Hybrids - Toyota vs Honda

Wind turbines are not free. Dead birds from turbines are a major issue. Solar cells are still costly to manufacture.

I'm all for development of alternative energy sources, but the problems are mostly technical and economic, not a matter of conspiracies.

Why don't you work on some of the real challenges instead of filling your mind with nonsense?

John

Reply to
John Horner
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I hate to say it, but Mike has this one pretty much right :).

The only big remaining problem with Nuclear energy is the waste disposal issue. Despite years of effort and billions of dollars spent, that one isn't handled yet. Now if I were a conspiracy theory nut then I would blame the vast Environmental Lobby Industry, which is indeed now a big business in it's own right with plenty of highly paid full time employees. In a way, Environmental Lobbying is also a religious movement with strongly held beliefs, loyal contributor/member/believers and a strong hatred/distrust for Others!

John

Reply to
John Horner

So? It still develops more power than the Freestar and the torque to do it comes on at lower RPMs. Ford would love to declare a higher HP number for the Freestar, no matter what the RPM, but their crappy engine's power output falls off dramatically above 4600RPM as it starts to shake itself apart.

So the Toyota downshifts if necessary. Except that I haven't noticed that mine ever downshifts on the freeway, unless I really want to accelerate. It's not underpowered.

If the Ford's maximum HP and maximum torque are, as you point out, close together, that describes an engine with a narrow power band - one that would require more frequent shifting.

So you say, but you never bring out any facts and figures to support your allegations. Fact is, you're a blowhard.

Don't think the Freestar's engine is junk? Don't take my word for it. Check with Edmunds:

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"Unrefined powertrains with less horsepower and worse fuel mileage than mostcompetitors..."

Reply to
dh

well, /we/ haven't handled it yet. all we do is stick used rods into tanks and leave them there. we make no attempt to reprocess, and frankly, all the money we're spending on storage is a /RIDICULOUS/ waste if we have no intention of reprocessing!

others reprocess very successfully; they recover the useful stuff and transform the non-useful stuff into a form that is /much/ safer for long term storage. again, simply storing unprocessed unmaterial is the worst possible thing to do, but we're seemingly too paralysed by mass fear and mass ignorance and gross misinformation to actually do anything intelligent!!!

Reply to
jim beam

they're not in their infancy - the energy is just very "un-dense" and that makes it apita to use.

excuse me - what pressures do you think it's transported at? and how does that compare with the pressure necessary to store sufficient to run a car 300 miles at a reasonable volume? do the math.

there's several problems with hydrogen:

  1. it typically takes more enery to produce than you get back out - not really a good idea is you want to quote green credentials as a reason for use.
  2. it's extremely dangerous. that may not bother you, but it bothers me.
  3. it's extremely hard to use. have you ever heard of diffusion? how about hydrogen cracking?

no, hydrogen is great political propaganda, but it ain't no practical solution.

Reply to
jim beam

A broken clock is right twice a day - Mike isn't right even that regularly.

And it's hardly a trivial problem. But it does come down to relative risk. As we recognize the risks inherent in burning fossil fuel, the nuclear option looks more attractive even to some envrionmentalists. And some - I'm one - have favored it for many years. The reason it's not more popular than it is: it's going to be brought to you by the same people that ran Enron and similar operations. We should trust them? I'd be much happier if you gave the business over to the US Navy. They have an impressive safety record that hasn't been compromised by greed or politics.

The "Environmental Lobby" hasn't a tenth the cash available to the "Oil/Gas Lobby." The only reason the Enviros have as much support and visibility as they do is that the science is generally on their side. Oily cash can only go so far. Contrary to what most people believe, there's a fair amount of consensus among climatologists and atmospheric scientists that rising levels of CO2 are attributed to man's activities (deforestation and fossil fuel use) and that this will lead to SOME change.

We're gambling for very high stakes. Covering our bets, by slowing the rates of human-induced change would make sense to me. The fossil fuel industries won't give up their short-term profits, so they put up cash to fight the science.

It's a matter of priorities. I certainly don't want people freezing to death to save a trivial amount of oil but our priorities for the last 20 years have been to build bigger cars and houses, not to find ways to reduce, reuse and recycle. That attitude is going to bite us in the ass.

And there's an economic reason to be out in front on environmental issues - the country that builds the next generation of solar cells (or other energy source) will have an economic advantage. We can be that country but it takes investment to do it. US Corporations would rather puff up executive salaries than hire engineers and chemists. A recent post said that India's graduating 350,000 engineers/year to our 70,000. I believe it. And their science is the same as ours, they can make the same advances that we can but they're more likely to do it because they're able to put more people on it. Why is Toyota on its third generation of hybrid? Because it's a short-term money maker? Hardly, they think they can own the hybrid market further down the road. They're going for strategic advantage.

