Technocrat

The Electric Muscle

GuyFawkes
Sun Jun 29 02:33:00 -0700 2008
Politics.
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So here is the idea, fuel too expensive to burn is coming, so how about a DIY electric bicycle?

Should be nice and efficient, minimum extra mass per pound of rider, ticks all the eco boxes, ticks all the cheap boxes, why not?

Especially for me, who hasn't pushed pedals around since I was at school, a frame is just a way of carrying an engine, I'd die if I had to pedal a mile right? Besides, pushbikes are just too slooooow...

Well, no, this is like making plans for how you are going to live in Africa, when you are sat at home in England. What you are actually going to plan for is an English lifestyle.

A lot of the electric vehicle options out there fall down because they "only" have a range of 40 miles and "only" have a top speed of 30 mph, and we all say that if only they had a range of 150 miles and a top speed of 75 mph we would buy them in a flash, really, we would.

And then you get to Africa, your cooker consumer more current than the supply can provide, your fridge is too small and should have been running on kerosene anyway, plus you'll be buying powdered milk, tinned goods and fresh produce. It's not England, and all your plans amount to nothing. You'd have been better off arriving with nothing.

Our attitude to electric and alternative vehicles is the same.

Pre internal combustion the rule here in England was one market town could not be less than six to ten miles from another market town, because 12 to 20 miles was the limit for a one day round trip, on foot or with pony and cart. Simple as that.

Right there you have your low tech, lead acid battery, electric vehicle performance, it has the range and at an average 20 mph it has the speed for a maximum 1 hour journey each way.

Claiming that this "isn't enough" is missing the point and catching the bullet, your electric vehicle does not need a 150 mile range and 75 mph because both of these factors are by-products of the age of so cheap as to be essentially free hydrocarbon energy and the internal combustion engine.

Now that that age is waning, attempting to hang on to the by-products of that age, such as the 40 mile commute or the 75 mph journey in a private vehicle, is setting yourself up for a lot of pain.

My dad was one of the greatest engineers I ever knew, he grew up around Rudge Ulster motorcycles and stuff like that, one of my earliest memories is riding pillion on a BSA C12 through the Malay jungle.

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More than once, my dad made the point to me that as far as engineering was concerned the materials were the same, the skills were the same, the real revolution between early (er) machinery like the bike above and more modern ones were the tyres and the lubricants.

I can go out and buy tyres and lubricants that absolute cutting edge world beating racers couldn't even dream of as science fiction a generation or two before.

I am old enough to have run my first bikes on Castrol R, a vegetable oil, that was at the time far superior to any of the mineral oils, and a smell that will never leave you. Today even the cheapest of the synthetic motorcycle oils will utterly blow away Castrol R, and Castrol R simply isn't good enough to use in a modern Japanese bike engine and expect it to last.

So by and large, while people like my dad were pottering around on Rudge's and Nortons and BSA, there were those, they were rare, but they were out there, who were going very fast indeed, especially on the roads of the day, using the lubricants of the day, and running the tyres of the day....

I once did 130 mph on a Vincent Rapide, entirely original, new old stock 1930's tyres and tubes and all that good stuff... modern bikers will tell you that much of the ride is down to the primitive frame, primitive suspension, primitive geometry, easy to say if you've never ridden a vinnie fast, dead easy to say if you've never ridden a vinnie fast on 1940's style (eg thin, and not so smooth or cambered) blacktop.

But riding those same roads to work every day as an apprentice on his Rudge (long before I was born of course) my dad would be doing his 8.5 mile back roads journey at 30 mph, with the odd spurt up to 50 mph, and it was enough.

Today, the "viable commute" distance from any town is no longer a mere 8 or 9 miles, even here is the UK you don't have to go very far to find people travelling 30 or 40 miles each way. Take any business with say 40 staff and maybe 10 of them can actually walk to work distance wise, maybe 1 in 4 are "local".

These sorts of daily journeys are only viable in a world where oil energy was so cheap as to be nearly free, because a by-product of such a world is a vast catchment area for every employer, supplier, retailer, wholesaler, etc, and this in effect means that while your journey time might equal my dad's when he was an apprentice, you absolutely have to travel three or four times the distance, which means travelling far faster, which means needing far faster roads, which means even more miles...

Suddenly the commute isn't a thing you do, the commute become a part of the machinery, in effect you start work the minute you embark on your journey.

But...

When oil energy stops being so cheap as to be essentially free, sitting there and saying the electric vehicle must have 150 mile range and do 75 mph is like sitting in England and planning a life in Africa, because simple human nature dictates that all your plans will revolve around keeping everything the same, whereas simple fact dictates that practically nothing will be the same.

Insisting that electric vehicles, such as could be, and are available simply aren't good enough is to UTTERLY MISS THE POINT.

It is the commute, and the attitude that a 40 mile range and 30 mph isn't good enough, that is the problem, that is non-sustainable, that simply will not fly, no matter how much you want it to, no matter how much the continuation of your English lifestyle in Africa depends on it, no matter how unwilling or unprepared you are for the consequences.

When my dad was a boy apprentice, people did travel fast, and people did travel far, they just did not do it twice a day, that was unsustainable.

You worked and shopped and socialised and lived within about ten miles of home.

If you were a shopkeeper or business much of your produce and all of your employees and customers were within that ten mile radius.

If you lived in Africa here and the nearest shops were here and a lot of the journey was along unmetalled roads then you went shopping once a fortnight or once a week at the most.

The USA as I understand it has a serious problem with the whole issue of suburban communities, however, this applies to cities too, and the fact is that wishes ain't horses, and it really doesn't matter how much it is going to hurt when oil hits 200 bucks a barrel, and then 300 bucks a barrel.

