Hybrid cars

Environmentalists are now against windpower;it kills birds.

 

You sure about that? Often motors have a most efficient RPM level.
They are not equally as efficient across all RPMs. With an electric
motor you can run your gas motor closer to its most efficient speed.

Depends on the design I suppose.

--
Thank you,


CL Gilbert
"Then said I, Wisdom [is] better than strength: nevertheless the poor
man's wisdom [is] despised, and his words are not heard." Ecclesiastes 9:16

 

Factor in resale value and depreciation.

Of course, a lot of that is guesswork - a good example is what SUV
owners thought their vehicles would be worth but didn't anticipate $3
gas.

 

Bagasse: This discussion seems to be going more into energy sources.
This is sorta off topic from hybrids.

Sugar refiners burn the sugar cane after extracting the sugar. Heat
from the burning cane fiber is used to evaporate water from the sugary
juice and to generate electricity.

Barbados has run into stiff competition in producing sugar.
Agriculturists (Jaques Albart-Thenet) there are reverting to earlier
varieties of sugar cane which produce more fiber and less sugar.
Varieties which also grow off season.

The sugar can be used to produce ethanol. The big thing is the energy
from the fiber.

Tourism is a huge economic engine on Barbados. The cane fields hold the
soil together and give the islands that lush tropical look. Presently
about 25% of Barbados is planted in cane. Under the plan, this will
fall to 18%. The target is to replace 20% of the oil used to generate
electricity. The target price is $0.08 per kilowatt-hour.

 

So why did Bush go on tv and promise to federally fund useless research.
Kind of like his war in Iraq.

 

So, if we recognize the fraud committed by Kellogg Brown and Root and
Custer Battles, I guess we can stop paying for national defense.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/01/1521200

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11763

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/18/iraq.whistleblower/

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?bid=13&pid=2319

There is a way to deal with individuals and companies which defraud
the government - send them to prison.

If by it you mean Intelligent Design, a federal court just held that
it was unconstitutional to teach it in a public school. Their finding
was based on a Supreme Court decision that teaching creationism (same
shit, different textbook) was unconstitutional.

If you think W ever "held a real job" you have to be kidding. Having
someone give you an oil company and then someone buy it back after you
run it into the ground is not holding a real job.

 

The reason for this is that, instead of breaking up the job into a
large number of small contracts, they lump it into one HUGE, no-bid
contract which (surprise) only one company is big enough to handle.
The Government used to have an army of accountants who managed the all
the small contracts. They did it well and it was a LOT cheaper than
what we are doing now. in fact, they did it too well and the
corporations couldn't make much profit. So the Republicans made sure
that the accountants were fired and now the big corporations suck the
money right out of the treasury.

And manufacturing has stopped moving to unregulated countries?

 

So the Republicans made sure

What on earth are you talking about.......The government has been turning
many wastful government jobs over to the private sector for many years now,
for the basic reason it will be much more efficient.

No they haven't, but are government should make it more profitable
enviroment to stay here if it can, at the same time find the right balance
for the enviroment. >

 

I believe an internal combustion engine does have a theoretical
Carnot efficiency. It's usually when it's being maxed out. However -
you then run into the real world where the motor is subject to friction
and attached to a car. There's increased rolling resistance of the
tire (I believe roughly linear) as well as aerodynamic resistance
(increases exponentially).

Smaller engines are supposedly more efficient because they're
being worked harder and closer to their max efficiency. If you're
cruising at 70 on I-5 in a Prius, I doubt the electric motor has
anything to do with it getting 60+ MPG.

Everything depends on design.

 

Probably no suitable place to get or put the water. Pumped Storage
also has environmental drawbacks. It takes up land and may also have
other side effects. In another thread, a North Dakota university is
experimenting with using wind energy to produce hydrogen. There also
may be other good uses of unreliable source energy where that energy
is available most of the time.

 

Nope. Creationism teaches the Bible account of creation. ID only posits
that all this tremendously engineered stuff (the universe) didn't just
fall out of nowhere, but was engineered by an intelligent entity.

If I said the entity was Fromage from the planet Beepzap in the seventh
dimension, you'd be all over it. ID doesn't say it wasn't him.

 

Don't kid yourself. ID is creationism in sheep's clothing.

ID is being pushed by fundamentalist christians (and ONLY fundamentalist
xians) so it's obvious who the "designer" is supposed to be.

Anyway, ID is not science. Science is taking data and making sense out of
it. ID is throwing your hands in the air and saying "I'm not smart enough
to figure it out. Therefore, goddidit." ID is a cop-out, and
anti-intellectualism at its most pungent. It is the opposite of science.

 

Not useless at all.

