Is Keeping Your Old Car Better for the Environment? by Engineering Explained

[Xist]

We get a lot of wildfires here in Arizona.

[M_a_t_t]

Originally Posted by Autobahnschleicher

Wood-gas is pretty terrible:
1. It is very inefficient
2. It requires a somewhat elaborate starting procedure
3. It reduces an engines power output massively
4. It makes your oil go acidic rather quickly
5. The emissions of an engine running on wood-gas are terrible

Use that plant material to make ethanol instead.

I've been reading up (out of curiosity) on wood gas. And you can set it up to run on gasoline/ethanol to get the firing process started then switch over to wood gas (via switches/valves in the car) after a few miles of driving. Making the startup not so elaborate procedure.

There is a study by the university of alabama showing comparable emissions to gasoline on an older (90's I think?) dodge v10 and 37% more efficient than gasoline.

I have to leave for work, but I will find the link to the study.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by Autobahnschleicher

I'm quite surprised how terrible the electric grid is over there.
With 110V and 30A, you've only got 3,3kVA for the whole house.
A normal power outlet here has 3,5kVA (maximum, not sustained).
As for 240V, single phase systems, for that kind of power you'd probably want a higher voltage/more phases as that would require rather thick cables.

What where they thinking with this whole split-phase 110/220Vsystem over there?
3-phase 220/380V is more efficient and requires less copper for a given power requirement as well as giving you the option of running 3-phase motors directly from the grid.
Plus let's not forget that you can run RCDs from the breaker box.

/rant

Of course I haven't checked every house in Mexico, but that's the only power standard I've seen several dozen of them.

And that 30A is max, not sustained. Sustained is 28A, or about 2.6kW continuous. FOR THE WHOLE HOUSE of course.

It's also common to see two (or more) households using the same fuse box (no breakers down there). It's also common for people to steal electricity by throwing hooked cables up onto the street cables or by placing jumpers behind the electric meter.

I've also known of more electrical fires in Mexico than in the USA.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Autobahnschleicher

I'm quite surprised how terrible the electric grid is over there.
With 110V and 30A, you've only got 3,3kVA for the whole house.

That's what I have in my apartment

What where they thinking with this whole split-phase 110/220Vsystem over there?

At least in Brazil, foreign companies built the first grids at a local level, leading them to use the standard of their countries of origin. That's why some cities have a 110V grid whole others resort to a 220V one, even though nowadays the national grid is fully integrated.

[Xist]

Google says that the Secretaria de Salud is Mexico's equivalent of OSHA, but something tells me that you cannot compare them.

Actually, many things tell me that, including this picture:


I feel that if they were team players one would be standing in the basket and the other would be pushing it and passing up stuff.

Are shelves taller in Mexico? I always laugh at the signs in Walmart to get help getting stuff off of the top shelf. Why? I can reach it.

They probably can't.

[M_a_t_t]

https://www.driveonwood.com/static/m...nal_report.pdf

I was mistaken on the vehicle. He also has a dodge ram 3500 that he uses on his farm. The test was conducted with a dodge dakota, should be the v8 in it, not the v6.

Towards the end (pg 10):

It is concluded from these results
that the gasifier was more efficient than gasoline. In particular, efficiency of wood was 37%
higher than that of gasoline (231.6 miles per million Btu for wood, compared to 168.6 miles per
million Btu for gasoline).

(this will be my last off-topic post)

[Xist]

Originally Posted by M_a_t_t

(this will be my last off-topic post)

Meanie!

[aerohead]

I'm thinking of it along the lines of COVID.
We have a CARBON-64 vaccine, which will kill the carbon dioxide pandemic scientists have been warning us about since 1957. EVs.
Vehicles with carbon comorbidity issues might be prioritized on an mpg basis.
Those with the lowest fuel economy would be triaged for immediate 'vaccination' and retirement from service. Recycled. Replaced with a zero-carbon vehicle.
On down the line, on an efficiency basis.
The least-offensive emitters are the last to be electrified. Say, a Plug-in Prius, @ 55-mpg.
Carrots are favorable to sticks. Incentives. Wrap it up in the flag and make people feel good about the whole thing.
Sicily hit 122-F in August, an all-time heat record. Avocado and orange production suffered. Farmers who could, dug reservoirs, as ground water is now 'iffy'. If they have another year of drought, it's game over for agriculture.
And we continue to add carbon, doing nothing to remove what's already there. Removing carbon IS the solution according to climatologists, but first we've got to stop digging the hole we're in.
40-mpg is good but it isn't zero.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Xist

I really don't know why this scene looks so familiar to me even though I have never been in Mexico.

[freebeard]

"Tortilleria"?

I'm thinking of it along the lines of COVID.
....
Vehicles with carbon comorbidity issues might be prioritized on an mpg basis.

One might turn that logic back on itself: Deny access to restaurants to the morbidly obese and spare the children experimental mRNA injections.

I liked this Kurzgesagt, not only because the animation is done in Blender*:

Can YOU Fix Climate Change?

But then, at the end, you find out it's sponsored by Bill Gates' GatesNotes. Now, when I don't know what to think I fall back on Bucky Fuller's Design Science Revolution,


*Froop Poop