You either live within 10 or so miles of your work and your shops (and by extension the bulk of their supplies and infrastructure) or you don't.

"You don't" as in you don't live, you don't survive, you don't support a roof over your head, and all that goes with that.

You want to come and live here, which is a place that should survive 300 dollars a barrel better than many, the barriers aren't going to be, as they are now, can you afford a stupidly expensive house to live in, quarter of a million pounds for ex council houses for god's sake, and the barriers aren't going to be getting yourself here or paperwork and visas, the barriers are going to be "what are you going to do when you get here?" Because, there are only so many jobs.

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The Electric Muscle
Bhima
Sun Jun 29 06:23:07 -0700 2008
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I have an Ohm pedelec.  It's really fun to ride and I'm pretty sure the only thing faster I could commute to work using would be teleportation.  OK, Truthfully I have a Ducati and if one is extraordinarily caviler with traffic laws it is possible to get back & forth through the city faster but this isn't something I'm particularly willing to do very often.  I haven't really tried to find out the true range but I have no doubt you could drive 70km on charge even if you leaned on the electric quite a lot.   Having as much fun with it as I do, I think there is a far larger market for them than anyone realizes... particularly in the face of $200 per barrel oil.

One thing I am interested in looking into is adding a bank of super caps to my bike.  I bike mostly in town and I imagine that super caps would handle the regenerative breaking and then resuming more efficiently.  I don't thing they would have to be all that big either.  I can only generate 22, 60, 93, or 105 watts and typically I don't brake for very long

I also had been thinking along the lines of an electrified motorcycle... mostly because my American friends recoil in horror when I talk about bicycles.  When you get up in speed the aerodynamics becomes more & more important and let's face it, anyone who isn't willing to peddle a bicycle isn't likely to be very aerodynamic.  Also the limitation for the speed isn't motor / battery technology it is your local traffic law... there are 350W in-hub motors & 38V 12AH batteries available now and those surpass many local traffic laws and then require helmets, tags, insurance, and more attention from bored constabulary. 

Another consideration is weight.  Just looking at my Ducati... and imagining it without the engine or fuel tank.  The front forks and swing arm are far too heavy.  I haven't looked at the forks on mopeds or scooters but maybe they would be more appropriate.

Just one final note:  I've seen many websites showing motorcycles converted to electric and I have to say while I applaud these people's ingenuity and industriousness... they have absolutely no sense of dignity or style.

Geography hits us in the face

Julian Brookes
Sun Jun 29 06:28:10 -0700 2008
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Many of us, even in the USA, would love to be those "locals" you describe. But the problem is not the "size" of the USA, nor "the whole issue of suburban communities".

Size of the country is irrelevant unless you intend to cross it on a regular basis. And, there just isn't enough room in cities for the USA population. Hence, "suburbs".

The problem is that areas where rentals are affordable have few jobs. And areas where there are jobs are often far away. So, if you are in a position of power in the job market, you can arrange housing and job close to each other. If your position is marginal, you have to settle for what you can get. The people in power have often moved the workplaces close into the country-club areas where *they* live, essentially outsourcing fuel use to the peons. The higher the range of your possible commute, the more likely you are to be employed.

Geography hits us in the face
chinakow
Sun Jun 29 10:01:39 -0700 2008
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"And, there just isn't enough room in cities for the USA population. Hence, 'suburbs'."

 

The reason there isn't enough room in the cities is because we stopped making room. I lived in a town of about 80,000 people in Colorado there where maybe literally 10 buildings in the whole town more than 5 stories tall. Most buildings where built as a single floor and had plenty of room between each building. This is what causes urban sprawl. Everybody wants to live a long way away from their neighbor and they do, relatively speaking.

When no one wants to live in the city, the city stops existing and becomes all suburban.
Now when I go to Denver, I can see downtown for miles and when I get there I can find housing, it is actually about the same price for an apartment there as it is in the small town, except there is also about 40 restaurants, and a bunch of theaters of all kinds, many within walking distance. When they are not close enough to walk to, then the bus and light rail is and can be used to get to just about anywhere that is downtown. So the real mental change that needs to happen is the switch from hiding away in the 'burbs so we can all have "space" and getting used to the idea that a shared wall with the neighbors means that we can also get benifits like: entertainment; being able to actually walk home from the bar; in Denver, being able to walk home from a baseball game or taking a short light rail ride home from a football game; eating at the good restaurants; going to the good museums; and being able to go to all the good shows. All of that and you save money on gas for each of those trips because you can leave your vehicle parked in the garage and if you can avoid the 30 minutes to an hour of driving to all of this, you will also feel less stressed and less likely to get a speeding ticket.

Of course this mean building new multi-story building and then making sure that the urban areas are taken care of so that they do not turn into slums. Luckily having everything in a small area also means fewer buildings to maintain. As for the power, let 'em rot in the country, <fantasy>If everyone just bucked up and demanded fair wages that compensated them for their travel they might be able to keep those people coming out there to clean their balls for them.</fantasy> Those people at the country club pay a lot for their memberships, maybe some of that could actually go to the staff.

Geography hits us in the face
zogger
Sun Jun 29 13:21:40 -0700 2008
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.....and some sort of control and basic human needs come into play when you start thinking about more than a small building, they become very expensive. Very expensive, especially high rises which today take in a lot of cases multiple partners and investment concerns and complex deals to get put up, then the rents are high because they not only have to cover costs and maintenance, but also turn a handsome profit for the shareholders. It is *expensive* to live in cities, you have to pay everyone there at very high global rates because they made this a forced global labor arbitrage economy, and it isn't sustainable. And everything they need in the big cities has to be trucked or piped in in an expensive manner to expensive stores and shops and needs oodles more expensive "governance". We can't all be donald trumps, and for a lot of people having some green around them is of primary concern as well. Suburbia after ww2 expanded actual mass numbers of owners as opposed to the three thousand year old system of a few royal fatcats and a lot of serfs/renters. Ya, we are stuck now temporarily because of transpo costs, but they-the petroleum goons- overreached themselves and the alternatives will be developed, happening as we speak, look at just the interest on this board.

