by Greg Rucks and Jesse Morris, Rocky Mountain Institute
In Reinventing Fire, Rocky Mountain Institute provides a blueprint for transforming transportation and freight services with uncompromised convenience, safety and performance using no oil by 2050.
But how do we get there? RMI lays out a five-step program for ending our oil addiction.
1. Shift to ultralight but ultrastrong autobodies
The virtues of a lightweight auto body with improved safety and performance are universally applicable to the many auto powertrain options now available or under development. To cost-effectively electrify autos, automakers have begun to adopt lightweight bodies that enable a smaller powertrain and fewer, cheaper batteries or fuel cells to provide competitive range.
While incremental lightweighting, reductions in aerodynamic drag and tires with lower rolling resistance substantially improve fuel economy, the true potential of “Revolutionary+” autos that achieve 125-240 mpg equivalent is fully unlocked through the use of advanced materials—such as carbon fiber composites — paired with resulting savings in manufacturing.
2. Pursue innovative state or regional policies that boost the economics of Revolutionary+ vehicles
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For most auto buyers, fuel efficiency and fuel costs have historically been minor considerations. The fuel savings from switching to an all-electric auto, though important over years, can seem small on a day-to-day basis.
Such fuel savings are drastic for Revolutionary+ autos because of their extreme efficiency—especially over the entire lifetime of the auto. However, while cost of ownership of Revolutionary+ autos will be lower than for autos built and powered by traditional means, up-front sticker price will initially be higher. Innovative programs such as feebates, fleet procurement, cash for clunkers and affordable financing can offset the initial price premium of Revolutionary+ autos, helping propel automakers down three mutually reinforcing learning curves: advanced ultralight materials, manufacturing savings and electrified powertrains. This enables Revolutionary+ autos to quickly reach parity with the competition.
3. Apply vehicle-fitness based designs across other modes of transportation and encourage the production of 2nd and 3rd generation non-food biofuels
There has always been a place for fire—indeed, the history and development of our species is intimately entwined with it, and the energy density of combustible liquid fuel is as yet unparalleled. However, applying vehicle-fitness-based design principles across transportation modes could drastically reduce liquid fuel demand by 2050.
Heavy trucks that move freight across the country do so with timeliness and at competitively low rates, keeping prices low for the end users of goods. But doubling the efficiency of our freight transportation system by redesigning heavy trucks could save $800 billion in fuel costs between now and 2050. We can adopt suites of efficiency technologies in truck design including auxiliary power units (APUs), low rolling resistance tires and using more long combination vehicles to reduce the number of trucks on the road.
But even after applying vehicle fitness to all modes of transportation, in 2050 we’ll still rely on liquid fuels for transportation modes that cannot be feasibly or cost-effectively electrified, namely airplanes and heavy trucks. That liquid fuel can be forged aboveground in biorefineries using agricultural waste streams and non-cropland perennial plants, all without taking food off the world’s tables.
4. Improve how we use our vehicles
Transforming the design of autos, trucks, planes and other conveyances is only one piece of the puzzle. Changing how we use our vehicles could provide additional value to consumers and expand the range of mobility options.
Existing examples of such improvements to vehicle use and expanded mobility include mobile carpooling applications that allow commuters to offset fuel costs by selling their empty seats; car sharing programs that eliminate the need for car ownership in urban markets; and dynamic pricing mechanisms to decongest peak travel times and extract more value out of existing roads and highways. Some communities are redesigning for people—not cars—by siting offices, schools, retailers and homes in close proximity to one another and with easy access to public transportation systems. If these approaches to enhanced vehicle use reached their maximum potential, U.S. driving could be reduced by half.
We can use other vehicles more productively and efficiently, too. Heavy truck drivers can be incentivized to drive more efficiently. Trucks’ idle fuel consumption can be mitigated by using APUs. Airplanes can cruise slightly slower, glide to direct landings without fuel-hungry maneuvers and use advances in air traffic management to chart the fastest routes and carry less excess fuel. While these strategies to improve transportation efficiency and expanded mobility are succeeding in specific U.S. markets, it will fall to a new generation of entrepreneurs, regulators, city planners and innovators to maximize the true potential of smarter vehicle use.
