The Terminator Terminates car emmissions.....

[karri0n]

Do you guys not own anything that is battery powered. Batteries especially the new lithium ions do not last nearly as long as people say.

Now lets look at efficiency. Around here we burn coal for electricity. It's dirty, and I don't know what their conversion efficiency is but there has to be alot of losses since they use turbines to generated it. Then they send it to my house. There are transmission losses. Then I put it in a battery. It takes power to shove energy into the battery. Then if I don't drive the battery slowly discharges. And now I'm driving a car that weighs alot more because I'm hauling around batteries.

I love the new VW TDI commercial. It shows the TDI(Diesel)VW talking to the owner of a hybrid. The guy says I get 40 miles to the gallon. The TDI asks what it sounds like. He says it's kind of a humming sound. The TDI says I go VROOM VROOM and I get 50 miles to the gallons. Obama wants 43 miles to the gallon in 6 years. VW has 50 now.

Obama's a dumbass. Oh, and did you hear where he wants to spend 50 billion of our tax money to buy batteries for plug in hybrids.

First we turn GM into the next Amtrack and now we are going to be buying the batteries to put in these.

Every industrialized country in the world has already come to grips with fuel economy and emissions and they have done a better job that what he is proposing.

Here's an idea. Let's knock a thousand pounds off the weight of a car. Believe it or not, most cars these days weigh about thousand pounds more than their 1960's version( the 65 mustang 2800 pounds, the new one 3600; the VW beatle 1500 pounds now 3100 pounds; etc) Then let's put realistic engines in them. Who needs 250-300 horespower in a family car. You could hit 40 on the highway easily without batteries or hybrids.

My 92 Nissan Sentra is rated at 40 MPG.. this is before the big MPG movement took over(took over the U.S. at least, and this is a U.S. marketed vehicle). I'm sure it doesn't get that today with 240k on it, but it still gets better mileage than my 02 subaru, and that's with the Nissan's 5th gear being blown.


That being said, Diesel(or biodiesel, or peanut oil like Rudy Diesel originally built the thing to run on) is absolutely the way to go if we're talking internal combustion. VW already knew this 30 years ago.

 

[Delta-T]

biodiesel is a tough one to do here in the US, basically becasue most of the useful land is for growing food. OUr recent obsession with ethanol has caused the price of corn to go up, along with animal feed. Converting 1000's of acres would have a pretty big impact on our export of food as well. That said, Biodiesel probably represents the best oportunity for under-developed countries to get a handle on energy. Granted, a lot of those same countries have trouble growing their own food, so I don't know how that could all work out. Back when we dominated the cotton market i bet there was plenty of cotton seed oil to go around. what we need here is for someone to figure out a way to make your car run on pine sap. we got plenty of pine sap. Does anyone know if we can use human fat to make biodiesel? Theres plenty of that around, and the plastic surgeons who remove the stuff are even kind enough to put it into a littel vat for us. What could be more "home grown" than that?

 

[fossil]

Now there's an idea...harvesting human fat. I can see McDonalds getting into that, and then they could make a profit twice on every meal they sell. Hmmmm...

 

[karri0n]

biodiesel is a tough one to do here in the US, basically becasue most of the useful land is for growing food. OUr recent obsession with ethanol has caused the price of corn to go up, along with animal feed. Converting 1000's of acres would have a pretty big impact on our export of food as well. That said, Biodiesel probably represents the best oportunity for under-developed countries to get a handle on energy. Granted, a lot of those same countries have trouble growing their own food, so I don't know how that could all work out. Back when we dominated the cotton market i bet there was plenty of cotton seed oil to go around. what we need here is for someone to figure out a way to make your car run on pine sap. we got plenty of pine sap. Does anyone know if we can use human fat to make biodiesel? Theres plenty of that around, and the plastic surgeons who remove the stuff are even kind enough to put it into a littel vat for us. What could be more "home grown" than that?

It's been done, and by a cosmetic surgeon. He was arrested, and I believe it was for improper disposal of biohazardous material. It also may have been for producing specialty fuel without a license.


