Re: Is PRT+Maglev the killer application? or overhyped?


"Sewer Rat" <tar.rewesREVERSE_IT@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"NM" <nik.morgan@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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But will anyone use it?
Get in, put in the key, drive, get out, you are there: when
trains/busses/maglev/etc. can do that then they will succeed, until
then they will have to be propped up by the public purse.
NM

Sorry to beat the same old drum, but when the oil runs out we might be
looking at horse and cart if we don't build something akin to PRT. PRT
might turn out to be more feasible than any fuel-cell technology or other
such method that we try to adopt instead.

Must look forward!!

You are looking backwards to an inflexible system that still uses
hydrocarbon fuel indirectly. A major problem with a PRT on a track at near
full capacity is that almost anything will stop the entire system with grid
lock. When all the vehicle are left on the track for the next morning,
there is no easy way to get it started again because every vehicle has a
long line of other stopped vehicles in front of it.

In the US, a lot of Venture Capital is going into starting companies to
produce alcohol fuel from cellulose waste like plant stalks and wood. The
alcohol is produced using genetically engineered microbes to breakdown the
cellulose and then convert it into alcohol with the sun as the source of
energy.

It gets 5 units of alcohol energy for each unit of oil energy. The
cellulose waste is reproduces over and over again as it uses CO2 to grow the
plants again. The venture capitalist like it because it can come to market
quickly without a lot of modifications to cars. Means its possible to build
an industry fast with a high return in a relatively short time. Production
cost is estimated at about 75 cents per gallon compared to about a dollar
per gallon for oil. Then of course all the other costs like taxes are
added.

So the present system of roads and individual cars continues on without the
totally impractical brain dead approach of building a new vehicle
infrastructure .





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