Don't limt yourself to thinking about the energy industry, either. Where was the last big story on advances in cloning? South Korea. By the way, they didn't achieve that by insisting Intelligent Design be taught in high school.

Come to think of it, there's a second economic reason to be out in front on environmental issues - reducing oil imports would reduce our balance of trade problem. We're $66 billion in the hole this month and a projected $700 billion for the year. To put that in perspective, that's like the mortgage on 3 million reaonably-priced houses. Except we're probably going to mortgage another 3 million houses next year and it's trending worse. If we start exporting whatever alternative energy products we develop, that will also help fix the balance of trade problem.

Reply to
dh

If I remmeber correctly, It takes more energy to produce a conventional solar cell, than the cell will produce in its lifetime. Its only reason is for portability and utility (use ambient light, rather than the added weight of a batery)

Reply to
flobert

The fact is you are the blowhard. You supplied the facts yourself but you still don't understand the relative difference between HP and the ideal application of tongue to HP. I'll waste no more time trying to enlighten you on the subject.. Ford could easily develop more HP for that engine by winding it up if they chose to, but the torgue available at the normal driving rage of 2,000 RPMs makes for a better performing engine. If you are satisfied with the power your vehicle has that is your opinion and your business. The fact is those in the industry knows otherwise, Toyotas are generally underpowered vis a v their domestic comparators, whether you happen to agree or not. is immaterial.

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Nuclear waste disposal is NOT a scientific problem throughout the world, it is only a political problem in the US. Environuts are opposed to the dispose of it in the ground from which it came, as they do in other counties. We now store it less safely under six feet of water at the sites.

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Excuse me, dead birds? Cites, please. (IOW, Prove It.)

I've gone by the Tehachapi wind farms several times, and there are a few local turbines in Palmdale, and there weren't workers out there sweeping up vast piles of dead birds at the base of the turbines - matter of fact, I've never seen a single one. If this is such a "Major Issue", where are they?

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Not trying to be adversarial: around the Mojave/Tehachapi wind farms I'd expect the local coyotes and other predators to have discovered, long ago, that the Places With The Thrumming Trees are good spots at which to catch up stunned, dead or otherwise helpless meals: within hours, nothing to sweep up. ;-) Going by what I have seen of the admittedly often scrawny vegetation there over several visits, even a big bird could lie unseen by passing road travellers. But I am willing to learn otherwise.

One parallel is not exact but close: power lines commonly snag birds as they fly past. That's why you will see silvery balls strung on the lines, especially at valley mouths where flyways lead up into (and down from) hill country. Here in the UK the power company have cut local swan deaths by this precaution.

Reply to
Andrew Stephenson

I've read articles that said that birds occasionally flew into the blades of the propeller-type horizontal-axis turbines. I've seen a private one near Reno, NV close up and have driven by the ones at Tehachapi many times in the past and have not noticed any dead birds either, but I suppose that the occasional bird does get chopped. Even though turbine RPM may be relatively low, the speed of the tip is pretty high due to the diameter of the blades so a bird that is flying to a particular space which is clear one moment has a blade coming around the next. Because of this, planners try to place wind farms out of the path of flocks of birds.

I just happened to read about a company that is developing a vertical axis wind turbine

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They are trying to develop a turbine that is more bird-friendly and does not develop magnetic resonance that can interfere with aircraft navigation. Their site had pictures of their turbine but I couldn't find one today. The turbine was almost as tall as the prop-type but instead of blades, the vanes looked like long tubes that were cut in half along the long axis, spinning like a washing machine agitator between fixed vanes that direct the wind into the moving vanes.

The wind-turbine-powered house I saw was built in the high desert near Reno over 20 years ago. It had 2 turbines and a room about the size of a one-car garage filled with lead-acid batteries. The house had 2 sets of wiring, 12 volt for lighting and 110 volt for appliances. I suppose the technology has advanced quite a bit by now, but it was kind of irritating to watch the picture on the TV shrink and expand, and the lights fluctuate in intensity.

Reply to
Ray O

USA Today:

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Google is your friend.

John

Reply to
John Horner

Sorry, but no. That's not the primary reason why the visibility balls are placed, or they would be installed on all power lines.

