To Maine on the train

Jim Kunstler is famous, or perhaps infamous is a better word, in the "peak oil" community for his prophecies of gloom and doom to be set upon the USA due to our profligacy and oil dependency.

Kuntstler is a controversial figure, in part because he constantly predicts doom to beset us, and in part because of his rather loudmouth style that includes lots of swear words to make his point. While some of what Kunstler says may hit some underlying truths about whether our lifestyles are sustainable (or not), his message is weakened by a few problems. First, the constant prophecies of doom don't come true. And second, he is a hypocrite.

In his most recent blog post, titled "The First Die-Off" he talks about driving his car back from a vacation on Cape Cod, and being stuck in traffic. He claims there is "no train service" and uses that as his excuse for having driven the car.

Please.

I just came back from a trip to Maine on the train, with 3 small kids in tow. We stayed on the beach in a town not all that far north of Cape Cod (south of Portland, Maine). The train was comfortable, relatively convenient, and relatively cost effective. We rented a bike once we were there, and used it for most of our errands.

Kid on the beach in Maine

It annoys me to no end to have someone like Kunstler constantly harping on "the end of the world as we know it," and then in the very same essay, to be so blatantly participating in the very activities he laments as leading us to The End.

In fact, from the comments section by user "signalfire" after his blog post:

Isn't the problem that EVERYone thinks THEY are the ones who are 'special'?? THEY deserve a holiday at the beach. THEY deserve cheap energy. THEY deserve big houses. THEY deserve their Escalades, Hummers and Jet Skiis..

This hits the nail on the head. Why does Kunstler preach that we're going to have a massive die-off on the one hand, and yet so blithely participate in the very same activities, such as driving to and from the beach? People pay attention to him. If he had taken the bus, or ridden his bike, or taken the train, then his diatribes might not have seemed quite so silly.

I noticed something in the small town of Biddeford Pool that we stayed in. It was an excellent place for getting around by bike or foot - except that there was so much tourist-related automobile traffic, that it wasn't that great. One of my friends there, who likes to bike, remarked that it would be great if there were less traffic. The very same person was the one out driving the car nearly every day to run this errand or that, such as to pick up morning newspapers.

Biddeford Pool, ME

The main difference between my friend and Kunstler is that one might expect Kunstler to know better, given that talking about Peak Oil is the main focus of his life. His efforts to educate people on the topic are greatly diluted by such obvious hypocrisy.

I don't claim to be perfect - I consume some oil, too. But I make efforts to minimize it, and set an example as to how life can be enjoyed with a minimum of oil. Aside from taking the train as frequently as possible for trips - which I've come to really enjoy - I like to show that bikes can be used for tasks that people often think of as requiring a car. The most recent example is the move of several heavy server systems from my Lab from an old location in an out of date server room to a much more modern facility. The computers are 8-core Apple Xserves, each weighing about 40 lbs. I readily carried two of them together, totaling about 80 lbs, on my bike, and the errand was far quicker than it would have been by car, because parking on campus is a nightmare. With the bike, I rode right up to the door at both the starting point and the destination. Later, when we have to move 40 of them, I'll enlist the Yuba Mundo, a bike that can carry up to 400lbs or so of cargo. By moving 8 of them at a time, with each trip taking only 5 minutes, we can have the moving part done in under an hour.

Moving 2 Apple Xserve servers on the electrified Surly Big Dummy bicycle

So I challenge James Kunstler: if you're serious about all this gloom and doom, then go out and set an example of how to avoid it. Show us the alternative. Don't just whine about how bad it is going to get. Help provide an alternative.

That's what I'm doing in my "spare time" - helping customers of Cycle 9 find oil-free alternatives for every day errands and tasks. Really, I don't have any spare time - with small kids at home and a more than full time faculty job, my life is often seen by others as "insane". People ask me how I do it. How I do it is by being inspired to help people. The thing that keeps me going is seeing the joy of people whom we help discover there is a better way than dependency on the oil companies. A way that is healthy and brings regular joy in the way that being stuck in a car in traffic does not. The latest example is Cory, who is profiled in the next blog post.

