339. CARGO SCOOTERS AND BICYCLES
Clearly, there is tremendous waste in our current usage of oil and oil products. Everyone agrees with that. The argument arises over what that means in the context of peak oil. There are two basic positions which we can summarize as follows:
- Optimist: Waste is our friend. The solution to peak oil is to dramatically conserve energy, and then switchover the remaining part to alternatives.
- Doomer: We can't conserve -- because conservation: a) is impossible and b) will destroy the economy -- therefore we're doomed.
To something like this:
Or this:
So the bad news, if you're an American etc., is that your superstud lifestyle is going to go down the toilet. The good news is that it was only your lifestyle, so who cares? Suck it up, and quit whining like a bunch of wimps. You still get from point A to point B, and that's what counts. It's not business-as-usual, but it is functionality-as-usual, and the beat goes on.I know it's hard for Americans to visualize people actually living in such a high-efficiency future, and I've previously posted a series of articles to help them with that: (144. YOUR BUDDY THE SPACE HEATER, 156. BICYCLES IN JAPAN, 285. STREET CAR!). Today, I'd like to show you a place where ordinary people routinely move around and tote cargo using scooters, bicycles and motorcycles. It's the city where I live -- Osaka, Japan.
Lately I've been seeing so many cargo scooters and electric bicycles, that I decided to shoot the video above to share it with you. The above was shot over the course of about an hour, just walking around a few blocks in central Osaka. One interesting cargo scooter that I see a lot is this unit, a 3-wheel scooter with cargo space and roof (mileage approx. 41km/l, or 100mpg):
Honda Gyro Canopyby JD
posted by JD @ 5:31 PM
34 comments
34 Comments:
Good post! I read autoblog.com daily, and the oil and gas prices are starting to resonate there. Some think its a conspiracy because it will kill their beloved gas guzzlers, but some are more optimistic that it will spur more efficient vehicles. I happen to think that people won't miss large vehicles once nicer small cars are manufactured/imported to the US. We just don't get the nicest small cars right now.
I'm not particularly fond of those small "pod" type of vehicles, I'd prefer a scooter or bicycle instead. But that's my preference. I hope that efficiency gains can keep hatchbacks the size of the Mazda 3 or Volkswagen Rabbit around into the far future.
come on JD, we can at least have something that looks a bit cooler than that ugly little fiat.
The smart car is pretty cool looking, we could have them.
While what you're saying is true:
We will HAVE TO downsize or vehicles because an electric hummer isn't going to happen, it's obvious you're just poking fun with this post.
Electric is the way to go and even with our current level of technology and price points there are options that work better than that goofy little moped thing.
The Tesla and the Phoenix trucks are perfectly workeable and not too too far out of range. Likewise the European Th!nk looks pretty good.
What we're missing in the US is a network of fast charging stations.
Heh JD:
While we're on the subject of transport.
I just recently ran across something on the web that shows that ammonia could be used in modified diesel or gasoline engines. Since you already have a post showing ammonia can be produced from electrolyzed water and the haber-bosch process then the two linked together provides an alternate route to powered mechanized agriculture via liquid fuels that not only doesn't compete with food but can be manufatured from air and water via electricity provided from wind.
Another nail in the doomers coffin.
Full story is here:
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/861/
One size does not fit all. Fine that you enjoy living in a densely packed urban area where living without a car is possible/easy, but many don't share your values.
I live a small part of the year in Bangkok, great public transportation system and plenty of shopping available within easy walking range.
But I don't enjoy that lifestyle.
I live most of my year on 60 acres, surrounded by hundreds of acres of federal and private forest land, 30+ miles from the nearest commercial center in Northern California.
And I totally love living where I do. I'll hang on, kicking and screaming, until I'm dragged away.
So transportation....
I drive about 150 miles per week. (That's not far off the national average.)
How am I going to move myself and my groceries around in the post-petroleum age? I did a little math.
The only fully electric car for which I have any data is the Tesla. Yes, it's a bit small, but bear with me.
If I wanted to buy enough PV to power my "Tesla" ride and using a 4 hour solar day, I'd need about 1.2 kW of panels. At $5 per watt I'd spend $6,000.
That's $6,000 for 25+ years of fuel.
Now let's tweak the numbers a bit.
The Tesla is too small for two of us and groceries, etc. But a Toyota Camry wouldn't be. The Tesla is a bit wider than the Camry , but about 25% shorter. So add another $1,500 for panels to power the extra weight. Now we're at $7,500. Not a serious amount of money when I'm spending a couple thou per year on fuel at the moment.