5. Focus on outcomes, not motives
This new transportation system based on super-efficient vehicles more productively used would produce a net societal savings of $3.8 trillion between now and 2050. But it won’t happen overnight. While regulators and administrators at all levels can help chart the path toward this future state, entrepreneurs, automakers and service providers will lead the way. In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, first- and fast-moving innovators will be the best positioned to capture market share in a lucrative, transformed industry. The shift will be fraught with risk, but the advantage will be enduring.
– Jesse Morris is a transportation analyst and Greg Rucks is a transportation consultant with the Rocky Mountain Institute. Check out the RMI video below outlining many of these points:
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Simple and National Security beneficial answer. Rebate $4000 from every 1040 filed and add additional Federal Energy tax of $4 a gallon to all gasoline (not diesel). With a $4000 rebate in hand,and faced with gas similar in price to the rest of the World, citizens could spring for a fuel efficient car, or stay with the old car and drive 20,000 miles a year at 20 mpg and break even. Gas guzzlers, scofflaws who don’t file 1040 and wanton driving would be discouraged. Diesel and jet fuel which are business necessities would be cheaper due to supply and demand, and walking biking and public transportation would be encouraged by this simple taxation plan. The oil companies and gas stations would adjust their markup accordingly no doubt.
Number five is the only one I can get behind, but I interpret it differently from the author–it really negates all his other points.
The outcome we have to focus on is getting people and things from place to place when necessary in the least environmentally destructive way. Cars are mostly not necessary for this goal, and are about the stupidest way to do it.
Mostly we need to quickly move AWAY from cars, car culture and all it entails altogether, not save it with some new gimmicks.
Yes, obviously, the cars we do have should be as efficient as possible, but very few of us should have to have or use cars at all.
Moving 100-200 pound little bodies through space only requires a thirty pound or less bike, or a one pound or so pair of shoes, with public transit for all longer trips.
Anything else is just asking to perpetuate an enormously wasteful system.
Yes, Amory Lovins & the Rocky Mountain Institute are real smart doing great stuff designing and developing critical paths for tremendous advancements & positive change; but, they do somewhat follow the “climate pragmatism” approach negatively critiqued by Climate Progress; ignoring the dramatic potential of netzeroMobility readily achieved by simply scaling vehicles to sizes and weights easily powered by human power, probably less than 100 pounds per person. In this case hybrid-human electric becomes quite easy.
GM designer emeritus Laurence Burns’ current “PUMA” prototypes seems to be coming close with vehicles weighing as little as 500 pounds for two people — 250 pounds/person — but do not consider highly resilient human power and seem to come with the typical systems lock in approach & business advantage of local monopolies.
One of Lovins’ great sayings is that something is not impossible if it already exists and bicycles, recumbents (bikes & trikes), bikeshare, and human-powered rail systems fit this category where it should be noted that cycling is 3 to 4 times more efficient (also translating to speed & range) than simple human baseline netzeroMobility, aka walking. The local area functionality increase is 9 to 16 times.
China has over 1/2 billion cyclists and 1.2 million additional using electric bikes and seems to be seriously considering reversing its trend of using heavy machinery for transportation currently building some of the world’s largest bikeshare systems. . . .
To facilitate design processes prototypes are often scaled down versions and it should be obvious that human-scaled vehicles will greatly accelerate the transition to netzeroMobility similar to the disruptive viral deployment of cell phones inclusive of information & communications technologies or ICTs.
Using a bike, a bus, a train, or (my favourite) ‘shank’s pony’ also would address the obesity problem. Cars are mostly unnecessary and downright dangerous.
That’s a great insight, but it’s only going to work in a vacuum. Humans are lazy, to a lesser or greater degree. Getting people to bike everywhere in a 20mile radius is simply never going to happen. How could you tell a married couple to take their two young children to the food store in a cold November rain is not taking into account the timeline pressures of life: feeding,changing, napping schedules for the kids, work for Mom & Dad, etc. Apply this same issue to a thousand other similar situations.
