Copyright © by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors. Ideas, requests, problems regarding TWiki? Send feedback
"Voltaire used to ridicule the elite of his day by pointing out that, apart from their titles and their money, they were pitifully ignorant. They simply bought knowledge and advice - whether financial, architectural, ministerial, artistic or military. The elite's ignorance was so profound that it made them incapable of leading. Voltaire was not arguing that in order to lead or to assume responsibility you must be the perfect Renaissance man. But there was a need for general and perhaps for in-depth knowledge in some direction. And on that foundation there was a need to be interested in the ideas and creations of one's time. To read, to think, to ask questions, and to talk in wide circles, well beyond any particular competence. To look upon society as an organic, living thing." - John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards, p 110
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire.
NOVA - The World in Balance
20 April 2004
"We used to worry that population, too many people, would destroy the environment. Now we understand that there's something even worse: affluence.
China is the world's biggest country, and as it becomes more and more affluent it will overtake the United States to become the world's worst polluter." More... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/eart-flash.html
Peak Oil: an introduction
"'Peak oil' is a term used to describe the scenario when crude oil production for a region - often referring to the entire world - reaches a maximum, from which it inevitably declines.
Most people are aware that oil is a finite resource, but the general presumption is that "we have x years of oil left", where x is a suitably large number (often around 40) to project any accompanying problems many years in the future. But this presumption fails to account for the geophysics of oil.
In the 1950s a prominent geophysicist M King Hubbert observed that oil production in the US was following the path of a bell-shaped curve. Production would have a 'peak' and following that peak, oil production would decline." More...
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/content/peak_oil
Real Oil Crisis Catalyst - ABC TV
24 November 2005
"What would happen if the world were to start running out of oil? Conventional wisdom says we've got 30 years, but there's a growing fear amongst petroleum experts it's happening much sooner than we thought - that we are hitting the beginning of the end of oil now. So how soon will the oil run out, and can we stop our economy collapsing when it does? How prepared are we for the real oil crisis?" More...
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1515141.htm
Peak Oil - 4 Corners ABC TV
10 July 2006
"JONATHAN HOLMES: The apocalyptic universe of 'Mad Max'. George Miller's vision of a future when petrol has become the most precious resource on earth. Today in the real world, there are sober voices warning that demand for oil could soon outstrip supply, with potentially devastating consequences for us all.
ROBERT HIRSCH, ENERGY CONSULTANT: I'm not a person who feels that Armageddon is coming but we can have an awful lot of misery. If we get this wrong, we are all in very serious trouble.
JONATHAN HOLMES: Today the drilling rigs are operating in water that's three or four kilometres deep. Tomorrow they could go deeper still. But at some stage global production of oil will peak and begin a remorseless decline. The question is, how soon?.." More... Peak Oil? Transcript
and online at ABC 4 Corners Broadband... http://abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20060710/default_standard.htm
Top Of Page
The little hybrid car that could At Phila. Auto Show, a high school standout.One of the most impressive cars at this week's Philadelphia Auto Show doesn't come from Japan, Germany or Detroit. It came from the auto shop at West Philadelphia High School. The car - designed and built by students in the school's Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering - delivers more horsepower than some Porsches and gets gas mileage comparable to a Toyota Prius. It runs on fuel made from soybeans... More... http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/13796737.htm
Sydney's First Bio Fuels Station Written by Robert, Tuesday, 10 January 2006, Finally, the answer to "Where do I get biodiesel in Sydney": Ex-Texan, Morris Lyda, is starting a new venture to fulfill a desire he developed when he was the Technical Director for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics. The desire was to positively impact the environment, the economy, and the Australian marketplace. Currently, consumers have no choice with the fuel, nor the retail products offered at most Sydney stations. Lyda strongly believes, given the choice, Australian consumers will buy ethically, environmentally, and Australian, as long as the price is competitive. "How can a country grow when a majority of the products sold contribute to environmental decay, increased foreign profits, and minimize the Australian producer's input? Australia needs national and renewable choices, not foreign petroleum and ownership." Morris Lyda is determined to offer that choice to the consumers of Sydney; ethical, ecological, and Australian. Sounds like a breath of fresh air, certainly fresher with less CO2, smog and sulphur... More... http://www.sydneybiodiesel.com/content/view/69/2/
"... 7 per cent of vehicles in Australia run on diesel but consume as much fuel as the remaining 93 per cent. The exhaust from diesels is unhealthy, at best, and carcinogenic at worst," Lyda said. Biodiesel is not toxic, it is biodegradable, reduces Greenhouse Gas emissions and is renewable..." The Hub, March, 2006.