Kunstler, it is your turn to help people find a better way, rather than just being seen as a whiner.

The slow ride: geeking out on energy

When I'm biking, I often have a chance to ponder things.  One thing I like to ponder is the amount of energy used to transport humans and things around.   My electric bike is a great way to explore that geeky subject.

Today I did an experiment.  I was riding my Big Dummy with a typical load, for a gross vehicle weight of around 300 lbs.  I only used the electric assist to "take the edge off" the hills.  I didn't use it to increase my speed (except on hills), or to accelerate from stops.  I was able to get my energy consumption for the round trip down to 6.3 watt hours per mile.  In other words, my round trip consumed 90 watt-hours.  Of course, I invested more of my own energy in the ride, because the ride was longer than usual, about 13 minutes extra.  But I didn't feel substantially more worn out or tired, because of using the electric on the hills.

For perspective, if I kept energy use at this level, with my single 10-lb LiFePO4 battery (48V/10Ah = 480 watt hours), I could ride 76 miles!  I typically use more like 16 watt hours/mile, which would reduce the range to 30 miles.  

The only real difference in the ride is the speed.  Normally I average around 18 mph for the ~15-18 mile ride (depending on route).  Today I averaged 13 mph.  Wow, that seems slow!  On my road bike, I would have averaged more like 17 mph on this route.  Why such a difference?

I did a little mapping of my route using bikely, an online bike route mapping tool.  It can show an elevation profile of the ride.  I was amazed to find out that during my round trip of 17 miles, I do a total of 1000 feet of climbing (gross, not net)!  That's more than when I lived in a Canyon in the mountains of Utah.  The difference is that here, it is not nearly as obvious, because that 1,000 feet comes as a series of small ups and downs (some of them quite steep).  So by the end of the ride into the office, I've only gained a net of 50 feet, even though I pedaled up 550 feet of hills (and 450 more feet of climb for the ride home, with a net loss of 50 feet). 

No wonder I was so slow on the cargo bike.  I'm hauling at least 60-70 pounds extra compared to the road bike, with the Xtracycle, all my gear, the heavy gearhub, the battery, etc.  Carrying 60-70 pounds up 1,000 feet is not a trivial energy investment.   This was very instructive - I suggest that readers try it for their own routes, they might be surprised.

Now when people ask me whether I will "wean myself" from my electric assist, I will answer them: "let's see you pedal a loaded cargo bike up a 17-mile, 1,000 foot climb every day without electric assist."  In reality, I would simply not do this ride every day (or more than 1-2 times per week) without electric.  I would just be too wiped out to have the energy for everything else that needs energy in my life (like Cycle 9, and my full-time day job as a professor, or kids). 

All of this generated some additional thoughts.  When I show people the batteries for electric kits, they often ask me, "does it really make up for its own weight?"  The answer is emphatically yes for shorter rides like this.  On a normal day, I will do my 17 mile 1,000 foot climb with a 300+ pound bike at an average of 17 mph (riding faster than most folks could do on a road bike for this route).  This definitely pays its own way.  But, I wonder, how much climbing could I do, before I would I reach the "break even" point, where further climbing would just be me dragging the battery + motor up the hill.  Here's a rough estimate:

The 48V/10Ah battery weighs 10 lbs, or 4.5 kg.  It holds 480 watt hours, which is about 1.72 million Joules.  We'll use Joules to figure out how much energy it takes to lift a 300 pound bike up a hill.  Neglecting friction for the moment, the energy used in climbing is given by m g h, where m=mass of bike, g=gravitational acceleration, and h is height.  So for my bike on this climb we have U (potential energy in metric units) = 136 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 304 m = 405 kJ of energy needed to lift the bike up those hills.  If we figure the hub motor is only 80% efficient, then we used 506 kJ of energy, about 1/3 of the battery capacity.   I'll address friction losses later.