So the answer is yes, it can be done. Any lipid based substance will work afaik

 

[WoodMann]

We don't have the infrastructure, Ethanol attract and absorbs water like a MOFO, I think/ hope folks are starting to wake up to that. Bio- Diesel has a chance, but making it in appreciable vast quantities. I can just see it; a stand off with a trucker at a restaurant for their cooking fat...............

 

[Hakusan]

I am not sure the truck/car emission example is a good one. First, the emission standard is to ensure clean air. Unfortunately, trucks and SUVs do not fall under the same standards as cars. This should be corrected. I think emission control is still good--you assume there will be more Ford Escorts than Hummers. So the question is not whether we should let dirty cars in, but whether we should be cleaning up our trucks.

I think bio fuels is a bad idea. They will cause a greater negative impact on the environment than they will a positive one--agricultural production will be turned over to fuel production, more land will be cultivated, it takes more energy to produce bio fuels than they produce. Nice idea, but it is not a sustainable solution, especially when the current conditions indicate than energy use is going to increase.

 

[Jags]

OK - so lets go to something like "Particulates per mile", with different levels for light, med, and heavy duty usage. Again, the above example is/was not intended to be a real life example, just pointing out how silly our current standards are in the way they were set up.

Some smart people with nothing to gain from it should be able to figure this out and have it make sense at the same time.

 

[karri0n]

I am not sure the truck/car emission example is a good one. First, the emission standard is to ensure clean air. Unfortunately, trucks and SUVs do not fall under the same standards as cars. This should be corrected. I think emission control is still good--you assume there will be more Ford Escorts than Hummers. So the question is not whether we should let dirty cars in, but whether we should be cleaning up our trucks.

I think bio fuels is a bad idea. They will cause a greater negative impact on the environment than they will a positive one--agricultural production will be turned over to fuel production, more land will be cultivated, it takes more energy to produce bio fuels than they produce. Nice idea, but it is not a sustainable solution, especially when the current conditions indicate than energy use is going to increase.

So increase the efficiency of production; It's quite obvious that bio is the only way of creating "something from nothing". Biofuels are still far more efficient at turning solar energy into usable energy than any tech we have, and solar is one of the only energy sources we can count on always being there.

 

[WoodMann]

I'm ready to jump on the solar bandwagon than anyone else, problem is that there is such a thing as a cloudy day.................................

Edit; I think we've been living on borrowed time for quite a while now with reasonable gas prices and it's gonna be a thing of the past. An eye on conservation never hurt; there I go sounding like a flower child again- and no one really knows when the world will end so stretching some resources is only smart................

 

[Corey]

OK - so lets go to something like "Particulates per mile", with different levels for light, med, and heavy duty usage. ....

This is what is already in place with the EPA "tier" system... The various pollutants are measured in grams per mile and different categories are assigned based on vehicle weight http://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/ld.php Though, notice how diesel engines - which everyone seems to rave about being green - are actually allowed to have 2-3x the NOx emissions of a gas engine and there is also an issue with particulate matter - soot / smoke. Unlike CO2, NOx and Particulates ARE harmful pollutants responsible for smog, acid rain and various lung conditions.

 

[Jags]

OK - so lets go to something like "Particulates per mile", with different levels for light, med, and heavy duty usage. ....

This is what is already in place with the EPA "tier" system...

I realize that they already have a tier system, but from my understanding, they hang a probe from the tail pipe to measure the PPM, with no consideration towards the efficiency of the machine while it is actually doing work (going down the road). Heck, I have a 1939 4 cylinder tractor that I could lean out enough to pass that test.

And yes, it is true that there is some skew to the diesels that allow them to have higher ppm of some emissions than a gasser does, but if I have equivalent vehicles and the gasser consumes 2 times the fuel, whats the difference.

I don't really have a warm fuzzy spot for diesel anymore than gassers, just trying to point out that some of the regs to keep them off of USA roads are kinda silly if you take everything into consideration.

