# pollution from lawnmowers?



## GVA (May 23, 2007)

Just saw this on the news.
Lawnmowers are responsible for 10% of annual emmisions....
1 hour of mowing lawn = emisions from a SUV for 15,000 miles.
I wonder what my chainsaw puts out?

This was the news report...

http://static.cbslocal.com/CBS/nati...eoPlayStatus=false&videoStoryIds=&videoTime=&
Make sure you click on the pic of the guy pushing the lawnmower..

Listen to the news anchor at the end saying that an electric lawn  mower can be purchased Etc.
the whole story was about solar power not electric.
AAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH :ahhh:     Yeah electricity the clean energy.....

Web we need more smileys, besides the smiley with coffee shooting out of his nose.  

We also need one with steam coming out of his ears.....  and one banging his head against the wall...

How long before the chainsaws start coming with a catalytic converter bolted to them...


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## webbie (May 23, 2007)

That's a big number, but I suspect some of it has to do with the fact that many older lawnmowers are in use.

But what are the other solutions?
An electric one is nice for small lawns. Maybe a larger lawn tractor might have a cleaner engine, but a LOT more fuel.

I wonder if there is any other other liquid fuel which would do the job and cut the pollution aspect. 

Electric in this case might be a lot cleaner in emissions for a number of reasons. The efficiency of the electric mower is probably higher (less HP) and fuel burned in a power plant is definitely cleaner than a small HP gas engine.

Yeah, I've gripped about electric stuff myself before, but the answer is to have cleaner electric generation. Or, have that new Honda setup where one appliance does it all - check out:
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/HomeEnergyStation/

I suspect electric will solve a lot of problems in the future. The internal combustion engine has not been able to get above about 30% efficiency, and many engines are closer to 10-20% - that is not good.

A nice wood gasifier which then burnt some of the gases to power a generator would be a nice home appliance. I've done some research on this, and it seems not to be possible using current technology. Turns out steam engines are only 5-8% efficient, so you have to gasify and then try to run a higher speed turbine thingy......which are subject to economies of scale - it's tough to build a small one!

An ultimate electric generator would be micro-chips such as PV, but that could take radiant heat from the stove and directly convert it. Similar things do exist, but they are very expensive and not efficient.

Well, reincarnation would be nice if I got to see all these things in my next life!


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## webbie (May 23, 2007)

Speaking of home electric generation, you motorheads should have an answer to this....

What if you rigged up a second alternator on your car, and used it to charge a couple on-board deep charge batteries that would then dump their load to your home system (a crude design would simply entail lifting out the battery and replacing it with another).

Given that the engine is already running, I would assume the efficiency of higher loads on it is not as low as those of the standard operation.

So, what might the efficiency of gas to electric WATTS be in such a case. We might need Corie to figure this one.


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## GVA (May 23, 2007)

2 things
I fear for the wood burners out there that they can be targeted next with the chainsaws and wood splitters. Darn polluters... ;-P   They are already going after OWB's

What about the smileys?


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## TMonter (May 23, 2007)

> The internal combustion engine has not been able to get above about 30% efficiency, and many engines are closer to 10-20% - that is not good.



Where do people get this idea?

IC engines (particularly gas) can have efficiencies exceeding 35%. Typical is closer to 30%.

Dual Cycle (Diesel) engines have efficiencies approaching 50% with average being closer to 40-42%

In theory IC engines are more efficient than diesels, but because they cannot run as high of compression ratios without knocking, the overall net effect is lower efficiency.


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## BrotherBart (May 24, 2007)

GVA said:
			
		

> How long before the chainsaws start coming with a catalytic converter bolted to them...



Stick a fork in it. It's done. Both of my Husqvarna saws have cat mufflers on them.


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## begreen (May 24, 2007)

Small motors can be converted to propane. That dramatically improves emissions. I'm thinking of doing this to our riding mower now that we have a big blimp of a tank of propane and nothing but a piddly stovetop running off of it. 

Here's some more info on our lawnmowing habits impact:
http://www.peoplepoweredmachines.com/faq-environment.htm

Here's an alternative, an electric riding mower:
http://www.electrictractor.com/html/multi_prod.shtml


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## GVA (May 24, 2007)

BrotherBart said:
			
		

> GVA said:
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What about you're poulan? :cheese: 
BB you're missing the point...


