BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Yeah, I think I could bike further then 25 miles on that much food.

On an ok road bike its about 630 miles per gallon.

http://www.unit-conversion.info/energy.html

Yes we are more efficient, but we are also powerless.

Say 25 miles = 1 hour going my hardest = 300 watt/hr

= 1080 kilojoules = 1023 BTU = 1/100th of a gallon

of gas.

That means me as a fit cyclist going as hard as

I can go for an hour is only equal to 1/100th

of a gallon of gasoline.

What this shows me is how insanely inefficient our

cars/trucks/other transport systems are.

It also shows the true power of gasoline.

Gimme a shot of exxon high-octane and a beer.

Good stuff. What's the efficiency of an auto?

A 3500 pound suv with an 110 pound passenger?

And say 30 pounds of cargo?

A claim from the rail road industry:

Today, we can move a ton of freight an average of 410 miles on just one gallon of diesel fuel.

Not sure how accurate this claim is.

I'm continually amazed at how fast and far humans can go on a bike with less than a single horse power. We have torque though, lotsa torque.

I started thinking this was the TRUCK milage and calculated it for that:

Maximum total weight is 80,000 lbs or 40 tons.

You might get it so the empty weight is 2 tons (doubtful, but giving them the benefit of the doubt), so fully loaded the truck might carry 38 tons cargo.

Dividing the 410 by 38, you get 10.7 MPG for the fully-loaded truck.

Is this possible?

I'd say "yes." if you had a perfectly flat road and a semi- designed and built with the singlemost goal of maximum milage at, say, 8 or 10 MPH, at a build cost far exceeding a normal semi, then maybe you could do that.

Not bloody likely that anyone ever would.

----

So, for a truck? Doubtful. Not without treating it like a space project.

For a railroad? I'm thinking yes. 8-10 mph is a reasonable speed for freight, the track is almost level, etc.

Mick

i really liked this article/interview to re-think miles per gallon. the authors say that it's misleading, and we should be using gallons per mile to better understand fuel efficiency.

we realized that the math of miles per gallon gets tricky and it can be really misleading.

Imagine that you are driving uphill for 100 miles and you’re getting 10 miles per gallon, and then you just turned around and drove down the same hill for 100 miles and you got 100 miles per gallon on the way downhill. And the question is: What is your average miles per gallon over that distance?

It feels like it should be about 50, but it turns out it’s 20.

The amount of gas you’re using to go 100 miles when you’re getting 10 mpg is 10 gallons. And when you’re getting 100 mpg as you’re driving 100 miles, you use just one gallon. So you’re using a total of 11 gallons to go 200 miles, and that gets you a little bit under 20 miles per gallon.

just something to think about. pretty interesting.

http://www.good.is/post/gallons-to-go/

to follow along erok's post, it's all about range. how far can you travel before stopping, and how costly was the trip?

Diesel locomotives are efficient to haul 12000 tons of freight hundreds of miles. Not so great if there are 1/4 mile stops, though.

How does that stack up to the range of a fixie?

Diesel locomotives are diesel-electric hybrids. But do they have regenerative braking? My guess is no.

According to Wiki, some locomotives have regenerative braking now. My impression is taht those that work in a railyard have it - and that is where it most could be effectively used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_braking

http://www.railwaygazette.com/features_view/article/2007/07/7577/regenerative_braking_boosts_green_credentials.html

Mick

I like the gallons per mile. Hadn't thought of it like that.

A typical fire truck gets 3mpg.

A typical ambulance gets 8mpg.

More than fuel efficiency, which the media, and populous are obsessed over. How about cutting the crap off of the car; make em like a road bike.

Seats designed with webbing not fiber stuffed metal frames, minimalist dash boards and interiors, carpet? are you in your apartment?

How much fuel has been burned on caring around tons of floor carpet. Paint the interiors, do you have to have plastic everywhere?

Cars are a lot like Huffies, they are heavy cumbersome, and difficult to maneuver.

How much fuel does it take to build a hybrid??

It that factored into the average fuel economy of the car? It starts on the lot with -400 mpg and over the life of the vehicle it lowers that number. That means that you actually have to drive frequently to get any sort of fuel economy.

Cars have become much heavier in the past 10 years. Most of the weight is for increased crash protection. The days of 1,800lb civics is over.

But my major gripe about car companies is that they are so concerned with boosting horsepower. Almost all the technology goes into boosting horsepower and not into boosting mpg. Most luxury cars will do 0 to 60 in under 6 seconds now. When do you need that much power.

I think the CSX commercials are pretty on target. Trains are pretty fuel-efficient ways to move things long distances.....

