Matlinah Omiti (in the middle) demonstrates her "smoothie bicycle".
Kjel Aleklett talking about future energy challenges.
Yesterday Tällberg Foundation arranged something they called “A Day For the Future” at Skeppsholmen, which is one of the islands in central Stockholm.
Having spent the weekend trying to suck the last sweet nectar out of this wonderful summer at Möja, another island further out in the archipelago, I arrived just in time to hear the “peak oil guru” professor Kjell Aleklett and his colleagues from Uppsala University talk about our energy future.
The theories about exactly when peak oil will happen differs, but the fact that oil is a limited resource and that we won’t have cheap and easily accessible oil forever is something that humanity will have to deal with, whether we like it or not. The question is just how.
Right now more than 80 percent of the world’s energy mix comes from fossil fuels.
Kersti Johansson, a researcher at Aleklett’s institution held a very interesting talk about the possibility to replace the fossil fuels that now are used for transportation with bio energy coming from agricultural crops or spill. Her calculations show that it will be very difficult, unless we want to grow crops for energy production instead of for food.
Not far from the museum library where the Peak Oil seminar was held I found something that makes it even more obvious what a lot of energy we use in our daily life. Matlinah Omiti from the Royal Institute of Technology showed me the “Smoothie Bike” that she has constructed. By peddalling you power a blender and mix your own delicious fruit drink. I tried it, and actually it doesn’t take a lot of sweat. By increasing the resistance you could make other things work with your muscle power, Matlinah explained to me. You can for example light up one light bulb or a wall of LED lamps, and you could grind coffe. But when it comes to boiling the water for that coffee, you will fail, because boiling water requires so much energy!
Last year the BBC actually made a very funny show on this subject, connecting the energy grid of a house where a family was living their “ordinary” life to a hall with cyclist, powering the home with excercise bikes. 78 frantically pedalling cyclists were needed in order for the father of the house to take a shower…
Maybe we should start using gym bikes a bit more efficiently?