"The world's first biogas-powered passenger train is taking its first passengers between the Swedish cities of Linkoping and Vastervik. And the biogas comes from the entrails of dead cows... The harsh truth is that, across Europe, transport is not pulling its weight when it comes to meeting the Kyoto targets on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Industry is. So, to a lesser extent, are households and agriculture. But now the European Commission - the guardian of the European Union - has weighed in, demanding that transport do more. It has set binding targets for the amount of fuel use it wants taken up by bio-products by the end of this year, and by 2010. The UK is set to fall well short of the 2% target for the end of December. The government reckons it is on course for 0.3%. Sweden is likely to be 10 times ahead, at 3%. By road and by rail, Sweden has a lot to teach the rest of us..." More... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4373440.stm More... http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1570532.htm
"On the efficiency of the building and development sector, the private sector, I just want to talk about how inefficient that is and how the rules that are being made in BASIX and NatHERS and the Australian standards enforce that. It's almost completely irrelevant to have an energy efficiency program looking at whether a house is energy efficient if you exclude the method of construction of the house. If you were to stand over the freeway on the north of Sydney at 6 'clock and watch the army of utes and trucks coming into Sydney from Gosford and Wyong, all these blokes in utes coming into Sydney to build houses - you can't build a house under the current system of construction in less than three to five months and usually a minimum of two people come to a building site. The energy consumed to build a house, which may be five-star, may be top-rating in the BASIX, is far greater than the energy the house will save as a result of efficiencies achieved by the rating program. Talk about missing the forest for the trees. It's just an extraordinary thing that energy efficiency programs don't look at the inefficiency of the building industry itself. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to have an energy efficiency program that looks at whether a house is cool in summer and warm in winter. I'm just saying - to quote that wonderful philosopher - it doesn't matter a hill of beans because the energy consumed to make it is so inordinately larger compared to the savings won by the energy efficiency scheme, given the fact that the energy efficiency scheme ignores the pollution and the costs of the monopoly service providers. We're playing at the edges of the problem it's causing the planet, to put so much carbon dioxide into it..." Michael Mobbs, transcript of submission to the Productivity Commissions enquiry into Energy. More... http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/energy/trans/sydney041115.pdf
Agriculture interests push ambitious renewable-energy goal - "...More important than subsidies, though, says Villwock, is the greater demand for crops that could come from the renewable-energy sector, driving up prices. He sees this happening already: After an ethanol plant was built near his farm in Indiana, the corn in his area started selling for 15 cents more a bushel. "I see this as a very rare win-win-win-win opportunity," Villwock said of 25 x '25. He argues that in addition to benefiting farmers, the environment, and national security, it would give a boost to rural communities by creating jobs at wind farms and alternative-fuel plants, most of which are being built in non-urban areas. How Green Is My Biofuel? Enviros are not necessarily convinced, however, that the planet would be among the winners. Some have raised concerns that large-scale biofuel production could promote the development of monocultures -- vast tracts of switchgrass, for instance -- that could threaten wildlife habitat and biodiversity. But the main concern, according to NRDC's Greene, "is not so much the total number of acres that must be farmed, but the way those acres are cultivated..." More... http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2006/03/24/25x25/index.html?source=daily
NETHERLANDS: April 4, 2006 - AMSTERDAM - European policy makers must stimulate alternatives to fuels derived from edible oils to resolve a growing conflict between the food sector and biodiesel producers, an industry association said on Monday. Big European food makers sucha as Anglo-Dutch Unilever face fierce competition for rapeseed oil supplies from biodiesel makers as tax incentives and high crude oil prices stimulate fuel production.
"Policy makers have to recognise the problem. We brought it to their attention and it's now up to them to balance the situation," Inneke Herreman, secretary general of the International Margarine Association of the Countries of Europe (IMACE), told Reuters... More... http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/35885/story.htm
GoGet formerly Newtown Car Share: all the benefits of a car - without the hassle and expense of owning one!... More... http://www.goget.com.au/
Top Of Page
A selection of Australian manufactured recumbent trikes.
Greenspeed
http://www.greenspeed.com.au/
Lo Go
http://www.logotrikes.com/
M.R. Components
http://www.mrrecumbenttrikes.com/
Trisled
http://www.trisled.com.au/
Marrickville-Waratah-Rovers
"Petersham Town Hall was the rendezvouz point for the Waratah Rovers Bicycle Club tours in 1901 to destinations such as Cabarita, Picton, Helensburgh and Hay. The club was the first with "lady riders" in 1897 and attracted up to 400 people to its social evenings. The gate posts are now located at Petersham Park. MITCHELL LIBRARY, STATE LIBRARY OF NSW." More... http://www.marrickville.nsw.gov.au/csc/archives/about.htm
Economic and social implications
"Bicycle manufacturing proved to be a training ground for other industries. Building modern bicycle frames led to the development of advanced metalworking techniques, both for the frames themselves and for special components such as ball bearings, washers, and sprockets. These techniques later enabled skilled metalworkers and mechanics to develop the components used in early automobiles and aircraft. J. K. Starley's company became the Rover Cycle Company Ltd. in the late 1890s, and then the Rover auto maker. The Morris Motor Company and Skoda also began in the bicycle business, as did Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers.
Some of the bicycle clubs and national associations became prominent advocates for improvements to roads and highways. In the United States, the League of American Wheelmen was a prominent advocate for the improvement of roads in the last part of the 19th century, founding and leading the national Good Roads Movement in the US.
The evolution of the bicycle had less tangible effects as well, extending early to areas as diverse as fashion and politics. In the 1890s the cycling craze led to a new set of fashions, including bloomers, which helped liberate women from corsets and other restrictive clothing. A British perfumer marketed Cycling Bouquet, which came in a tiny vial designed to fit into a lady cyclist's purse. The diamond-frame safety bicycle gave women unprecedented mobility, contributing to their emancipation in Western nations. Sociologists suggest that bicycles enlarged the gene pool for rural workers, by enabling them to easily reach the next town and increase their courting radius. In cities, bicycles helped reduce crowding in inner-city tenements by allowing workers to commute from single-family dwellings in the suburbs. They also reduced dependence on horses, and allowed people to travel into the country, since bicycles were three times as energy efficient as walking, and three to four times as fast..." More... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle
Top Of Page
| Topic TechnicalPapers . { Edit | Attach | Backlinks: Web All webs | Printable | History: r49 < r48 < r47 < r46 < r45 More } |
|
Copyright © by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors. Ideas, requests, problems regarding TWiki? Send feedback |