I generally agree with that goal — getting people onto bicycles, scooters, skateboards, etc. — but I recognize that it’s not feasible in a lot of places without very expensive urban renewal. I expect it will happen, but in a generation or so.
Also, I have to ask: You can’t get behind a savings of $800 billion in fuel costs for heavy trucks?
Oh My Gosh
Although I appreciate learning more about ideas and about the technical possibilities, and I sometimes enjoy seeing the results when people “run the numbers” (although there seems to be a growing skepticism — for good reason — about results of “running the numbers” these days, because everyone claims different numbers), I’m starting to find techno-economic-utopian stuff like this less and less interesting these days, because they neglect the largest (by far) roots of our problems. They are techno-economic-utopian papers, most likely destined for the dustbin or at least likely to be entirely undermined, and entirely overwhelmed, by the prevailing political and economic issues, past which we can’t get unless we dramatically alter things related to them.
According to Fortune, four of the top five, and six of the top ten, companies in the world are oil and gas companies.
And then we have this: NEITHER party — Dems or Repubs — is doing enough, or is likely to do enough, to put us onto the sorts of paths that would result in a major transition such as that discussed in the paper — or any other meaningful transition that would actually address climate change effectively and in timely fashion. Do people get it? The political system — the two parties — are BOTH presently broken. Genuine leadership has, apparently, gone AWOL. We get words and promises — but no real leadership.
And then there is this: Apparently — and I’m amazed to see this in action, more and more each week — because of the mutual ties between the think-tanks and two major parties, and because of revolving doors related to those, and because of funding sources and also tax law for non-profits, major organizations (such as CAP) are apparently IN EFFECT wedded to one major party or the other — in the case of CAP, the Dems. In other words — sorry to say this — organizations like CAP seem, in my view, to complain and argue for change intellectually, but they imply (and effectively encourage) allegiance to one of the main political parties, and thus lose MOST of their leverage to prompt REAL change; and the very last thing an organization such as CAP would do is to get so (rightfully) frustrated with the Dems that it would explicitly endorse third-party efforts or new parties (which of course it conveniently can’t do, because of tax law) or even carry coverage, host discussions, or etc. that might actually encourage readers to take such a stand on their own. The implied and not-challenged view is this: “even if the Obama Admin and Dems aren’t getting anywhere, and aren’t likely to actually push for and achieve the sorts of MAJOR changes that are needed, best to vote for them anyhow, because they are the lesser of two evils”.
Does anyone disagree that that is the implied and not-challenged view, here?
Thus we seem stuck:
Two parties, neither of them coming anywhere close to understanding, supporting, and pushing hard for the sorts of major changes that are needed.
An enabling assortment of political institutions and think-tanks, nearly all of which are wedded to one party or the other, and thus don’t have the actual leverage (and perhaps not even the intent?) to catalyze REAL change.
A flow of techno-economic papers that are helpful, and interesting, from an “informative” and intellectual standpoint, BUT that do not address the socio-political problems that are blocking meaningful change, AND that largely ignore such issues.
SO we have this paper (sorry to be so grumpy this morning, by the way). The paper lays out a technical (mainly), economic (slightly) pathway. But how can it be accomplished in the current political environment? The truth is, it CAN’T — at least not without the sorts of political changes and movement changes that the Democrat leaders are unwilling to adopt AND that the associated think-tanks are unwilling to do.
The present Democrat Administration — and perhaps this has always been the case? — neglects its “base”, largely neglects (or insufficiently deals with) the core issues, and shows hardly a sign of understanding the real nature of our problems and the size and nature of the necessary solutions. The Administration seems, for the most part, to be almost entirely clueless. Meanwhile, organizations such as CAP correctly criticize what’s happening — to a degree that’s not too uncomfortable for anyone! — and push for solutions within the party — but are largely ignored because they are dedicated to the party, part of the base, at least in appearance, and thus would not even think of taking their votes elsewhere. As a result, the Admin and Party can, in effect, ignore CAP (and us) and get away with it, and our blind allegiance enables the whole entire cycle to continue.
Do I hear any (fact-based) disagreement about this assessment?