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## webbie (May 24, 2007)

TMonter said:
			
		

> > The internal combustion engine has not been able to get above about 30% efficiency, and many engines are closer to 10-20% - that is not good.
> 
> 
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> Where do people get this idea?



It's the same idea you confirm. Modern gas engines in cars may hit 30% - yet we would never consider a wood stove that burned at 30% total efficiency, nor a furnace that did so.

Given the total number of gas engines in the world - from lawnmowers to chain saws to cars (many quite old and inefficient), I would be amazed if the total average eff. of ALL the worlds gasolines engines taken together is over 20-25%. 

That is not good....and does not in any way compare to an electric motor which converts 90-95% of the electrical energy into mechanical energy. 

T, if you check wikipedia and similar sources, you will see the following:
"Many of the common automobile engines are only around 21% efficient. (This is actually considered good, since common automotive engines of 1970 had BELOW 15% thermal efficiency!) (It has actually risen a little from that.)

Ground transportation vehicles are powered, by and large, exclusively by internal-combustion engines. In passenger vehicles in particular, the thermal efficiency of the [engine] cycle is of the order of 10 to 15 percent." from *Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Tenth Edition (1995), page 9-29.*

As far as 2-cycle and small lawnmower engines, it is pure speculation by me as to the efficiency - I do assume it is low.


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## jpl1nh (May 24, 2007)

I have to say that as long as I can get good performance and I can afford it, give me electric or propane or whatever.  I think we all see the elephant in the room and it's the quantity of fuel we consume to meet our energy needs.  If someone has a better way, I for one am all for it.  I thought those mowers were pretty cool.  Especially if we see gas prices continue to move up from here. Whew!


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## TMonter (May 24, 2007)

> Ground transportation vehicles are powered, by and large, exclusively by internal-combustion engines. In passenger vehicles in particular, the thermal efficiency of the [engine] cycle is of the order of 10 to 15 percent.” from Mark’s Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Tenth Edition (1995), page 9-29.



That's efficiency at the wheels, not of the engine. Different animal. Any car electric or otherwise suffers from this problem.

When you consider engine efficiency you should be looking at brake efficiency of the engine, not total thermal efficiency of the car.

I suggest you reference this book if you want to be read up on it:

http://www.sae.org/technical/books/R-278



> yet we would never consider a wood stove that burned at 30% total efficiency, nor a furnace that did so.



That's because you're not trying to turn the heat into usable work. Getting a high efficiency while heating isn't difficult, getting a mechanical device to harness the heat is.

Entropy is a groan.

I know of a PFI spark-ignited 1.9L, 4-cylinder engine with 19.5:1 compression ratio. 

The engine operates unthrottled using stoichiometric fueling from full power to near idle conditions, using exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and intake manifold pressure to modulate engine load. As a result, the engine when operating, demonstrates better than 40% brake thermal efficiency from 6.5 to 15 bar BMEP at speeds ranging from 1200 to 3500 rpm, while achieving low steady state emissions using conventional after-treatment strategies. Similar emissions levels were realized with ethanol fuel, but with slightly higher BSFC due to reduced spark authority at this compression ratio. These characteristics make the engine attractive for hybrid vehicle applications, for which it was initially developed, yet the significant expansion of the high-efficiency islands suggest that it may have broader appeal to conventional powertrain systems.


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## DiscoInferno (May 24, 2007)

GVA said:
			
		

> I fear for the wood burners out there that they can be targeted next with the chainsaws and wood splitters. Darn polluters... ;-P   They are already going after OWB's



I was under the impression that 2-stroke engines were quite polluting, what with the incomplete combustion and burning oil and all.  Has this been substantially improved?  Things like lawnmowers, jet-skis, and snowmobiles (i.e. where you don't have to carry the engine) have moved to 4-stroke engines; I assumed that was because a 2-stroke couldn't be made clean.  Seems like even when a cat is added to a 2-stroke, it reduces performance and folks remove or modify it to get more power anyway.


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## jjbaer (May 24, 2007)

I worked at a coal/oil fired power plant and they are woefully inefficient......about 70% waste heat either goes up the stack and/or out the condenser into the river or lake ...i.e., the overall efficiency is about 28-37%..........really sucks but, short of nuke power or solar or wind or (in 30 years) fusion, we're stuck with it and, unfortunately, except for nuke, it dwarfs solar and wind in energy density so we will continue to use it for YEARS..........we have the worlds largest coal deposits so I think we're headed for many, many more coal power plants which, unless we begin sequestering carbon from them, will continue to have HUGE carbon footprints.......


