Is the Hummer "greener" than the Prius?

We don't need to lie to keep our SUVs (and I wouldn't ever own one myself). We have this thing called freedom.

Reply to
Fred G. Mackey
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Sorry, I just realized I'd actually neglected something... an Otto or Diesel cycle engine is at best slightly less than 30% efficient while an electric drivetrain can achieve 90% or more. So divide my answer by a factor of three to get a real number.

nate

(oops, I hate when I do that, try to correct someone and then get my answer wrong...)

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Old or new electronics isn't going to affect something as basic as that.

In fact, modern power electronics is better (lower cost, weight, losses - better reliability) than ever.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

How do you know that the Green House process doesn't trap CO2 in the atmosphere?

Reply to
Leythos

obsolete >>in thePC

technologyuntil

low-cost in such

Maybe in the USA. That's the only place where UL applies btw. Elsewhere it's the IEC and its equivalent localised derivative standards..

You'd have to have a really incompetent engineering team to do that btw. As an electronics product design engineer myself there's no way I'd have anything to do with such a policy.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how engines work. An ICE does not create vast amounts of "waste energy" in some manner proportional to the difference between its power output and its maximum power capacity.

Reply to
Matthew T. Russotto

Have you never heard of a trolley bus ?

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Lots in Europe.

They weren't some insuperable problem for us because they weren't 3000 hp locomotives !

You Americans ! Always looking for complications and reasons not to do things.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

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We Europeans did it in 1882.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

better reliability)

To use one of your words, bollocks. Newer electronics is... newer, and that's about the only generalization you can make. I'm sure that most of the stuff on the market is indeed cheaper, lighter, and draws less power, but mre reliable? I seriously doubt it. If it *were* more reliable, the mfgrs. would make it even cheaper and lighter until it again just barely met spec.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

When you've worked out (and patented of course) a practical serial hybrid for automobiles, do let the auto companies know.

Reply to
Matthew T. Russotto

obsolete >>in thePC

technologyuntil

low-cost in such

the IEC and its

electronics

such a policy.

Well, that's how it's been explained to me by engineers at at least two major FA equipment manufacturers, so I guess they're incompetent.

Of course, you've proven yourself rather quick to declare common practice "incompetent" and state that *your* way, which nobody does, is the only sensible way.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Well, you're both kind of right. An ICE is *always* creating waste energy when running, and its efficiency does depend on power output, and it tends to be more efficient in terms of BSFC when heavily loaded.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Then why aren't we driving it today? Hint: it's the batteries. It's always been the batteries.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Scaling down or scaling up ?

This issue you want to present as a problem was solved over 100 years ago. Here's one from 1913 made by Edison.

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Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

From my other post, you need at least 530ish mJ/kg or 150ish kWh/kg to be competitive with gasoline. So, in other words, 1.5 kWh/kg is two orders of magnitude away from being "suitable."

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

It's do-able right now.

Using the latest NiMHcells, a 15kWh battery pack suitable for a typical day's commuting weights a mere 100kg.

Only better is on the way.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Then by definition, it's not regenerative braking.

In Europe there is somewhere useful for it to go. Back into the electrical power system. Many of our trains (and all the high performance ones) are electric you see.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

The pieces all already exist.

Yes. that's exactly what I have in mind. It can be done NOW ! There's no excuse for further delay..

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

What I mean is, you sound like the normal technically illiterate blowhard that I used to have to put up with at parties when I briefly worked in the automotive industry, who when finding out who my employer was would rail at me in about how some wonderful yet thermodynamically (or otherwise technically) impossible technology that could save so much energy, the environment, and bring back the dodo and the passenger pigeon, if only it weren't being suppressed by a conspiracy between the Big Three, the government, the Masons, and/or the guy that was really behind the Kennedy assassination.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

bolt > them together.

I haven't a clue what you mean.

The carburettor was always a dead-end technically. Anything that continued to pour fuel into a decelerating engine had no future, so there's no comparison.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

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