Shall we continue to blindly put up with the no-progress, or very-little-progress, Obama Administration and Demo party — out of fear that there is no other path and that the Repubs will destroy the world? — or should we actually start to think more creatively and be willing to take our votes elsewhere unless Obama and the Dems DO actually DO what they SHOULD BE DOING?
The word ‘hope’, coming blandly from Obama — will turn me off more than appeal to me, at this point. Vague promises, coming from the Dems, will turn me off more than appeal to me, at this point. Sorry folks. I want action.
I suggest that people watch the great old movie ‘Network’. It’s very relevant today.
Sorry for the grouchiness. For anyone who disagrees, just let me know if you think that Obama and the Dems are making sufficient progress — or anything close to it. Just let me know if you think they even “get it”. And just let me know if you don’t think that a “vote for the lesser of two evils” approach, practiced in perpetuity, is one of the main enablers of the status quo and one of the main reasons why so little progress is being made.
Be Well,
Jeff
What would you suggest? If you were president, what would you do, given the present institutions (government, corporate), as well as a divided electorate with very different values?
Ernest, I would be honest, clear, compelling, responsible, and draw on the large number of honest experts on the matters at issue — for understanding, for help, for communicating important information credibly to the public, and so forth. I would draw on credible, courageous, responsible, and compelling experts, I’d tell the public the truth, and I’d get things moving in the right directions. (Granted, if you’re asking what I would do in Obama’s present situation, there are things that he COULD and SHOULD do, but there are also limits to what he can accomplish in the coming months from an actual legislative standpoint. Yet there are things that he could do, and isn’t doing, that are along the lines of those things that I’ve already mentioned.)
I’d also (pardon my wording) be earnest.
I’d also invite CAP in, and ask them what they suggest needs to be done — from a substantive, not political, standpoint. I’d love to hear what CAP actually would recommend, and is recommending, to the President. Because I’m not quite sure that CAP itself actually “gets it” — although granted, I only read CP, and I DO agree that CP/Joe get climate change, of course, especially from the standpoint of the natural sciences involved.
I would, among other things, make much greater use of the bully pulpit; and rather than being a victim of most of the media, and a dismal leader, I’d actually LEAD, and (as part of that) I’d actually use an understanding of the media to get them to play my “game” (which wouldn’t be a game) rather than allowing them to play their game with me and the public. Obama is NOT leading, sadly, and he’s allowing himself to be a victim of the media, rather than smartly using the media to achieve his ends, which SHOULD be the best interests of the “American people” and, more broadly, of the entire world. (The best interests of Americans can’t be achieved without the best interests of humankind and the biosphere being achieved; we’re all in this together.)
The entire political process is failing, and (as it seems) most humans are content to watch football or go shopping. Sigh.
In any case, thanks for your question.
Be Well,
Jeff
Impeach myself.
I actually have a more cynical view of the whole thing. It’s easy to blame Congress (lowest approval rating ever) and the president. And yes there is the media and lobbyists funded by the fossil fuel industry. The American people hear both sides of the argument (though one side more). With enough money on both sides, it reaches saturation. Ultimately, it’s the American people who decides what to listen to, what to believe, and whom to vote for. This is who the politicians cater to. I had a transient moment of compassion for some of the GOP candidates during snippets of their debates when it seemed the audience was even more right wing than where the candidates wanted to go. (Witness the boos and cheers on educating immigrants, letting someone die without health insurance, the gay soldier, etc.) We only have to look at ourselves in the mirror as a nation to see where the problem lies.
Perhaps the problem cannot be solved in our generation. But I do have some hope that the Millennials would be different. They are suppose to be more ecologically and civic minded. We need a mass movement. They may be in OWS now, but with age and maturity, they will be leaders in our mainstream institutions. It may be the “Obama electorate” (minus the Obama).
http://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Momentum-Generation-Remaking-America/dp/0813551501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321862869&sr=8-1
Respectfully, as one who shares many climate concerns with you, I fear you haven’t read enough of their thesis to criticize it and I’m pretty sure you are innacurately depicting it as just a techno-uptopian run of the numbers.
For one, the reinventing fire book on which this is based explicity acknowledges the fact that the federal government is not going to be helpful. A fundamental argument in the work is that this can be done by business for profit with no to little government intervention (state-level or administrative when or should government intervene). This is an attempt at creating a path to fossil fuel freedom largely or entirely DESPITE government.
