[sechichester]

I guess that it is a good thing that we have trees to fillter out the air and give us o2

[chronon1]

I saw the movie 'who killed the electric car' .. i'm not sure if you can beleive anything that comes out of the GM horses mouth anymore .. they take many times longer than they say and take an eternity to make a decision.. (and they are very very oil oriented ) -- so , the volt

1) is too far off -- toyota has been making hybrid for years and will assuredly beat them to market for a plug in
2) does anybody trust GM anymore ?
3) it was a publicity stunt to appease the public that a solution is forthcoming!@

.............
Hybrids are making good progress, and with battery technology advancing the way it is, there's a renewing hope in electrics. It'll be interesting to see how GM's new Volt fairs in the market, and how it actually performs.[/QUOTE]

[Geof]

.... there's a renewing hope in electrics....

There is practically no hope for electrics; unless you are willing to scale down to cars that have a speed and range a fraction of what is possible with hydrocarbon fuels.

One factor is the electrical energy required for charging the battery. I have seen estimates for the UK that suggest the generating capacity would need to be increased around four to five times to make it possible to substitute electric propelled vehicles for hydrocarbon propelled. It is likely the increase needed in the US would be greater.

Another factor is the amount of material needed for batteries. Unless the energy density of batteries can be increased by several multiples there simply will not be enough of the materials available. Again it is a problem similar to the increase in generation capapcity; there would have to be an enormous increase in mining/refining capacity for the elements that go into a battery.

Hydrogen fuel cells are more or less the same; an enormous increase in electrical energy would be needed to generate the hydrogen and the rare earth elements (platinum and palaldium) are not abundant enough to replace IC vehicles on a one for one basis. In addition with hydrogen if the energy is coming from natural gas or a lquid hydrocarbon it is as efficient or more efficient to use that directly in the engine when all the efficiences between the energy source and the final use are combined.

There bottom line is that at the current rate of consumption there are no practical alternatives to petroleum products as an energy source. Ethanol is not an answer; if corn growing was expanded onto all the available land and the entire corn crop used for making ethanol it would supply maybe 10 to 15% of the US demand. And this does not even consider whether ethanol production is energy positive or negative.

[sechichester]

Well with the battery cars you need to keep in mind that to make the battery and the car you need to burn as much fuel to make the cars and battery as we do now just driving and the car indusry won't just make one car they make tons of cars trucks so if we stay with what we have now and just make the engines more efficent then we will be burning less fule then we would if we stayed the same and tried to make battery opperated ones

[Dugg]

GM electric car? I think of GM's plan to be more of what they've done in the past. Their statagy seems to be; It doesn't have to work, it only has to sell.

Were it not for the Yugo, the Vega would have been the worst car of the last century according to Click and Clack... the Tappet Brothers.

Every time I fly into O'hare, I think of GM testing their electric cars there... it's like the world's flattest city, tough duty for a battery car. A hill in Chicago would be an off-ramp.

If Chicago is GM's market, that's fine. But, if those little piss-ant electric cars are the coming thing, remember you'll still have to mix it up with the Hummers and Kenworths.... traffic deaths are on the rise as Hummer drivers on cell phones don't recall flattening a Volt on the Edens....

[bgraham111]

It's all energy...

Hydrogen is not free.

It seems most people forget the whole "Energy can not be created nor destroyed" thing.

Each time you transfer from one form to another, you lose some of it.

So frustrating to understand science and logic, but still have to live with people who don't.

[omegaghost]

this is interesting i did not know we had this form. any how just thought i would show you this link it has some interesting things about HHO and just might solve most of the hydrgen fule problems http://hytechapps.com/aquygen/hhoslike a 10,000 p.s.i. holding tank

[fizzissist]

Another A55 scheme.....(that one had ya adding water to diesel fuel)

I like the chinese proverb they have on the page, it goes well with the one that says "There's a sucker born every minute."

How much energy does it take to compress whatever to 10,000psi? Don't forget that this di-hydrogen monoxide stuff is dangerous!!

[thkoutsidthebox]

still have to mix it up with the Hummers and Kenworths....

I can't afford a Hummer, but I want one!

Im all for putting up solar panels and wind turbines, and tinkering with alternative fuel transport, but until there's a 6 liter alt fuel engine sitting in a Hummer that gives out the same BHP and torque as the one there now, I just can't bring myself to fully roll behind it. What would the world be like without Hummers?.....A very sad place, we'd all be driving the one on the left...

[Switcher]

Another A55 scheme.....(that one had ya adding water to diesel fuel)

I like the chinese proverb they have on the page, it goes well with the one that says "There's a sucker born every minute."