Now we can estimate for just hauling the battery and motor up the hills: the motor is another 8 lbs, or 3.6 kg.  With controller and wiring added in, we'll call it an even 20 lbs, or 9 kg.  So, U = 9 kg * 9.9 m/s^2 * 304 m = 26,812 Joules, or accounting for 80% efficiency, 33.5 kJ.  In other words, the energy used by the motor system to lift itself up the hills consumes only 2% of the energy it holds in the battery.  We can approximate how far the system could lift itself before I would start having to lift it.  Here, U = 1.72MJ * 0.8 (80% efficiency) = 1.37MJ = 9 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * h.  We want to solve for h, so: h = 1.37 MJ/(88.2 kg m/s^2) = 15 kM - yes, 15,568 meters.  This system most definitely pays for itself - even if I'm climbing mount Everest.  How high can it carry the whole bike and I, if I were too lazy to pedal?  h = 1.37 MJ/(1332 kg m/s^2) = 1,208 M, or about 3,374 feet.  Not bad - that's a pretty big mountain.

So there we have it - the electric system pays for itself in spades where climbing is involved.

But what about friction?

So far, I'm having trouble finding good numbers for friction on a bike.  I know this: The frictional losses due to wind resistance go up with the square of the velocity (v^2).  That's why when I increase my average speed from today's 13 mph to my regular 17 mph - only a 4 mph difference, or about 25% - my energy usage goes up so much.  I am burning up much more energy on friction - but I am also contributing less total leg power, because I have less total time spent pedaling. 

 Here's a rough estimate: we know that all the potential energy gained in the 1,000 ft of climbing is burned up as friction on the way down the hills (I don't use the brakes much since the hills are short).  Typically on the downhills I am traveling closer to 20mph average.  So, we can get a very rough estimate of total friction, by starting with U = 405 MJ = downhill frictional losses for the downhill parts, and figuring out how much I loose on the uphills.  If my speed on the uphills is 1/2 that on the downhills (average of 10 mph), then the total wind resistance losses are 1/4 of that on the downhills.  Plus, I'm sure there are some additional losses for bearings in the bike and static interaction of tire to road, which we'll add in as a fudge factor of 100 kJ.  So we have U = (405 kJ (downhill total) + 405 kJ * 0.25 (uphill wind) + 100 kJ (fudge)) / 0.8 (80% efficient) = 757 kJ = 210 watt hours.  Yay - that is about what I actually end up using, except on days that I travel really fast, or have particularly heavy loads.  So that means my estimate of frictional losses on the uphill parts, of about 205 kJ total, is in the ballpark.  That's about 57 watt hours, or 8 wh/mile burnt on friction when at low speeds (total input combining motor + legs - efficiency losses of both).

That's way geeky.  But, hey, it is nice to know where the energy goes, and more importantly, that my electric bike system really does carry its own weight (and then some).  It all boils down to this:

1. If I want to save energy, I go slowly.  It makes a very big difference.

2. At 10 mph, I'm burning around 6-8 wh/mile on friction (electric + pedaling), and at 20 mph it is around 25-30 wh/mile (electric + pedaling).  At 30 mph, this rises to 60-70 wh/mile.

3. The electric system will carry itself, and me along with it, up some very big hills, as long as I don't burn up its energy on friction by going fast

4. It is fun to ride a loaded cargo bike on a 17-mile, 1,000 ft hilly commute, often passing roadies and watching in my rear view mirror as they pedal really hard to try to keep up (and knowing that I'm being super energy efficient in the process)!

