$5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks!

PerfectReign wrote:

> The only thought is between Lovecraft or Elsbett and running something like
> 50% WVO. I suppose I could go with a two-tank system, but not sure of the
> actual benefits for a warm climate like here.

I have Lovecraft's setup in my two cars, and I've been 100% wvo for some
time.

Just did a trip up to LA over memorial day (from San Diego) and it was
like a ghost town. Very odd driving through downtown LA at 70mph, on a
holiday especially. I guess the fuel prices are getting people down.
Dunno- I collect and filter my own veggie oil and I have just about the
perfect amount coming in.

Yes, people following me says it does smell like french fries.

-tom!

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 >> Stay informed about: $5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks! 

jdoe wrote:

> pure train brain nonsense, are those buses and trains powered by pixie
> dust?

All of the busses in my community are powered by propane or natural gas.
I don't know where it comes from, though, and don't know how much
petroleum it takes to produce in the first place, but driving behind the
busses is no big deal 'cause they don't belch sulfur into my lungs.


-tom!

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 >> Stay informed about: $5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks! 

I've been taking the bus into work for about a year and a half now. I
drive 13 miles to the park and ride, then the bus does the other 35 or
so miles into the city where I walk for 13 minutes to get to work. It
works great. With gas at 4 bucks, every day it saves me about 9 bucks
in gas and parking. It is only about 20 minutes longer each way, yet
gives me 45 minutes of free time to read each way.

It used to be that as long as I got to the park and ride by 7:20 I'd
find a parking spot. Starting a few weeks ago I've noticed that
parking spots are harder to find even at 6:50--three busses earlier.
And forget sitting alone. Every seat is filled these days with a few
people waiting for the next bus.

So people are definitely taking the busses.

Bill
 >> Stay informed about: $5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks! 

Even the busses that do belch sulphur are getting much better mileage
per person than any car would. I know my commuter bus gets around
6MPG. I'd imagine it seats about 60 people. If that pulls say 50 cars
off the road, each of those cars woudl have to get 300 MPG to be as
clean. Even if you include the extra distance the bus travels in
addition to the driven route, you'd still need cars that get well into
the hundreds of miles per gallon. Despite the fact that diesels are
not as clean as most cars, they are much cleaner than they were just a
decade or two ago. You rarely see diesels belch smoke any more.
 >> Stay informed about: $5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks! 

PMPG = Passenger Mile Per Gallon.

I read an article yesterday on Huffington Post that compared the fuel
consumption of a Boeing 737 relative to a Toyota Prius on a trip from
New York to Los Angeles. The article referred to PMPG. But I think
the author did not understand the concept because the numbers were all
wrong as far as I could tell.

If you have 4 passengers in a Prius, and it travels 45 miles on a
gallon of fuel, to figure the Passenger Miles Per Gallon, would you
not just multiply 45 x 4 = 180 passenger miles per gallon? So my 300
TDT that gets 30 mpg and can carry 7 passengers, could get 210
passenger miles per gallon?

In the article the guy got 13 passenger miles per gallon in his Prius,
which either is employing some obscure function or is just bad math or
both, yet still argued that it was competitive with the airplane. . .
 >> Stay informed about: $5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks! 

<trader4.DeleteThis@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:7e780130-2cb4-42a6-8e4a-6ca523cbc0e7@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

You could charge cars mostly at night. However, it's also fair to
assume that a significant portion will have to be charged during the
day. If someone drives a car to work for example, it could very
easily require charging during the day so they could get home.
Particularly given the short range you get with an electric car.
Even if only 25% of the demand were during the day, it's going to
require more generating capacity and more investment in the
infrastructure to deliver it. And there is no reason to believe that
energy is going to be delivered at prices less than what we pay
today. Hydro is pretty much tapped out, because you can't build more
rivers and dams. Wind power is only effective in the right locations
with enough wind and then only when the wind happens to be blowing
strong enough, and isn't necessarily cheap either. A commercial
company recently abandoned plans to build an offshore wind farm off
Long Island because it would not be competitive. Note I'm not
saying wind or alternative energy sources can't play a role here.
I'm just saying they aren't going to come at energy prices less than
what we are already paying.


Nuclear power. It is missing from your list of options. It is a whole lot
cheaper than anything else and emits zero pollution and zero greenhouse
gasses.
 >> Stay informed about: $5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks! 

On Jun 8, 1:31 am, "Roger Shoaf" <sh....RemoveThis@nospamsyix.com> wrote:
> <trad....RemoveThis@optonline.net> wrote in message
>
> news:7e780130-2cb4-42a6-8e4a-6ca523cbc0e7@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
> You could charge cars mostly at night.   However, it's also fair to
> assume that a significant portion will have to be charged during the
> day.   If someone drives a car to work for example, it could very
> easily require charging during the day so they could get home.
> Particularly given the short range you get with an electric car.
> Even if only 25% of the demand were during the day, it's going to
> require more generating capacity and more investment in the
> infrastructure to deliver it.  And there is no reason to believe that
> energy is going to be delivered at prices less than what we pay
> today.   Hydro is pretty much tapped out, because you can't build more
> rivers and dams.   Wind power is only effective in the right locations
> with enough wind and then only when the wind happens to be blowing
> strong enough, and isn't necessarily cheap either.   A commercial
> company recently abandoned plans to build an offshore wind farm off
> Long Island because it would not be competitive.    Note I'm not
> saying wind or alternative energy sources can't play a role here.
> I'm just saying they aren't going to come at energy prices less than
> what we are already paying.
>
> Nuclear power.  It is missing from your list of options.  It is a whole lot
> cheaper than anything else and emits zero pollution and zero greenhouse
> gasses.


I wasn't ignoring nuclear power. I was only directly commenting on
another posters list of supposedly low cost options for providing
energy to charge electric cars, which was hydro and wind..

I agree nuclear is something we should be actively pursuing as part of
an overall energy solution. My point was that whatever you turn to
for electricity to power cars, it's not going to be as cheap as
today's electric rates. The cheapest available source for new
electricity is coal, but that has obvious disadvantages, ie greenhouse
gases, etc. And even new coal plants are going to cost more than the
existing base, because the older plants were built to far less
stringent environmental standards, are depreciated, etc. Nuclear is
a little more expensive than coal. So, if you want to go with
electric cars, you need a reasonable assessment of what the true cost
of the electricity will be and you can't just look at your current
cost per KWH and use that.
 >> Stay informed about: $5.00 Diesel - time to put her up on blocks!