A decline in oil production is expected in the next decade by many including myself. A website called "Running on Empty" was constructed to debate the consequences of a true oil shortage. Their debates on this subject are archived on the Yahoo groups website at: Archived Debates http://runningonempty.org/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty2/ Also, the studies of the decline of petroleum supplies are published at the Hubbert Center website, which is affiliated with the Colorado School of Mines: Hubbert Center for Petroleum Supply Studies http://hubbert.mines.edu/ There is no substitute for oil. Few motor vehicles would be on the roads, and not a single aircraft would fly without petroleum fuel. Someday oil supplies will begin to run out, and our current transportation system will undergo profound changes. There are ways of making oil supplies last longer - many are familiar with the usual techie solutions and alternative fuels - but one possibility is consistently overlooked: smaller cars. The car shown below is fully loaded with all the bells & whistles, gets 55 mpg fuel economy, has the handling & acceleration characteristics of a motorcycle, with the added benefit that you can drive it in all-weather conditions including rain, snow, high winds, etc. In the coming years small cars like this may become more popular: http://www.rqriley.com/images/gm-lm2.jpg We can do better still... Presenting Volkswagons One Litre Car - it is a demonstration of fuel economy quadruple that of the most efficient commuter cars in mass production today without any hybridization or alternative fuels: Fuel economy = 227 miles/gallon (100 km/liter) News Article: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=132&art_id=iol1018939702923V142&set_id=4 Images: http://www.iol.co.za/data/picdb/newspic3cbbc9f65e5d7 http://www.iol.co.za/data/picdb/newspic3cbbfd5016d1f http://www.iol.co.za/data/picdb/newspic3cbbfe0a43339 While Volkswagon's One-Liter prototype could be a practical commuter vehicle, there are even greater fuel economy breakthroughs achieved every year by students competing in the SAE Supermileage Competition. On June 25th, 2001 a Supermileage team travelled 640.3 miles on a single gallon of gas, at an average speed of 40 miles/hr, with continuous engine power (without using intermittent engine on - engine off strategy). Their vehicle cost $12,000 (not including labor & assembly time) and used a 2-horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine. It was nicknamed Snoopy and is shown below: http://www.sae.org/news/01supermile.htm http://www.sae.org/images/pictures/sm2001-02x.jpg Smaller vehicles, smaller engines. Reduction is the way to go. Let's face it, this is a motorized vehicle that can go 40 mph and cover a distance of 600 miles on a single tank of gas. That is a lot further & faster than most people will ever get on a bicycle. If fuel ever becomes so scarce that we have to use such vehicles, then that is what we will do. I must say that the construction of these vehicles is so light that their drive systems might be augmented with solar power, such as those that compete in the biennial Sunrayce Competition. The difference of course is that solar powered cars might be more useful in the summer. Also, I would design these vehicles with a modular construction, that would allow the interchange / augmentation of either electric or gas engines. For example, compare the above vehicle with the one shown below: http://formulasun.org/index.html http://solarcar.queensu.ca/Assets/Pictures/home_pic.gif One might imagine a wheel that is driven by a small gas engine, while solar power drives the remaining three wheels electrically. This hasn't been done with these experimental vehicles because of the nature of the competition, i.e. they are only allowed to use solar, or they are only allowed a 2-hp engine, no hybrid powerplants. Also, with the lightweight construction of Supermileage cars, it may be possible to incorporate regenerative braking using simple springs, rubber bands, or compressed air to store the energy. Elastic or compressed gas energy storage mechanisms could have much greater efficiency than the current method that utilizes supercapacitors, allowing faster accelerations in stop-and-go traffic conditions. Supercapacitors have had poor performance, achieving a miserable 10% energy recovery, and are very expensive. Suppose you got a Supermileage vehicle from a mass-produced kit that costs you $1200 if you assemble it yourself. It gets 600 mpg fuel economy. Also suppose the car has the same warranty as most cars, i.e. 3 years or 36,000 km, whichever comes first. If you drive 12,000 km annually (50 km/day) commuting to & from work, then you will only have to gas up your car once per month, and it could only cost you $2.65 each time!!! That's $32 bucks annually for gas. The vehicle would only cost roughly $460 per year set aside to replace the car after the warranty expires. That's less than $500/yr total operating costs! I take the bus & subway. It costs me over $1000 per year. I am what you call a captive customer of public transit. If there is a union strike, a fuel shortage, a bus route cancellation, a subway incident, inclement weather, or any other factor that disrupts service, I have no way of getting to work. Why not ride my bike? Well, I have to travel at least 10 miles to get to work. There are times when I would prefer a small motorized vehicle. Even a recumbant bike with an engine would be acceptable to get me where I need to go, as long as it had an enclosed passenger compartment for all-weather driving. Like I said, most people couldn't travel 6 miles, let alone 600 miles, on a bicycle. Nor could they maintain speeds of 40 mph with peddle-power alone. Suppose I wanted to visit my parents 200 miles away. There is a Greyhound bus that can take me to the town-center bus terminal, but then I have to take a taxi 5 miles (to the outskirts) to where they live. These little cars would not only take me the whole distance at very little cost, but I would still have the freedom to go anywhere I want, on my own time. Considering how little fuel these cars use (a fraction of a litre per day), a hydrogen-burning conversion of these Supermileage vehicles could make home hydrogen refuelling fully achievable. Vehicle size reduction brings us one step closer to a fully renewable energy infrastructure. Fuelmaker Corporation is a company that makes hydrogen and natural gas refuelling stations. For Supermileage commuter cars, it may be possible for people to use similar equipment to produce their own hydrogen on-site (at home) using solar/wind/grid-connected electrolysis, and thereby eliminate the cost of transporting hydrogen from somewhere else. http://www.fuelmaker.com/default.htm REDUCE ---> The 1st principle of the sustainability business.