Work and pleasure

Today I got to combine work and pleasure: I rode 38 miles round trip on my electrified Big Dummy (the Firefly) to Duke University. I gave a seminar on Bioinformatics, and then rode home. It was a cold day out (at least for these parts), with my ride home dipping well below freezing. I brought along a thermos with hot tea, and stopped several times to top off my tea cup (mounted in my handlebar beverage holder). On the way home, I even stopped at my favorite place to waste spend money, A Southern Season, to buy some more tea and sundries.

Why is such a trip even of note? For a couple reasons. First, today we spoke to one of our bicycle suppliers on the phone. He was asking us about electric assist, and saying that he didn’t really “grok” (understand) the whole electric bike thing.

Today’s trip is a perfect example of why an e-bike works. I have ridden many miles on road bikes; I could have ridden the ~40 miles on my (non-electric) road bike on a recreational ride in better weather - easily. HOWEVER, I wouldn’t have done that in a down coat, with insulated boots, with a thermos of tea, with a handlebar stereo, with a large U-lock, with a full change of dress clothes (to give the talk), with my computer, with a full array of bike lights for after dark, and other miscellany. If I had ridden my road bike with that assortment of gear, I would have arrived very tired out (and also about 1 hour later).

With the e-bike, I got two hours of exercise (I was pedaling moderately the whole time), but I did the trip in luxury (especially since the Big Dummy allows me to carry so much stuff). I never got cold, since I had plenty of spare warm gear, and big heavy duty boots, down parka, etc. I was drinking hot tea for the whole ride there and back. I had good tunes. In the narrow, fast moving parts of the road, I used the electric assist to keep my speed faster to not impede traffic. I hauled my load of stuff up some steep hills without problem. I arrived for the seminar feeling good from the ride, but not worn out. I left after the talk with plenty of energy, and had a (mostly) pleasant ride home, through some back neighborhoods up some very steep hills (to avoid the more traffic filled routes).

Simply put, I wouldn’t have done this trip without the electrified longtail bike. I would have ended up driving a car. Comparing the energy usage of that:

Car: 25 miles per gallon. That’s about 1,320 watt-hours (KwH) per mile. If I still had a Prius, that might have been as good as 45 mpg (doesn’t do as well in cold weather), or 733 watt hours per mile. In other words, each mile traveled in a Prius would have consumed the equivalent of 7-hours running a 100 watt lightbulb. For the whole trip, that would would amount to 27 kWh - the equivalent of leaving a 100 watt lightbulb on in my house for 278 hours or 11 days straight (that’s with the more efficient Prius!)

Bike: 18 watt hours per mile (about 1,833 miles per gallon). The whole ride consumed 684 watt hours of electricity. That’s equal to less than one mile in the Prius, and about 1/2 mile in the big car! I could charge my battery with the equivalent of 7 hours of 100-watt lightbulb usage, easily doable with the solar panel on my roof.

Why highlight the stark difference? Simple: I never used to think about how much energy I was using when I got into the car to drive. And I suspect most people don’t. Gas has been so cheap for so long, there is no motivation to think about it. But, when put in the above context, it is all the more clear how much energy it takes to move that hulk of steel around. It doesn’t matter whether the car is electric or hybrid or whatever. It is heavy, and it travels fast. Both of those factors mean that it is intrinsically inefficient, and consumes a lot of energy. For those folks concerned about CO2 emissions, the above numbers say a lot.

But here’s the sad part. I studied the maps carefully before going, to find a route where I wasn’t going to be fighting traffic. And the best route I could find was far less than ideal. There was a 5-mile stretch of former country road, that is now used by commuter traffic. It was busy. It was narrow. It had no shoulder. And it was the least of all evils connecting the towns of Chapel Hill and Durham. Sure, I know about things like “ride big” and “take the lane”. I did those things. But as I watched in my rearview mirror for approaching traffic, it was a constant concern; would the car slow for me? Would I have to get out of the way? Statistics show that for slower-paced roads, concerns about being hit from the rear are overblown. That doesn’t change the basic human instinct to want to know what is going on behind, and not liking having a zillion cars whiz by. It is the number one reason more people don’t bike.