How much energy does it take to compress whatever to 10,000psi? Don't forget that this di-hydrogen monoxide stuff is dangerous!!

Wise man say, "Does a bear $hit in the woods"?



.

[ImanCarrot]

The odd thing about rising sea levels is that if you place an ice cube in a graduated container and let it thaw, the water level wil NOT increase, it stays exactly the same (honest, I've tried it)... so what's it matter if the ice caps melt?

Can anyone see the deliberate flaw in this theory? )

[sechichester]

I agree with you that the cars are coiming into this world but that's not the answer. The car industies still have to burn fule to produce there cars and the batteries to run them so we are still burning a lot of fule in a factory that runs engines that are not burning as well as they should. They need to get the combustion engine the best it can be first to fix the problem not the fule then work on a new car of tomarrow

[NinerSevenTango]

Yes, but, we're all going to die!

Electric cars would make a lot of sense for certain needs if we had a reasonable approach to nuclear energy. If the electricity could be generated inexpensively, you could use one for a runabout, to work, the store, etc. Electric power for vehicles makes sense where it makes sense. Like in lift trucks, they've made some nice ones. But they are used in a situation where the weight is an advantage, the lack of exhaust is an advantage, and the energy cost is insignificant.

As it is, it makes no sense to burn coal or natural gas around the clock when there are much more efficient ways to do the job.

Here's a real nice job on converting a motorcycle to electric. It only goes about 15 miles, but then it doesn't have $10,000 batteries in it.

http://www.hackaday.com/2006/10/11/electric-motorcycle/

Linked to from one of my favorite sites .....

--97T--

[thkoutsidthebox]

That bike is nice. 15miles would be ok for a little runabout to use around town. And hey, stop at any gas station and ask to plug it in for a 15min quick charge they'd probably let you do it for free! Or better, change the batteries and stick an alternator onto it, might not make it go for ever, but maybe add on 5 or 10 miles. Cool. Now we just need him to make a Hummer version.....but I'd want more than 15 miles from my Hummer...hell you nearly get that from a Hummers tank of gas already!!

[Dugg]

"The odd thing about rising sea levels is that if you place an ice cube in a graduated container and let it thaw, the water level wil NOT increase, it stays exactly the same (honest, I've tried it)... so what's it matter if the ice caps melt?

Can anyone see the deliberate flaw in this theory? "

Yes, I can see the flaw. What you say is true, that ice melting in water doesn't raise the level. The problem is that the ice that will raise the oceans levels isn't in the oceans at this time. It is above the oceans and as it breaks off, falls into the ocean and melts, levels will rise.

[ImanCarrot]

hehe yep you are right, also the weight of the ice on the land squashes it down. As the ice melts the land mass actualy springs upwards

[Geof]

hehe yep you are right, also the weight of the ice on the land squashes it down. As the ice melts the land mass actualy springs upwards

"Spring" is not quite the correct word.

[fizzissist]

...back on the corn vs. cane subject...

"..During its growth to maturity, the cane stalk absorbs the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as is eventually emitted during combustion of the ethanol distilled from its juices.

But this is not so for ethanol made from corn in the United States or wheat in Europe. These primary materials must first be turned into sugars before fermentation, which requires the use extra fossil fuels and adds to carbon gasses emitted in the production process.

Brazilian cane mills are also powered by leftover cane stalks that heat caldrons to generate steam and electric energy, an extra advantage that corn and wheat don't have.

Unica estimates that Brazilian cane ethanol on average yields more than 8 times more energy than is used in the production process, compared with US corn ethanol production that yields between 1.1 to 1.7 times as much energy...."
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsst...9942/story.htm

[Geof]

...Unica estimates that Brazilian cane ethanol on average yields more than 8 times more energy than is used in the production process, compared with US corn ethanol production that yields between 1.1 to 1.7 times as much energy...."
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsst...9942/story.htm

You done been reading the same news item I have this morning.

[fizzissist]

Scary!!!!

...Meanwhile, elsewhere on the "Evil Big Corn Oil" (EBCO) front, the Farm Report had a discussion by industry execs (one being a rep from ADM) about the current aquisition and reallocation of 10Million acres for corn production, the vast majority of that displacing soybeans and cotton. One major consensus was that corn prices are going to rise.

------------------
>"Spring" is not quite the correct word."
....Ok, it don't exactly 'spring'...but he's on the right track! The opposite is being observed where large buildings are being, or have been, built. One factor that exacerbates the sinking is where water and oil have been extracted.

In the case of Virginia City, Nevada it's more often a case of mines leaving gaping holes from gross dirt removal.