For two, the group behind this, the RMI, is following up with campaigns and consulting, etc. So it’s not another paper for the dust bin but a guiding document for their work.
While I too bemoan plutocracy, today I’m choosing to cheer on one group who is at least trying to help other people and businesses get us out of this mess.
CW, thanks for your comment. No, I haven’t read the book. (I hope my earlier comment didn’t imply that I did.) My entire reaction was based only on the post, and even more so on the broader fact that we seem to place not enough emphasis on the real problems blocking achievement of change. In a sense, my comment was intended as a “broader criticism” of emphases, here and elsewhere, and not a criticism of a book, which I haven’t read.
In any case, thanks for your comment. To be clear, I’m certainly not suggesting to anyone that they don’t read this book. It might be very good. I haven’t read it. I will say this: Judging (only) from what’s in the post, I probably wouldn’t choose to buy or read the book; but only because time is limited, and my present interest has more to do with the “social change” aspects of how to get things going.
In any case, Cheers and Thanks,
Jeff
One of the strengths of Amory Lovins is that he shows how it can be done, technically, and economically. It’s also appealing because politically because it doesn’t ask Americans to give up their middle class lifestyle. It just needs to be modified slightly. It doesn’t ask Americans to give up their belief in the free market. It talks to businesses and engineers in detail, and in terms that they can understand, how it can be done.
The climate problem is solvable from the technological and economic point of view. The much bigger problem is a political and sociological one. The problem isn’t only “getting the sign wrong” from a rational point of view, but a deliberate preference for short term thinking over long term, as well as a monopoly of power to preserve the status quo and to maintain dependence on fossil fuels as long as possible. Also, 2050 is much too long to wait. We need to be well on our way within the next 10 years.
Another problem is that it requires a fundamental redesign of many things and in many ways, and it needs to be done massively to make a dent in climate change. This is like trying to get everyone to agree. This is not likely to happen.
Jeff, we do not have a ‘Network”. We have propaganda machines.
You said “should we actually start to think more creatively and be willing to take our votes elsewhere unless Obama and the Dems DO actually DO what they SHOULD BE DOING?”
When that ‘elsewhere’ has a huge supply of dollars for educating and campaigning and an honest and open media with which to message then I will agree we can safely abandon the dems and fill the Congress with progressive politicians.
Until then, we have to tread water. You may not agree but that is 2011 and 2012 reality.
Medicaid is saving lives and it is about to be gutted along with a few other vital social programs. We are far from shore you and me and the rest of us.
John, thanks for your comment, but I disagree. Here’s why: You say “but that is 2011 and 2012 reality.” Yet the strategy that involves voting for the lesser of two evils, and considering the only options to be the two major parties (no matter how they are doing), and refusing to join something different, or begin something different, even if that might take one or two or three election cycles to ultimately have big dividends, fails to answer these two questions: First, how do you make the Democrat party genuinely lead to a new, different, and sufficiently effective reality, if you aren’t willing to use your voting leverage to leave it if they don’t? (The answer is, you can’t. The parties ignore their “bases” and basically get nowhere. The recent Admin is the perfect example of that. How many times does it take people to learn?) And second, how do you begin to shape a new reality (for the next election cycle, or for sometime in the not-too-distant future) if you don’t choose a time to start — and the sooner the better?
So you see, you talk about the 2011 and 2012 reality. But unless you are happy and satisfied with THAT reality (and, for example, what it is presently doing, and NOT doing, to address our biggest problems) your approach offers no real way to change that reality. It will be the same reality in 2015/2016, and in 2019/2020, and so forth. And your argument at those points will be the same, or else you’ll wish at that point that you had started the change sooner, like in this cycle. Of course, the “reality” in those future years will have changed in terms of the actual particulars — for example, most of our unaddressed problems will be worse. But the reality will be no different, or little different, in terms of the fact that both political parties will still be pitching either incorrect solutions or deeply insufficient ones. That aspect of the reality won’t change, unless we force it to, using all the leverage we’ve got, including the leverage that comes with saying “not this time, folks; I’m not voting for you unless you actually DO X, Y, Z, and so forth.”
