[TML] Transportation solutions.

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 10/11/07 10:37 AM, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> And the computer control is not going to happen either. Ask anyone
> who designs safety critical systems and they'll *scream* no at you.
> We aren't up to designing a fail-safe system to do anything
> *approaching* that.

It's arguable whether we're there or not.  Leaving that aside, nobody wants
to be on the liability end of making those.  :)



On 10/11/07 10:37 AM, "Charles Prevatte" wrote:

> On 10/11/07 10:37 AM, Leonard Erickson wrote:
>> It also isn't suitable for non-urban areas.
> 
> Care to explain why?  It is perfectly pausible for non-urban areas.  It
> might even be better for those areas.

Ever seen Montana?  Very large areas that are miles away from anything
better than a dirt path.  Yet people need to drive out there all the time.
Many have to drive miles from the public road just to get to their home, and
they aren't going to maintain that kind of driveway.

The big issue is your cars can only go where the roads have been built to
support them.  There's a lot of places that don't justify the expense.

> A power storage system in the cars (like batteries) or your flywheel solves
> that problem nicely.

Then why do we need the power in the road?  Easier to pump it directly into
the flywheel/battery at home.

> Partly, transition would require a hybred vehicle, and those would still be
> need by those that have to leave the tracks.  That is one of the problems.
> However the new track car could be vastly lighter and simpler and much
> easier to maintain.  In the end, today cars would seace to exist.

No, there will always be a need for mobility beyond the tracks, so some
other sort of car will always exist.  Cars didn't make horses go away.
Lot's of people still have them and use them for transport every day.

> They would need to be failure tested, in various configurations, and
> methodolgies, to insure the best reliablity and lowest cost for
> implimentation.

That would be *or*, not *and*.  Reliability costs.

> A process that took decades and had a lot of growing pains.

Decades, exactly.  If this gets done, it can't take decades.  The transition
would be too painful.  Yes, that matters.

> If we have NOT made that leap, then a roadway that carries the power to the
> cars may be our only option if we can not come up with an alternate portable
> and economically and enviromentally fessable power source.

We can currently build a car with short commuter-distance electric capacity.
It seems far more likely that that will improve than that we will commit to
the radical change you propose.  Especially since it *can* be done
gradually.  If only 5% of the population switch to electric cars each year,
in 20 years you're done, with declining oil use as you go.  That would start
with short commuters, and progress to longer distances as the tech gets
better.

> Propane at least has to be liquified to be sufficently dence to provide the
> endurence needed for a car in the US.  I do not think methane or coal gas can
> be liquified like propane.  I do not believe that natural gas can be liquified
> eather, though I am not sure.  It would depend on presure and wheter cryo
> tanks would be requires.  It might not be fessable for use in cars.

Yes, natural gas can be liquefied.  It's called LNG.  :)  It's typically
90%+ methane, and calls for cryogenic storage.  CNG (compressed natural gas)
is preferred for vehicles.  Worldwide, there are about 5,000,000 natural gas
vehicles, mostly in Argentina, Brazil, India, Pakistan and Italy.  They can
possibly be refueled at home (many houses have natural gas piped in).
Existing vehicles can be converted, even set for multi-fuel (NG, alcohol, or
gasoline).  Fuel injector automatically adjusts to the fuel.

In the US, 200,000 vehicles use liquid propane, plus a half million
forklifts.  It's the 3rd most popular vehicle fuel after gas & diesel.  Plus
many many millions of standard 20 pound barbeque bottle.  :)  9,000,000
vehicles worldwide.

"The advantage of propane is its liquid state at room temperature and
moderate pressure. This allows fast refill times, affordable fuel tank
construction, and ranges comparable to (though still less than) gasoline."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propane>

There's even a diesel+propane engine modification that improves combustion
of the diesel from 75% to 95%.



But all the talk of using the petro-gases requires being able to get them.
Some comes from oil production, but the whole point is to move away from
dependence, so we need to *manufacture* it, using renewable energy &
feedstock sources.

And do we have time before oil runs out to go straight to the *ideal*
solution, or do we need an intermediate step.

> But the fact remains, that one day all the easily portable sources of energy
> will have been mined out of this planet and we will have to eather come up
> with a susstainable and renewable energy system or we will be back to living
> in caves.

O.o

We were out of the caves *long* before we started using any non-renewable
sources.  Granted, if we go back to burning wood, either we need huge tree
farms or we have to cut back on energy use per person.  And maybe number of
people too...