You made no relevant "point" in your reply to my post asking Daniel4 what African village life has to do with bicycling advocacy or the future in North America, unless you think posting a video of NL cycling has something to with Daniel4's dreamy visions of African village life.

Ah OK, gotcha.

I agree with most of what you said in this post. I'd rather be forced to look at some wind turbines than have my kids not be able to enjoy what I was able to enjoy.

I cycle past a large nuclear plant which has a single wind turbine set up as a display unit. I wonder how many thousands of these would be needed to replace just one of the nuclear units.

I don't believe wind energy is a viable solution. Subsidies to wind farms have doubled electricity costs here, hydro is tapped out and coal has been replaced with gas (same CO2, less smog). Wind farms are not only ugly but render large swatches of good land virtually uninhabitable. You mention wood in the same sentence as oil but solid fuel turbines are just another form of renewable solar energy (like wind, wave and hydro) with net-zero emissions if the trees are replanted.

We have a big problem but saying "electricity" doesn't solve them. Moving away from a suburban, commuter car culture is obviously the key but it will be a long term change with humongous political complications. Bikes will be part of it and I'm glad to see the people here continuing to push it and show what can be done.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=496083

Do some research... see what fracking does to the landscape... it's easy... use google maps and go to earth view mode and take a look at central and west Texas... Take note of the earthquakes in Oklahoma... 4.4 last night. Think about the damage to groundwater.

The fact is that the typical motor vehicle is highly inefficient... and most of that waste goes up in exhaust and heat... neither of which is good for the air YOU BREATH.

I read your posts on this subject, and you 'appear' to be deliberately misinterpreting what's being said for the sake of starting sh**. That makes you a troll. NO ONE ELSE would have put forth the point that recognizing the success of cycling as a way of lie in regions that are less prosperous is equivalent to wanting that less-prosperous standard of living, RATHER than the focus on and acceptance of cycling.

We don't NEED to be poor and primitive to have a successful utility cycling culture, and if ANYTHING, the example of poorer economic societies making cycling work should demonstrate that we can not only "do it, too", but do it BETTER.

No disagreement on that and I don't think I was advocating fracking.

Someone should have told you that I-Like-To-Bike is the community troll. I, like you, had to figure it out myself.

I was not under the impression that you were advocating fracking either. Here's what we might be able to agree on:

-Small gasoline-powered reciprocating engines (read: car engines) are highly inefficient

-Electric cars may pose a better solution, as the electricity may be generated either by clean sources or at the very least by burning fossil fuels in a more efficient manner than in each automobile engine

-A clean grid powered exclusively by non-nuclear renewable energy sources is not feasible in the near future

-We are wiling to make some aesthetic sacrifices in order to supplement the grid with renewable energy sources such as wind farms

Electric motors are more efficient than IC engines. The sticky wicket is that its more efficient to store and transfer fuel than energy.

That's okay; like I just told another, we have an ignore list for a reason.......

After having to deal with a couple of bad-ass grandkids almost daily, I have little patience for supposedly grown folks who sound like them.

Yes, electric motors are generally more efficient than IC engines, but how exactly are you getting that electricity to power your electric motor?

Fuel is energy, of course, and the energy density of fossil fuels is unparalleled by anything other than nuclear fuel. Given that most Americans don't drive huge mileage daily, and that battery technology and supercapacitor technology are rapidly advancing, electric cars have the potential to be successful.

No, but you were talking oil... and unless we have a steady supply from the ME, then in the west that is tar sands or fracking...

The ME has headaches of it's own. So we need to find some other means of supplying our toys with what they need to go...

Given that neither Daniel4's post nor anybody else's provided any evidence of a "successful utility cycling culture" in African villages but rather bemoaned the introduction of automobiles to some African villages, my question for him is still relevant and on topic: What do primitive African villages have to do with advocacy much less a glimpse of the future for anyone who reads this forum. It is neither here nor there whether anyone else questioned the logic in Daniel4's post or its lack of relevance to the thread topic, or that someone else thinks videos of NL cycling are a relevant answer to my question based on Daniel4's African village post.

Sounds good. While I used the word 'ugly' in relation to wind farms, aesthetics is not the serious issue. The health consequences of windmills are at least perceived if not proven which has the effect of making wind farm areas inhospitable to human habitation. Also, the cost of building the wind/solar/wave farms has to be considered. If it costs double or more than other sources and consumes vast resources in its manufacture that's a problem that can't be wished away.

I don't think I mentioned oil except to say that burning it to create electricity doesn't solve the problem -- once again, electricity is not a source of energy.

Watch Mikael Colville Anderson on youtube.

And while I was searching for other bicycle advocacy videos, I learned that the bicycle is a big driver of many local economies around the world. Unfortunately, when the community grows and automobiles are introduced, the automobile-centric roadways push everybody aside and ruin the bicycle economy to the point where today motorists often say that roads are made for cars.

This was what had already happened in North American and European cities when the automobile was introduced about a hundred years ago and it’s being replicated today as automobiles are pushing aside the local economies built by bicycles.

History repeats itself.

I believe it can be a big part of the solution. It's working here in Spain, where we're currently generating nearly 24% of our electricity with wind, and we have a 40% wind target for 2020.

