I've noticed that this is often your response. Very clever. I can do it, too.

 

I hear that same statement all the time from people when they find out what I do for a living. "Why don't they just bring out their fuel efficient engines, we all know you have them"

Fact is yes. All the manufacturers could release extremely fuel efficient vehicles. Would anyone buy them?? Prob not.

Look at what happened with emission regulations in the 70's. Would you like another repeat of that debauchery? The car is great on fuel but I couldn't pass someone on the road if I tried!!!!!

There is a lot more to the situation then just slapping in a fuel efficient engine. Customers still want the same level of power to weight as current models. So if we put fuel efficient engines in the vehicles we need to either maintain the same level of power or make them lighter to compensate. Hmmmm.... but now they aren't quite as safe because we had to strip down the chassis to save weight or they maintain the power & weight but now are out of a given price bracket so don't sell. Its a lot of give and take.

There is a HUGE market in Canada for small cars even those that would be called "Micro" but we can't get them because they wouldn't sell in the US.

 

Great point. There always seems to be this underlying assumption that the auto manufacturers are holding back the fuel efficent cars, the 100 mpg car, or whatever, and I ask, why would they do that? What reason could auto manufacturers have for supressing this technology? None that I can think of. A more fuel efficient car would need less gasoline, so that could hurt the oil companies, but not the car companies. Any manufacturer who came out with one would make a fortune and be the world's hero.

People would just rather believe there's a conspiracy. It's more fun to blame others, especially others who you can't see.

 

Most hydrogen that you can purchase comes from water. Electricity is used to break the H2O into Hydrogen and Oxygen. It is produced in areas with lower electricity costs because of the huge consumption. Then it is compressed into a liquid form for transportation.
So:
Coal is used to make electricity to make Hydrogen and compress it.
Diesel fuel is used to transport liquid hydrogen
Then hydrogen is used in a fuel cell.
People think they are green but they are using energy derived from coal.
No different than driving a coal burning car.
Energy consumption = Energy consumption. 150 hp = 150 hp. Doesn't matter wheather it is coal, natural gas, oil, electricity.

 

That is a valid point.

 

This discussion has raised a few flags with me as far as energy "creation". It is a fact that making hydrogen takes a lot of power but compared to what? gasoline? What is the comparison and does anyone have those facts cause I really don't know.Transportation of the final product is a moot point as is storage etc. So driving a coal burning car is as pollution free as driving a hydrogen car. I saw a program on a Mercedes hydrogen car that has the speed record for hydrogen cars at over 320kph. To be totally green you would need to find a clean source of energy to produce the hydrogen. So we don't do that now , does that mean scrap the program. Ultimately we will have to change from fossil fuels and developing the alternative will mean that it can be exported for profit. Would you rather that be China or India?
There are extremists on both sides and I agree with neither one , but when it comes to energy I have to consider that China and India are industrializing at an alarming rate and they need energy to do that. China burns more coal than anyone and pollutes more and India is not much better. How much energy are they going to need with 2.5 billion people to have their populations reach a standard of life close to ours? Look 50 or 100 years into the future at our present and increasing rate of burning fossil fuels and it's not good.How many people can the planet sustain? 10 billion? 20 billion? besides the food needed for everyone we are going to need a lot of energy so I believe we are already a little behind in finding alternative sources that are efficient through years of development.

 

Yes, there is an energy cost in extracting, transporting, and refining crude oil. But the BIG difference between fossil fuels and hydrogen, biofuels, etc. is that, with the fossil fuels, the hard part has been done!!!. Nature did it for us!

Fossil fuels are the decay products of living things. Dinosaurs, plants alive at that time, etc, and it has taken nature millions of years to turn those into fuels. We're trying to speed this up with biofuels, and that takes energy. The energy that's used to do this is, most often, fossil fuel energy.

Crop growth requires fertilizers, which must be spread, which requires a fossil-fuel powered tractor or other farm equipment. It must be harvested, which requires fossil fuel-powered farm equipment, and it must be processed into liquid fuels, which takes energy, which usually comes from fossil-fuel sources.