I’m not sure how I can put it any more clearly, so I’ll be interested in your response/thoughts, along these lines: How do you think your approach will change “the reality” of 2011/2012 so we can benefit from a MUCH MORE dedicated and effective Administration in the coming term, and so the Dems will have learned the lesson and do even better in future cycles? In my view, I’m afraid that your approach is most likely to succeed in doing one thing: continuing to lower the political bar, teaching the parties that they can get away with muddiness and ineffectiveness, and prolonging the status quo perpetually.
I appreciate your comments (a lot), of course, and these comments on my part aren’t meant to be critical. But it’s an important discussion. More people should be having it. In short, how will your approach succeed in changing the 2011 and 2012 reality?
Thanks, and Be Well,
Jeff
Cars in the +120 miles per gallon category are also cars in the +10 miles per kwh category.
Battery packs for daily commuter vehicles would be half the size and half the cost.
Integrated PV will actually makes sense, adding 10 to 20 miles range to the vehicle every day (parked in the sun).
2050 is way too late, and oil will be too scarce and expensive by then anyway.
The lightweight option is critical. Corvette did it for years with fiberglass bodies, which are inferior to carbon fiber. Why is Detroit resisting?
Forget biofuels, “advanced” or not. There is no waste in nature, and all of the algae/plantation feedstock options don’t pencil and use too many resources- just like corn ethanol.
Too many of RMI’s ideas reflect oil company backing, including long timelines and incremental switches to more fuel based power trains. Serious people are very cautions in reviewing your papers these days.
We need a better think tank on these issues, that is independent, visionary, and serious about getting us off fossil fuels in the near future.
As wili says above, cars are fundamentally an insane means of personal transport. We are using 3000 lb + machines to transport a couple hundred pounds of payload. Utterly, utterly absurd from the standpoints of energy or efficiency.
I read Reinventing Fire. Lovins makes mention of other modes of transport, but essentially concentrates on trying to morph our current ICE-based automobiles into lighter and more efficient versions. To accomplish this we will have to jump through many engineering hoops, at enormous expense and without solving many of the other problems associated with cars–their inherent danger, gridlock, limited parking, etc etc.
There are better ways forward.
I don’t see the ingrained automotive culture going away anytime soon. At least until there’s a change in attitude that emphasizes efficiency living in a world of 7 billion (i.e. what we waste matters to the big picture), and the dollars are spent on re-designing transit systems/expanding them into rural and suburban areas.
With a new generation of cars, though, one thing that needs to be overcome is perception. For example, many who commute among heavy SUVs (that will likely be on the road for awhile, unless everyone can suddenly run out and buy new) may need to be convinced that there’s enough safety despite the mass difference. People have also become accustomed to their comfort vehicles, and there’s the question of range anxiety with pure electrics running heating/AC, normally powered by an engine. Maybe this can be addressed with technology, but hybrids (natural gas?), could still have a role to play.
Ultimately, a lot of this transition may boil down to cost, and whether society comes to view it as a good investment in a time of greater austerity. Especially when people are hearing about supposedly great new resources in North America and the Arctic, and often don’t make the environmental connections. That is largely a messaging issue. The oil & gas companies seem to have been ramping up theirs.
Either ‘the ingrained automotive culture’ is going away, and soon, or we are. There’s no ‘Middle Path’ to techno-Nirvana.
OK. For sure, it is am ambitious program. But I can’t help but feel that Joe and Jane Q Citizen, even here in Vermont, could really care less. As long as the Shell station sits a half-mile from where I am ensconced, there is no issue to lose sleep over. The feeling that I had in 1975 when I purchased my first-ever car — that I had finally arrived — is long gone among Americans today. Now, having a car in the three-car garage is a God-given right, so to speak.
Very few people have experience with electric cars so far. Once they do I think it is going to surprise many people just how many will greatly prefer electrics over ICEs.
Incentives are nice but ultimately nothing is going to stop the electrification of the automobile. This is going to be a disruption almost on the order of the change over from horses to autos,
What happened to the other seven steps?