Places in big cities that are cheap invariably turn into landlord/renter crime infested ghettoes of ultimate despair. And the jobs keep poofing away, meaning...how do you make a living? Been checking the latest industrial retail stats? Tons of big retail chains are going bankrupt or in trouble. Tons of white collart layoffs all over, pick a white collar industry. Like before, we can't all be donald trumps and we can't exist just retailing stuff at each other, the old phrase is "doing each others laundry", because real wealth is mined, grown, or manufactured from the other two, and that is IT, and that is wealth *production*, wealth creation, everything else is wealth skimming/rearranging/managing/governing, etc, but it is not wealth production, it merely dilutes the money pool. they try to get around that by over inflating the currency, and as you can see, that isn't working for them, because uit violates the laws of physics! You can't "declare" wealth! If you could, zimbabwe would be the richest place on the planet now, they print up money above and beyond what can be represented by their true wealth creation by the truckload. It will never work in the long run, A to Z, america to zimbabwe, you just can't say your pile of poker chips is worth a lot of real stuff, not for long anyway, eventually the idiots who have been trading real stuff for pictures of dead folks on pieces of paper get wise to that. may take them awhile, but it'll happen, inevitable.

And huge cities trying to exist now in the declining west on massive wealth rearranging and trying to milk the really artificially promoted no scarcity digital bits things and toxic waster paper products are part of why we have this huge economic mess now, since they decided we could do away with the bulk of day to day tangibles manufacturing and so on. That great experiment has about run its course, you are experiencing the last dregs of the good old days right now, with all the benfits you like there, and the proof is in all the headlines, those doofuses have "screwed the pooch" now, there is no fix for it, none whatsoever, the decline will continue unabated, and it is quite clear where the real growth and wealth is, and where it is shifting and fast, and that is over to the nations that are embracing the manufacturing and true wealth production,and thats why those folks run billions and combined trillion dollar balance of trade surpluses and have more trillions to use for soverign investment funds, etc, while the nations that shafted their manufacturing don't and are trying to wall paper over the cracks in the financial disaster tsunami that is coming on hard now with paper work shuffling and weird press releases that say nothing important but sure "sound" important.

The all retail and alleged "service" economy is a *complete hoax and grifter's conjob* perpetrated by the big pirates and economy looters at the tippy top levels, it is grand theft larceny at unimaginable scales. In one generation -the last 25 years- they have utterly stolen what took ten previous generations to build up, and to top that off, they are selling off the remainder of whatever is valuable of the actual still functional infrastructure, the roads, bridges, water works, etc, for pennies on the dollar to people not of the nation so they can run that stuff into the ground just like they have with everything else and turn some more short term megaprofits. They not only are major league crooks, they are traitors, IMO.

anyway, as the economy continues to implode, it will be felt more in the cities, because you have fixed costs and no credible workarounds for anything. Your system works and is up and running ot it collapses, on a micro or macro scale. Your "for this your means from one person to everyone there, all inclusive)landlord won't care if you can't pay the rent because you got laid off, the grocer won't care if you can't afford food, the utility company won't care if you can't afford your electricity and water and natgas, your public transportation costs will keep rising, your taxes will keep going up and so on. Back duering the depression in the 30s, city folks starved because they had no money, the country people still got eat, even though they didn' t have any money either. Apply that to all of modern technological reality. Personally, I don't care if millions more get faked out and run screaming back to the cities, because it is a very short term bandaid for this economic mess, it is not sustainable, and sometimes people only learn after going through hard times, long range thinking is not part of the national group mindset now. That has to change before we get any productive societal changes unfortunately. Yes, *right now* it is still somewhat calm and still functional, it "seems" normal, but the changes that are coming are going to rock your world, and soon. The urban cushy life is based completely on cheap oil once all is said and done. The oppoisite of cheap is expensive, what oil is now and what it will keep getting more of, and the opposite of cushy is....we'll all be seeing what that is soon.

And you know what? I hope I am so wrong it ain't funny. I really do, but I doubt I am wrong. If I was really wrong you wouldn't be reading a single negative economic headline, but even massaged as they are it is still dismal, so that should say something right there. If I am wrong, you wouldn't be reading about emergency meetings and so on, they wouldn't have fatcats going off to go consult with prince fatter cat. And along those lines. We wouldn't be reading about new secure parking lots being setup so that folks could live in their cars, but we are, because there aren't enough jobs and cheap enough housing now as it is, let alone in another year or so. There wouldn't exist an imploding mortgage mess or derivatives mess or fast rise in bankruptcies or pawnshops doing booming business. You wouldn't be reading about airlines having to cut back and imposing extra fees, they'd be fighting over giving away freq flyer miles instead. And all of that and more. Like I said, hope I am wrong, but if I was a big city resident right now I'd be enjoying the crap out of the amenities because I don't think that will be possible for millions of people "coming soon" now. When exactly, to the day, can't say, but will say it is coming, and I, for one, do not want to be part of the big cities when it hits hard, I learned from history, I listened to the next generation over me and tales of the depression, what it was really like. It went from boomtown everyone party we're all rich! to ZOMG what the heck happened buddy can you spare that moldy turnip in a few short years. Stuff changes *fast*.

