Maya Creek Ecovillage

The Transportation Plan

As with most other aspects of the plan so far, dealing with transportation involves minimizing the number of trips or atleast the number of vehicles taken as well as increasing efficiency and sustainability when it using a vehicle is necessary. There are several options available as far as energy efficient transportation goes, several of which we are particularly interested in.

Biodiesel

In it's current form biodiesel may be alleviating one problem, that is the use of fossil fuels, while adding to other problems such as world hunger and rising food prices. Using food crops to replace oil hurts our ability to field ourselves and is inherently inefficient. One acre of corn turned into biodiesel only produces 20 to 30 gallons of fuel.

There is a new biofuel alternative however that is almost 50,000 times more efficient. It uses varying types of algae arranged in vertical columns to produce lipids through photosynthesis which can be extracted into fuel. This type of setup can be built for small scale and is estimated that it can produce up to 100,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre. Granted that is the upperbound possibility and in a desert situation with excellent solar access, but even a fraction of that makes it a much better alternative to current ethanol and biodiesel production methods.

We are of course open to other suggestions and new innovations. Electric vehicles are interesting alternative but until the electricity is generated in an environmentally sound way they are simply producing their pollution in a different location rather than in the car itself. The batteries used in the car are another concern, as far as we know there is no way to recycle them and their current lifespan does not come close to matching the cars estimated lifespan. It is possible in the future that both the electricity used to power these types of cars will be generated by alternative energy and batteries will be high-capacity nanotube capacitors with an indefinite lifespan, then these vehicles could be the way of the future.

Ride-sharing

The internal section of this website itself along with bulletin boards in the community center will allow members to coordinate activities and make the best use of transportation. If someone is planning to go into Fulton or Columbia, they will post ahead of time when they are leaving, where they are going, when they anticipate coming back, and how much space they have. This ride-sharing should allow us to dramatically cut down on our amount of vehicle usage and thus energy consumption.

It is also likely that at some point we will try to restrict the number of cars at the ecovillage. With ride-sharing and further self-sufficiency the need for everyone having a car would be ridiculous, and we're also not interested in building a large parking lot.