If we are looking at homegrown fuels, how does bio diesel compare to ethanol? I don't know the answer to that, but something to think about.

 

[Delta-T]

ethanol is not a good choice for us simply because the "best" crops to grow to generate ethanol (sugar cane) won't grow in the mid-west without an aweful lot of help. Switch grass has potential here, but there has to be a leap in bio-chemical technology to make the conversion process faster and cheaper (enzymes to help convert a greater part of the plannt mass into sugar). Corn is pretty useless as an ethanol fuel crop, simply because of the lack of sugar (by weight) and the amount of energy it takes to grow corn. Last I heard it took 12-13 gallons of ethanol to drive a distillery to make 14-15 gallons of ethanol from corn, so not so much gain there. Sugar cane was far better at 4 gallons to make 15 gallons. It works for brazil, but they have sugar cane coming out there ears. Ethanol also has a higher Octane content than most gas here in the states, so to make it useful on a broad scale we need more engines with really high compression, or variable turbo or supercharger to account for different octane contents. I think.

 

[Dune]

Be careful what you wish for!!

Electric cars will have a (do have) a whole new drama in repair and up keep -
some are simply crated and shipped back to the hazardous waste sites of the third world as the batteries cannot be disposed of here. Mechanics suit up like line men wearing leather and plastic full body protection to shield themselves from DEATH caused by electrical discharge of the systems.

Electric cars do not require repairs to the exaust sytem, radiator and hoses, igniton system, fuel delivery system, piston and bore maintainence, oil and filter changes, tune ups etc. Electric motor bearing are cheap. Batteries used in Edisons cars, which once acounted for a third of all vehicles have been known to last for ever. They are not lead acid batteries as reported in this months issue of Discover magazine, but rather Nickel-Iron batteries, and remained in production in this country until 1973, at which time, their production was shipped to China (Russia also manufactures Ni-IR batts), where they are still manufactured to this day. There are presently electric cars which can travel in excess of 300 miles per charge.
As an aside please note that the exodus of the Edison Battery Company coincided with Nixons opening of trade to China, one of the first of many acts by Neo-cons to dismantle the manufacturing base (and general well-being) of our country.

 

[Dune]

Bring on the new nuke plants!

Same argument, different day.

 

[Dune]

We had a half day workshop on vehicle extrication for hybrids. As a fire fighter they are a pain in the ass and can be extremely dangerous to emergency personal.

Don't gas tanks in cars explode?

 

[Dune]

Do you guys not own anything that is battery powered. Batteries especially the new lithium ions do not last nearly as long as people say.

Now lets look at efficiency. Around here we burn coal for electricity. It's dirty, and I don't know what their conversion efficiency is but there has to be alot of losses since they use turbines to generated it. Then they send it to my house. There are transmission losses. Then I put it in a battery. It takes power to shove energy into the battery. Then if I don't drive the battery slowly discharges. And now I'm driving a car that weighs alot more because I'm hauling around batteries.
.

Nice postulation. Next time check your facts however. Because of the economy of scale, an electric car, even charged by coal generated electricity, produces just a fraction of the emisions on an internal combustion engine driven car.

 

[Dune]

last I heard the overall efficiency of the internall combustion engine was below 50% (about on par with our electric grid).

Actualy the best gasoline fired internal combustion engine's efficieny is only 20%. Deisels run at 30%. Kamen's now canceled stirling powered Think car, which was to be manufactured in Norway, and marketed to the burgeoning Chineese and Indian middle class could have acheived an only theoretical 50% efficiency, if it were not for friction. It is the massive inefficiency of internal combustion engines which makes their use in Co-Gen systems viable.

 

[Dune]

Every industrialized country has come to grips with this by doing what Americans forbid their elected leaders do: raise gas taxes.

Yeah, our economy doesn't suck enough yet. Let's raise the cost of producing, and transporting everything in this country, plus the cost of surviving for every human being in the world even more, and give the money to the bozos to spend on whatever they want. That should help.

