Hiiiigh folks,

I've been pondering and designing some sustainable transportation since I would love to travel the Earth, but much more than my low income allows.
So I've been thinking of ways to travel, while reducing costs as much as possible.

Traveling the Land:
I once came to the (anything but new) idea to build a trike driven by musclepower combined with an electro motor. The cycling motion could be used to spin a Dynamo that generates electricity. The electricity would be fed into a battery. A Switch in the "cockpit" would feed the electricity from the battery into a powerfull electro-motor. This electromotor then could drive the axis of the 2 back-wheels. Cycling would constantly recharge the battery and then, if needed to go faster or go uphill with more ease, the electro-motor could be switched on.

I made a simple design in Paint:



Traveling the Water:
I soon realised this same principle, peddal-power combined with an electromotor, could be applied to canoe- and Catamaran-style boats.
Like motorised watercycles. A simple peddal&electro-driven exploration- or fisher boat could be made this way.
Also if several people where placed in a row, as seen in a canoe, each cycling a pair of peddals with their legs
I suppose they could attain the same speed as a canoe full of rowing men. Perhaps the power and endurance of their legs would allow them to go faster, longer.

Imagine a row of 10 men, each man cycling peddals. This would go pretty fast. Now it could generate ALOT of electricity if all pair of peddals drove their own Dynamo and if all these Dynamos fed one Battery. If this Battery drove an Electro Motor that in turn drove a propulsion-screw at the back of the canoe, I imagine that, if combined with the power of the 10 men cycling, this Canoe-like boat could reach incredible speeds.

If 2 such Canoe boats, with each 10 men, where welded together alongside eachother, with a deck in between them you would get a
peddal and electro-motor powered Catamaran boat. To make this boat more speedy and agile a mast with a raisable sail could be placed
in the centre of the deck. This could be an excellent fishing- or long distance travel boat.

The great adventage of these vehicles, using this Dynamo-Battery-ElectroMotor system, is that they need NO FUEL whatsoever.
Off course it is not for the lazy. Nor is it for large transportation vehicles.



Perpetuum Mobile using Methane:
Large Ships that carry a great load of people and/or goods could be powered by a Methane combustion-Engines. Methane can be easily
and constantly filtered off of large, onboard anaerobic digesters which are constantly filled up with ground up Sewage(human waste) and organic kitchen-waste(Fish and vegetable-leftovers)




For now I'm planning to construct a non-electrical Trike. I currently have a Metal bed/couch frame, an old Bike missing a back tire and a spare wheel missing the tire. In time I'll get 2 tires and have a friend weld the bicycle frame and the metal bed/couch stuck together.
Later I will buy and install the parts ( Dynamo, Electro-Motor, Battery, Wire )and make it an electro-motor driven Trike.

I will make the designs of these described boats soon. When they're done I'll post them here so you'll get a better picture of what I mean.