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## restorer (May 24, 2007)

It's interesting that the Navajo Power project in the early 70's used a slurry of coal and water and had an 80% efficient burn with bituminous coal. Turbine run on super heated steam. What is lacking in the East is the necessity to do the job right. If the utilities claimed they couldn't do it, well, the regulators threw up their hands and said, we have no choice. Those plants in the 4 corners area are still operating, maybe not as efficiently, but they still work. 

If we were able to do that thirty years ago, why are you Engineers not able to take it to a higher level. We will not get off the cheap fuel until it is gone, or there is something cheaper, so why are you not making the systems more efficient and cleaner burning?


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## Sandor (May 24, 2007)

TMonter said:
			
		

> > In theory IC engines are more efficient than diesels, but because they cannot run as high of compression ratios without knocking, the overall net effect is lower efficiency.
> 
> 
> 
> Since when is a diesel not an IC engine?


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## webbie (May 24, 2007)

Anyone hazard a guess as the total efficiency of a lawn mower?

As to coal plants, I heard a story on the radio the other day about the new planned (150) plants on the drawing board. The industry is trumping that they are cleaner in terms of Greenhouse emissions....but they are only about 20-30% cleaner, still vastly worse than all the alternatives! They are cleaner as far as some other pollution (particulates, sulfur, etc.).

The end result is if these plants get built (and about 50 are ready to be started), we are sentencing ourselves to many decades of incredibly high CO2 output. Then again, where are the choices....other than conservation?


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## jjbaer (May 24, 2007)

Webmaster said:
			
		

> Anyone hazard a guess as the total efficiency of a lawn mower?
> 
> As to coal plants, I heard a story on the radio the other day about the new planned (150) plants on the drawing board. The industry is trumping that they are cleaner in terms of Greenhouse emissions....but they are only about 20-30% cleaner, still vastly worse than all the alternatives! They are cleaner as far as some other pollution (particulates, sulfur, etc.).
> 
> The end result is if these plants get built (and about 50 are ready to be started), we are sentencing ourselves to many decades of incredibly high CO2 output. Then again, where are the choices....other than conservation?



Hey Web!  We agree on something!  And, I don't think any of those 50 sequester carbon.....so.....all that carbon from 20 million years ago will be released into the atmosphere......and.......while some of these plants are replacing older, more polluting plants, they all still emit CO2........the newer plants may emit CO2 at a lower rate per KW-hr produced because of the higher efficiencies.  Our immediate "saviour" that costs "ZERO" to implement is, as you stated, "conservation".  Our "holy grail" is fusion (if we can get the French off their asses and their 36 hr work week....LOL).....


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## keyman512us (May 25, 2007)

GVA said:
			
		

> BrotherBart said:
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BBWWAAAGHH!  Err Umm..What exactly is yor point GVA? lol 

The fact some people out there (are nieve enuff to) actually think chainsaws with CATS are goin to "save the air"??? 

That they think cleaning up lawnmowers is "an answer"???

Or that if they "moan and groan" loud enough and all jump on the 'bandwagon' that they can vilify everthing from end to end and in between and make everything be cast in an "outdoor boiler" light???


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## GVA (May 26, 2007)

I don't really have a point ....
But If one lawnmower pollutes that much then I expect some troubles in the future..
Let's look at what we all have in the shed
Lawnmower
Weed whacker
leaf blower
chain saw
not to mention those soot producing tiki torches :lol: 
I must be responsible for at least 10% of the ice caps melting.
Problem here is they will focus on the cars and SUV's, next is lawnmowers, then comes the 2 stroke stuff oh boy......  Everybody go out and buy electric stuff it's cleaner....
Neighbor against neighbor across the country one will complain about the neighbors woodstove or OWB polluting the air so this wood guy decides OK i'll install and wind turbine in my back yard and run electric heat...
Guess what his neighbor will complain about that too....
The worst part was, the news story was about a local co using the sun to charge his batteries for his lawn equipment and at the end of the story they say you can purchase a electric mower at.....WTF
I've got a new plan here... I'll create something that works like a plant or a tree.....  It'll run on CO2 and only emit O2... enviromentally friendly you bet I'm removing carbon from the environment........ Now what would people say about this new invention?????????  The trees are dying cause i'm using all the CO2 up.
You can't win.
I still don't have a point to this post besides the statement they had that a lawn mower running for an hour emits the same amount of crap as an SUV over 15,000 miles


