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The Hybrid Scooter
anthemaniac writes "Hybrid cars are all the rage. Now comes a hybrid scooter. It gets beyond ethanol and lots of batteries, though, running on a hydrogen fuel cell that charges a battery. During braking, energy is also harnessed. All this and speedy too, says inventor Crijn Bouman of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. For now, however, the prototype lacks one crucial component: the hydrogen fuel cell! It's coming, Bouman says. Yes, just like $5/gal gas..."
Remember all of those pictures of millions of Chinese riding their bikes to work? Now they are buying cars instead. Soon, many Americans will be wishing they could ride their bikes to work.
I'll really start worrying when I can't afford gas for my moped.
If before the war in Iraq the US would have taken even a small part of the money spent on it, the entire economy would have been well on its way to becoming hydrogen based. According to the US government itself, by 2010 $570 billion will have been spent on the "war on terror" (http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/051006/w100670.html). If one hydrogen refueling station were to cost $10 million each, each city on the continent could have at least one built by the government itself. Even adding the need for new electricity generation, it would still cost less than the "war on terror"
Then the dependence on foreign oil and its associated conflicts would have decreased significantly. And since the US is still the world's largest economy, this would have had a domino effect throughout the rest of the world, if only because of the economies of scale would be taken care of.
I know this is a naive way of looking at the issue, but it was still a missed opportunity. And it will keep happening untill there are no other alternatives. The oil companies are generating HUGE proffits due to high oil prices and our dependence on it. The domestic car manufacturers cannot afford the R&D costs associated to switching over to fuel cells. And the consumers themselves do not want change, and will continue driving V8 monsters for as long as they can afford it.
Here in Shanghai and everywhere in China, you can buy for an electric bicycle or scooter for less than $200 US dollars after some bargaining.
They're everywhere in Japan as well, especially the "secondary motor" bicycle kind, where you still pedal and the motor gives you extra help for inclines or headwinds. They extend the range, you don't get sweaty, and they're very cheap to buy and run - the drive system doesn't actually need to be able to push the bike all by itself afer all, so the whole package is small and light.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I'm reasonably certain that you'd be safer in most of the offerings from a certain swedish brand of cars recently bought by Ford than you'd ever be in an Escalade.
SUVs don't make you safe, it only makes you bigger and gives you more kinetic energy to get rid of. Sure, it'll trump a 1980s Ford Escort, but that's not because an SUV is safe, it's because the Escort is shitty. http://www.euroncap.com/ runs a good testing program and you might note that a Toyota Prius gets a better safety rating than a Jeep Grand Cherokee.