The power lines in selected locations tend to snag more METAL birds than live birds as they fly past, I.E. light airplanes and helicopters. Some power lines cross small valleys and rivers laterally from peak to peak, and the power transmission wires can be very high over the terrain below - where a pilot following visual flight rules would assume he has clear air. If the light is wrong, you can't see those wires till you are right on top of them.

All it takes is the local radio station's traffic reporting plane or the local police patrol helicopter flying too low in the wrong place, trying to spot a traffic tie-up or follow a pursuit. If they happen by at the same altitude as the power lines, it gets really messy.

The visibility balls on the static wire are there to show the wire location clearly, even in low visibility conditions where the pilots can't see the towers.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Yeah, it is - and here's the top two hits I got, which coincidentally enough show the other side:

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They have a sound theory that may explain the few places that bird strikes are concentrated in, namely the Altamont Pass near San Francisco - agricultural pesticides are used on rodents, raptors eat the rodents, and are drugging the raptors so stupid they're flying into the generators - even when they are not turning at the time.

A bird flying into a stationary tower or a stationary wind turbine blade is not the fault of the tower. It's the bird's responsibility to spot and navigate around fixed obstacles. They have eyes. Too bad they're connected to a brain the size of a pea.

And the other -

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Wow - all those birds running into lighted and checkerboard-painted radio towers, and the sides of fixed buildings....

To conclude: It's tough to be a bird.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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San Francisco Chronicle

12/19/04 Jane Kay, Chronicle Environmental Writer

Taming the Deadly Wind Farm Key Source of Renewable Energy Often Lethal For Birds

If environmentalists and state officials have their way, the towering windmills that dot the Altamont Pass will be replaced and moved to prevent the killing of thousands of birds annually, including species protected under federal and state laws. ... With 5,000 windmills in a 50 square mile area, the Altamont Pass is the world's largest windfarm, producing electricity to power

200,000 households annually. But it is also the worst in the country for slaughtering birds.

Altamont Pass is a prime hunting ground for golden eagles and other raptors, and scientists estimate _conservatively_ that the turbines kill some 4,700 birds every year. ...

Reply to
ll

Ah, the unsupported "underpowered" assertion again. Can'te leave it alone, can you? But you can't supply any facts, either, can you? You're the bllowhard.

The '05 Sienna has more power than the '05 Freestar. Remember what Edmunds had to say about the Freestar:

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"Unrefined powertrains with less horsepower and worse fuel mileage than mostcompetitors..."

The Camry is one of the most popular cars on the market. Toyota actually makes money selling them. Most people think the 4 is at least adequately powered or they wouldn't buy them and Toyota wouldn't make money selling them. Friends who drive them think they move out just fine (and none of these owns one of the latest with VVTi and a better power-to-weight ratio than ever before).

Case closed.

Of course, we're talking about normal sedans and other passenger cars, not fuel-wasting penis-substitutes such as the Mustang GT. If you really need your fuel-wasting penis-substitute, and consider anything less than a fuel-wasting penis-substitute to be underpowered, well. we can't help you there.

Reply to
dh

Camry may still be the number one selling car but it was never the number one vehicle sold in the US. The F150 is the number one seller and has been for nearly thirty years, at just about twice as many sold as the Camry. Camry is aparently not as popular as it was last year either. Cold it be becse they are underpowered? The Camry was the ONLY vehicle in the top five to lose sales in 2005, it dropped around 20,000 sales, falling from third place to fourth below the Dodge Ram. The others all gained sales, including the Honda Accord, which is actully made in the US, not merely assembed of imported parts like the Camry

VEHICLE Sales Y-T-D 2005 Last Yr. '04 Rank Chg.

1 Ford F-Series pickup 760,929 740,817 1 +2.7 2 Chevrolet Silverado pickup 616,139 575,886 2 +7.0 3 Dodge Ram pickup 409,252 362,122 6 +13.0 4 Toyota Camry 383,478 403,136 3 -4.9 5 Honda Accord 371,307 367,210 5 +1.1

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Wow! I never realized that the top 3 selling vehicles in America are pick-up trucks. That's enlightening. Rich

Reply to
Rich

Thanks for the insights on the USian setup. However, our local power company here in the eastern UK did install such power line decorations to save swans/geese/etc from accidents, when flying around favoured grazing/landing sites. Maybe they saved the odd plane too -- dunno.

Back to the windmills: perhaps I ought to enquire as to rates of bird strike locally, now that more and more of the whirly things are being installed. Mind, some are offshore, by a mile or two, and I am guessing we can spare the odd seagull (breeding to pest numbers).

Reply to
Andrew Stephenson

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