So what's better? Using all that gasoline to power the farm equipment to make biofuels to put in our cars, or just putting that gasoline that went into the farm equipment directly into our cars in the first place?

If we can find non-fossil-fueled ways to grow and process corn, this could work, but there is still the problem of sufficient land area to grow all the corn needed.

 

Bio fuels are definately not the answer and never suggested them. The biggest problem does not even have to do with cars but just the increase in the need for energy worldwide. For example the U.S. currently uses approximately 40% of the worlds energy but have less than 5% of the population.So lets say China decides that it is going to have the same standard as the U.S. so it would need more than 4 times as much energy as the U.S. needs now. Then there is India with a billion people who would not mind upgrading their populations standard of living , and so on and so on. That's kind of why I stated that we need to look 50 to 100 years in the future and imagine how many people there will be then and how much energy we are going to need to sustain a huge population and a huge industrial infrastructure to support the population.Oil is easier for sure but it's not sustainable in itself. What I am suggesting is not to stop using what we have but to invest in new and alternative energy sources for the future. It will take years of research to make it cost effective anyway so the sooner we start doing it then the easier it will be for our kids and grandkids.
As was stated , the sun has more than enough energy to sustain our population , the hard part is developing effective ways of capturing that energy. Solar panels are really old technology that could still be improved upon. There is wind and tidal power and unfortunately nuclear. The problem with nuclear is that no one wants a plant near them cause of the recent disaster in Russia. It can be made safe to operate but the disposal of the uranium rods is a debate in itself. We bury them in old mineshafts that go down about a mile underground. I think the future will have to be deriving energy from every source that we can find and not just oil and coal.

 

Good thing we are on our way to eliminating nuclear waste.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/

 

I recently watched a program on this and if it works it would be an awesome thing as far as producing limitless electricity. I believe a Canadian company produces those little chambers where they are trying to make this fusion reaction happen. ground breaking stuff but way off in the future yet.

 

It could take a few years, but usable nuclear fusion could happen in my life time (15-35 years). That is very exciting.

 

Yes it's possible even earlier than that , on the show 'Daily Planet' one of the scientists said that they could have a working model in 20 years. Of course a lot depends on how much funding goes into it and being able to solve some of the problems they have with such a system. It would be great to have steam generated electricity using something like seawater.

 

WOW, I did not know you have to deal with a bunch of jerks throwing rocks, objects,etc, coming and going from your work!
That is not right!

 

Unfortunately there are nut cases on both sides of the fence and when they are unable to debate an issue they resort to violence.It's definitely not right but some folks don't have intelligence to debate so I guess they feel they have to resort to the only thing they can think of. They don't even have the intelligence to stay out of the debate.

 

Just a back door to western style communism, a money and power grab.

 

any comments on the mountain top mining in WV??

 

As long as they use Hybrid dump trucks for the mining I'm ok with it. Cut the tops off those mountains!!!!

 

mm,

i thinking there is u solution to run combustion cars with cleaner feul.
saw differend kinds of solutions on older cars that are combustion engines.
like lpg, alcehol (E85?) and hydrogine.

my opinion is that no one will wait til the bateries are charged, think about it on a roadtrip or holiday.
we are spoiled, we won't wait after running empty on feul a houre or so to go further.

we are also capeble to retain lpg from former waist dump places.
so many solutions, why not take the easiest solution to make clean feul for combustion engines without going down on performance.

i do not want to miss the sound off the v8

 

Dumps produce Methane not LPG (Propane/Butane). Methane itself is a greenhouse gas far worse than Co2

 

Methane comes from cows too.

 

Comes from me too on ocassion!!!

 

What about carbon footprints ...

Since my car is 40 years old its production energy is spread over 40 years plus the current use of gas ..

There may be more economical hybrid cars but the energy to produce them is only spread over few years ...


