Green Auto Primer for the Confused

[substitute]

1. Hybrid cars are not intended to save fuel, and do so poorly. They are intended to reduce emissions. The reason they exist is that auto makers are required to reduce their overall emissions and to provide some zero emissions vehicle by law. In order to continue producing luxury trucks with inefficient pushrod V-8 engines, they must produce a token amount of the hybrids, on which they lose money. When you purchase one you are personally producing less pollution as you drive, but the overall problem is not solved, nor are these vehicles a solution of any kind to the problem of the car.
   
   
2. Biodiesel requires more petroleum to produce than ordinary petroleum-based fuels, according to recent studies. This is because industrial agriculture in the United States requires so much energy, from the nitrogen fixation to the machinery used, that the fuel oil produced from crops is basically inefficiently converted oil. Biodiesel is a great idea if you already have a source of free biomass around, and it is a great idea for a small number of vehicles that can live off the waste biomass others discard. The overall problem is not solved, nor are these vehicles a solution of any kind to the problem of the car.
   
   
3. Ethanol and ethanol-gasoline mixes do not reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Ethanol is made almost entirely from corn. The corn is indeed domestically grown in huge quantities and not imported. However, the corn yields depend absolutely on high-powered artificial fertilizers which require so much energy to produce that they are basically congealed electricity. Unless the plants that produce these fertilizers are somehow powered by some unknown renewable or domestic energy source, this country is still absolutely dependent on oil to make the fertilizer so that the corn can be grown and converted into ethanol. When there is a surplus of corn and a temporary shortage of petroleum, ethanol is a fine idea, because it reduces the consumption of gasoline in the short term. The overall problem is not solved, nor are ethanol-based fuels a solution of any kind to the problem of the car.
   
   
4. Great strides have been made in improving the passenger car. If the current technology was appropriately used to its maximum, pollution and fuel consumption from cars could be reduced tremendously. However, almost everything in this country is distributed by truck. It would be difficult to change this, because the country is very spread out. Commercial trucks predominantly use older diesel engines which are inefficient and dirty. Even if every new truck sold was required to be much, much more efficient and clean, the current trucks would be on the road for a long time. Trucks are rarely replaced; they are repaired. It's very expensive to replace them. Any large-scale change in the trucking industry would require a tremendous amount of government subsidy to compensate the small companies and individual contractors who own these trucks, because they can't afford to upgrade. A sharp increase in the cost of trucking would be felt throughout the entire company. There is currently no good solution to the problem of the truck.

Have a nice auto-doom!

Comments

[detcarguy.livejournal.com]

All so true, the do-gooders just looking for a cause are so UNinformed. I also find it ironic that we get less then 10% of our imported oil from the middle east, so what's this pointless war all about anyway?

Also you just have to look to Europe to see the free market solutions to high fuel prices. The gas in Europe was at an equivalent of $4-5 per gallon back in 1977 when I spent the summer there. The solution has NEVER been hybrids. They drive very small diesel and gas cars with small low power engines. But primarily they depend on efficient public transportation and live in very densely populated cities instead of our sprawling style cities. America is coming to some major cross-roads on how we live very soon.

No, I do not live in the sprawling burbs, I am in an older city 1 1/2 miles from the Detroit border. If Detroit was a decent city like Columbus, Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland I would live even closer to the city center.

[gcrumb.livejournal.com]

"I also find it ironic that we get less then 10% of our imported oil from the middle east, so what's this pointless war all about anyway?"

Sssshhh! Don't say that! If the general population finds out that 50% of your oil and natural gas comes from Canada, we're screwed! They'll have the tanks in Red Deer by sundown.

[detcarguy.livejournal.com]

Iguess there is some advantage to having the stupidest world leader running our country! I am amazed at how much he parallels Hitler. He takes control of the country under shady circumstances, he creates his own secret police who are outside all law (Homeland Security), he invades foriegn countries on a whim against world opinion (Afghanistan and Iraq), he even has big corruption scandels by members of congress in his own party and barely any national outcry, he has apparently muffled the news media as thiese wars have turned silent for most of their duration. So unlike the news media and Vietnam, which I am old enough to remember very well. Civil rights are being made illegal by state and federal legistlatures. That's our George W. Hitler!

Oh yeah, hello to those homeland security spies reading this with illegal monitoring equipment! Enjoy!

[substitute.livejournal.com]

WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA/PUSHROD V-8S?????

HUH?

[detcarguy.livejournal.com]

I LOVE REAL AMEWRICAN CARS WITH BIG BLOCK V8s!!! I've owned a few too. One fav was my 1976 Cordoba with a 400 V8, 6,000 pounds of real car! I am an old car nut, I used to have a 1938 DeSoto touring sedan with a flathead 6 cylinder too. An old boss had a 1936 V16 Cadillac convertible touring car. That beast was beautiful!!!

These days I lease cars, just for practicality, the best is the 3800 V6 from GM, Lots of smooth power.

I hate this new trend of trying to make a "muscle" car out of some wimpy jap tin can 4 cylinder with 2 turbos so it will make an attempt at getting out of it's own way! I heard a young guy say he "didn't get all the old guys making a big deal out of big block V8s"! There is only one way to horse power and that's cubic inches!

Re: HUH?

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Hehehe I knew you'd say that. :-) It's a matter of taste. I like big V8s and I like the super-efficient small engines too, for different reasons.

Ricing up a Civic is indeed a waste of time, but the Subaru STI and the Lancer Evo aren't toys; they're rally racers, which is just a different kind of fast. If you want to scramble up a mountain road at 80 mph in the wet, that 300 hp 2.5L boxer four in the Subaru ain't no wimp.

I think my favorite engines, though, are the very very efficient normally aspirated small- to mid-sized ones. I especially think of the BMW inline six and the inline 4 in the Honda S2000 getting 100 hp/l without a blower.

But, you know, I have tremendous nostalgia for the golden age of American cars, and around here there are lots of very well-preserved flathead Fords, '57 Caddys, '60s Corvettes, etc. I just think it's kind of over now except for hobbyists, because they're so thirsty.