h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's bad news!

On post 100, I have to agree about that. Still worse, with the American store brand name olive oils, the polygycerides lousy palm oil is being used as an adulterant, producing an unpleasant sweetish odor.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/palm-oil

I'm philosophically opposed to using edible materials for the production of fuels to put in cars. If you want to travel to another place, you have a body which is capable of pumping pedals or swimming or walking. Plenty of choices there. The bicycle is capable of taking you all around the world with no gasoline or ethanol needed. I personally don't ride bicycles, but I walk and swim. I'm getting old, though, so I don't see myself getting rid of my car, though I look forward to the day when cars can get 200 miles per gallon. They will need to, given the realities of the situation...

First the dream, a waking nightmare, e.g., the kind one has while waking from a sound sleep.

I dreamed I'd fallen asleep in a crevice between two twin beds and that the occupants had come to bed bickering, waking me up.

I spoke up at that point, saying that I needed to get up and move. They agreed and got out of their beds.

I tried to get up and and found I couldn't move, tried repeatedly to call for help, found I couldn't do that either. Then I passed out, lost consciousness...

...and woke up.

On alternative fuels, I've also got problems about foodstuffs being diverted to the production. (By the by, if you saw the exploding tires extravaganza of 2009, 2010, shows what happens when the criminally incompetent go diverting ersatz media like linseed oil and corn oil [enamel paint base and linoleum floor tile base] to automotive rubber formulations without being sent to prison, negligent homocide, sub-standard materials.)

On the other hand, hydrogen fuel gives you more power and greater cruising ranges than gasoline or gasohol, weight for weight and volume for volume and the exhaust, captured in a catch tank, is simply plain distilled water suitable for drinking, washing, or watering the plants.

A pilot hydrogen fuel system was developed for Iceland on a basis of automated solar-electric systems that hydrolyze the hydrogen on the spot from water from a water line, you simply swipe your card and make connection from the pump to the fuel tank and fuel.

The big problem with switching people to exotic new technologies is that a lot of people hang onto what they're used to. Did you know that people embraced cars with such tenacity that even during the Great depression, relatively few missed payments on their cars?

Cars will be around in *some* form. Large numbers of people will still want to put gasoline (or gasoline plus ethanol] in the tanks. Therefore, hybrids and/or very high mileage vehicles will go further toward solving the problems than exotic fuels that many people will be afraid of or in some other way outside their comfort zones.

Probably the saddest waste of kinetic energy, to mny mind, is the exercise centers where people walk on treaedmills or pedal stationary bikes. yes, people need exercise, and it is a good thing that so many want to get their exercise, but with energy prices rising relentlessly, those stationary bikes should be hooked up to rotors to generate electricity. If they were hooked up, then the exercisers could get discounts on their health center membersihps, because the health centers could be selling the electricity that was being generated. Plus, most people want to exercise during the day, when demand for power is the highest. I don't see a downside here. But why hasn't someone already thought of it? That puzzles me.

i've been thinking of fitting my exercise bike with a generator. if i don't pedal fast enough my tv won't w*rk

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I am glad that I do not have to pedal my TV!
Mind you, 60 years ago I used to pedal for sport and pedal for fun. Now it would make my old bottom sore. Three cheers for the bus pass.
Please Mr Coalition, do not take my bus pass away, and please don't let me freeze to death this winter just because you have invented something called the " Big Society"
Remember, Mr Coalition, that old age pensioners are, in general, much more valuable than polititions, and love watching free TV when they reach 75, and getting a letter from The Queen when they reach 100.
That is our dream.

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/human-powered/pedal-power/

next we'll be having large hamster wheels in the front room

Can I go and have a lie down now please. I am peddled out!

You're absolutely right about social inertia being a major stumbling block to new technology. The heck of it is that a switch to H2 fuel even now would be cost effective, but the process lacks industry appeal on account of conversion costs to new technology and the point that modular H2 fueling stations represent a local application of technology more than a transportable commodity.

One of the points on which people will switch will be higher performance, an issue with its own negative appeal value in context of sport vehicles. Many people find the thought of 300 mph sports cars on the highways frightening. On the other other hand the higher performance can also mean greater hauling power as well as greater cruising ranges.

I'm frankly amazed the aircraft industry hasn't already begun a shift considering the advantages of H2 fuel in air flight and transport.

One of the other issues impelling a shift already that's already underway is improving resiliency of emergency vehicles fleets against a fuel emergency. An official emergency services fleet dependent on modular H2 will not go down as a petroleum system will in the event of a fuel emergency precisely because the the fuel technology is local technology based rather commodity transport based.

Meanwhile, you can't run H2 in an IC system anymore than you can load up a Civil War era black powder firearm with 20th century cordite and expect it not to explode. Materials upgrades required. This is one of the attractions of gasohol, which provides power in the same range as gasoline and does not require higher performance materials.

One of my favorite ideas in the genre is a tiny electrical generator coupled to the squirrel run in the squirrel cage to provide a flashlight bulb sized night light. Coupled with rechargeable lithium battery storage and a photoelectric on/off switch as with driveway fairy lights it could be quite convenient.

Hmmm...

On post 112, have to agree on that one. Not in the 110F - 120F Coachella Valley weather I'm getting currently.

A lot of this new technology is very hard on squirrels.

The H2 enthusiast has forgotten that hydrogen is so bloody dangerous.

I think we should bring back slavery. It worked for the Romans.

Mind you, that was awfully tough on the slaves.....as it is tough on sqirrels today.

What we really need is magic.

...power generated by the squirrel run routed through the lamp first, before going to the storage battery sump, so they'll always have light available when they want it... ...encourages teamwork...

Hydrogen is very dangerous when used as a flotation gas in lighter than air vehicles but used as a fuel in a modern closed system is no more dangerous than gasoline. Besides, there are people who'll be attracted to the proposition of having 'a hydrogen bomb under the hood'. One could even use that as an advertising gimmick.

Myself, I learned to drive in Nevada back before the age of the 55mph national speed limit, in an era in which there were no speed limits except inside city limits.

...open with a little Stepppenwolf Gold, "...gonna go out on the highway...", follow with "First Gear", then "Lead Foot", Grateful Dead, "Cruisin'"...

...for highways most of the remainder of the world, the music of Nelson Riddle...

I fear that I've driven some of my friends outside their comfort zones. That wasn't my intention. I just figured that people are going to pedal stationary bikes *anyway*, so society might as well benefit from it. I'm not asking people who don't currently pedal to start doing it.

There are vehicles that run on compressed air. The tricky part is compressing the air in the first place. Electric cars are hampered by the relatively low capacity of batteries to store the electricity. The batteries that can store more power are also much heavier, which reduces the vehicle's efficiency. In order to produce lightweight batteries, you run into problems of expense with rare minerals. New technologies can be developed, but it's a race against time.

I saw a picture of a car that was powered by two people who were pedalling together. Fine, but hardl;y as restful as the type of car we are all sued to.