tingilinde

towards a practical velomobile

Velomobiles are semi to fully enclosed human powered vehicles.  They keep out some or most of the weather, some are very efficient aerodynamically and most are homebrew or in very limited production.

It is difficult imaging them taking off in areas where bikes aren't practical - particularly in the US, but they are about as efficient as a bike (some can be more efficient -and a bike can be very good), extend the days where comfortable riding is possible and are very easy to turn into human/electric hybrids.  Due to limited production they tend to range in price from $5,000 to $10,000 - far too expensive for most people (although inexpensive if you are eliminating a car)

Production would dramatically reduce prices and serious engineering work needs to occur.  Greenspeed an Australian maker of three wheeled recumbents, is doing some serious engineering work for a velomobile called the Glyde.  (not shown here - see the link for details and photos) Delivered price in the US is about $9,000.

I'm guessing something like the Glyde with a 1 kW electric motor and a 1 kWh battery pack could go for $5,000 or less in volume production.   Operating costs would be very low and you could get as much exercise as you wanted

good moods and creativity

Interesting research on creativity and being in a good or bad mood (via Quirks and Quarks ... mp3)

the press release:

People who wear rose-coloured glasses see more, University of Toronto study shows

Good moods lead to global perspective

By Kim Luke, posted Wednesday, June 3, 2009

A University of Toronto study provides the first direct evidence that our mood literally changes the way our visual system filters our perceptual experience suggesting that seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses is more biological reality than metaphor.

"Good and bad moods literally change the way our visual cortex operates and how we see," said Professor Adam Anderson of psychology. "Specifically our study shows that when in a positive mood, our visual cortex takes in more information, while negative moods result in tunnel vision. The study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience at www.jneurosci.org.

The U of T team used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine how our visual cortex processes sensory information when in good, bad and neutral moods. They found that donning the rose-coloured glasses of a good mood is less about the colour and more about the expansiveness of the view.

The researchers first showed subjects a series images designed to generate a good, bad or neutral mood. Subjects were then shown a composite image, featuring a face in the centre, surrounded by "place" images, such as a house.To focus their attention on the central image, subjects were asked to identify the gender of the person's face. When in a bad mood, the subjects did not process the images of places in the surrounding background. However, when viewing the same images in a good mood, they actually took in more information -- they saw the central image of the face as well as the surrounding pictures of houses. The discovery came from looking at specific parts of the brain -- the parahippocampal "place area" -- that are known to process places and how this area relates to primary visual cortical responses, the first part of the cortex related to vision. Images from the experiment are at http://aclab.ca

"Under positive moods, people may process a greater number of objects in their environment, which sounds like a good thing, but it also can result in distraction," said Taylor Schmitz, a graduate student of Anderson's and lead author of the study. "Good moods enhance the literal size of the window through which we see the world. The upside of this is that we can see things from a more global, or integrative perspective. The downside is that this can lead to distraction on critical tasks that require narrow focus, such as operating dangerous machinery or airport screening of passenger baggage. Bad moods, on the other hand, may keep us more narrowly focused, preventing us from integrating information outside of our direct attentional focus."

The research is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Research Chairs program.

death rattle from vehicular hydrogen

California is asking the Department of Energy to reconsider its recent decision to de-emphasize support for vehicular hydrogen r&d.  (Steve Chu noted four miracles had to occur to make vehicular hydrogen practical).

I don't believe hydrogen makes sense for a variety of reasons, but ignoring those it should be noted that PHEVs and EVs are being supported for multiple reasons.  One is they are near term (less than five years) from non-trivial production and the other (largely overlooked) reason is the program is synergistic with another massive program - the smart grid.  Modest numbers of PHEVs are practical now with the current grid, but the efficient operation of a large fleet requires an improved power grid --- something that is going to happen anyway.

I'm reminded of the Hubble Space Telescope.  When the telescope was being proposed the majority view was that it should be larger than the current HST and lofted by an unmanned rocket.  The price tag would be lower and the performance greater.  And it would have never flown.  Thinking in NASA at the time was all about the Space Shuttle.  The only way to get a huge program approved was to design it so it required the shuttle.  Now the shuttle had another reason for existence and a powerful political ally.  The same think happened with the ISS.

If hydrogen cars and electric cars were in a dead heat - both equally likely in the very near future and both costing the same - the electric car would win because the smart grid needs selling. As it is the electric car is seriously ahead of the hydrogen car despite r&d funding that, up until now, favored hydrogen  (the Bush Administration loved hydrogen for some very unscientific reasons).

So if California believes in vehicular hydrogen so much (the governor loves the idea), perhaps they should fund r&d from their own funds.  Their belief should be strong enough that there will be a payback from new industry in California.  Perhaps private investors would jump to their aid and the citizens would gladly accept higher taxes.  Well Arnold?

where do records come from?

The athletes or equipment ...  or specialized training, drugs or...?

At elite levels sport is usually run with minimal rules to level things out and make the play relatively safe and interesting.  There is often a tension and sometimes technical advancements give  advantages to small groups with resources.  Of course at elite levels the athletes have access to training as well as freedom from 9 to 5 jobs so they can focus on a task.  Some are born into wealthy families, all have unusual genetics ..  where does one draw the line at fairness?  

At some level it comes down to how interesting the game is for the fans as money needs to be generated to fuel the support.  Giving huge long term advantages to a very small group may erode support as people love competition and underdogs.  Sometimes advances and rules make the competition less interesting (Nascar and F1 racing come to mind).  