It just seems absolutely crazy that two neighboring college towns, Chapel Hill and Durham, don’t have a reasonable bike route connecting them. I blame this firmly on the old boy network in North Carolina’s DOT. Maybe I shouldn’t say this on a public blog, but those guys need to get their heads out of their rear ends and realize that we are in the 21st century, not the 1950’s. Maybe in the 1950’s we needed more roads to be built; now we don’t. Now, we need more bike paths, sidewalks, railways, and other means for people to get around without burning ridiculous amounts of energy. And doing this would benefit the drivers too - it is never fun for a cyclist to be passed by a bunch of cars on a narrow busy road. But it is no fun for the drivers, either. Building out infrastructure to appropriately accommodate both would make everyone’s lives better.

Would I do the trip to Durham/Duke again? Yes. It was great. Much better than sitting in a car or bus. I got exercise, and an adventure, all wrapped within some important work-related business. I would probably plan my ride for a bit less busy time, if possible. But, regardless of whether I would do it, most people just won’t face such a ride, without the kind of experience I have commuting by bike. And some people think I’m crazy, anyway. To get more people on their bikes, and less people using up tremendous amounts of energy to move metal boxes around, we need to invest in bike facilities, now.

Why isn’t that part of the economic stimulus?
(note: there are token amounts in the stimulus for bike paths, but they pale in comparison to road funds).

Time versus energy

Recently there was a lively discussion over on the Rootsradicals mailing list about energy usage and electric bikes. There was debate about whether it takes more energy to run a bike by electric power or leg power. While the debate was all well and good, it sidesteps the bigger picture. Biking in any form, whether by leg power, electric power, or both, is a far more energy efficient endeavor than driving a car. Depending on how it is calculated, riding a bike is equal to getting anywhere from 200 miles per gallon up to over 1,000 MPG. Even the greenest of electric cars aren't going to approach those numbers anytime soon.

But there is a tradeoff using a bike: time versus energy. The reason bikes take so little energy is because they move slowly. They don't suffer big losses to friction (plus, they are lightweight). But riding a bike takes more time - at least to go long distances (for short intra-city trips, biking can actually be faster).

I started thinking about this tradeoff by monitoring the energy usage on my electric bike. I noticed that when I was in a hurry, I would consume almost twice as much power than when I was taking it easy and going more slowly. Now I've made it into kind of a game, to try to keep my energy usage down, I am also forcing myself to slow down and enjoy the ride more.

But this tradeoff is not just present in biking. It is present in nearly everything we do in "modern" society. Here are some examples:

1. The energy usage of various forms of transportation is directly proportional to speed, i.e.:
Planes > cars > trains > bikes.

2. Washing clothes and dishes - it is both faster and more energy intensive to use the washer/dryer than to do it by hand.

3. Food - it is more energy intensive to buy cheap but fast food, than to grow and cook one's own

US society is one of extremes. On the one end we have people who jetset around in a constant aggravated rush of business. On the other extreme there are the Amish, who exemplify slow and low energy lifestyles.

And then there are all the rest of us in the middle. The question is, how much should we trade down our energy use, at the cost of spending more time on our daily activities?

I think the key is reframing that question. I linked to this article before, but I'll link to it again because it is great - it is all about a mom who formerly led the go-go rushed life, and then due to high gas prices, was forced to slow down while becoming a bit less energy intense.

She discovered that there is increased joy in slowing down. Joy in walking the kids to school, or biking to the grocery store. Many people enjoy gardening, but think it takes "too much time".

Maybe many of us have been convinced that we need to keep moving faster and faster to "keep up with the Joneses". But maybe the higher cost of energy will force us all to slow down (except the super rich). And maybe, seeing our neighbors, friends, and co-workers slow down, we won't feel so guilty about it. About taking time for ourselves, for our families, for some hobbies. Some people have already done this. I have no statistics to back this up, but I believe there is a strong grassroots movement of people doing exactly this. People who are fed up with the go-go buy-buy pace of modern life, who have slowed down, dropped out, semi-retired. Those people did it by choice. Maybe the rest of us will be forced to follow, whether we like it or not, by high energy prices.