Geography hits us in the face
Michael Smith
Sun Jun 29 15:16:34 -0700 2008
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I think the high density living thing is a bit of a distraction. I once had a house in the outer suburbs on a 800 m^2 site. For most things I needed I had to drive a car.

Now we have a 400 m^2 site within 7km of the Melbourne CBD. We have light rail and shops within an easy walking distance.

But this is not really high density living. I don't think you have to live in high rise apartments to pay for good infrastructure.

The Electric Muscle
President4242
Sun Jun 29 09:17:29 -0700 2008
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Here's what I would LOVE to see:

A recumbent forward-pedal frame, but instead of a chain, a small on-pedal generator, and on the back wheel an electric motor, with some sort of plug-in battery recharge in addition to the pedal recharge.

This solves the "steering chain" problem of forward-pedal recumbent frames, resulting in a shorter bike; it solves the main problem (for my body type anyway) of constantly shifting and variable speed pedaling (I'm better with pedaling at a constant speed/force); and one could theoretically include a cowling for rainy days (solving that drowned rat-at-the-office-appearance).

When I find that, THAT would be a vehicle I'd be willing to borrow to buy.

The Electric Muscle
GuyFawkes
Sun Jun 29 10:43:12 -0700 2008
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Figure the average human being can output a steady 100 watts (given pro cyclists can sustain 220 watts).

Figure on a 150 watt motor assist then, figure on 5 minute endurance, 5 minutes is 0.084 hours so 0.084 x 150 = 12.6 watt hours.

Lead acid batteries are good for 35 watt hours per kilogramme, so a 1 Kg lead acid battery will do.

Figure an overall efficiency of 75%.

2 Kg for rear wheel hub motor, 2 Kg for front wheel hub generator (more efficient than combining them) and 2 Kg for pedal generator, 1 Kg for battery and 1 Kg for electronics, 1 Kg for wiring and 1 Kg for packaging the installation, total extra weight 10 Kg.

Use smart electrics so never more than 33% of pedal power goes into charging battery.

Worst case scenario is you output 100 watts of effort and get 50 watts of work at the wheel, this is charging the battery while pedalling on the flat.

Best case charging scenario is regenerative braking downhill, 150 watts.

Best case power scenario is pedalling uphill, your 100 watts giving 75 at the wheel, plus 150 watts from the motor, temporarily over running the motor at 225 watts or 50% overload.

As a basic power transmission system the 75% efficiency pretty much kills it dead vs the ten speed or better still CVT, however, regenrative braking is enough to tip the balance the other way.

So the bottom line here is you want maximum quality and efficiency out of your regenerative braking, out of your electric motor, out of your pedal generator, and most of all out of the electronics that run it all.

Given that people pay a thousand bucks for mountain bikes, the money is there.... but it will take a better electronics bod than me to make it work.

Some useful numbers for you to play with.

  • A gallon of petrol is about 35 kWh
  • A gallon of diesel is about 40 kWh
  • A lead acid battery is about 0.035 kWh per Kg
  • A metal hydride battery gives about 0.070
  • A Li-on polymer battery gives about 0.15
  • Lead acid and Li-on are both good for maybe 1,000 cycles, but whereas lead acid with care will last 10 or more years, Li-on do about 3 before serious loss of capacity.
  • 746 watts = 1 bhp
  • Human being can output about 1/6th bhp continuous.
  • 1 Electric motor "bhp" = at least 2 IC bhp, heat in exhaust gases and water jacket... 6 bhp = approx 1 gallon every 4 hours.

HTH etc

The Electric Muscle
Bhima
Sun Jun 29 13:05:08 -0700 2008
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Guy, why spec a seperate generator when you can run the motors as generators?

Also I think the unsprung weight of having a motor in the front wheel hub would be sub optimal.  why not just use one larger motor?

The Electric Muscle
GuyFawkes
Sun Jun 29 13:30:37 -0700 2008
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Do you want an efficient generator, or an efficient motor?

Unsprung hub? what is sprung on a pushbike?

http://www.esat.kuleuven.be/electa/publications/fulltexts/pub_1602.pdf etc

The Electric Muscle
Bhima
Sun Jun 29 14:02:41 -0700 2008
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I want both... or at least I want something that performs better or equal per kilo than a separate generator & motor combined.  So I'm willing to take the few percent drop in efficiency while generating as described in your link.  I'd rather have that weight in supercaps.

In recent years most pushbikes have sprung front forks.  I find this to be particularly beneficial at speeds greater than about 5kmh and on the imperfect roads found in a city environment.  As a single 350 watt rear motor is sufficient for a lard ass such as myself (and a case of beer), I wonder why add the weight to the front wheel.  Here I think the tech is adequate and weight budget would be better consumed by adding super capacitors for urban bikes and batteries for suburban bikes

The Electric Muscle
Michael Smith
Sun Jun 29 15:27:38 -0700 2008
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I ride a mountain bike to work and I have built my own lighting system. I have considered building a charger for the lights which couples mechanically to one of the brake rotors when apropriately commanded. Even the way I ride I don't think I could recover enough energy from a system like that to provide enough energy recovery to drive a motor.

The Electric Muscle
Bhima
Mon Jun 30 02:08:18 -0700 2008
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In my Pedelec I use the regenerative breaking of the hub motor a lot.  Basically it has the effect of extending the electric assist range.  I still have the feeling that a small bank of super-caps would work better for the regenerative breaking.  All you would need to store is a enough juice to go from a stand still to about 10kmh… once.  I don’t think most of my breaking would really completely fill such a bank of super-caps… so it sounds like a good balance and as the super-caps are more able to quickly absorb the power from regenerative breaking would further extend the range of electric assist.