And consider the $5 per watt price that I used. NanoSolar and First Solar are shipping thin film at well under $2 per watt with prices expected to drop. Solar produced electricity is likely to become quite inexpensive.
Ten years from now I expect to be driving a totally electric vehicle and spending less for fuel than I was when gas was $2 per gallon.
In the interim I'll do what everyone else will do. I'll cut back some on the driving and spend a bit more of the monthly budget to get around.
I'll purchase a transition vehicle , something like a hybrid diesel, when they hit the market at a price that makes the switch a financial option.
And I won't move away from the wonderfully beautiful environment in which I live.
Let's say your numbers are off and do the calculation again:
Say the average commute is 40 miles each way.
Say each 40 miles costs 10KW/H so 20KW/H per day for the average commute.
With five hours sunshine per day you're looking at 4KW of panels instead of the 1.2 you said.
Still, even using these numbers you are looking at $20K retail for 4KW of panels. These panels would last about 20 years which is around a thousand bucks a year for your daily commute.
Now let's compare that to gas prices.
We'll optimistically give our vehicles 40 mpg so it costs 2 gallons per day for the daily commute. That means 2x365 gallons per year for the daily commute.
If gas prices are $3 per gallon that's $2190 per year just for your daily commute and it's going up from there.
Looking at things from that perspective, an electric car is a slam dunk.
Also: consider that a small wind turbine is way less expensive than solar panels and it will run at night too.
The average US commute is under 20 miles, round trip. The average mileage driven is about 29 miles.
Five hours of sun is too much to expect on a year-round basis.
Unless we produce out electricity in the sun belt (think solar thermal and PV farms, HVDC transmission).
Gas is closer to $4 per gallon around here. ($3.69 for Regular, last time I filled.)
Wind, I suspect, will not be as inexpensive as solar within five years. When one looks at some of the new technologies being developed it's easy to imagine a near future of very inexpensive energy.
Just throwing some more stuff into the discussion....
BUT BUT BUT BUT.
WE'RE DOOMED! the DOOMERS told me so!
The DOOMERS most likely have a future as greeters at WalMart.
Or standing on a street corner wearing a sandwich board declaring "The End Is Nye!" and gathering change in their tin foil hat.
Smart/optimistic people have a great future if they get themselves involved in the transition away from petroleum.
Remake 'The Graduate' these days and the advice giving to the lead would be "Solar", not "Plastic".
"The DOOMERS most likely have a future as greeters at WalMart."
Or have jobs unloading the hybrid-diesel trucks ladden with goods shipped from china on ships using sail power.
doomer=dumb.
Fools! All of you! We are doomed! Doomed, I say! The American economy will collapse when people stop consuming. Frivolous consumption is what keeps this country ticking. Dooooooomed!
Just kidding. The amount of options we have to mitigate oil depletion (conservation, electrification, alternative energy, lifestyle changes) is an embarrassment of riches. When half of our oil consumption is due to personal transportation, we can cut a lot of fat before the economy will break.
It will require lifestyle changes, but they won't be THAT drastic. For example, if we replaced mid-range intercity travel with trains, we can out many rail/plane trips. We can use hybrid/electric buses or light rail for shorter trips. We don't need to get rid of our cars completely, just use them less.
As JD has pointed out, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
We need to entirely rethink automotive transport, and I believe we can be far more efficient then even JD suggests in this post. The key is automation.
Rather then wasting massive amounts of energy pushing heavy humans around with their creature comforts, we should be working towards developing automated delivery systems that require only a fraction of the energy of any human carrying vehicle.
Ordering goods online and getting them speedily delivered by little computer controlled carts makes a lot more sense. Taking humans away from the wheel of regular vehicles also makes for radical changes in car culture. No more rev-heads, speeding drivers, soccer-mums wanting mini-tanks - total automation on the roads would change everything. It would lead to the end of car culture as we know it, and it would be for the better.
It should be possible within a decade.
-Omnitir
We will rethink the auto, and we are.
The Hummer is no longer going to be produced. Plug-in hybrids and super efficient diesels are going to be the rides of choice for US drivers in the near future.
Automation, especially crash avoidance systems are starting to appear and will make things safer for small, more efficient cars as they share the road with larger vehicles.
But I can't see people readily giving up the freedom provided by a personal vehicle. Neither can I see people moving in mass to bikes/motorcycles. Don't forget that lots of us are no longer teens/twenties or live in moderate climates.
We'll adapt as our cars evolve.