But I don't want to make it sound like slowing down is just drudgery. I look forward to my daily bike ride to and from work. It is a time of great enjoyment for me (except on the rare occasion I encounter an intentionally obnoxious driver). I get to look around, see the world, breath the air, hear the birds. I get exercise. I listen to music (not earphones - I have a small stereo on my handlebars). Nowadays, when I get in the car for trips around town, I actually get stressed out, whereas the bike is relaxing, just getting into the rythm of the pedals.

It is hard, though, straddling between wanting to conserve energy and wanting to keep up with all the self-imposed time pressures. Recently, after being aghast at our electric bills (definitely NOT from charging the bikes, that is only $0.03-$0.05 per charge), we realized that the dishwasher was consuming a lot of energy. So we started washing dishes by hand (with water heated by solar). This greatly reduces energy consumption. But it also takes more time. Sometimes it is actually enjoyable - just zoning out, focusing on the present moment, and even listening to music. But other times it is just stressful - because it seems like there are many other things that need to get done.

So how to find the balance? Until it is forced on us by high gas costs, I think the key is one step at a time, avoiding extremes. To me, it is all about doing the little things that are both doable and enjoyable. I'm not about to quit working just so I can farm all my own food. But at the same time, riding the bike every day, hanging the clothes out to dry, and little things like that take some time, but also save a lot of energy.

If everyone did it, there would be a huge impact on energy use and carbon dioxide production.

It is a starting point.

Morgan


My daughter on the way home from dance recital on the Xtracycle:

Peak oil, part II

This post has been much delayed because of all the work at the shop and for my day job. But it is perhaps more important than ever, given that gas prices have been dropping.

Gas prices dropping makes a lot of people think, phew, the crisis is over. Now things will go back to normal.

Hardly.

There are two issues here. As I mentioned before, we are not running out of oil. But what is happening, is that as more and more countries are competing for this resource, and as it becomes increasingly hard to make more of it, the perceived value of oil goes up.

Take this example. Let's say I have a commodity like dried corn, stored in some silos in my backyard. Let's say I have a lot of silos (and hence a lot of corn). It seems like I will never run out. I sell it to my neighbors for cheap, because it is easy to extract from the silos, and I don't think I'll run out anytime soon.

But then one day, I check on the corn, and realize it is half gone. This induces a sudden mental shift. Now I am moving from a mode of thinking abundance, to one of thinking scarcity. I need to make sure to ration the corn so I don't run out too soon. Plus more and more neighbors are knocking on my door looking for corn. What is my response, to sell as much and as cheaply as I can, only to run out soon? Of course not. The rational response is to start raising prices and rationing how much I sell, to maximize both the profit and the length of time I still have corn available to sell.

This analogy applies to oil. Half of the world's oil is still left (if not a bit more). But suddenly, it is not so easy to just turn the taps to make ever more of it. Producers are realizing that they will run out, someday. And there are ever more countries knocking at the door for that oil. The rational response to this from the producers' perspective is to raise prices and ration the oil. And so they are. Blaming oil prices on "speculators" just ignores this basic fact of human nature. If there is perceived scarcity of a desirable resource, people will pay more for it, and its producers can ask more for it.

Now, for the folks in the USA, this is a double whammy. That's because of what we offer in trade for that oil. We offer debt. To the tune of 800 billion USD per year. And we offer printed money. Money that can now be created out of thin air.

What is that competing with? Well, the Chinese offer goods, like computers, bikes, and all sorts of stuff, in trade for the oil they get.

The end result is this puts further downward pressure on the dollar, making oil go up in price relative to the dollar.

