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Theo Bekkers said:

Quoted message said:

The "long tailpipe" argument? That's pretty lame, you can do better.

Are you suggesting that an electric vehicle is more environmentally friendly
than one with an ICE?

Yes I am.

Quoted message said:

Maybe you're right. Very small ICEs are considered to
be a major problem in California. Because there are no regulations on things
like lawnmowers and other powered garden implements, California says they
are a much greater source of pollution than most people would think.

A single source of pollution (eg even a disgusting coal fired power
station) is easier to regulate and control than millions of
independent sources (eg ICE powered vehicles). Of course this is
subject to the government actually doing something about it.

As for lawnmowers, I converted mine to cordless electric :-) There's
nothing wrong with the venerable Victa two stroke that powered it (and
I'm a bit partial to two strokes), I just don't like buying petrol.
Performance is comparable to the two stroke motor, I feel it's got
slightly more torque in the long grass (which would make sense
considering how electric motors develop torque). Can't recall the
longest amount of time I mowed with it for, but I was thoroughly
bloody sick of mowing by the time I finished.

It's easy to argue semantics about this stuff all day long, the
pollution created by power generation vs pumping, refining and
transporting petroleum. Manufacture and recycling of lead acid
batteries (few EV enthusiasts can afford anything better) vs disposal
of used engine oil. Etc, etc ad nausem. Ultimately a bicycle wins
the environmental argument ;-)

On 2007-07-03, Theo Bekkers (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Are you suggesting that an electric vehicle is more environmentally friendly
than one with an ICE? Maybe you're right. Very small ICEs are considered to
be a major problem in California. Because there are no regulations on things
like lawnmowers and other powered garden implements, California says they
are a much greater source of pollution than most people would think.

2 stroke engines are truly evil in just about everything they emit.

--
TimC
Chairman: I'm glad to see so many bright-eyed and bushy-tailed people
here at this time of the morning.
From the audience: Actually, most of us are rabid. -- From an astro talk

TimC said:

[1] So hot water heaters, our most efficient electrical devices[2],
are about 30% efficient. Sucky, eh?

[2] The big whopping resistor inside your insulated hot water tank
with pretty minimal losses is pretty close to 100% efficient by
itself, if only the generation was as good[3].

Energy -> heat is a very efficient process; it's very easy to do, since
that's the ultimate form all energy ends up as anyway. Heat -> other
energy forms, OTOH, is much harder to do; there's *nothing* that can do
that job at near 100% efficiency.

Heat *pumps*, however, can do better than 100% efficiency, because they
move heat around - they don't actually generate new heat. They're not
all that good, though, if you need an intensive heat (or cold) source.

Quoted message said:

[3] As opposed to gas powered hot water which is also pretty darn
close to 100%, but with very small transmission losses[4] (dunno about
generation. Gas is pretty easy to extract though).

Any place that I buy absolutely has to have gas-powered heating and
cooking. Burning gas for heat is much more efficient (and cheaper!) than
burning coal to generate electricity to run through a resistor to
generate heat. Off peak electricity be damned; pipe it to an aluminium
smelter if you absolutely have to soak it up somehow.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@ to usenet".

scotty72 said:

No, it is not a step backwards, it is a step forward though, clearly not
a big enough step for your liking.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

I hope that you can be convinced

Oh go on then, you've won me over :-) I probably looked at it the
wrong way, in terms of "human powered bike v. electric bike" instead
of "car v. electic bike". I admit to using the car far more than I
should but I'm making the effort to use the bike as much as I can
(e.g. carting two 20kg sacks of tile adhesive home in my son's bike
trailer at the weekend). The thought of any form of motor assist
hadn't crossed my mind and it doesn't really appeal to me in the
slightest though it certainly does seem to make sense in your example
(and no doubt many others).

In this case it looks like I was a sufferer of the condition I used to
have to explain to my parents - "If you don't understand the
advertising campaign, it wasn't aimed at you." Next thing you know
I'll be complaining that you can't understand the words to current
songs and the singers dress stupidly. Oops, I do that already! :-o

Graeme

On Jul 3, 12:42 pm, TimC <[email hidden]-

astro.swin.edu.au said:

What we are
interested in is the energy efficiency which correlates to how much
CO_2 emission you get per kWh (or km, for that matter) resulting from
car travel of both types.