Back in the ‘70s I had a generator powered headlight for my bike… I don’t recall being able to tell the difference in pedaling effort between it being engaged or not.  I do remember blowing the headlight one evening racing my older brother down a very long hill… I heard it pop and then was in darkness.

The Bio-Muscle

rubycodez
Sun Jun 29 10:00:17 -0700 2008
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Ten miles on the good old fashioned people-powered bicycle is very doable even at your (our) age GuyFawkes, I do it.  Once you get into that range I'm questioning the need for electric bike as long as paved roads are available.  How about a mechanical regenerative system for people-powered bikes to ease the start/stop?

 

Until she was in her late 50s (at which point she "retired" and children and in-laws now provide for her), my mother in law got up a 5am, went to local warehouse and bought produce, and put tens of pounds of it on her bicycle and pedaled five miles to her produce stall she rented at market where she sold the stuff.   She was slim and trim until then, now she's big and fat like her sister who lives in the U.S., haha  (and now if her kids, my wife's cousins, ever read technocrat and figure out it's me I'm dead meat 8o)

The Bio-Muscle
Michael Smith
Sun Jun 29 15:35:35 -0700 2008
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Ten miles on the good old fashioned people-powered bicycle is very doable even at your (our) age GuyFawkes, I do it.  Once you get into that range I'm questioning the need for electric bike as long as paved roads are available.

Having a clip in pedal system can help enormously. It takes a bit of getting used to but it does wonders for power transfer. A lot of people get put off cycling the first time they have to ride 10km with a strong headwind. Being able to use different muscle groups and put a bit of extra power into the bike makes a lot of difference.

The Bio-Muscle
Matt Fulkerson
Mon Jun 30 07:03:05 -0700 2008
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I've never tried the special shoes that clip to the pedals, but have used the old-fashioned toe clip.  I've found I don't gain much efficiency over not using clips, as long as I focus on lifting my upward moving foot so as not to force the powering leg to do extra work.  I also have fairly heavy  legs, so that may have something do due with it.  With the pedal clips, I spend more time trying to insert my foot into the toe clip that it is not worth the hassle.

The Bio-Muscle
Michael Smith
Tue Jul 01 05:38:07 -0700 2008
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I use SPD pedals for commuting but I have used Look pedals in the past, and toestraps before that. I find them to be a big help as long as I maintain a good pedalling style with the legs working all the way through the stroke. Legs aren't pistons. They can push in most directions and that helps spread the load between different muscles.

The Bio-Muscle
Matt Fulkerson
Tue Jul 01 20:30:00 -0700 2008
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I hadn't really thought about the possiblity of the back and forwards motions providing additional power with different muscles.

In general, though, I'm amazed at the amount of dough that can be thrown down for sports equipment.  Not being an everyday cyclist, I really can't justify the expense.   I was fortunate to find a $400 road bike a few years back to replace the one I'd had since 5th grade, which someone somehow smashed up while it was locked to a telephone pole.  Needless to say, I was very impressed by the increased efficiency of the new "entry level" bicycle.

Of course, if I joined a cycling club, I'd need every technical advantage just to keep up.  Ignorance is bliss.

The Electric Muscle
Alcibiades
Sun Jun 29 11:37:18 -0700 2008
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This is quite right, it is the expectations and the lifestyle that must and will change.  No-one is ready for it.  The whole commuting lifestyle is going to vanish.   In the UK right now gas is about £6 per (imperial) gallon.  It is real easy to spend a couple thousand a year doing under 10k miles.  Cut that in half, and you can pay for a high end electric bike in a year.

People will be doing it.  Or pedalling.  There will also be people not filling their oil tanks this winter in the countryside.  Heating oil is now around  60p a liter.  Easy to spend a thousand or two on that. 

These people will take up cycling as well.  We will have large scale deep fuel poverty this winter, and a lot of cycling.  And free bus passes being used.

The Electric Muscle
maethorechannen
Sun Jun 29 13:31:59 -0700 2008
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it is the expectations and the lifestyle that must and will change

 

Alternatively, the technologies we use to fulfill the expectations and lifestyle will change. I'd put my money on new technologies long before I'd put money on any long term major changes in lifestyle. There might be some short term changes while people feel the pain of transition, but in the long run the future will look much like the immediate past.

The Electric Muscle
Alcibiades
Mon Jun 30 00:32:22 -0700 2008
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Its a common assumption, that technology will bail us out somehow. 

The question this winter in the UK in the countryside is going to be real simple.  You probably have an oil tank which takes 1000-2000 liters, and you're probably burning 2,000+ liters a year, mostly in the winter, and in many cases this does not keep you warm by US standards.  Filling this tank is going to cost £1500.  You do a first partial fill in November.  In February you need another £700 to refill it.

Where are you going to get it?

It is currently costing you 10-20p a mile to drive 5-10 miles or more to the local Tesco or Sainsbury to buy groceries, which in turn have risen by 30 per cent or so.  Then you have to drive to work.  Its probably well over 10k miles a year.  It can easily cost you £2,000+.  This is not to mention what the car is costing in service, insurance, depreciation.  A year ago your main worry was that your teenage children were going to cost an extra £1500 a year in insurance.  That's just been eaten by gasoline.  Yes, you can save several hundred by getting a higher mileage car.  But even that is going to be increasingly unaffordable to run.

Your disposable income is also being eaten by a huge number of ever rising taxes and extra charges for municipal services.