 

[rowerwet]

so now obama has added $1,300 to the cost of each new car (if you believe their math, more like 3k I think) and will be causing more deaths in car accidents (400 deaths per year for every 100 pounds of car you get rid of per the DOT) on top of the 3,000+ already caused each year by small cars, and we are supposed to celebrate?
Also this will hurt our domestic car companies the worst as they have to acount for full size vans and pickups, as well as minivans in their CAFE fleet milage (what has to equal 35 MPG) the reason they are already on the ropes.
I drive a small car by choice, my family rides in a large minivan, I wonder how much longer I will be able to keep them safe.

 

[Delta-T]

i'm not sure any deaths are "caused by small cars". Maybe poor driving in a small car, or worse, being the victim of someone elses bad driving while driving in a small car. If safety in cars is going to ride solely on the objective stats of crash tests, number of air bags, and ABS, I think we're going to be in a lot of trouble regardless of the size of the cars. That said, I DO feel much safer in a 1978 Caprice Classic (19 feet long, probably about 3500lbs) than i do in a Miata. We cannot continue down the path of oversized, overpowered, over indulgent vehicles just so we can maintain the status quo of "if you're gonna be hit by a drunk driver in an escalde you better be driving another escalde, or you'll be toast". Drivers kill people, not cars (although Herbie on a bad day, or Kit could be the exception).

From the physics standpoint lighter cars need less HP, carry less momentum, have shorter breaking distances, and use less energy to operate. This "should" translate into greater safety...in the long run. Certainly helps if you have attentive drivers, who aren't drinking, applying lipstick, texting,reading, rifling through CD case, turning around to smack their kid, dressing or undressing, snorting coke, or thumb wrestling. There are plenty of small cars on the Autobahn cruising at 100+MPH that are statistically safer than same car going 55MPH in the US. Why? Those people have 2 hands on the wheel (white knuckled for many) and are focused on the fact that they are going 100+mph and ifyou mess things up someone will get hurt.

I have a 15 minute drive to work and EVERY DAY I see some jacka$$ jocking for position between red lights like its race day. EVERY DAY I see someone staddling the lanes, unable to decide which lane is going where they are going. I see someone tailgating someone at 50MPH and someone reading the paper (no lie). I don't ever take notice of what type of vehicle they are driving to figure out if my car would be ok if they plow into me, I just create distance and pay MORE attention to whats going on. Thats how I make my car safer (and I still want a lighter car that gets better gas mileage....and a missle that shoots out from the license plate, thats so cool).

 

[Gooserider]

Actually it's a mixed bag on braking distances... Remember that kinetic energy (which you must get rid of to stop) is = Mass x Velocity squared - thus the major item is velocity, not speed... In addition the stopping power limit is tire friction with the road surface, and lighter cars have less pressure on the road, thus less friction... Yes, a car can stop faster than a truck, but not by huge amounts, especially as the speed goes up. In the extreme, a motorcycle with a TRAINED rider can stop faster than a car, but again not by a huge distance.

Actual accident data and post crash reconstruction also says that despite all the "speed kills" propaganda, excess speed is fairly far down on the list of accident CAUSE factors (driver alcohol consumption, driver experience, licensing/training, are better predictors, and "driver error" is of course the largest single factor) However, given that an accident has occurred, impact speed is far and above the biggest predictor of accident severity / injury levels - IOW, slowing down helps...

Also worth noting is that most of the legendary European autoways DO have speed limits these days, reports I've seen suggest most speeds are around 85 or so - still impressive. Also there is probably less of a spread in vehicle sizes - most trucks and busses tend to be smaller than the US equivalents. However Euro drivers tend to be MUCH more thoroughly trained and tested - they have more licensing levels based on vehicle size / type and testing / training requirements that are MUCH tougher than the standard US HS "Driver Ed" farce of watching gory movies, and learning how to parallel park... This is a mixed bag from a freedom and economic standpoint, but it does seem to increase safety.

Gooserider
(a formerly certified Motorcycle Safety Instructor)

 

[karl]

We had a half day workshop on vehicle extrication for hybrids. As a fire fighter they are a pain in the ass and can be extremely dangerous to emergency personal.

