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Originally Posted by Des-Lab
Folks out there have been trying to find viable alternatives to oil since at least the '73 shortage. Everything from more efficient engines to french fry oil to moonshine to algae has been used, all with little or no potential.
Don't you think that if such an alternative existed, we'd be using it?
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Oh, no. Not at all. I deal a fair amount in the Real World, and Real World people do not quit entrenched habits and addictions until they experience some real pain to move them forward.
Ever study anything on how things "advanced" from horses to automobiles? The horses just became too painful to deal with. Mountains of horse-poop, dead horses choking streets in the cities. Only a little over 100 years ago, but all now faded from our cultural memory as we have pretty much turned horses into pets (or meat
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This is an excellent and fun read on that topic >>>
Called Horses to Horsepower.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...TXlEuBz-gi51KA
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Show me something that is not oil based fuel (or requires oil to produce-a key point often left out of the equations) that would
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Okkkkaaayyyy. btw, normally I charge a lot for design work, but since you asked so nice, here we go . . . .
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- Just plain work.
- Allow us to at least maintain our current standard of living
- Be affordable to the masses as opposed to just the limousine Liberal Hollywood elite who are really just posing for the cameras
- Not bankrupt the economy
- Not trade one problem for another (for instance where is all that lithium for those batteries going to come from?)
- Not send us back to the 18th Century in terms of mobility
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Nice List. Really.
Getting the Specifications correct upfront are a very good part of any design.
With Real Life customers, I tell them that I am sort of like a waitress – trying to understand what they want, to make sure it all gets cooked and served they way they would like it. Starts with good specifications.
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Unless your REAL motive is to roll us back a century or two (if it is-just say so), if you can show us how getting off oil is even possible, we're listening.
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Yunno, I would have thought -- what is THAT nutcase going on about? . . . If I had not run across exactly what you are talking about in a genre of characters who nominally describe themselves as "doomers." But no, I am not a doomer, nor great leap backwards type. I suppose they may call me a Techno-Cornucopian, if you are familiar.
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My experience has been that nine times out of ten, when someone wants to "ban oil", what they really MEAN is: "I'm resentful/jealous of the Suburban lifestyle. I can't have it so I want to take it away from those who do".
Well?
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No, actually I make Good Money from Oil. And other energy, as well, but since I do not do Nukes, Oil is the top dollar customer from my side of things. I do Oil related design for wells, distribution, refineries, and instrumentation and controls for the same.
As far as our present life-style, I guess we are a little further out (from the city) than suburban towards what are sometimes called Fringe or Ex-urban, but our location is partly because I am doing Electric Farming projects now, as well, and we landed in a really Good School District (for the kids) -- and we rent relatively cheap, as the higher dollar housing around here is un-sellable.
But now, as far as real work, I am trying to focus mostly on Renewables. Mostly an ethics and long-term life on the Planet thing. We can go into that, but you probably already get it.
But towards your spec list –
Short answer is Grid Powered Electric Roadway and Cars and Trucks.
But let’s do your list?
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Just Plain Work. Ok. Electric anything is generally considered some of the most reliable systems -- I guess maybe other some mechanical/gravity based equipment has higher reliability. Pretty hard to mess gravity up.
In Electric Land, the only recent "really bad design" electrical system I have observed was the back-up Power System (Generators) for the Fukey Nukey in Japan. After the sea water wave hit the back-up generators -- it was pretty much Game Over for them.
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Allow us to at least maintain our current standard of living. I would normally caution that our “current standard of living,” is highly debt based – largely because of Oil. But you already know that and I am sure we can do much better.
Since we would stop losing money to the Transnational Corporation Oil Trade, and would be generating all our own power, here – we all should be doing Much Better.
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Be affordable to the masses. Good on that one, too. A typical Grid-Powered Electric Car should cost about 1/2 of a Internal Combustion Engine, and the “fuel” cost about 1/4, with a service life of around 500,000 or more miles.
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Not bankrupt the economy. I would think the opposite. As we would stop spending money on imported Oil, and probably have near full employment doing the swap toward Grid Powered Roads and Cars, I sort of suspect it would not only not bankrupt US, but probably bring US well out of debt and into profit.
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Not trade one problem for another. Pretty hard and vague spec, there. Like the horse to auto conversion from above -- it cured their Horse Poop problems, but here some 100 years later, we have discovered that cure -- Oil, as it were -- has problems, as well.
Probably some truth in Einstein's observation -- "You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
But I would think, this could cover the next 100 years without any real problems. I suppose the “7-Generations” consideration may be a valid approach on this line of thinking.
By the way, just to jump past the painful exchanges regarding batteries . . . . I never said anything about batteries. That was your entry into the conversation. So you can do the arguments with anyone who wants to talk about batteries. Not my thing. Batteries are not required for a grid-powered roadway system in any fashion greater than the existing batteries which all cars already have.
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Not send us back to the 18th Century . . . If anyone has read down this far, and not hit that Horses to Horse-Power link – go back and look at that, to really get a grip on where we have came from.
But no, I would think this should be Better, Faster, Cheaper, Cleaner, and Safer than our present “fleet” of Oil/Gasoline burners.
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So . . . or “Well,” as you say -- Good Enough?
Or would you like to add to or modify your spec list?
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