You are going to turn down the heat, light your solid fuel stove, and in your one warm room sit down with your wife, who has just come back from cycling 5 miles over unlit country roads to the empty parking lot at Tesco, and your conversation is going to be on the lines of, if we moved to the local provincial town, maybe we could do without a car, walk to the shops, have the kids walk to school, and get gas central heating.  Its going to be a shock.  You won't like it.  You will do anything to avoid this.   You may even vote differently.  It will not help.  The next winter or the one after, you're going to be looking at £3000 on heating, another £3000 for gasoline.  You simply will not have it.  Neither will anyone else.  People will move.  Lifestyles will change.  Because they will not have the money to stay where they are, living as they are now.

Look at it specifically, and you see that technology is not going to solve your problem any time soon.  What are you going to do?  This winter, you'll probably not fill the tank, you may burn solid fuels if, like an increasing number of people in the countryside, you have a solid fuel stove.  This is the one warm room and a hot water bottle strategy.  People don't like it, but its a necessity.  Then, they will cycle to the shops.  Look at the roads around English country villages today, and look at the number of bikes with shopping on them.  Two years ago you never saw any.

If people do not have the money to buy oil, they will not.  At these and the immediately visible levels, a large proportion of the population cannot buy it.  There is no visible source of low cost fuel for transport and for heating anywhere in the immediate future, and that is what is needed for this lifestyle.  Most of the population needs oil at $50 or so a barrel to live like this, and there is none.

So this will produce changes in behaviour.  Employers will find that they cannot find staff unless they locate in places that are easy and cheap to get to.  Shops will find that they are empty, and will close.  People will move to where they can get by without what they cannot afford.  If the great surburban exodus could happen in the fifties, the great urban return can happen in the tens and twenties.  It will. 

And cycling for transportation will come back too, with a distinct absence of Lycra.

It would be interesting to get Guy Fawkes' comments on household budgets.  Doubt they will differ much from the above.

The Electric Muscle
Michael Smith
Mon Jun 30 01:01:20 -0700 2008
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And cycling for transportation will come back too, with a distinct absence of Lycra.

Are they going to do it without index shifting too? Is that somehow better?

The Electric Muscle
Alcibiades
Mon Jun 30 02:11:14 -0700 2008
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Without index shifting?  Yes, probably.  Because they are probably going to do it with hub gears, and yes, it will be somehow better.  It will be longer lived, less maintenance, cleaner (easier to use with chainguards), and less likely to be damaged from being stacked with lots of other bikes or banged into. 

I use bikes with derailleur, and index shifting on one of them, and like it a lot.  I also wear odds and ends that probably have Lycra in them.  But I cycle for exercise and occasional transport locally, and I take a shower when I get in.  Its not (yet) a main means of transport.  Its not done wearing conventional white collar clothes (for which a chainguard helps a lot).  I don't have to leave the bike at a train station, or park it in the company bike shed.  I don't do enough regular miles in all weathers that day-in day-out maintainability is an issue.   If I get oil on my pants, who cares, just throw them in the wash.  Different with suit pants.

I think its a small but striking indication of how difficult people find it to imagine the scale of the social changes that are coming.  Similarly, as GF writes, people seem to imagine the world continuing as now except that electricity comes from windmills, and cars which now get 35-40 to the imperial gallon become hybrids, and get 55.  Both of which however become unaffordable:  the problem is not going to be the difference between 40mg and 55mpg.  The problem is that prices will have risen to the point that what is affordable with this lifestyle is 200mpg, and that is nowhere visible.

They put solar water heaters in.  In the UK countryside, with oil heat, this is a several thousand pound installation to save about 150 or 200 a year.  It is not going to make any real difference, its not going to be what rescues the oil fired central heating problem.  Nothing will.  This is why people are going to solid fuel stoves in one or two rooms.  Ask any installer in the country.  Its happening.

The central question which GF raises is:  how much lifestyle changes, and of what sort, does $200 a barrel require.  He comes close to saying, and I agree, that it is back to the demographics and lifestyle of the 40s and 50s.  It is the end of suburbia, the end of shopping, the end of trucks used as warehousing.  The end of driving and flying as we know it today.  It is local, where local means within cycling distance. 

Getting there again is not going to be fun.

The Electric Muscle
Michael Smith
Mon Jun 30 03:36:19 -0700 2008
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its not going to be what rescues the oil fired central heating problem.  Nothing will.

I don't doubt that you have a problem there. I wonder if wind power could fill part of the gap? One problem with wind power is that supply can drop within a space of seconds and I wonder if electric heating could be made to drop in response as a kind of regulator system. I envisage using the dreaded broadband over power lines system to send commands to heaters to regulate demand so that more essential applications can get a continuous supply.

It is the end of suburbia, the end of shopping

Again, you may be right. But I spend a lot of time in Malaysia where a lot of people get around on motorbikes at 40 km/h and it wouldn't take much for those bikes to be electric and charged by PV cells.

Getting there again is not going to be fun.

Personally I can't wait to see what happens.

The Electric Muscle
GuyFawkes
Mon Jun 30 01:57:43 -0700 2008
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It would be interesting to get Guy Fawkes' comments on household budgets.  Doubt they will differ much from the above.

Well, yes and no.

We should be better off in the country, we are after all closer to basic food and that is the staple.

Unfortunately what has happened over the past twenty years has been a "perfect storm" of apparently unrelated but actually closely related events setting us up for a fall. BTW for the record here I'm speaking of Devon generally.

First off you have had the lunatic price rised and easy credit, world + dog in the cities decided to buy second homes in the country, which at a stroke pushed up prices in the country to the point where locals couldn't afford it, while also killing village life, village shops cannot survive when half the houses are empty most of the year, and when they are full the occupants trundle down in chelsea tractors stuffed with Waitrose produce.

