Pedal Powered Car

So what been distracting me lately? Alternative transportation...
We all love our cars. But they stink. They are loud. They are expensive. They pollute and they take up a lot of real estate. We have 'smart' cars which do a little less of all this which I think is a great step but not everyone can afford a new $15,000 car.
Biking is great. It's cheap, healthy, doesn't pollute but it has some serious issues. Cargo area, passenger capacity, shelter from rain and it takes work. So what do you want? Perhaps something in between.
I want a vehicle that doesn't pollute, isn't loud, isn't too expensive, fun, unique, doesn't take up too much space, cargo space, passenger capacity or passenger capacity expandability, isn't too much work and has shelter from the rain.
I want a pedal powered car. We have existing technology to make a lightweight frame and shell with some kind of extra power plant other than just your legs. Esthetically speaking the idea of having bicycle wheels on a car body looks weird but not on a car modeled after a 'Model T' with spoked wheels.

Another distraction of mine is the idea of building one of these units by hand. The trick would be trying to use parts that already exist such as bicycle wheels, brakes, lights, horns and drive-trains. Parts that would need to be fabricated would be the chassis, steering, suspension, body shell and canopy. Ideally you would want a nice aluminium chassis with a light-weight steering system with a shell/canopy made out of a combination of canvas and thin Plexiglas supported by fiberglass ribs similar to a tent.
Other technologies to increase practicality could include a launch assist system that gathers energy in capacitors when you hit the brakes. The kinetic energy would be captured by an electric hub motor such as the e-Bike DIY. A battery pack could also be added to the system to aid in longer distance or uphill commutes.
There are several neat ideas out there already: The human car, Light electric vehicles, Four wheel bicycles, ZEM

Making your own fuel

I love homemade stuff. There's something rich and true about it. I'm also a big fan of the 3 R's we learned in school re-use, recycle and reduce. Apparently so is Jack Johnson, what a guy. I also like automobiles. They are sexy, they are fast and they take you places. So lets put them all in a blender and see what happens. RRrshrvckrsheevrVEEeeeeee. Home made fuel for your car.

Ingredients: Compost, neigbourhood compost
Process: chopping, mashing, fermenting and distilling.

Problems: Building the setup and a still is a bit pricey. Heating your mash requires energy. I would like to use a fireplace to heat a boiler that in turn heats the mash to distill the go juice.

Benefits: Free gas made in your backyard and if you make a food safe still you can make your own hooch, legally!


Resources:
http://running_on_alcohol.tripod.com/id1.html
You can also use other garbage but it requires much more of a process: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4235968.html

Cellulosic Ethanol

Alright, so I have an interest in green renewable energy. Oil is not the answer. It would seem that there is no other answer and that we are all doomed to use what 'they' give us at the pump until it all drys up and we start running around like Mad Max marauding for gasoline. There is just too much money to be made keeping things the way they are. I would like to get out of that cycle without having to go live on some hippie commune, trying to 'live off the land'.
I believe the truth is each individual has the power to change where our planet is going by opening our eyes and thinking outside the box.

Which brings me to today's distraction. We all have cars. We are not all going to sell our cars and buy hybrids. We are not going to convert our cars to hybrids. Only diesel engines burn biodiesel. We are not all going to run out and buy diesel vehicles. We want something we can put in our tank that doesn't polute and is renewable.

Ethanol is nice clean fuel and is already in wide spread use in South America. It can be made from formenting and distilling corn and other starch/sugar rich plants already grown worldwide. Unfortunately there are problems. Ethanol production is still very crude and requires similar amounts of energy to be produced and produces similar amounts of green house gasses in production but it is a start in the right direction.

Some of the main bumps in the path for switching to ethanol are as follows:
1. Ethanol has a higher octane and is better fitted to an engine with a higher compression ratio. Standard vehicles sit about 8:1 where ethanol is best suited to 11-14:1. This would require rebuilding your engine to run at maximum effieciency, which is not cheap. Standard compression gives you roughly 80% efficiency. This is also the case for coverting your vehicle to propane.
2. Ethanol can eat away late model engine parts. Apparently vehicles made in the past ten years are immune to this.
3. You can't buy it at the Gas Station. Unless you live in certains cities you can't get ethanol. This would make travelling a bit of a bummer. I assume you could just replace the fuel in one of the tanks.
I'm sure there are other problems as well but like I said before if everyone get's educated and jazzed on greener fuels and demands our government to make a change, it will happen.

Something else I would like to point out is that the source of ethanol, known as the feedstock, up to now has namely been starch or sugar rich platations such as corn and sugar cane plantations. Apparently there is not enough corn and sugar cane in the world to fuel our energy needs so we need to look elsewhere. The best place to look is the dump! We all make garbage and if you have done any travelling to developng countries you'll know that there's a lot of it and its everywhere. Garbage is well hidden in our society but dumping it in a hole and forgetting about it is not the answer. Cellulosic Ethanol can be made from garbage such as agricultural waste, industrial waste such as paper sludge from pulp mills and municipal solid waste. Another resource is switchgrass which is a hardy plant that be easily grown in our climate and can be used to feed livestock as well as feed our cars. As cellulosic ethanol production technology improves it will make really good economical and environmental sense to invest in this technology.

So what are you going to do now? "If you're interested and you know it tell a friend. If you're interested and you know it and you really want to show it, tell a friend." The biggest hurdle is popularity. Educate yourself. Educate your friends. It's good news.

References:
http://www.harvestcleanenergy.org/enews/enews_0505/enews_0505_Cellulosic_Ethanol.htm