I want to get off plastic. How do I do that?
Given the fact that oil is a global commodity, China and India welcome RMI’s analysis. They will buy what we don’t use. How to factor that into RMI’s recommendations?
This is all lovely, but was it not around 1994 that Amory Lovins had a long article in the Atlantic explaining how “hypercars” were just about to completely transform everything? Another example: in 2002 Amory gave a talk at Yale with lots of examples of how energy efficiency was just about to transform everything. At the end, a wisened old professor stood up and said, “This is great, but it is exactly the same talk I heard you give in this same room twenty-five years ago. What’s the deal?” Please understand, I am not at all knocking the technical innovation at play here, nor am I knocking Lovins’ and RMI’s very hard and important work. But how about just a smidgin’ of consideration of the non-technical, of the social, of all the things that constrain and block these sorts of lovely technical innovations? Or heck, stay with the formal-techincal: you have a working hypothesis here which is the same hypothesis you had in the 1970s. You’ve run a real-life experiment, trying to get this stuff in place. What are the results? How much more obvious can the answer be? The train is still going full-speed in the wrong direction. Is it possible you are missing something, something that is preventing your ideas from doing what you hope for?
Daniel, regarding your comment…therein lies the truth.
Long haul trucks carry about 80,000 pounds of weight. Average speed on I 70 and the Washington, DC beltway is about 65 mph. Few cars, trucks, buses observe the speed limit. Traffic on those roads reflect the determined mobility of Americans.
How to put a light weight (pedal-powered hybrid) vehicle on American roads with those competing factors? A ‘smidgin’ of real world is parked in shopping malls.
As Mulga said: “Either ‘the ingrained automotive culture’ is going away, and soon, or we are”. I have a dreaded feeling the latter and not the former is our future.
re: How to put a light weight (pedal-powered hybrid) vehicle on American roads with those competing factors?
You’d have to use different infrastructure separate from cars, much lower cost than conventional roads w/ much higher safe speeds (300 mph) probably using Inductrack permanent maglev Halbach arrays developed under a DOE contract.
In those urban areas where cars are limited to safe speeds pedal powered vehicles on conventional roads are practical.
In dense urban areas with pedestrians, small children, & elderly even pedal powered mobility should be limited to slow walking speeds giving safe accessible mobility to virtually everyone & currently virtually nonexistent in major urban areas in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
re: Long haul trucks carry about 80,000 pounds of weight
General Atomics has been working on this using maglev in several flavors.
http://atg.ga.com/EM/transportation/urban-maglev/index.php
Maybe this has something to do with it from Grist:
Direct subsidies to fossil fuels are the tip of the (melting) iceberg
12trilliondollarTransportation http://www.grist.org/energy-policy/2011-10-26-direct-subsidies-to-fossil-fuels-are-tip-of-melting-iceburg @grist
If we seriously think we can drive our way out of this dilemma, we’re nuts. Wasting our time talking about electric vehicles. A better single-occupant vehicle is just “less bad”, not “good”. Our whole way of life needs to change if we wish to get off oil — everything else is just wishful thinking.
regarding lovins’ lightweighting
Scientists Develop World’s Lightest Metal, 100x Lighter than Styrofoam http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2ZVGFy/inhabitat.com/scientists-develop-worlds-lightest-metal-100x-lighter-than-styrofoam/ via inhabitat
Re: General Atomics, the techniques & technology being used at
http://atg.ga.com/EM/transportation/urban-maglev/index.php
I’ll put myself out on the limb and say that this most likely this may be one of the breakthroughs of the century that virtually exists here and now capable of broad deployment of netzeroMobility which I’ve been thinking about for some time.
1. GA is designing around large vehicles & small human-scale vehicles are much easier especially for human transport.
2. The technology is using orthogonal functions i.e., Hilbert Tranforms which can be very powerful in concentrating the fields and the nonlinear functions perhaps used in last-mile telephone communications such as DSL, squeezed light over fiber optics, data retrieval out of extremely noisy signals, etc. so the opportunity for great & rapid improvements over may be quite high since much of this knowhow has been around for a long time.
“Regulations” is just another way of saying “standards”.