dmenche BULL, split from the 914 value thread Options

[dmenche914]

Good steward of planet????? yeah right, if that was the case you should remove the 914 from the road forever. Instead you sell it (for personnel gain) thus allowing that car to be driven by someone that is not a good planet steward.

maybe you should buy some of Gores carbon credits to make up for your lack of stewardship in wanting to sell your car to be used, rather than turning it into an organic compost bin. (besure to drill holes in floor so rain water can drain out, else compost will rot)

Kind of like arnold nazi shwartzni**er selling off his fleet of humvees so he could sauy he is a green driver! Now his fleet (yes fleet) of humvees that he sold are being driven by multible folks, likely totally more miles driven that if arnold had kept them (I figure arnold can only drive one at a time)

This post has been edited by McMark: Jul 30 2007, 01:27 PM

[r_towle]

I for one am more than willing to drive an old car that gets 30-34mpg over a new car that gets less mpg.

The analysis that always brings it home is this.
A typical lifespan of a solar photo voltaic panel is less than the time it takes for that panel to create more "free energy" then it consumed to create that panel in the first place.

Now, this has been fact since PV panels have been created, its still a fact for the most part, though finally the new process has changed this, and in the next 5 years we will see PV panels the are positive producers of electricity.

Car,
I cant possibly imaging, given the FACT regarding a PV panel, that a car which is new, like a prius, does nothing but consume energy in the manufacturing life cycle.
I cant imagine that I might save anything by buying it.
I have to drive to work to make the money to pay for it, right.
There cant possibly be any good simple arguement to buy a new car from any environmental standpoint.
Please, before you react, read the part about the manufacturing of a PV panel that actually contributes "free" and clean power to our world.

There is no way a new car could possibly have any positive impact at all on our planet.
If all the new car manufacturing stopped, think of the reduction of smog then, plants closed, steel manufacturing slows, trucking, logistics,...
This list goes on and on, for in fact it is the LARGEST manufacturing business in the world.
There is no business, no product, no total lifecycle , that consumes MORE that the design/build/operation of a car.

The longer any product lives, the smaller the overall polution footprint is on the world, just a fact, no opinion, just pure numbers.

Again, please hold the emotion, look at the PV panel example, and I am glad to point you to many many studies regarding that example.
Cars, the longer they live, the longer you use them, the smaller the overall pollution signature is per year/per mile.

Rich

[Demick]

The analysis that always brings it home is this.
A typical lifespan of a solar photo voltaic panel is less than the time it takes for that panel to create more "free energy" then it consumed to create that panel in the first place.

Rich

Rich

That's an interesting analysis. But even that analysis is biased. Sure, it may take more energy to produce the PV panel than it will produce over a lifetime. However, it does produce more energy than it took to deliver that amount of energy to your house - and that's what's more important.

For every KWH of electricity delivered to your house, it took quite a bit more energy to get it there. All of the losses getting from the power plant to your house (not even considering the infrastructure and all the energy that took to build). Then the energy it too to build the power plant, the inefficiency of turning fossil fuels into electricity, etc etc.

So the PV panel doesn't need to produce more energy than it took to make to be more efficient than your current electricity source. Overall efficiency is the main goal.

I remember one professor in college said that it takes more energy to build a nuclear power plant than that plant will ever produce over it's lifetime. Seems hard to believe. So why build the power plant at all? It's so that every home doesn't have a gas powered generator sitting in the back yard which would be much less efficient, and much more polluting.

[Brian Mifsud]

I remember one professor in college said that it takes more energy to build a nuclear power plant than that plant will ever produce over it's lifetime. Seems hard to believe. So why build the power plant at all? It's so that every home doesn't have a gas powered generator sitting in the back yard which would be much less efficient, and much more polluting.

That's part of the answer.. the other part is never addressed in Engineering Curricula..the economics of SELLING power. Your power bill will show higher charges per KWH depending on the TIME OF DAY. Peak demand hours is when they make the big bucks. They have the power at a time when you need/want it most.. so they can charge multiples of what it cost to build the plant (over a 20-30 lifetime of the plant).

Keeping a load on a Nuke is important, as in most Steam Plants (even fossil fueled units).. they don't like having to slow down, then speed up again. This is why some plants sell their power really cheap at night to Citys/Water Districts that pump the water from a lower to upper reservoir at night, then generate power during peak hours when they let it fall during the day. HUGE net WASTE of energy..no doubt.. but it provides the juice when it pays the best.


A similar attitude is applied to Electric Cars. All engineers know it is a big waste of energy... converting any form of fossil fuel/biomass to electricity, then taking the efficiency hits for transmitting the power, storing it (batteries), discharging the batteries, and running an electrical motor... all yield far less "Mechanical" energy than burning the fuel in a engine right in the car.... But, as in LA.. they REAL motivation is LOCAL pollution. They love to hide their heads in the sand and ignore that they must be polluting elsewhere at some Power Plant in the Central Valley, or on the Coast (San Onofre Nuclear). The motiviation is not efficiency, its once again, political.

Don't look to CARB for guidance on doing what is better for the earth.. they exist only to reduce pollution in the LA Basin.


Instead, look to the "evil hate group" known as Boy Scouts Of America. "Leave No Trace" is SOP, and they have planted more trees in this country than any "Environmental" group under the sun.