Spain?s Generation Mix: Almost 70% Carbon-Free | CleanTechnica

If we really want to improve biking in the world, the stiff necked old fools at the UCI need to come to grips with the fact that DF bikes are antiques. At the very least they need to start sanctioning recumbent bikes and races. Most everyone can ride a recumbent or trike without pain. No pain equals more riders.

But until the UCI recognize recumbents as real bikes, it will keep bents suppressed, and keep them from becoming a popular style of bike that everyone can ride.

I'm sorry but you really need a reality check. I work in the energy field. There is no way we (as in the US) have enough room for a country powered by solar, wind, hydroelectric. It's simply not possible. Sure, there are articles out there that say "well if we can up the efficiency of solar panels by X% we can power the entire country just by covering new jersey in solar panels." But that efficiency gain is next to impossible with today's technology. In a few decades... maybe.

Let's do some math. In the US in 2014 we used roughly 40 quadrillion BTU of energy to produce electricity. That's about 12 trillion kWh. If a wind farm can produce 3 W/m^2 (the max of UK wind farms, where it's MUCH more windy), it'd take roughly 62 MILLION square miles of wind farms to power the US. Oh, the US is only 3.8 million square miles large. (That includes Alaska...) Oh, and I also assumed that the wind farms are producing their 3 W/m^2 all 24 hours in a day.

Ok, fine, wind isn't that great of a power source. What about solar? Solar farms can produce a bit less than 200 W/m^2 (I'm being generous). Even at that energy density, it'd take ~ 1.9 MILLION square miles of solar panels to power the US. So, you know, a bit less than 2/3rds of the US. Again, I assumed that the solar panels were producing max power for 12 hours every day. I'm not even going to talk about cloudy days, or how the majority of the US isn't suited for solar panels, or how we can't store energy well so if we had a solar panel based power generation system we'd have no electricity at night, or how electricity transmission is very lossy, especially since we'd have to convert the DC into AC to transmit it (DC has historically been difficult to transmit over long distances due to the difficulty of converting it to higher voltage. Transformers make this easy.) so that's even more lossy. Etc. etc. etc.

Please note that I've only talking about ELECTRICITY here. While the production of electricity does take a lot of energy, it's not the only thing that NEEDS energy in the US. The US, in total, used about 85 quadrillion BTU of energy. Now, you can discount the losses associated with the production of electricity if you want for these calculations, but you'd still have to produce electricity for everything else in the US that doesn't currently use it. Cars, jets, etc.

As for oil and coal being non-renewable, I look at it this way. When I started my PhD 4 years ago, I looked up the reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas for the US. IIRC, it was about 30 years for oil, 100 years for coal, and 200 years for natural gas. (I may have the coal and natural gas switched.) When I updated my presentation a year ago, those numbers had vastly changed. Oil was about 100 years, coal and natural gas were both well above 200 years. These numbers aren't going down any time soon. (All of these numbers were straight from the department of energy.) So yes, these resources are NOT renewable, but they are also not going to run out any time soon. By the time they run out we will have much better technology and may actually be able to use solar effectively.

What we SHOULD be focused on is better ways to USE fossil fuels more efficiently and produce LESS emissions. Something like a fuel cell for example. (My research project.)

Apologies for derailing the thread. I get uppity when people say that the US should try to stop using fossil fuels or anything similar. Too much misinformation spread on the internet.

Thanks for the numbers AND verifying that eventually oil based energy will run out.

No one is saying that the US needs to get off oil today... what is being said is that we cannot continue to go forward with our heads in the sand, assuming that oil will always be there. We need to invest on alternative energy sources and plan for that "better technology" today.

Using energy more efficiently is key to the future, and the switch to more efficient lighting, transportation, and appliances is part of that future picture.

Frankly I think the future demands several different technologies... vice the singular focus on oil extraction.

I celebrate your fuel cell research, as indeed that and other technologies ARE the future... as is the use of more efficient transportation, of which the ICE based motor vehicle does NOT qualify.

Also consider this... that embracing current forms of energy production by renewable sources will also extend the life of the limited oil resource. So while some European countries have decreased their dependence on oil, we for the most part charge forward and scramble to the bottom of the oil barrel.

I like that they will be plowing these paths as well as lighting them up. We have several hundred miles of path here in SW Ohio. They are perfect for commuting. However, the park district does not plow them in winter, nor are they lit. Both activities would be helpful.

Check the numbers.
Best solar cells reach 380W/m² in labs, won't be long before modules reach 48% efficiency and certainly more later
Compound Semiconductor - News
http://energyinformative.org/wp-cont...ency_chart.jpg

Also there are ways to store solar energy
Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)
Using Trains to Store Energy

There are also ways to circumvent the problem of lack of surface in the US. For instance mixing different energy sources or pilling up as the world is 3D (or more) and not simply 2D. Chips makers (transistors) have had the same kind of problem and have simply piled up layers. Wouldn't be hard to do with wind (and maybe solar too).
3D processors, memory and storage explained | TechRadar

There are also other solutions that are coming and the fact that there is nothing that says that people will keep wasting energy the way they have done until now especially since now there is COP21 (and the Europe example)
A Skyscraper-Sized Solar-Wind Tower Could Become North America's Tallest Structure - The Atlantic
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2...nuclear-fusion
Indonesia Exploring Liquid Fuel Nuclear Power Plants to Cut Reliance on Coal
etc...

Is it possible to significantly lower the carbon output from fossil fuel use?

Right on, my brother! Bent power! Bent power! Bent power!

netherlands isnt a city, its a country