My 50cc ICE equivalent electric motor scooter[1] goes about 30km (all
or nothing riding style, I'm sure it would go further with more care
on the throttle and a few less hills) on a charge. The pack capacity
is 2.4kWh, call it 3kWh consumed by the time you factor in Peukert's
effect and minor charger inefficiency.

So now all you need to know is how much CO2 is generated to produce
3kWh of electricity and compare that to however much CO2 a 50cc ICE
scooter would produce on a 30km trip (start with a cold engine and
catalytic converter for an accurate measure of the emissions).
Actually most of my scooter trips are short, stop-start type riding
where an ICE would cool down increasing emissions but let's not get
too pedantic eh?

Of course I *could* buy 3kW worth of PV panels (assuming money is no
object). Then people can argue about the pollution generated by
producing PV panels vs the amount of CO2 generated as I puff my way to
work on my bicycle :-)

[1] Not to be confused with any form of electric bicycle. It requires
CTP greenslip and motorcycle registration.

Theo Bekkers said:

Surely that is worse than internal combustion. Current state
of the art (and an electric bicycle isn't) electric vehicles
are responsible for more pollution per km than internal
combustion vehicles. That electric power comes from coal,
don'tcha know.

Only if you're not using electricy from renewable sources.
That's widely available now, and not much more expensive.
http://www.jackgreen.com.au/ for example sells nothing else.

John

TimC said:

Theo Wrote

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

. Because there
are no regulations on things like lawnmowers and other powered
garden implements, California says they are a much greater source of
pollution than most people would think.

2 stroke engines are truly evil in just about everything they emit.

Agreed. I would never have a two-smoke mower but, unless you can come up
with a better power source for chainsaws...

Theo

John Henderson said:

Theo Bekkers said:

Surely that is worse than internal combustion. Current state
of the art (and an electric bicycle isn't) electric vehicles
are responsible for more pollution per km than internal
combustion vehicles. That electric power comes from coal,
don'tcha know.

Only if you're not using electricy from renewable sources.
That's widely available now, and not much more expensive.
http://www.jackgreen.com.au/ for example sells nothing else.

Come on. You know that's just creative accounting. Tell me what makes your
lights glow when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing. The
answer is mostly coal.

Theo

Theo Bekkers said:

TimC said:

Theo Wrote

Quoted message said:

. Because there
are no regulations on things like lawnmowers and other powered
garden implements, California says they are a much greater source of
pollution than most people would think.

Quoted message said:

2 stroke engines are truly evil in just about everything they emit.

Agreed. I would never have a two-smoke mower but, unless you can come up
with a better power source for chainsaws...

Theo

I've got a 1.8kW electric chainsaw, it's very, very good. I've felled
some very large trees with it, not what it was designed for (so
they'll tell you), but it performed flawlessly. No good for farmers
etc unfortunately as it's not cordless, but [censored] on 14" bar
(guessing, I've never actually bothered to measure it) saws for yard
work.

Theo Bekkers said:

John Henderson said:

Only if you're not using electricy from renewable sources.
That's widely available now, and not much more expensive.
http://www.jackgreen.com.au/ for example sells nothing else.

Come on. You know that's just creative accounting. Tell me what makes your
lights glow when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing. The
answer is mostly coal.

True enough. It's rather like having a pool of money, a large proportion
of which comes from gambling[1], and saying that you want *your* share of
money to come from non-gambling sources, and you're willing to take a
smaller cut of the pool in return for that. The government gets
involved, and checks the sources of the money coming into the pool; they
make sure[2] that for every dollar that the group demands come from
non-gambling sources, at least one dollar into the pool comes from those
non-gambling sources. So if the total demand for non-gambling money is
(say) $20 million, the government audits to ensure that at least $20
million coming into the pool is from a source other than gambling.

