Whispering into the Future

It looks like just another Formula 1 race. The difference: these cars are whispering around the track. No neighbours upset about the noise here.

As I write, Saturday September 13th, 2014, the first FIA Formula E race is on in Beijing. Why is that something to write about? While the racing cars look like ordinary formula 1 racing cars, they are powered by electric motors. The benefits? Less noise, less car parts, and more importantly, the energy used to charge the batteries could come from any source that can be converted into electricity: wind, solar, hydroelectricity, fossil fuels, and even what is currently perhaps the darkest sheep of the family, nuclear energy.

About a hundred years ago, internal combustion engine (petrol/gasoline) and electric vehicles were equally crude, but the internal combustion engine option was chosen for various reasons. It appears that the planet has taken an environmentally costly 100-year detour around electricity powered vehicle technology and that detour is now literally running out of fuel: crude oil extraction is no longer cheap, and the environmental impact can no longer be ignored. Liquifiable fuel alternatives to crude oil have similar environmental issues attached: in the face of the increasingly difficult to ignore global climate change, carbon dioxide emissions associated with the use of crude oil, natural gas, shale gas and coal appear nothing less than a death sentence for many in vulnerable places around the world.

The detour may be coming to an end, but before it does, a couple of improvements are required as far as the current standard motor vehicle is concerned: lower battery cost and higher battery capacity. Both are improving steadily. As far as lighter vehicles are concerned however, the sun of a new era has risen into view. Examples: electric bicycles in Japan, and bicycles and motorcycles in China already ply the streets in increasing numbers in this silent revolution. For many, the detour is over.

The End of Suburbia

(Originally posted with photo(s) at http://dlamini-dlamini.blogspot.com/)
It seems to be all going up in smoke as the oil price heads for the stars. Interestingly, I always cycle past the petrol station in the picture. A couple of days ago, I cycled past two old ladies near the petrol station. They were headed to a funeral I guess, because they were dressed in black, which is not a usual fashion colour for old ladies in Japan. If old ladies can cycle to such an auspicious (though sad) occasion, who has an excuse not to? Indeed its all in the mind.
When the extreme adverse weather is unleashed, and the sea bubbles onto the land, and new deserts are born, and disease ranges shift, then, I would guess, there will be no cries of 'but I love my car'. The dice will have been cast, the outcome unchangeable, and we will have to do whatever it takes: much greater use of mass (public) transit systems of transport, walking, cycling, stay home, source our products from close-by...
If this is very likely our inevitable destination, why not behave now as if the dice had already been cast?... because it has.
Watch the 52 minute documentary: 'The End of Suburbia' if you can find it somewhere (It seems to be on Youtube.com and video.google.org).