The month the world woke up?

[Grant Lamontagne]

Oh yeah, and I'd just swap out my current 4.0L engine for a comparable diesel engine rather than convert the engine itself...

Def

[Tarrodemierda]

is that an in-line 6 cyl engine?

how much output?

[WhichDawg]

I dream and invision solar panels on the roof of my house. my electric car plugged
to an array getting charged up. the wind mill and hydro pump also charging
efficient, long lasting batteries; and being completely off the grid and stations....

[Tarrodemierda]

and living in a MAD MAX world 

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

I dream and invision solar panels on the roof of my house. my electric car plugged
to an array getting charged up. the wind mill and hydro pump also charging
efficient, long lasting batteries; and being completely off the grid and stations....

I think we all dream of that mate

[WhichDawg]

I know many people back in chicago that unless it were all set up and done for them, they wouldn't even consider it.
I want to build it, figure it out, make it better for my circumstances/needs, get down and dirty !

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

I know many people back in chicago that unless it were all set up and done for them, they wouldn't even consider it.
I want to build it, figure it out, make it better for my circumstances/needs, get down and dirty !

I'm with you, if you put it up yourself, you've a much better idea how to fix it when it all goes terribly wrong

[WhichDawg]

maybe with this crisis, during these tight times, the prices of parts will finally come down on the
more efficient stuff and we can have some set-ups this year!

[Anthony]

Fuel prices are something I can do absolutely nothing about, so I can't worry that much.  If worse comes to worse and gas is $18 or something and people are going crazy, I'm pretty confident I can survive it.  Food prices will be devastating as will almost everything else, but again, nothing I can do except trade veggies with my neighbor between our gardens.

I'm also thinking of buying a motorcycle due to the growing fuel prices...I'll get a licence for it later, but I'm sure the price of scooters/bikes/motorbikes will skyrocket also in the near future as everyone will want one.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Motorcycles are a false economy thing here- the weather is too bad much of the year to ride it, and I'm not certain you'd save enough money by riding it to compensate for the amount you are spending on purchasing/insuring/maintaining/storing it.  If you want a bike, get a bike because you want one, not because they are economical, unless you want to move to Florida!

My Jeep does indeed have an inline six.  If I find a good source for biodiesel, I'll make you a good deal on it!

Def

[Leatherman123]

I find that gas is getting really expensive. Not only in my truck but on the boat. My Mako CC has a 100 gallon fuel tank. At my Marina where the is docked, charges $4.55 a gallon! You do the math!

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

It all depend's on what bike you get, if you get anything bigger than a 600cc then fuel, consumables, insurance and service cost's are going to be comparable with a 1.6 - 2.0 litre car , but if you go for a 4stroke 250cc or less you can look at getting at least 65mpg, and around 75-90 mph and pretty cheap consumables

If you want to go even smaller to the 4 stroke 125 and under catagory then you could be looking at tyres that last for 15+ thousand miles, chain's that last 10k easy if maintained, cheap servicing, between 55-75mph and 80-125mpg!

An old Honda C90 will cost only a little more than an expensive push bike to buy and run

[Whoey]

Here in Spain those 50cc scooters are everywhere. (also helps that you don't need a full drivers license to drive one) Anyways, as you may or may not have seen on the news, at the beginning of last week the truckers in Spain went on strike, halting pretty much all cargo all over Spain... the effects were disastrous, all over the price of fuel (which I think is about 1.50 eur / litre). I totally understand the truckers point of view, they can't afford to do their job and pay the fuel prices... in the second day of the strike my local supermarket looked like a 3rd world country, about half the main shelves were empty... hardly any meat, eggs, milk etc...

On the other hand, thousands of tonnes of food and litres of milk were being thrown away each day because there was no space left to store it and they were starting to go bad, in the case of the dairy farmers, they have to keep milking the cows, so they have to flush their tank to refill it...

Here in Pamplona where I live there is a lot of wind industry, with two major companies developing large turbines, it's not uncommon to see windfarms across the countryside...

If I ever actually get a car I want an old VW bug, and I want to convert it to electric... yeah the dream of a house with solar/wind etc and being off the grid, but here's a fairer point, if you have the capability to setup such a thing, you can also SELL power back to the grid... (you can't really store power anyways, which is a problem with wind...)

[Whoey]

today's xkcd is pretty funny in relation:



 

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

  Good one!

[Whoey]

 

[ducktapehero]

These are kinda cool. I don't know if I'd want to get up on the highway with one but around town it would be great.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/16415593/detail.html

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

 

Those and cars running on compressed air have great potential as town cars