similar is a valid alternative? Major infrastucture projects shielding the worst of the weather are currently pipe dreams. When they happen great but I am not holding my breath. Yes you can bike with suits. But it requires suitable facilities at work and the time to use them. All which begin to add up against the bike. Bikes sometimes can make for a faster commute but more often than not they lead to longer times. Toss in longer to recover (showering/changes of clothing etc...) and you have a possibility to suck away a great deal of your day just getting places. This is not a very appealing aspect here. And getting such facilities at work are far from 'easy to resolve'. And all that is before you even consider the days when anything short of a fully sheltered option like a tunnle system is going to work for a bike... conditions under which you hardly think twice with a car.
Yes car/bike intermingling accidents are the major cause of biking fatalities. That is the whole point. IF everyone rode bikes that wouldn't happen. And if wishes were wings bull frogs wouldn't bump there ass when they jumped. For me to decide I am going to bike means that I am going to go forth as an extreme minority and place myself in mortal danger every single day. No thankyou. My biking adventures will stay on rockin single tracks.
Can biking become a more practical option for people ? Certainly. Is it now in many areas of the US ? Not really. Do I wish that were not the case ? You betcha. And I am willing to do quite a bit to try and change that... but risking my own life and limb plays no part in it. Its dangerous enough just driving a car.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
I think it's fair to say that any change requires a great deal of work. Sometimes we have the stick already set up (such as increasing costs), but I don't think people will change for future gain without a very big stick. People in general would rather a short term gain with a long term consequence than the other way around (and this is rational to some extent - the long term thing might not happen. look up risk-adverse).
You summed up your position in the last paragraph:
Can biking become a more practical option for people ? Certainly. Is it now in many areas of the US ? Not really. Do I wish that were not the case ? You betcha. And I am willing to do quite a bit to try and change that... but risking my own life and limb plays no part in it. Its dangerous enough just driving a car.
This tells me that you are risk adverse and unwilling to push for change. That's fine, it means we can never agree on some things. I believe that cycling can make up say 70% of total transportation (by passenger, perhaps 1% by energy) without redesigning our cities. Evidence in my environment is that it is happening already. You believe this is impossible in your environment, I can't really say - as you point out, I perhaps dismiss weather too much (I random person asked me the other day when I was standing outside in a teeshirt how I could survive when he was wearing two jackets, gloves and beanie). On the other hand, when large numbers of people work in one place they might spend 15 minutes outside anyway getting to their car (last night I beat my collegues to a restaurant because they spent most of their travel time walking to their car).
I disagree that cycling commuting can take longer. It takes longer if you count it as only transportation. But I believe in big picture analysis. You say that showering takes up time, but it takes time wherever you do it. I shower at work after riding in, you presumably do it at home instead (so work pays my hot water and shower cleaning bills too). If you worked where I do, you'd spend 20 minutes driving each day. I spend 40 minutes riding. But to maintain your fitness you might need to spend 40 minutes in a gym somewhere, or go riding for hours each weekend.
Whilst riding I interact with my surrounds - I meet the same people riding to their words, chat with pedestrians at the rail crossing while waiting for the trains to pass, smell the yummy smells from the food factories etc. When I drive I'm focused on a->b and there is no opportunity for community growth.
Another interesting benefit of riding to work is that I can use the bike whilst at work - riding around to distance offices, something which many people have clued on to as a time saver. Whilst my collegues might spend 1 hour each day walking around between buildings, I can cut that down to say 20 minutes.
Roads are dangerous in general. Most of this is due to car drivers (if you look at accidents caused by cars, they generate far more than the percentage they represent on the road). One solution is to discourage any use of the roads except for cars (and trucks). This is where the US went. Another solution is to discourage the use of cars (this is where many european and south american cities went). I prefer the feel of the latter, apparently you prefer the former.
So in summary, sure, a car is very comfortable, and I wouldn't be without access to one. But I don't think most trips need be done in a car. I think that too strong an emphasis on car access leads to unpleasant cities like LA and huge urban sprawl. I think that with our improving network access and smarter resource allocation systems we can avoid many common trips (such as picking up goods), build more specialised vehicles for each use and use pedal power wherever it make sense. We have barely touched the surface of bike designs (heck, recumbents are still only an expensive toy).
But we are different, as you say in your sig. And I'm asking that you don't try and expect me to be like you.
Eh actually I think we agree quite a bit. Only thing I really disagreed in with in what you just said was that I was risk adverse and your suggestion that I preffer it this way. I most ceratainly do not preffer it this way... as for risk adverse, If not wanting to get scraped out of some cell phone chatting soccer moms suv radiator is being risk adverse then I am guilty as charged.
All I was pointing out was the current reality where I live (and it is similar in many areas of the US) is not the same as where you do... which you point out as well. This is not something I chose. It is something which I have little power to change. I go against the current where it is reasonable to do so and am considered quite an odd duck around here cause I *gasp* will actually walk somewhere. Hell I walked a 1/3rd of the AT one summer and people around here don't think its neat... they think its a sign of severe mental illness.
Perhaps the biking experience here is just something you have to experience for yourself to understand. But to give you some idea that I am not somone scared of a little road rash it might help to know that I have lived in places where bikes shared the road with cars and I had no problem being out in traffic then (steamboat springs colorado). My Brother lives there and visits here (huntsville alabama... middle america incorporated) and he will also not ride in traffic here (or atlanta where we grew up) because for the most part it requires a death wish to do so. Biking is his main form of transportation. Hell even walking in places like this is a real life game of Frogger.
Simply put Biking in US urban sprawl is often darwin award worthy. Please come try it some time.
I would love to change this. I am the loose screw around here. But I am one very lonesome voice in a society that will drive to the end of their driveway to get the fricken mail. Methinks it will take an awful lot of time before any change is noticed. Perhaps my grand children will reap the benefits. As is my generation is going to tell horror stories of driving two blocks to get the milk without air conditioning.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Ok, I think you are right - we are agreeing violently. I also now recall my last trip to the US, Seattle. The whole place is designed on the assumption that you drive. It seemed that people would drive from one shop to the next. I guess I think it will probably change either because people make informed choice, or because they can't afford to drive so much anymore.
Thanks for the interesting discussion - I always enjoy an argument where I learn something.