<http://www.chennaionline.com/colnews/newsitem.asp?NEWSID=%7B729505D0-BB17-4675-A609-F6010C67FBB3%7D&CATEGORYNAME=Chennai>
OR
<http://tinyurl.com/8k7eq>

<http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/200601/research01.shtml>

<http://professional.cancerconsultants.com/oncology_main_news.aspx?id=35897>

<http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/1/42006b.asp>

<http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1541560.htm>

<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051222081946.htm>

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/18/ncells18.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/18/ixhome.html>

One I can't find but read about recently was about a person whose heart was
repaired using his own stem cells, sparing his life. (Googling on "stem cell"
gets a few gazillion hits on the Korean scandal). Maybe it was related to
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051224/NOTE24-3/TPEntertainment/Columnists>

So basically, while the chuckleheads are whining about how they can't get
free money for what they *want* to do, others are actually rolling up
their sleeves and working with what they have to work miracles with stem
cells of non-fetal origin.


And then,
<http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/dec/05121902.html>

 

Otto cycle engines achieve maximum efficiency when they are run at wide
open throttle. At wide open throttle, they also have a most efficient
rpm, based on the compromises made for the fixed timing. This engine
speed ***may*** be the rpm for max power or max torque.

An ideal hybrid would use a CVT to keep the engine near, or at, its ideal
engine speed, and the charging circuit would be excited so that the mechanical
plus electrical loads would be running the engine at wide open throttle.
If the two loads cannot exceed the max power of the engine, the ideal situation
has the electric motor powerful enough for cruising, and the engine is switched
off.

Of course, for an ideal hybrid that is only run at wide open throttle, the
way is open for engines with very good specific power, low weight, and good
fuel economy, but really bad part load efficiency-- gas turbines. All
previous automotive gas turbines have failed for bad part load performance and
severe turbo lag. A hybrid setup would solve the gas turbine's problems, as
it would never run at part load and the electric motor can cover for turbo
lag. Gas turbine installations are large, but most of the volume is ducting
that has very little weight. Compared to an otto cycle engine, they are very
simple and have very few parts. Unlike gas turbines in airline service, a
failure will not drop the vehicle from six miles up, nor does anyone really
care how heavy they are, so they are actually inexpensive.

 

Sadly, economical energy storage causes the intermittents to make even less
economical sense, as it causes a race to the bottom in the electricity market.
Anything that can economically store energy from renewable sources can store
energy from base load plants. If there is enough of this storage available,
all electricity is sold at the base load rate, so the only way to lots of
money is through economies of scale. All other plants are shut down. Base
load operators will love this because they sell more power. Consumers will
love this because electricity is cheaper. The utilities will love this as
it takes the bite out of the spot market. The only losers are generators that
cannot turn a profit at the peak load rate. The environmentalists will also
have fits because the only economical methods of generation are coal, nuclear,
and (where geography permits) hydro.

 

The rolling and aero resistance are not tied directly to engine rpm
because the gear ratio being used is indeterminant. Two cars of similar
weight at the same highway speed will have similar rolling resistance
regardless of engine speed.

However, rpm definitely has an effect on engine thermal efficiency (not
quite the same as Carnot efficiency, though related). In addition to
friction losses at high rpm, the volumetric efficiency losses at higher
rpm also contribute to loss of thermal efficiency. While we frequently
use the geometric compression ratio when computing engine thermal
efficiency and Carnot efficiency, this is a simplification. The
efficiency is determined by ratio of ACTUAL pressure in cylinder, and
lower volumetric efficiency lowers p max.

Second paragraph is entirely true- this is reason small engines get more
efficiency, even if car has same power-required at a given operating point.

 

While ideally this is true, in practice the mixture at full throttle in
most car engines acts lean at low rpm because of lack of manifold
turbulence, and sudden rise in MAP hurts vaporization. So car engines
are programmed with a power enrichment that moves mixture richer than
stoic. As a result normal passenger car engines give best fuel
efficiency at somewhat less than FULL throttle, but still with more than
half throttle, so Richard's conclusions are still valid.

However, rpm is not DIRECTLY a function of throttle except under true
steady state conditions. It is definitely not true during transients
like acceleration. As my car accelerates through a given road speed,
the rpm is the same regardless of whether I am giving it full throttle
or partial throttle. Only once the system reaches steady-state, as in
highway cruise, does throttle opening determine rpm.

 

If hybrids are so great, then why aren't they used in Japan or European
countries where gas is more expensive? Answer: poor return on investment.

1. They cost more.
2. They depreciate quicker (and will as hybrid technologh improves).
3. A high mileage car (like a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla or Echo)
will get comparable gas mileage with conventional engine technology.

So... Calculate the increased cost of buying a hybrid and compare it
with the gas savings and see how long it takes to break even.

Compare that with the cost savings you'd get by simply buying a good
mileage internal combustion engine car.

Then decide for yourself.

I get a kick outta the SUV hybrids. Add a bunch of girth and then try
to compensate by putting a hybrid engine in it. Sort of like buying
a Hybrid Humvee.

b.

 

Actually, hybrids are used in Japan and Europe.

It is true that they cost more than a comparable non-hybrid vehicle.

I don't think this is necessarily true.

I do not think that the Corolla's fuel ecoconmy is as good as the Prius,
although the Civic and Echo are in the same ballpark.

At today's gas prices in the U.S., I believe that break-even is somewhere
around 7 to 10 years.

I do not believe that many people are purchasing hybrids to save money.
More likely, they want the gee-wiz factor.