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## restorer (May 26, 2007)

GVA, 

I think that stinks. Literally. I spent lunch yesterday in a nice place and watched their yard maintenance people trim the edge of the grass and pick up the trash. The "highly skilled operator" had the fuel mix wrong, or the trimmer was on it's last legs, because the blue smoke was shooting out the back end of about 15 feet in the air. The stink was sucked in the heat exchanger and the oil smell filled the restaurant. No extra cup of coffee. When I walked outside I thought I had stuck my head in the oil pan of a burned out racing engine. 

Do they pollute, absolutely, do they absolutely pollute, not if maintained. If the spewing crap is that bad, those folks need to have their body parts adjusted. And more importantly, if they are that polluting, why are we not doing something about it??????????


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## titan (May 26, 2007)

Let's look at necessities vs. luxuries: 1-lawnmower.....accepted as a necessity for most folks.
                                                      2-leafblower.....purely a luxury item;noisy and polluting-people caught using them should be beaten with a good ole' RAKE!


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## webbie (May 26, 2007)

I once bought an electric weed wacker and the technology sucked....it didn't do the job! They probably have better ones now.
Now I have a cheapie 2-cycle job...works great....just fired it up today for the first time this year - same gas from last year. I use it for less than an hour a year. 

Personally, I think we have to get rid of all the motorcycles and ATV's....snowmobiles too.

 :coolsmile: 
That outlook will make me even more popular than I am now.


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## keyman512us (May 26, 2007)

GVA said:
			
		

> I don't really have a point ....
> But If one lawnmower pollutes that much then I expect some troubles in the future..
> Let's look at what we all have in the shed
> Lawnmower
> ...



BBWWAAGGHHH!  Allright, Allright "Children let's lnock it off"..lol  

When Massachusetts adopts ordinances' against leaf blowers (like California has done)...I'm gonna be laughing and steaming at the same time GVA

It wouldn't surprise me...in a state where "We won't fix healthcare...we'll just make everyone 'carry it'...in more ways than one" 

Lawnmower x 3 (2 gas..one "push" model)
Weedwacker x 3 (1 string..2 brush blade) 
leafblower x 1 (one got stolen) 
chainsaw (don't have accurate count) 
pressure washer
generator x 2 (1 sm portable...1 trl mount welder/genset)

...Yeah maybe I don't want to think of everything 'in the shed' right now..lol 

I think in this country and world we live in...the most "eco-friendly" lawnmower would still be viewed by some as GW un-friendly...lol
http://sf.metblogs.com/archives/2006/08/goats_in_the_city.phtml
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2003/09/02/getting/index.html


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## keyman512us (May 26, 2007)

Webmaster said:
			
		

> I once bought an electric weed wacker and the technology sucked....it didn't do the job! They probably have better ones now.
> Now I have a cheapie 2-cycle job...works great....just fired it up today for the first time this year - same gas from last year. I use it for less than an hour a year.
> 
> Personally, I think we have to get rid of all the motorcycles and ATV's....snowmobiles too.
> ...



BBWAAGHH!  You got that right Web! lol 

You don't need to get rid of ATV's in MA...they have already done it for you...you can only ride them legally in two places in MA...damned if I know where they are...lol 

SnowMobiles??? Nobody that is into "sleddin'..." rides in MA anyway...they all go up North!

Well anyway...just like OWB's..."a few have spoiled it for many". Nope Nope...200cc's wasn't enough...had to be "trully American...bigger is better", 900cc's, 4wd, "tree mowing" push guards and on and on...

Don't get me started on the anti ATV nazi's...just keep in mind web...alot of trails would disapear if ATV's and motorcycles did!


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## GVA (May 26, 2007)

keyman512us said:
			
		

> GVA said:
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Yeah I forgot about my generator and pressure washer, but only use them a litle bit each year so it's only about 10,000 miles in a SUV


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## MountainStoveGuy (May 26, 2007)

If the IC engine got to efficient, then we wouldnt have any heat to stay warm on those cold winter days


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