How much energy do you think it takes to make all the stuff and get it on the shelves of a walmart?

how about to get the workers to work, the lights on, and the consumers to the store and back again?>

I was trying to figure that out... It's like an oil taker parked in the lot.

Thinking about this a different way, how many calories are burned by a healthy adult pushing a 1,000kg automobile 1km (keeping everything Metric for ease of calculation). Not that I'd ever suggest anyone pick this up as a hobby, but if anyone did, I'd bet they wouldn't gain any weight if they did it daily for a month.

OTOH, it's a helluvalot easier just to jump on a bicycle and ride 30km every day for a month.

A city the size of Pittsburgh spends 5-10 Million dollars a day on fuel.

-Every city vehicle

-every private auto

-shipping to and from the city

-businesses, including those giant hospitals, and pitt

-airlines to and from the city

-state and fed vehicles

This money is scooped out of the local economy, never to be seen again.

"This money is scooped out of the local economy, never to be seen again"

I don't agree with this comment. There are taxes generated with the sale of gas, and the gas station is a local business with employees.

In addition the ways you show usage of the fuel generates a lot of commerce, city services, and jobs for Pittsburgh...which you directly benefit from.

For instance...

City vehicles: driven because the occupant is a city employee, and their job most likely affects your daily life in some way.

Shipping to and from the city: This is commerce which brings you food, bikes, ipods, things you use at work, etc. Not to mention the countless things being produced in Pittsburgh being shipped elsewhere.

Businesses: Commerce which generates TONS of money for the city, and jobs

Airlines: Bringing people to and fro, who spend money in the city and work with businesses in the area.

State and Fed Vehicles: same idea as city vehicles

OK,what is the efficiency of the local economy?

Gallons per dollar?

Yes, but....

The local economy will also take a hit because auto-mechanics, dealers, and gas stations would now longer be needed. I'm not advocating that we don't cut our fuel consumption, but don't forget that there will be serious pains as the economy adjusts. Read JH Kunstler to get an idea of what that shift will look like. It won't be pretty.

As for efficiency, I'll note that Ivan Illich analyzed this in the 1980s.

"OK,what is the efficiency of the local economy?

Gallons per dollar? "

5000 dollars per gallon...how the f' should I know? Do you?

It's a heck of a lot more efficient than elephants pulling blocks around the dirt to build things.

I cannot agree with pratt. Whether gas costs $2/gallon, as it did all spring, or $4/gallon, as it did half of 2008, the fuel retailer makes maybe 20 cents a gallon, and it is that amount which is used to pay employee salaries, utilities, property taxes, etc. Some of the price is motor fuels taxes, but assessed per gallon, not per dollar of sales. All the rest goes to the oil company, and much of that simply lines the pockets of whoever owned the oil.

Thus "scooped out of the local economy, never to be seen again" is not far off the mark.

Separate thought, so separate reply. Public transit money is almost the diametric opposite. Whether the money comes from the farebox or tax subsidy, most of the operating budget is spent locally.

I have a copy of the Port Authority FY2010 budgets, both operating and capital. Nearly all operating costs go to local employees and local businesses. A good bit of the capital budget gets spent locally, though percentagewise more leaves town (e.g., we don't manufacture buses here).

Still, "think globally, buy locally" can't get much closer to the mark than in public transit.

Not to be crass, but I'm not sure which I'd rather have....my tax dollars paying PAT's pension costs when the drivers don't contribute (a lot), or my "other" dollars going to an oil company.

well, considering that we'll never bomb innocent civilians over the battle for pensions, i'd prefer tax money spent on the bus drivers

Dynamic social restructuring isn't in the human ethos. Where do people think these magic new low gas consumption cars are going to come from?

Slowly the valve of small car imports gets opened. Though how many people hang on hoping that gas will go down again and stay down so they can get a big suv?

Gas is a controlled substance, it is readily available, but you have to have; a car, license,registration,plates,tags,inspection,and insurance to use it (major exception, lawnmowers.

It's easier and cheaper to get a prescription for pain killers,(or a ps3 and games).

Why are we importing tens of thousands of resin cast statue's for the dollar tree, and not micro cars and mega-pedal-electric-cargo-trikes?

Is it American bravado, ignorance, laziness, what?

Why are construction sites throwing away whole houses of drywall, lumber, bricks, etc?

Is it American bravado, ignorance, laziness, what?

Why do auto makers come out with a different car model every year, retooling the factory, and all of the factory's that supply the parts every year?

How much energy is spent on that?

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/

check out Chapter 4, Section C: "Transportation Energy Intensity And Fuel Efficiency"

Cars are finaly second...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-markatos/us-bike-sales-higher-than_b_207899.html