I'm already seeing lots of older, gas hungry pickups sitting along the road with 'For Sale' signs. Those old beasts will find their way to the crusher sooner than they would have in the era of inexpensive gas.
And utilization of public transportation is increasing.
It's the sort of stuff that one saw in the gas crunch of the mid-'70s.
If we take JD's figure of a 2% annual drop in petroleum availability, it will take 36 years to get to a point where there is only 50% as much oil as there is today.
That's a long time to adapt. And we could essentially double our miles per gallon with today's technology.
In three decades we can move completely off oil for essentially all our transportation needs.
Many people, IMHO, just want to live in less crowded conditions and to travel when and where they want with ease. I think we'll extend that ability over time rather than restrict it.
"Those old beasts will find their way to the crusher sooner than they would have in the era of inexpensive gas."
that's one of the favorite doomer lines- who will buy all those trucks and SUVs? people will pick up some because they'll be so cheap. they'll be vehicles used sparingly to go to the dump, pick up stuff from the store and plow the driveway.
"Looking at things from that perspective, an electric car is a slam dunk."
Well everything looks cheap if you neglect significant costs.
Batteries are currently quite
expensive and last only a thousand or so cycles.
On cloudy days, on winter days, in shaded locations or days where you need to use the car while the sun is shining you're drawing significant power from the grid. Similarly severe limitations can be leveled against wind. But this is more of a remark against wind and solar than it is against electric vehicles.
In either case, significant adoption of battery technology either requires an expansion of grid capacity and power generation and/or putting in place infrastructure for flexible pricing of electrial power to encourage people to charge their vehicles at night. Those are costs that need to be somehow included in any fair analysis.
Fair analysis?
If you're talking about "fair" analysis the poster should have used the actual average mpg of the US fleet (closer to 20mpg rather than 40mpg) and the poster should have made an estimate of the average gas prices over the installed length of the system.
Wait, I'll do it for you:
If we assume that we will see a 30% increase in gasoline prices year on year then after even 10 years we are at $50 per gallon.
Let's assume it stops there:
That gives us a twenty year average of $33 per gallon.
So, do you or don't you believe in peak oil? Are you going to argue that gas prices will NEVER get to $50 per gallon or not be available (another even better reason for going electric)
Do we need to do any further math or do you concede defeat?
"Batteries are currently quite
expensive and last only a thousand or so cycles."
The batteries used in the Toyota Prius are somewhat "old tech", yet are warrantied for 150,000 miles.
The materials used in the new hybrid ultra capacitor lead acid sandwiches are highly recyclable. As production volume increases one would expect costs to drop.
"On cloudy days, on winter days, in shaded locations or days where you need to use the car while the sun is shining you're drawing significant power from the grid."
We most likely will see a significant change in the grid. In the US we have the beginnings of a HVDC grid (seems like three separate systems, IIRC). That will need to be extended to connect to prime 'green generation' sites.
Europe is in the process of connecting itself with a HVDC grid. That means that if you live in Paris you will have tidal energy from the Northern Atlantic, offshore wind from the same area, solar from North Africa, etc. feeding your outlets.
We've already seen multiple studies showing that if you connect multiple wind farms over a wide enough area then wind can be relied on as base load power.
Ramp that finding up to include solar PV and thermal, wave, tidal, geothermal, and existing coal and nuclear. Because it's cloudy or night in one locale doesn't mean that there will be no power available in that place.
Add in storage that is likely to be created. Pump up hydro is a no-brainer. Essentially all our existing hydro sites can be used in this manner. It will mean that hydro can run flat out when we need extra grid feed as running out of water at the end of the dry season won't be an issue.
And we can create lots more pump up storage in areas where a modest amount of water is available and there is an abrupt change of elevation. Not only places where rivers flow below high bluffs, but also abandoned mines.
And there's compressed air storage. Those emptied out oil wells are good candidates. Use a little bio fuel to heat the air as it flows into the turbine and you've got a very efficient way to store energy for the 'dark'.
Now I don't think we'll ever see anything like $50 per gallon gas, or even $30 gas. (That's using 2008 dollars.)
It's going to be much less expensive to utilize other technologies and users will migrate to those methods of transport rather than continue to purchase 20 MPG steel ponies.
I fully agree that we can reduce waste and increase our efficiency to get through the peak oil crunch. While I am not a dooomer, there is one variable that you didn't address.
The prosperous way down argument assumes that Americans accept their loss of lifestyle without complaint. I think there is a significant risk of a politician exploiting everyone's dissatisfaction with the economy / loss in purchasing power and causing some significant problems internationally. I hope we don't ever fight a war over our car dependant lifestyles, but I think it is a possibility.