Don't gas tanks in cars explode?

NO! Gasoline tanks don't normally explode. Diesel tanks will explode. To have an explosion you need fuel vapors and oxygen. Fuel vapors alone won't burn or explode. Gasoline has a very low vapor pressure and when you put it in a tank, the fumes that come off of it quicky displace all of the oxygen. This is in a vented tank, which car tanks are vented through the carbon canister. Think of it this way. The gasoline evaporates a little bit and the fumes push all of the oxygen out of the tank, so nothing in there can explode. Diesel on the other hand has a higher vapor pressure and won't do this as readily. I'm guessing a gasoline tank at 40 below or something might explode, just as a diesel tank at 100 plus degrees might not, but you get my point.

The big thing no one has mentioned is the CO2 created to make these biofuels. We can't too much CO2 coming out of our car exhausts now, but we can create tons of it fermenting stuff to make the fuel. That's just stupid

 

[karl]

Do you guys not own anything that is battery powered. Batteries especially the new lithium ions do not last nearly as long as people say.

Now lets look at efficiency. Around here we burn coal for electricity. It's dirty, and I don't know what their conversion efficiency is but there has to be alot of losses since they use turbines to generated it. Then they send it to my house. There are transmission losses. Then I put it in a battery. It takes power to shove energy into the battery. Then if I don't drive the battery slowly discharges. And now I'm driving a car that weighs alot more because I'm hauling around batteries.
.

Nice postulation. Next time check your facts however. Because of the economy of scale, an electric car, even charged by coal generated electricity, produces just a fraction of the emisions on an internal combustion engine driven car.

Dude I live in coal country. I have alot of friends who rely on it to make a living. I certainly hope it doesn't go away for their sake, but it is the most nasty fuel you will ever encounter period. If you don't believe me, come to West Virginia and I'll take you on a tour of coal country. I'll take you to the four big coal powerplants around here. It's not as bad as when I was a kid and they have since put scrubbers on the plants, but it is still bad. I remember barren fields for a few miles east of all of the plants (We have westerly winds here). The exhaust from those plants spewed pollutants to the point nothing would grow on the east side of a plant. Even now it's nasty. Come on down. We'll have a picnic a few miles east of one of those things on a nice windless day and I'll watch your eyes start watering in a hour or two. I'll show you creeks that have such a sulphur smell you won't go near them. Actually, they have done alot to clean up the burning of coal, but the mining of it and the disposal of the toxic ash from burning the stuff is still really bad.

Take a look at the pics and tell me if you would swim in that.

 

[drizler]

Actually it's a mixed bag on braking distances... Remember that kinetic energy (which you must get rid of to stop) is = Mass x Velocity squared - thus the major item is velocity, not speed... In addition the stopping power limit is tire friction with the road surface, and lighter cars have less pressure on the road, thus less friction... Yes, a car can stop faster than a truck, but not by huge amounts, especially as the speed goes up. In the extreme, a motorcycle with a TRAINED rider can stop faster than a car, but again not by a huge distance.

Actual accident data and post crash reconstruction also says that despite all the "speed kills" propaganda, excess speed is fairly far down on the list of accident CAUSE factors (driver alcohol consumption, driver experience, licensing/training, are better predictors, and "driver error" is of course the largest single factor) However, given that an accident has occurred, impact speed is far and above the biggest predictor of accident severity / injury levels - IOW, slowing down helps...

Also worth noting is that most of the legendary European autoways DO have speed limits these days, reports I've seen suggest most speeds are around 85 or so - still impressive. Also there is probably less of a spread in vehicle sizes - most trucks and busses tend to be smaller than the US equivalents. However Euro drivers tend to be MUCH more thoroughly trained and tested - they have more licensing levels based on vehicle size / type and testing / training requirements that are MUCH tougher than the standard US HS "Driver Ed" farce of watching gory movies, and learning how to parallel park... This is a mixed bag from a freedom and economic standpoint, but it does seem to increase safety.