So yes, it's creative accounting, but it *is* helping to push demand for
"green" energy sources. If enough households jumped on this bandwagon
(which I don't see happening, but that's another story), we'd eventually
reach saturation point, where the system could no longer absorb more
wind/solar capacity; at that point, there would (presumably) be enough
money floating around to allow construction of geothermal plants, or
energy storage systems.

[1] Just as a "for example".
[2] In theory, anyway.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@ to usenet".

On Jul 3, 12:45 pm, TimC <[email hidden]-

astro.swin.edu.au said:

Apart from the "zero emissions" part.

Semantics, unless you count when I farted while riding it (not that
often). My bicycle is 288Wh capacity, so I could actually afford the
PV panels to recharge that. It's only 24V so cut out the charger and
hook up the batteries to the panels/charge controller direct.

Still not zero emissions if you consider the production of the PV
panels. Or the production of the bicycle. Or the production of the
food I eat. Or the clothes I wear. Or the water I drink (unless you
have a gravity fed water system, but then there's the pipes unless
you're drinking out of the creek). Even walking isn't zero emissions
unless you go barefoot, naked and only eat things growing wild, not
cultivated. How pedantic do you want to get?

Maaaate, that would be the ultimate 'chicky-babe magnet'!

Theo Bekkers said:

I was not suggesting you
equip your bicycle with a 6 litre V8.

Theo

Theo Bekkers said:

Come on. You know that's just creative accounting. Tell me what makes your
lights glow when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing. The
answer is mostly coal.

Theo

I think it's disappointing there's not more hydro. Especially since
(around here at least) they're always letting water out for
irrigation.

Though I think solar thermal technology has a lot of promise. It's
essentially a coal fired power station with the coal burning bit
replaced by solar troughs. They claim heat storage for about 24hrs
without sun. It's another Aussie driven overseas by government and
industry indifference.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/20070416_energy/energy_hi.asx

31:55 for the Aussie, but the whole thing is well worth watching.

Stuart Lamble said:

Theo Bekkers wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Come on. You know that's just creative accounting. Tell me what
makes your lights glow when the sun's not shining and the wind's not
blowing. The answer is mostly coal.

True enough. It's rather like having a pool of money, a large
proportion of which comes from gambling[1], and saying that you want
*your* share of money to come from non-gambling sources, and you're
willing to take a smaller cut of the pool in return for that.

<snip>

Quoted message said:

[2] In theory, anyway.

I understand the theory but, I find it difficult to believe it will be
executed that way. I try to minimise my power use during peak periods and
utilise what I can during off-peak. e.g. My bore only works at night. We
don't turn on the dishwasher till 9 pm (No, no, not that dishwasher). We use
gas (bottled unfortunately) for hot water and cooking top. We use an evap
cooler for the hot days and burn wood for the cold nights. The wood all
comes from my back yard, we don't cut any live trees down, and leave the
hollow logs for the local fauna. We've planted another 250-300 trees,
probably 8-900 now, not counting the 750 grass-trees. I have an echidna in
my backyard but I only see it every second year.

Theo

Quoted message said:

On Jul 3, 1:49 pm, "Theo Bekkers" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Agreed. I would never have a two-smoke mower but, unless you can
come up with a better power source for chainsaws...

Quoted message said:

I've got a 1.8kW electric chainsaw, it's very, very good. I've felled
some very large trees with it, not what it was designed for (so
they'll tell you), but it performed flawlessly. No good for farmers
etc unfortunately as it's not cordless, but [censored] on 14" bar
(guessing, I've never actually bothered to measure it) saws for yard
work.

I've got a McCulloch 12" electric and it is very handy for pruning etc. The
Stihl 18" does a much better job for dead timber and firewood. In my yard I
would need a 150 metre power cord.

Theo

Quoted message said:

Ultimately a bicycle wins the environmental argument ;-)

Agreed.

Theo

Quoted message said:

TimC wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

What we are
interested in is the energy efficiency which correlates to how much
CO_2 emission you get per kWh (or km, for that matter) resulting from
car travel of both types.

Quoted message said:

So now all you need to know is how much CO2 is generated to produce
3kWh of electricity and compare that to however much CO2 a 50cc ICE
scooter would produce on a 30km trip (start with a cold engine and
catalytic converter for an accurate measure of the emissions).
Actually most of my scooter trips are short, stop-start type riding
where an ICE would cool down increasing emissions but let's not get
too pedantic eh?