Happy Motoring!
Anonymous,
You said:
"I hope we don't ever fight a war over our car dependant lifestyles, but I think it is a possibility."
We already have plenty of times. However, I'm with you in hoping we don't ever do it AGAIN.
Oh, I see. This is another of those definition problems. You're defining "doom" differently from the doomers. See, in the US, if we can't all drive cars and trucks with at least 200hp, it's the end of the world as we know it, AKA "doom." Many people in the US are plenty willing to fight foreign wars to defend our "right" to motor vehicles with at least 200hp.
So, either we'll come up with technology to give us all 200hp electric cars, we'll fight with everyone to make sure we have the oil to keep using those 200hp cars/trucks, or America will have to go bankrupt and not be able to do either. I think the last option is the most likely, and you're right that Americans will be using much smaller vehicles. However, national bankruptcy, loss of superpower status, and smaller vehicles will constitute doom for most Americans.
"...national bankruptcy, loss of superpower status, and smaller vehicles will constitute doom for most Americans."
Let me pull that apart....
National bankruptcy. That would be pretty doomie. But highly unlikely.
Loss of superpower status. Not doomie, and unlikely for a long, long time. We've got the largest military in the world and are economic giants. No reason to think why either of these conditions would abruptly change.
The gap between the US and other economies is likely to gradually decrease, but it will largely be due to the improvement in those economies rather than significant decreases in the US financial condition.
Don't confuse the current slowdown/shallow recession with the end of the world.
Smaller vehicles. We've been there before, did that, and wore the t-shirt.
I lived through the gas crisis of the '70s. People dumped their Detroit sleds and moved to smaller, more efficient cars. Just as we now need to do.
We only went back to monster cars because fuel became so inexpensive in the last decade or so.
Now we'll crush the monsters before they're totally used up and replace them with more fuel efficient models. Later we'll replace those rides with electric or biofuel models, depending on which technology proves to be the most advantageous.
BTW, the end of the petroleum age is likely to be a boon to Americans. Right now we are shipping a large hunk of our wealth to the oil producing countries. With a move to electricity or biofuel that money will stay in country, creating jobs and wealth.
"The batteries used in the Toyota Prius are somewhat "old tech", yet are warrantied for 150,000 miles."
Great, now estimate the cost difference between ICE+petroleum and electric drive+batteries under some common usage scenario.
"We most likely will see a significant change in the grid. In the US we have the beginnings of a HVDC grid (seems like three separate systems, IIRC)."
Sure will, but don't pretend it's free.
"That will need to be extended to connect to prime 'green generation' sites. Europe is in the process of connecting itself with a HVDC grid. That means that if you live in Paris you will have tidal energy from the Northern Atlantic, offshore wind from the same area, solar from North Africa, etc. feeding your outlets."
Fission is proven, safe, very abundant, cheap(given sane regulatory practises, see France) and doesn't waste nearly as much raw materials or land as wind for instance.
Is there any particular reason we should even bother to scale up so called green energy except when and where and when it is competitive?
"We've already seen multiple studies showing that if you connect multiple wind farms over a wide enough area then wind can be relied on as base load power."
So have I, to the tune of some ~10% of nameplate capacity counted as base-load. Looks like a recipe for more coal power to me.
"Ramp that finding up to include solar PV and thermal, wave, tidal, geothermal, and existing coal and nuclear. Because it's cloudy or night in one locale doesn't mean that there will be no power available in that place.
Add in storage that is likely to be created. Pump up hydro is a no-brainer. Essentially all our existing hydro sites can be used in this manner. It will mean that hydro can run flat out when we need extra grid feed as running out of water at the end of the dry season won't be an issue."
Why would you want to pump up water at an existing hydro plant? Just keep the water in the reservoir and give priority to generating power from wind or whatever.
And again, why go through all the trouble of running HVDC lines, putting storage all over the place and building several times more generating capacity than you want due to the awful capacity factor? Why not do the no brainer and build more reactors?
"Now I don't think we'll ever see anything like $50 per gallon gas, or even $30 gas. (That's using 2008 dollars.)"
No I don't believe so either. Because the crisis is of portable energy. We'll substitute for uses of oil that generate little value and are easy to replace, like process heat, oil fired electricity production, heating homes, lavish waste of plastics in packaging, packing chips and so forth wherever we can. There's lots that can be done in personal transport; less useless trips, more bicycling, car pooling, buy all the food you need for a week in one trip, telecommuting, emergency bus lines, more efficient vehicles and so forth.
