E.g., yes, a problem is that it leaks, so you'd have hydrogen constantly leaking in your garage. Whether your roof is sealed tight or not is a moot point when you have a couple percent of your tank's capacity evaporating daily in it. That's a _lot_ more vapour produced than gasoline produces. And you can't just seal the tak shut to keep the vapours in, since the resulting pressure will eventually be tremendous. So you don't want a garrage that's just not sealed shut, you'll want one that's ventilated constantly, even in winter. Otherwise it can jolly well blow up.
I presume the majority of the leak is actually bleeding to maintain a safe operating pressure. In that case you may as well burn the gas, and in that case, as we don't have to worry about the fumes (being water), you may as well just run the engine occasionally. Perhaps the energy generated could power a cryocooler, or make a plug in generator for the house.
Interestingly enough, a recent survey found that owner-builder houses are generally better constructed than professionally built houses. The analogy goes further - owner built houses take on average 10 times longer to complete!
However, all the open source projects I've been involved in have had people paid to work on them.
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.
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.
It is commonly claimed that command economies are bad whilst decentralised greed economies are good. Why is running a large military organisation different?
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?
But between lack of facilities to shower/change at work, 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:) 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).
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.
Lets use 8kWh/day as a base line, as that is what my parents average over a year with their 1.5kW peak array.
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/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). 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.
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.
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...
Or everyone might go to war, or we might as a result have to switch to nuclear powered cars and dump radioactivity everywhere.
Hybrids are an excellent half step because they provide incentive for car companies to improve electrical transmission technology, something we will need if we want to use practically any other energy source. If current theories about oil demand exceeding supply are true (and I can see no reason why they wouldn't be), oil (and thus transportation) prices are going to simply go up. Delaying that by 10 years might buy us enough to avoid world war III.
On the other hand, I haven't been particularly wowwed by hybrid performance, as our $12k car gets the same milage as a $45k hybrid. Personally I choose to commute by bicycle.
Deep till farming causes far more CO2 emissions from damaged soils than burning the oil produces. Use minimal tillage methods and you'll get rid of the energy cost and the extra CO2 in one hit.
it produces more atmospheric nuclear waste every year than all the nuclear accidents to date
That statistic has been discredited. For a start, emissions controls systems on coal powerstations already precipitate heavy metals, secondly the study somehow managed to get its base line numbers for the most radioactive coal on the planet.
Carbon emissions already include the factor of 25 for methane emissions. There is business in collecting waste methane and burning it just to reduce carbon emissions.
Standard fuel injector systems run happily on 85% ethanol. We certainly run ours here on that without trouble. Locally the lower cost of E85 wins over unleaded even taking into account the reduction in fuel efficiency of ethanol.
I never said he owes me anything. As far as I'm concerned, whining users are a cost not a benefit (even moreso silly fanbois who don't even understand the debate). I was merely questioning the rather dubious logic.
Another good example is Sodipodi/Inkscape. Lots of potential there, but I only used it for about an hour before I 'hit the wall' so to speak and became frustrated with its lack of capability.
The fact that you put inkscape and sodipodi in the same class indicates you haven't looked for a very long time. I know a quite a few people who use Inkscape professionally (my work, for example), and some base their business on it and do well. What is this wall you speak of?
WTF does CMYK have to do with a low resolution web comic of dubious artistic talent? It sounds more like Illiad is just looking for an excuse. I've seen some damn fine comics drawn in inkscape by real artists.
Then the grid would work backwards, and we could locate smelters in the remains of old power stations. So the losses would be the same as now, not worse.
Slashdot Mirror
E.g., yes, a problem is that it leaks, so you'd have hydrogen constantly leaking in your garage. Whether your roof is sealed tight or not is a moot point when you have a couple percent of your tank's capacity evaporating daily in it. That's a _lot_ more vapour produced than gasoline produces. And you can't just seal the tak shut to keep the vapours in, since the resulting pressure will eventually be tremendous. So you don't want a garrage that's just not sealed shut, you'll want one that's ventilated constantly, even in winter. Otherwise it can jolly well blow up.
I presume the majority of the leak is actually bleeding to maintain a safe operating pressure. In that case you may as well burn the gas, and in that case, as we don't have to worry about the fumes (being water), you may as well just run the engine occasionally. Perhaps the energy generated could power a cryocooler, or make a plug in generator for the house.
Interestingly enough, a recent survey found that owner-builder houses are generally better constructed than professionally built houses. The analogy goes further - owner built houses take on average 10 times longer to complete!
However, all the open source projects I've been involved in have had people paid to work on them.
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.
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.
It is commonly claimed that command economies are bad whilst decentralised greed economies are good. Why is running a large military organisation different?
I'm also not sure Media-Center or Home versions of XP are a fair trade for OS X.
Ubuntu is free. Check it out. It doesn't work on the macbook yet either, so the dell looks like a better option.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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...
The US DOE disagrees with you. I know who I believe more.
Or everyone might go to war, or we might as a result have to switch to nuclear powered cars and dump radioactivity everywhere.
Hybrids are an excellent half step because they provide incentive for car companies to improve electrical transmission technology, something we will need if we want to use practically any other energy source. If current theories about oil demand exceeding supply are true (and I can see no reason why they wouldn't be), oil (and thus transportation) prices are going to simply go up. Delaying that by 10 years might buy us enough to avoid world war III.
On the other hand, I haven't been particularly wowwed by hybrid performance, as our $12k car gets the same milage as a $45k hybrid. Personally I choose to commute by bicycle.
No idea, look it up, write it up and submit as a slashdot article.
Deep till farming causes far more CO2 emissions from damaged soils than burning the oil produces. Use minimal tillage methods and you'll get rid of the energy cost and the extra CO2 in one hit.
it produces more atmospheric nuclear waste every year than all the nuclear accidents to date
That statistic has been discredited. For a start, emissions controls systems on coal powerstations already precipitate heavy metals, secondly the study somehow managed to get its base line numbers for the most radioactive coal on the planet.
Carbon emissions already include the factor of 25 for methane emissions. There is business in collecting waste methane and burning it just to reduce carbon emissions.
Standard fuel injector systems run happily on 85% ethanol. We certainly run ours here on that without trouble. Locally the lower cost of E85 wins over unleaded even taking into account the reduction in fuel efficiency of ethanol.
You could grow veggies instead of lawn and make even more oil!
I never said he owes me anything. As far as I'm concerned, whining users are a cost not a benefit (even moreso silly fanbois who don't even understand the debate). I was merely questioning the rather dubious logic.
Something that you could do in TeX in about 20 minutes for the first book, and 5 seconds each from then on.
Another good example is Sodipodi/Inkscape. Lots of potential there, but I only used it for about an hour before I 'hit the wall' so to speak and became frustrated with its lack of capability.
The fact that you put inkscape and sodipodi in the same class indicates you haven't looked for a very long time. I know a quite a few people who use Inkscape professionally (my work, for example), and some base their business on it and do well. What is this wall you speak of?
WTF does CMYK have to do with a low resolution web comic of dubious artistic talent? It sounds more like Illiad is just looking for an excuse. I've seen some damn fine comics drawn in inkscape by real artists.
I always found the ablative case a bit wearing.
Then the grid would work backwards, and we could locate smelters in the remains of old power stations. So the losses would be the same as now, not worse.