Hello, Coyote,
I loved your comment at the end about free electricity. Good job!
You asked about conversions between other fuels (other than electricity) and gasoline. I can't remember if I have posted this already, so I will do it again. Here are the fuel conversions for energy content and also the WTW greenhouse gas produced for each kind of fuel. /Ernie
UPDATED CO2 CALCULATION TABLE (6-06-08)
Gasoline...........11,800 gm CO2e /gallon gasoline
….Energy content: 116,090 BTU /gallon, or 34 kWh per gallon
Diesel #2..........12,700 gm CO2e /gallon diesel
....Energy equivalent: 0.90 gal = 1 gal gasoline
Corn ethanol.......6,135 gm CO2e /gallon ethanol (from Wang)
....Energy equivalent: 1.52 gal = 1 gal gasoline
Electricity.............777 gm CO2e /kWh (U.S. power plant mix)
...or..................26,400 gm CO2e /gallon gasoline equivalent
....Energy equivalent: 34 kWh = 1 gal gasoline
Compressed NG...111.1 gm CO2e /SCF
....Energy equivalent: 118 SCF = 1 gal gasoline
H2 gas................34.2 gm CO2e /SCF
....Energy equivalent: 400 SCF = 1 gal gasoline
Biodiesel...........5940 gm CO2e /gallon biodiesel
....Energy equivalent: 1 gal = 1 gallon gasoline
CO2e refers to equivalent CO2 effect of all greenhouse gases combined, "Well-To-Wheels." All of these numbers come from Wang, Argonne National Laboratory, via a spreadsheet at
WELCOME | Progressive Automotive X PRIZE
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coyote X
Just to be annoying to everyone, what about other sources of making a car go?
natural gas, propane, diesel, etc? The energy output/creation cost of diesel is different than gasoline so should there be a conversion for a gallon of gas to a gallon of diesel? The other two are gasses so a gallon by volume doesn't mean much without pressure and temperature. Also the same issues as electric are present with the gasses in how you compare to gasoline.
None of them are similar so to get a comparison to compare one to the other is not easy. There are so many ways to measure them. Well to tires natural gas locally here would win since it is just coming straight out of the ground and ran to the houses and a small pump that doesn't take that much power to build pressure slowly and refill the tank. So there is no transmission loss of any sort on natural gas here it would be just the bit of power used for the pump and the engine efficiency.
Pretty much any measurement is going to be arbitrary and can be argued either way so I just say admit it is an arbitrary decision and just explain it as best as possible. I would rather have the top 10 split up into categories just for the people who want to see how good they are doing in relation to similar vehicles(be good for categories and searches). But an overall top 10 is always going be biased and give an advantage to one type of car over the others. I would also say double the pollution output of the coal plant. You guys have no idea how much pollution the mines generate to mine coal. Imagine 50 large rock truck tires dumped in a hole and burned. That is typical for tire disposal 
For my car I am not sure if I am even going to bother with measuring electric usage regularly. My electric bill is always the minimum amount and charging the car isn't going to change it so to me it is basically free  |