Gooserider
(a formerly certified Motorcycle Safety Instructor)

I haven't seen any speed restrictions on the autobahns in Bavaria at least. You can go as fast as you like though most seem to like 80 - 85 as a good compromise between gas mileage and time. The vehicle sizes run the spectrum just like here. Get plowed in your Fiat 500 by a Mercedes or Volvo and you will pay dearly just like over here and they have plenty of sport Utes everywhere. The big thing I always noticed on the Autobahn is the speed differentials. Tractor trailers and all large truck in Germany are limited to 50 MPH. Put that out on the road with some looneytoon driving a Porsche Carrera at 150 no problem. It's when another guy has to pass the truck that it gets interesting with a rear closure speed of 100+ MPH. That moving speck in the rear view mirror right below the "objects are closer than they look" or whatever that stamp is are moving like a bullet. There aren't that many of those guys out there so encounters like that are rare enough to take you by surprise. I once had a Porsche go by me so fast in an empty van that it actually lifted me slightly and it sounded and felt like I got hit on the rear end with a sledge hammer, not fun at all. Personally I don't like driving over 100 as you are working all the time and watching so far ahead that it is just not worth the continual effort. Throw some traffic in and why even bother with it all, just slow down they drive fast enough anyways
It still galls me that everyone over there has 6 speeds while here they are just catching on here. Mercedes had 4 speed auto's back in the 70's and they were playing with airbags and ABS then too. I doubt you will see any super inventiveness coming out of the US in regards to automobiles anymore. There might be plenty of inventiveness but when you throw in the drag of top down micromanagement and governmet meddling it all bogs down.................

 

[Dune]

We had a half day workshop on vehicle extrication for hybrids. As a fire fighter they are a pain in the ass and can be extremely dangerous to emergency personal.

Don't gas tanks in cars explode?

NO! Gasoline tanks don't normally explode. Diesel tanks will explode. To have an explosion you need fuel vapors and oxygen. Fuel vapors alone won't burn or explode. Gasoline has a very low vapor pressure and when you put it in a tank, the fumes that come off of it quicky displace all of the oxygen. This is in a vented tank, which car tanks are vented through the carbon canister. Think of it this way. The gasoline evaporates a little bit and the fumes push all of the oxygen out of the tank, so nothing in there can explode. Diesel on the other hand has a higher vapor pressure and won't do this as readily. I'm guessing a gasoline tank at 40 below or something might explode, just as a diesel tank at 100 plus degrees might not, but you get my point.

The big thing no one has mentioned is the CO2 created to make these biofuels. We can't too much CO2 coming out of our car exhausts now, but we can create tons of it fermenting stuff to make the fuel. That's just stupid

Karl, thanks for responding. I couldn't agree with you more about biofuel. My first post outside the boiler room was on just that topic. Wish I had the ability to post a link to it, it was a firestorm that went on for many pages. In just a few short months, some of those posters have changed their tunes, which is good. Others just don't seem to come around too often, which is bad. If my opionated, passionate writing style drove them away, I am deeply sorry. It just seems to me that we are facing a crisis of epic proportion, of which many citizens of even our relatively educated country are in deep denial or complete ignorance thereof.

The bottom line is this though. The powers that be, so far, have done little to actualy end our dependence upon foriegn oil or decrease Greenhouse Gas emmisions, except in miniscule self defeating ways which only enrich themselves or their best contributers. Half measures such as hybrid cars, most of which actuly get LESS m.p.g. than a V.W. diesel, only delay the inevitable nesassary swicth to electric cars(and trucks-at least local delivery), charged by solar panels or other means which utilize NO fossil fuels, such as Hydro, Wind, Tidal current, Waste Vegatable Oil, Geothermal, and Solar Thermal. The undisputible truth is that anyone who lives in a house could charge their electric car from solar panels on the roof of their house. Worst case scenario, one who lives in a condo, or apartment and is one of the fifty percent of the country to still receive electricty from Coal fired plants, still is responsible for less CO2 output, than one driving a Hybrid