312. SOLAR POWERED CARS AND FARM TOOLS
This is some great stuff from Iver over at peakoil.com. Iver and his buddies up in Maine are a bunch of mad geniuses, out to prove that "YOU DON'T NEED OIL" (See #311 below). These two videos are old-school yankee ingenuity at its finest, and will give you a clearer vision of what the oil-free, high-tech future looks like.
First is John Howe with his solar powered tractor and chainsaw. Guess we're going to have some mechanization on the post-oil farm after all!
Second is Art Haines with his solar powered car. This video is awesome and constitutes conclusive proof that you don't need any fossil fuel at all to get from point A to point B. It also shows the amazing benefit of driving in "cars" that look like glorified 4-wheel bicycles. Although I imagine the Americans may balk at the idea of traveling in such vehicles. In the American mind, you're not actually getting from point A to point B if you're not encased in 6,000 pounds of superfluous metal and upholstery. That 6,000 pounds is part of their "standard of living" doncha know -- although in this case, a better term might be "standard of stupidity".
Just imagine how bummed Jim Kunstler is going to be when the solar car is all the rage in Las Vegas and Phoenix! :P
by JD
posted by JD @ 10:01 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
The other day, I was standing on the sidewalk outside the grocery here in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. I saw a family of three (including a small child) get in this funky little three wheeler that I think must have been motorcycle based. They must have either been breaking a car seat law or a helmet law, but nevertheless, it looked like fun.
Hey JD, its nice to see one of the old voices of reason back in this counter-culture echo chamber. Welcome back. Thanks for posting that video on John Howe's solar vehicles and saw. Incidentally, electric bikes are becoming all the rage now on the racing circuit...to the point that many folks don't think that ICE bikes will be able to keep up in 5 years. IOW, the electric vehicle movement is starting to make inroads based on the inherent performance edge.
Yup, it looks like we're coming around full-circle to electric vehicles...much to the doomers' collective chagrin. Solar+nuclear+wind+niche biofuels = the post fossil fuels era. It can't come soon enough!
Nice videos.
But to clear one thing up: that aint no tractor. It's a golf buggy. I don't see it pulling a toothpick through a field, let alone a plough, even on a sunny day. It will have a power of maybe 100[W] continuously in direct sunlight. That's not one-seventh of one hp.
It's a personal transportation vehicle for the lazy or elderly (or both). It has 0 industrial significance.
The solar powered car is funky though, I'll grant you that. When they become commercially available (and you're right: they most certainly will) then I might even get one if they are not more than 20 times as expensive as a second hand motorcycle. Not much use in hauling a week's worth of groceries though, especially on those cold, rainy, and cloudy days when you need a car most...
JD, I see that a complete lack of critical thinking is one of your charming attributes, along with your total innumeracy.
peak energy density of solar = 1kW/m2 (very, very generously assuming high noon on a cloudless day in a southern latitude)
let's call that contraption 4m^2
current realized efficiency of PV is around 10%.
so you're looking at 400W, about half a horsepower, and it doesn't work on cloudy days. Looks like we're going back to horses when the oil runs out.
It's hard to tell if your blog is parody or if you really are as stupid as you appear to be. If you are one of the internet's premier peak oil denialists, then peak oil must be a grave threat indeed.
"This video is awesome and constitutes conclusive proof that you don't need any fossil fuel at all to get from point A to point B."
You just need a lot of fossil fuel to make and deliver a bunch of solar panels. Today at least.
I'm thinking if things get doomer like then nobody will be hauling a weeks worth of groceries: it'll be a days worth at most, and it'll be done on a bicycle.
In any event, how much does a weeks worth of groceries weigh?
MAYBE fifty pounds.
Only a complete pussy couldn't haul fifty pounds in a trailer attached to a bicycle.
I personally hauled a full sized freezer on a dolly for two miles in sub-zero temperatures. Nearly caused a couple crashes tho as all the dumbasses in their SUVs stopped to rubber-neck.
In any event not to worry: a standard commercial megawatt rated windmill provides plenty power for full-sized EVs.
We're still going to have a happy motoring paradise. It's just going to be all-electric and quite a bit more expensive than right now and we may even have a bunch of people taking the bus (god forbid) until the economy recovers and works itself out around electricity.
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