Secondly you have the supermarkets, the Tesco syndrome, Tesco do no sell quality food, they never have, nor do they sell cheap food, they never have, Tesco food has always been low quality and high profit margin, but superlative and constant marketing, while on the other hand their buying power was sufficient not merely to dictate prices nationwide, but also to dictate what was produced... this, more than anything else, killed off farming.

Devon alone used to produce one third of the nation's milk and meat...

Meanwhile the towns and cities have been aping London, thinking they are the centre of everything, so Exeter City Council is costing more to run every year, and is funding this with the excessive Council Tax bills, doesn't matter what you get in return, so expect poll tax riots in the next 24 months on this issue.

Along for the ride we have Stagecoach, try and run a bus route and along will come Stagecoach, running the same route at twice the frequency and 30% less ticket price, until you go bust, and then the service will drop back to the more usual infrequent, unreliable and horribly expensive, a single ticket from here to the city centre three miles away is a staggering 2.20 pounds.

Industry has done the same sort of boogie away from manufacturing into service, so Marsh Barton industrial estate has just about tripled in size in the past 20 years, but all the "real" industrial vendors have gone, and been replaced with giant sized Argos, Office World, Currys, and mega dealerships for very nearly literally every Marque of automobile out there.

As to your other comments.

We (currently) live in an ex council house, which means it was well built (back in the day the local councils had very high building standards) which is fully double glazed, has gas central heating and a flame effect gas fire in the lounge, we basically expect to be adopting the "one warm room" strategy next winter, leaving the central heating off entirely (small electric fan heater for the bathroom as and when required) and lighting the lounge fire in the evenings, apart from that it is pullovers and wrap up warm stuff.

Having seen all this coming for some years we are 100% debt free, and provided we can keep some level of income coming in, which should be OK, as she works in the one Hotel in town that caters to all the company executives and lawyers and suchlike, and by executives I mean board level stuff, and that should be about as recession proof a job as it gets, meanwhile I muddle through doing my bits and pieces.

Mostly surviving is about self sufficiency, and I don't mean growing your own spuds, I mean never handing money to anyone else to do anything that you could do yourself.

The problem we have around here is we have a lot of people who either aren't "country" or aren't able to do for themselves if they are local, because they've grown up in this service economy world, these people are incapable of making the adjustments required towards a bit of self sufficiency, and they are going to get hit hard.

On the other hand there are always *some* people around with money, and others who have some money and who need things doing, and everyone has to eat, so we are more or less ripe for a scenario where everything goes black market to avoid both regulation and taxes, back to the cash economy.

In a real shit hits the fan scenario we are surrounded by productive land, and there are still enough farmers around to know what to do with it, provide everyone else with ration books for electricity consumption (there is a nuke power station 60 odd miles away) and ration books for fuel and we could stabilise as a net exporter of food to the rest of the country again.

Of course all the "jobs" down on Marsh Barton and in the various offices (Alliance and Leicester just laid off 85% of the staff at a new building they threw up two years ago, that's 385 extra unemployed right there) will evaporate, and there is basically zero social housing capacity left, so time will get hard.

I remember Falmouth in the late seventies when the docks closed, 33% adult male unemployment, drugs and associated crime went through the roof... but it does sort of all come out in the wash.

What I really feel, and what we are lacking now, is the wartime spirit, I really do think there are parallels to bullets flying everywhere, you either swallow your fear and fight back, or you cower in your trench hoping it will somehow pass you by... sadly I think we have few people left who are prepared to fight back.

What I do have is a plan B, and a plan C, and so on, and barring accidents or radically unforeseen eventualities that basically amount to total civil anarchy, I can't see me being without a roof over my head, which is pretty much essential as the proverbial bottom rung of the ladder, it allows you to live cheaply, store and cook food, stay clean, and be contactable, have an address... I think a lot of people will be living in cars and suchlike.

Banks are the perfect storm trigger.

What nobody remembers now is that when banks need money they don't foreclose on those who cannot pay, what would be the point? Instead they foreclose on those who can pay, and squeeze the pips out of the rest. In this way Banks can take literal billions out of the economy in a mere 12 months.

In the case of the USA for example there is over 560 TRILLION dollars floating around in paper "equity", most of it backed by private homes and commercial property, in the UK the total private housing market equity is 2 TRILLION (1012)pounds sterling, a 50% reset, not at all an impossible scenario, is going to take a trillion pounds sterling out of circulation, if you figure 10 million households that makes a cool 200,000 UK pounds per household, and the buggers are having problems filling their cars up NOW.

The solution is millions of individuals each performing some local good or service or production, something that requires minimal capitalisation, so for example I could be the handyman, fix anything from uncle freds nebulariser to auntie sues wheelchair, or when I'm not doing that I could teach, blah blah blah.

Of course if plan A works then I won't give a shit...

I've said here before, January last year I elected to have a full dental clearance, I have to tell you, a part of that was seeing what was coming, and taking advantage of the opportunity to have a top dental surgeon do the job (for free, on the NHS) properly and thus no matter what happens I never have to worry about dental care.

Dude, I have an (unplanned it must be said) young un, he's now 18 months old and no worries about his health, a good old tough mongrel stock, and every day is another day towards him building those all important foundations for a healthy adult life, I don't even know if he will survive the future, if we have riots and things burn down who knows, but I do know that he is going to need all that genetic heritage and attitude of people like my grandad and his grandad in the years to come, long as you have breath you have to fight.

I've mainly won all my battles by being stubborn, you just have to persist longer than the other bastards to win.

The Electric Muscle
maethorechannen
Mon Jun 30 02:49:42 -0700 2008
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So this will produce changes in behaviour.

But only temporarily. This winter, maybe the next few. But as oil increases in price, so does the market for oil replacements. Eventually, life will get back to at least normal, if not better.