"It's going to be much less expensive to utilize other technologies and users will migrate to those"
Do you think it's worth the risk off greatly postponing this switch by pushing an expensive and difficult option that does not at first glance have any real environmental or practical advantage other than the rubber stamp of approval from the misinformed anti-nuclear lemmings?
Previous post didn't show. I'll try again.
I'm not pushing any position, just speculating about how I think things might play out based on what I currently know.
Algae or switchgrass biofuel or something totally off the radar might come along to create a new future.
Petroleum is most likely to get more expensive as we use it up.
Solar and battery storage are likely to become less expensive. Perhaps very soon.
As solar (along with tidal/wave and wind) become less expensive there will be a greater need for storage solutions.
Many hydro plants can not run 24/365 as there is not enough water in the dry season. Pump up hydro uses the same water over and over.
We don't need to dam up any more rivers. Just create high and low basins and stick combo pump/turbines in between.
Nuclear will have continued "real" problems due to extremely high construction costs and the significant amount of time it takes to construct new plants.
Until the storage problem can be solved to the satisfaction of the nuclear-skeptical there is going to be a lot of political opposition.
(And the pro-nuke crowd does their cause a great disservice by being such dick-heads in the way they respond to those who differ with them. Kind of like how the Ron Paul people turned folks off to the extent that they wouldn't even listen to the candidate's message.)
(Let's see if this loads....)
Going from Hummers to electric bikes, where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. From Richard Heinberg in museletter #173.
Face it JD, you've gone to the dark side. You're a doomer now.
Nah, JD may be a Peaknik, but never a Doomer. A true Doomer believes in "inevitable collapse of society due to Malthusian Catastrophe", it says here.
These terms are all officially defined by Wikipedia, btw ;)
Transition vehicles...
Mitsubishi i-MiEV
All electric plug-in. Top speed 80mph. Range 100 miles with overnight charge.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1443/69/
VW Golf TDI
Diesel hybrid. 69mpg.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1440/69/
Chevy Volt, etc. We're figuring how to do the same with less.
(JD, not a boomer. Just like to jerk people's chains from time to time. ;o)
There are something like 80,000 dams in the US and less than 10,000 are hydroelectric. with a little retrofix we could have all the power we ever needed.
Hi everybody!
I got to say that I've been following up the PO issue for some time, and although I got my own interpretation I won't discuss it here.
The only reason I'm writing today is to thank JD for the post on "cargo scooters and bicycles".
It made me laugh so much to imagine American people riding on those cargo scooters to commute to their suburbs or even going to walmart that I thought it deserves saying it (I am not American but I've been living in the US for 4 years).
Anyway keep it all up with the good work and don't forget to be happy!!
That looks awesome. I think that gyro looks particularly useful. The pitiful amount of biofuels we could produce could actually be useful with things like that.
But does it really show what a low oil consumption country would look like?
Apparently, Japan consumes as much oil as Australia does, more or less, about 15-16bbl/person annually.
What's it going to, if not lots of personal transport? Are there are a lot of freight ships flying Japanese flags? I mean, that's the reason the Virgin Islands have a supposed oil consumption of over a thousand barrels per person annually.
It also brings to mind Brazil - despite being the world's largest producer of biofuels, they also use as much oil per person as does Argentina or the Ukraine, not generally considered "eco" countries.
It just seems like if people have other options, they use those as well as the new options, so that total energy consumption goes up and up and up...
green,
Japan is car crazy. It's funny because the transit system is superb and it's very easy to live without a car. But a ton of people drive anyway. Japan has also been the world's #1 burner of oil for power generation (as of 2004), but a lot of that was due to cheap oil in the late 90s, early 00s.
One thing's for sure: Japan has the capacity to conserve a lot of oil, right now. Everybody in Osaka and greater Tokyo could stop using their cars tomorrow, and the effect would be minimal, even in terms of convenience. For that matter, Osaka is flat as a pancake, and it's very easy to travel entirely by bicycle. In fact, I lived that way myself for years, and have a number of friends who still do that.
I go crazy over most of your articles, but I actually enjoyed this one.
Please write more like this one. Pretty good.
In a perfect world, I wouldn't mind commuting by E-bike or cargo scooter. In the real world, however, I'd likely end up as roadkill if I tried two-wheel commuting on a regular basis. Hint: "If you build it (bike lanes), they will come..."
Shame about the noisy motor bikes: most unJapanese - but then it is Osaka. I really loved all the real bikes though. A very good video.
http://www.larryvsharry.com/english/
Real cargo bikes from Denmark
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