So my 442 has a smaller carbon footprint ...

So we should all drive older cars ...

Am I on track or is it pretzel logic to justify my preferences ..?

Doesn't a hybrid weigh/need as much energy my 3500 lb. 442 ...

 

There are a few dumps around here in TX that are burning the methane to produce electricity. Neat idea but not sure how cost effective it is.

Cows are bad! They must be eliminated or be fitted with emission controls!

Shame on you... Killing our environment..........


Don't forget about "recycling" energy also. Your 40 year old car took the place of at least 2.5 throwaway plastic cars.
I also prefer older cars, mainly for style and cost savings in repair and maintenance.

Not in the engine, thats for sure.
Putting a 455 engine in a car your size is kinda like sandblasting a soup cracker.
Those hybids are pretty underpowered (in my book). My coworker just got a new one. We went to lunch with him one day and he was showing it off to us. When he punched it on the highway, it just a buzzy noise. It was about comparible to my Pinto...

 

Your logic is excellent, and this has always been one of the strongest arguments AGAINST cash-for-clunkers type programs. The energy expended in making your old car is a sunk cost. It's gone. We don't get it back if you were to suddenly stop driving it and bury it in the ground.

But if we throw your car away, we lose the benefit of having expended that energy in the first place. It's always less of an impact on the environment, when you look at the TOTAL situation, as you have (energy cost of acquiring the raw materials and turning them into usable parts, energy cost in manufacturing the car, etc.), to keep driving an already-manufactured older car than it is to thrown it away and build a new one no matter how much more fuel efficient the new one is over the old one.

This argument may fail if you were talking about replacing the old car with a new one that gets hugely better mileage (100 mpg vs the 15 mpg you might get in your old car), but we're nowhere near that kind of difference.

You should drive your old car with pride in the knowledge that by keeping it and driving it, you are impacting the environment less than if you were to throw it away and buy a new one.


Remember, the cash-for-clunkers program was not about saving or helping the environment. It was about stimulating the demand for new cars by artificially getting old ones off the road. It was an economic measure, not an environmental one. The problem is, neither the economy nor the environment benefited from it.

 

I'm all for people buying hybrid and electric cars.......means more gas for me and cheaper too!!!

 

I've been saying that for years, how much energy is saved by me keeping my cars and using them for 15 or more years, basically until the rot claims them. Mechanically they've all been in good working order. My last long term vehicle was an 88 V8 Caprice. I consistently got close to 20 MPG mixed driving, not to bad for a big car.

 

Heck, my fathers '92 Rincoln Town Car gets a consistant 30 miles per GALLON on the highway. Darned good v-8.

 

This car was exactly what the cash-for-clunkers program was targeted at.

http://www.edmunds.com/cash-for-clun...-vehicles.html

To be eligible to be on this list, a car, among other things, had to get a combined city/highway mpg of 18 or less. What's your father's car get in city driving?

Regardless of the answer, it was a waste to take perfectly good cars that got decent mileage off the road simply because of some arbitrary law written by people who knew nothing about economics.

 

Not sure in the city, I've done mostly highway driving in it. I've a niece driving it to highschool now, hope it lasts.

Seriously, that little v-8 has a lot of zip to it and would be great in a small package.

 

It's a perfect car for her. Big enough to be safe. Old enough that if she gets a few fender nicks in the parking lot, who cares. New enough that getting parts and repairs isn't too difficult. Retro enough and fancy enough that her classmates probably think it's cool.

 

I have checked this out for awhile... While I agree with skeptics that the splitting the water into two gases and joining them should be a net zero. I think that it's main value might simply be that it keeps the combustion chamber clean (Like a water de-carb) and possibly a slight decrease in octane requirements ... I've used water injectors but they tend to clog...But the spark plugs were spotless ... as for running on water, this scam is as old as the car...Put alcohol in water and some baking ans you can run an engine on it .

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/104705...ater_burnable/

I told a friend that was getting scammed to get a sample of the "water/fuel" ...