According to the article in front of me "current electric plug-in cars
require 0.25Kwh per km travelled. Electricity from a combination of gas and
coal-fired stations in Australia produces 0.99Kg of CO2 equivalent per Kwh.
Source: Sustainable Energy office of WA."
"An electric car travelling 20,000 km a year indirectly produces 4950kg of
CO2e a year". A Four cylinder Camry 4660 kg, Comodore V8 6600kg, VW Golf
Diesel 2980kg (source: Australian Green house office). Interestingly the
Toyota Prius does 2120kg. Doesn't say much for the efficiency of generating
electricity for use in electric-only cars.

Cheers

Theo

Theo Bekkers said:

"An electric car travelling 20,000 km a year indirectly produces 4950kg of
CO2e a year". A Four cylinder Camry 4660 kg, Comodore V8 6600kg, VW Golf
Diesel 2980kg (source: Australian Green house office). Interestingly the
Toyota Prius does 2120kg. Doesn't say much for the efficiency of generating
electricity for use in electric-only cars.

Don't forget that the Prius does have regenerative brakes. I would like
very much to know whether the electric car they're looking at does too;
if not, that's likely to be a major part of the difference.

Remember also that the Prius is geared towards city driving; its results
are dramatically poorer when you take it out on the highway, unlike a
regular car.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@ to usenet".

Stuart Lamble said:

Theo Bekkers wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"An electric car travelling 20,000 km a year indirectly produces
4950kg of CO2e a year". A Four cylinder Camry 4660 kg, Comodore V8
6600kg, VW Golf Diesel 2980kg (source: Australian Green house
office). Interestingly the Toyota Prius does 2120kg. Doesn't say
much for the efficiency of generating electricity for use in
electric-only cars.

Don't forget that the Prius does have regenerative brakes. I would
like very much to know whether the electric car they're looking at
does too; if not, that's likely to be a major part of the difference.

Didn't say. I would think if they are talking about current technology
electric cars, then yes. The point I, and the article quoted, were making is
that even with the inefficiency of an ICE, and the inefficiency of producing
small amounts of power at a single location for intermittent use, the Prius
ICE manages to produce electricity much cleaner than a huge power station.

Quoted message said:

Remember also that the Prius is geared towards city driving; its
results are dramatically poorer when you take it out on the highway,
unlike a regular car.

Which gets much more efficient, mostly because it is moving, not
stopped.Yes, it gets to be more like a Camry. I would think that
electric-only cars are not really designed for sustained highway use either.

Theo

On 2007-07-03, Stuart Lamble (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

Quoted message said:

Theo Bekkers said:

"An electric car travelling 20,000 km a year indirectly produces 4950kg of
CO2e a year". A Four cylinder Camry 4660 kg, Comodore V8 6600kg, VW Golf
Diesel 2980kg (source: Australian Green house office). Interestingly the
Toyota Prius does 2120kg. Doesn't say much for the efficiency of generating
electricity for use in electric-only cars.

Don't forget that the Prius does have regenerative brakes. I would like
very much to know whether the electric car they're looking at does too;
if not, that's likely to be a major part of the difference.

Of course it does; it comes almost for free once you have the motor
controller already in place.

Quoted message said:

Remember also that the Prius is geared towards city driving; its results
are dramatically poorer when you take it out on the highway, unlike a
regular car.

A worker here only gets about 4km down the road from the bottom of the
mountain before the engine kicks in to prop up the electric motor --
that happens once the battery charge gets down to 85%. In other
words, only 15% of the battery is used as a potential energy store
which means most of the way down this mountain, he's going to be
bleeding that excess energy off as heat in his brakes, or perhaps a
bank of resistors if the prius has the same as a diesel loco. It
doesn't let them drain below 85% otherwise the life expectancy of your
battery decreases so rapidly.

--
TimC
Shame on you! Don't you love her? Girls don't want Kmart specials, they
want carbon - either as diamonds or as CF bikes! -- Tamyka in aus.bicycle