The Electric Muscle
GuyFawkes
Mon Jun 30 03:23:00 -0700 2008
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as oil increases in price, so does the market for oil replacements

Sorry, but this is a naive attitude to take.

For starters it assumes that the increasing price of oil is not erasing the very capital people require in order to create a demand market for replacements, this simply isn't so.

People will want cheaper oil replacements, but when people are spending everything they have on just surviving they won't have any cash for oil replacements, cheaper or otherwise.

I really don't think you "get" it.

We are talking about the cost of ENERGY for personal consumption, and I mean energy in ALL forms from food calories on up to jet fuel, rising dramatically.

You have three options in this scenario.

  1. Buy less energy of all forms, so food energy forms a greater proportion, then heating energy, then transport energy and lastly trinkets energy.
  2. Remove the pure market aspect by either TAKING more energy than you can afford, or PREVENTING others from taking the energy they can afford.
  3. Go on a SERIOUS 1939 style war footing and build nuke power plants and electrify everything like there is no tomorrow, and throw everything you have at commercial fusion research.

Please note, only option 1 is available to the individual to any meaningful sense in society.

Please note, option 2 is what the USA is doing in Iraq, it's a stopgap at best.

Please note, option 3 is what americans will call, with a sneer, "socialist" or with a curse "communist".

Nota Bene, none of these options permit the social, cultural and political landscape to survive intact another ten years.

Arguably this is the first true "rock and a hard place" decision the USA has ever had to face, how you face it will define you as a nation, afterwards you will no longer be a "young" country.

My money is on the USA ceasing to exist as a single country or federation, much like the breakup of the USSR.

Nota Bene, there was absolutely a total lack of anything but "demand" for potatoes during the Irish potato famine, but it is another nice example of an imported (food) energy monoculture crapping out and taking everything with it.

"Ireland" as a place survived, it is still there, as a nation it didn't. Not really.

That is one advantage we have in Europe, I live in a City with 2,000 years of history and constant habitation, it has seen everything, at one time or another, and so the solutions to almost any imaginable problem are hardwired to a certain extent, the antibodies are there.

For the NATIONS facing this meltdown the LAST THING THEY WANT is a population that remains mobile right up until the bitter end, it will be a swarm of locusts.

For the NATIONS and the LEADERS therefore the first thing to face the chop is going to be universal personal mobility via so cheap as to be effectively free energy.

Your "market demand" isn't going to be allowed to survive that.

The Electric Muscle
maethorechannen
Mon Jun 30 04:25:44 -0700 2008
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Nota Bene, none of these options permit the social, cultural and political landscape to survive intact another ten years.

Want to bet? Seriously, I don't believe things are anywhere near as a bad as you and certain aspects of the media believe it is, or that it is going to become unsolvably worse.The price of oil pumped out of the ground might be high, but there will be replacements. Life will be much as it is now.  The USA will still be around in 10 years time. The UK will still be around (it'll be on a snails pace march to federalism, but it'll still be here). Even the EU will probably still be here, wondering how it will continue on from the latest failed treaty/constitution. The NHS will be celebrating it's 70th birthday. The paper's will be decrying the violence of todays youth. The drivetrains will have changed, but people will still be angry at the Chelsea tractors on the roads. It's not going to be the happiest ten years, but's it's not going to be the end of the western world either.

The Electric Muscle
GuyFawkes
Mon Jun 30 05:09:30 -0700 2008
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The price of oil pumped out of the ground might be high, but there will be replacements.

 

Like what? Specifically? And I don't mean magic fairy pixie dust...

Just what do you propose is going to replace a liquid that readily releases 40 kilowatt hours of heat energy per gallon for a measly 10 pence UK or 20 cents US per kilowatt hour?

Considering that we do not have ANYTHING even approaching that energy density of cost at anything even remotely approaching 100 million barrels worth per DAY.

What exactly are you proposing that will POSTPONE our having to cut, on an ongoing basis, our daily energy consumption? Perhaps a genetically engineered plague that wipes out everyone who isn't anglo saxon white within the next 12 months?

The Electric Muscle
Alcibiades
Mon Jun 30 07:18:29 -0700 2008
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There will not be large scale social collapse.   You are right about this.   The change is perfectly manageable

But, it is quite mistaken to think there will not be large scale changes to how we drive, heat, shop and farm at least for the UK. One suspects Kunstler is right, and there will also be large scale changes in the US. 

There is not enough money here for people to carry on behaving as they do now, they know it already, and they are making their choices already.  One of them is to drive less and slower.  In the last week I have met four people locally who have bought bikes.  Two years ago they would have been new and shiny.  These are used and scruffy, bought dor a few tens of pounds, and liked the better for it.  What are they going to use them for?  Shopping, going over to the next village.  Basic transport.  Two years ago they would have laughed at the idea.  Look at cars on our local main road.  Half the number, two thirds the speed.  Talk to mulitfuel stove installers.  They have long waiting lists.  Ancedotes abound about people, for instance, deciding to move to a city where their kids can walk to school.

Just as cheap abundant oil gave us the growth in the suburbs, extended commuting, cars as mass transport, shopping centres, generously warm houses, jet air travel for cheap holidays, endless activities for children to be ferried to of an evening, so scarce expensive oil is going to impact all of these.

No, there will not be social collapse.  But to think there will not be large changes is quite wrong.  The changes will be as big as those that sudden cheap abundant oil brought about.  They will not exactly be a total reversal.  We won't recreate the fifties exactly.  But they will certainly be as big and far reaching as the ones cheap oil brought in.  GF is right.  There is no techno fix bringing us new energy in a small package at a low price.  So what will change is behavior, because it has to.

 

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