The future is Tiny

I find it curious that the average speed of 'trade' around the world is 25mph ( by ship ),, then suddenly , after off-loading , everyone seems to want it 'immediately' delivered at 56mph by grossly inefficient road transport.

If a truck is fully loaded, taking the whole load from a dock to its final destination, what makes it grossly inefficient?

The inefficient part of transporting stuff isn't the vehicles, but the number of times it has to be handled.

"You see it a lot with rechargeables where only one cell in the circuit has drained, the other one or two are fine"

But we've known this since the first "Deacs" were used for R/C applications and is the reason there's a lively trade in cordless power tool replacement packs and ALL rechargeable cell applications.

Regards Ian.

Edited By Circlip on 17/05/2021 09:28:21

There must be [in theory at least] be a calculation which would show where the ‘log-jam’ occurs in the delivery system, as the granularity changes.

Imagine a large container ship being unloaded, and its contents being delivered by:

• Rail
• Lorry
• Transit Van
• Tiny van
• Drone
• Horse & Cart
• Pack-Mule
• Pedestrian with rucksack
• < etc. >
  

We have benefited from the economies of scale ... the trick will be to not lose those benefits as we strive to “do the right thing”.

The terms ‘baby’ and ‘bath-water’ spring to mind.

MichaelG.

We're not really saving the planet we're just outsourcing pollution to far away places

All that junk we buy needs industries and processes

.

So ... were you serious with the title and sub-title of this thread ?

If so ... could you please explain the logic ?

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 17/05/2021 13:23:31

I was curious when I read about the 'pollution effect' of New Zealand lamb being less than for Welsh Lamb. Apparently giant container ships with chilled containers actually burn a lot less fuel per kg of lamb shipped than lorries. Not sure that I ever fully believed the example but it does point out that some peoples simplistic view of the 'greenness' of different transport systems is often wrong.

Now if the future is tiny, tiny portions of whatever meat is probably greener, but is it like the old joke, you don't live any longer - it just seems so.

Stuart

Another useless fact that I recall reading - the pollution caused by horses in London before the car, made living there almost unbearable. That is unless you were too poor to live anywhere else!

Stuart

This makes interesting reading on that subject.

Horse dung in cities

..one man's pollution..

Some many years ago I rang an expert for advce regarding a diseased walnut tree. Along with the general chat he was muttering about how since the ban on coal fires in London most of the heritage roses were hard to grow... the sulphurous air had kept disease at bay. Some may recall 50's comics where kids with influenza would go sit by the gas works to breath 'healing air'.

All it would have taken was an entrepreneur to see the value in millions of tons of horse dung and corpses as fertilizer. Indeed historically human urine was collected, stored in barrels and allowed to 'go off'' as a source of nitrates and ammonia for both the dye industry 'oop north' via coastal barge and for gunpowder manufacture.

Waste not..?

pgk

I think for the vast majority, the future is on foot.

V8eng, very interesting. On that basis will we come to regret the technical solution to our current (no pun intended) problem?

Perhaps we should all work from home, from houses without light or heat, sleeping as soon as it gets dark. We should eat only what we grow in our gardens and forget all about tech goods which we have hitherto imported at great cost to the planet. Forget about engineering (at last, as an ex accountant I can point the blame at the engineers instead of just envying their skills)

Or should we admit that the real problem is overpopulation.

Stuart

The drift of this discussion prompts me to bump my recent post: **LINK**

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=173081

Senator Kerry comes across as an intelligent and civil man, with the skill to get his message across ... and to avoid being drawn into providing the media with the next ‘on the Andrew Marr show’ sound-bite.

A brief interview, but well worth watching !

MichaelG.

It seems like the Greens will not be happy until We all live in caves with no energy needed. This will lead to a cave shortage..............

There certainly appear to be some who would push us back into that.

Ah yes overpopulation: the truth that is not to be spoken about!

I originally posted that item about horse dung simply as an addition to your comment item on horse pollution.

Edited By V8Eng on 17/05/2021 17:46:11

.

Oh well ... it appears I was wrong

A brief Google search finds several references to the interview

MichaelG.

I'd like one of these tiny cars at the Chinese price but in the UK the price would be up by an order of magnitude to cover the certification costs and fat cat slaries all of which is eco-hostile. Excluding commuting I only need 7 mile range for shopping (though I usually cycle), but also need the capability to take a 5in loco 25 miles to the club and back.

My neighbour has just got a Merc hybrid as a company car and has put in solar panels to help charge it, but as he is an elecrician that was half the normal price. Interestingly the battery is only good for 30 miles range but he is able to recharge at the office 35 miles away. He reports over 100mpg in hybrid mix and it performs better if he uses B roads with lots of speed changes and hills rather than the dual carriageway as the constant braking recovers energy, and I suspect it makes the speed and hence air friction losses lower.