Now, we've had a brief respite in oil prices. Looking at the numbers, it appears that we've had a slight strengthening of dollar value. A source of mine in China hinted that this is due to the Chinese stabilizing the dollar value for the Olympics (by buying dollars). Perhaps.

In any case, it would be foolish to expect it to last, and think things will "just get back to normal" soon.

One more point about this. The concept that oil and energy will get more and more expensive has many scary ramifications. But it also has some positive ones. Here are two examples. The first is a little article in Newsweek about a mom who was recently

forced to rediscover walking and biking as an alternative to driving the car

everywhere. As a bonus, she discovered how pleasant it can be to spend more relaxed time walking or biking to a destination, rather than zooming around in a hurry all the time. This is a sentiment that those of us who have bike commuted for a long time know well. I get angst ridden these days if I have to drive around town. Riding the bike is so much more peaceful.

The second note about this is from an intriguing blog post by Todd from

Clever Cycles

, about his family's recent bike/camping trip of 190 some odd miles. Here is a great quote

from the article

:

We parked our bikes at the door of our cabin, which led to quite a lot of curious loitering by other visitors to the springs. But we learned quickly to stop telling people that we had biked there with child from Portland because it stopped conversations cold, as either a greener-than-thou affront or just too freaky. “Who drove the support vehicle?” A Dutch family we met there on the last day found out as we were leaving. They were incredulous. I admit that made me proud: Dutch people think we’re hardcore. At the same time, I wish more people understood that biking needn’t be some kind of enviro-martyr stunt, sport, fundraising strategy either personal or institutional, etc.

This speaks about a culture in which cars are prevalent and cheap to operate, so that people think biking is crazy. But if when gas costs $10/gallon or more, people might reconsider that view. The reality is that biking that distance on a normal touring bike is limited to a few hardy folks who have the time and/or physical fitness for such a venture. But doing it on an electric bike is becoming increasingly feasible for a broad swath of people as the technology improves, particularly higher-capacity batteries. Todd and his family did this trip using Xtracycle-style longtail bikes, with their own Stokemonkey electric assist. With the right setup, nearly anyone, of any physical ability could do this. And if people want to be able to do leisure activities like this in the future, gas costs may cause many more folks to take this option seriously.

The second quote from his blog is more sobering:

Our mood took a big hit at Austin Hot Springs, which is right alongside the road. We thought we’d lunch there and maybe take a dip where the hot vents mingle with the cold river water. We rolled up to the river’s edge, between trucks, and beheld a sickening spectacle: trash, trash everywhere. Brawndo cans and Doritos bags, used tampons and condoms, excrement-smeared toilet paper, giant bean cans, inflatable water toys, cassette tape fluttering, cigarette butts and beer bottles, some broken. Green trees sawed down and dragged halfway into fire rings. And there in the clear water, some yahoos had submerged a large roll of carpet and weighted it down with rocks so bathers could avoid coming in contact with the riverbed. It was a crying Indian moment. Anger and shame drove us back to the road.

This is sad indeed. But it also speaks of a culture that does not value the gifts we've been given. The US has been the beneficiary of the biggest boost in wealth and prosperity for a broad swath of the populace in history. Part of this boost has been the result of cheap oil. This has allowed people to do things like joyride in their cars up to a hotspring, litter and pollute it, and joyride back home. Somehow I have a feeling that if getting there were a bit more difficult (like requiring a 4 hour bike ride), this wouldn't have happened. The people who would get there would be people who really appreciate the beauty and value of the place, and are willing to work to get to it. Drunken teens would be unlikely to make the trek, especially with a carpet in tow to throw in there. It is sad that our culture now takes for granted the great prosperity we have been lucky to have. Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on how you view it), this is changing. In the future, we as a society and country may be forced to start appreciating the gifts we have, since they're likely to not be so plentiful.

Now, in part I I promised to mention how Peak Oil led to a bike shop. That is coming, soon in Part III.

- Morgan