I have an interest in the aerodynamics of balls in flight.  The bumps, dimples and stitches on balls used in sports were mostly determined by trail and error over decades (or more) and tend to be those that made the game more interesting.  I suspect we'll always see that with technical advances - it is an evolutionary process.

I have a friend who is a pro beach volleyball player.  She is genetically gifted and excelled at indoor volleyball.  In beach volleyball the players are on their own for finding support and their teammate.  There is a huge advantage for those who can come up with the $50,000 to $100,000 a year it takes to train seriously and travel - on top of having a job that gives the flexibility to spend 30 to 40 hours a week training year-round.   Only a handful have the sponsor support that allow them to do this and a few more were careful enough to have been born into wealthy families. 

She loves what she does and that is enough to motive her - but she lacks the resources to be at the top.  It isn't fair at some level, but life isn't fair in most things.  If there wasn't the interest that the Olympians in the sport generated, there probably wouldn't be a sport.

The people who push themselves and burn their own resources to pursue a dream are much more interesting to me than those who have risen to the point where great resources are provided to ensure their dominance to support a company or even a country.  I would love to see a bit more of a leveling, but the marketing of sport precludes that.

watch the iss

The International Space Station is now bright enough to see in daylight on a really clear day.  Try finding it at night and then work your way into the daylight.

Here is a starting point.

more thoughts on microvehicles

The 2002 VW 1-liter is one of the more sophisticated and practical designs.  It is only 290 kg empty and has tandem seating for lower frontal area and lateral stability if there is only one occupants or if the occupants are of very different weights.  Construction is mostly carbon fibre, which means it will be spendy (VW said it would enter limited production in 2010 two years ago)

It is usable on the highway and can easily cruise at freeway speeds.  Cd is around 0.15 (!) and the frontal area is very low as the car is only 1 meter tall and 1.25 meters wide.  

One liter refers to the amount of fuel needed to take it 100 km, not the engine size.  This works out to about 235 mpg in a normal driving loop (not just highway) and the prototype was closer to 300 mpg.   The one cylinder engine is about 300cc and 6.3 kW and there is room for improvement.

It has antilock breaks, airbags, crumple zones and the like - a modern car, but the size difference is so great acceptance in the US is very questionable unless fuel was very expensive.  It is the sort of thing that would see great cost reductions in high volume product as carbon fibre construction drops in price (the Chinese have been making good progress).

An electric or extended range EV makes sense.  The efficiency of an EV will be at least twice that of a really good diesel.  The battery requirements for the extended range hybrid would only be a few kWH.  Denmark currently waives a very high tax on vehicle purchase (about 180%) for EVs, which might make an EV version practical.

Making it practical is another thing. For town use aerodynamics aren't as important and one can imagine more space for carrying stuff.

One expects much development in this space as high density urban populations increase and hydrocarbon based fuels become more expensive.  It may be one of the few growth areas in the industry 10 years out.  (not that there are any now)

Many other schemes exist for urban use.  The two wheeled Segway assumes people are always too lazy to even walk and focuses on the great number of trips that are up to a few miles (perhaps five) where slow electric vehicle on the sidewalk might make sense.  The problems are it is expensive, heavy and cumbersome to cart around and people just look stupid on them. (an anthropologist friend told me it would badly fail even if it was free on the day it was introduced for the last reason.  The stance is very unnatural and just looks funny).

There has been progress in human/electric hybrid vehicles - mostly modified bikes, but enclosed velomobiles exist.  These might be more practical for some, but it will take very high oil prices for them to get any attention.

The sad thing (at least in the US) is an excellent solution exists for short trips - the bicycle.  There are many reasons why they don't work - traffic control, parking, the physical condition of the average American - but greatly expanded use would not be difficult in many areas.  

Adoption of any of these probably depend on regular $150/barrel oil.

happy birthday jheri!

Have a great birthday!  I hope you can be in one of your trees today and find enough chocolate cake.

musical fun for non-muscians?

strumsticks!

100 mpg plus from the past

Someone mentioned Messerschmitts:

small hydrogen fuel cell urban car

Riversimple's 350 kg urban car uses a small set of hydrogen fuel cells for constant power and a bank of ultra capacitors to supply power for acceleration.  They also claim the design is open source.  (although I'm not sure exactly what that means in this case)

This is a very lightweight car and only practical in urban areas where there is reasonable traffic management.  I don't see it happening in many US cities, although there are some candidates.  They don't have a lot of information on their site, but a car of this size range can be expected to get great mileage if care is taken with the engine - the VW one liter is in the same size range and offers much better performance and similar economy - of course it is exotic, but it could be manufactured if there was a need.

Going to a fuel cell is a mistake - too many energy conversion steps.  A better approach would be a battery and prices will be falling over the next few years.  On the other hand they wouldn't have had much publicity if they used an internal combustion engine or a battery.

Vehicles in this size range often have large performance variations based on the weight of their passenger(s) - a 50kg person may see a very different level of performance that a passenger and driver that add up to 200kg (if the car could take that).  I also suspect that you aren't going to see many of these sized to take anyone over the height of a two sigma male. (or the weight of a two sigma male -- it may even drive strangely with a single heavy driver).  Two hundred centimeter Colleen will have to look elsewhere for the ride for her low carbon road trip dreams.

It does beg the question: "what is the right size for a car?"  My guess is it much closer (or below) 1000 kg than 2000 kg, but moving people in that direction will be difficult without things like uniform bumper heights, $8+ gasoline, etc.  The Mitsubishi i-MiEV is a 1000 kg city car.  It is mostly small rather than engineered for very light weight.

Probably the only significant driver for North American oil use in transportation is price.  Any bets on oil prices in 2014?