The bad side of electric vehicals. And the sweet side of E85

[skadistic]

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33853/113/


Video is a little long but watch it all.
The bike is an amazing piece of work. Its one heck of a show piece for the tech. involved.


http://www.2sportscars.com/e85-viper-world-speed-record.shtml


All the power and more then petrol. Impressive and another great showing of "other then petrol" locomotion.


Discuse these and other aspects of alt. energy. Or don't

 

[bhsup]

There is no sweet side to E85. It gets far worse mpg than gasoline and there was an article earlier this year in US News and World Report about the cost of corn for food already rising because of the pressures being put on supply due to the government's push for ethanal. Ethanal does not have the same energy potential as regular gasoline.

 

[Stewbert 08]

Electric is the future, corn-fuel is Congressional pork, not alternative energy. And most Americans will be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting this.

 

[skadistic]

E85 does have a sweet side but the corn lobby has made it a bad idea. Something other then corn can do much better. The price of food is artificially inflated. There are still lots farmers getting paid to not grow crops. These idle farms could be growing corn, not the same type of corn used in most food products by the way, or a better more effective crop.

 

[LucyDuke]

Why's everybody always so hung up on alternative energy? Alternative transportation is where it's at.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Why's everybody always so hung up on alternative energy? Alternative transportation is where it's at.

because a bus is too european for a lot of americans.

 

[amadeus]

because a bus is too european for a lot of americans.

The U.S. is also about 2½ times the size of the European Union.

Belgium has a population density of about 340/km².
The United Kingdom has a population density around 240/km².

Compare those to the U.S. population density of roughly 30/km².

 

[Mr. Dictator]

The U.S. is also about 2½ times the size of the European Union.

Belgium has a population density of about 340/km².
The United Kingdom has a population density around 240/km².

Compare those to the U.S. population density of roughly 30/km².

yes, we get this. but i'm not just talking rednecks in texarkana.

many americans in cities shun buses.

 

[Merkinball]

because a bus is too, dirty, inconvenient, time consuming for a lot of americans.

Also, there's a larger carbon footprint on E85 than it saves. There was also just recently an article that took into account pesticides used, land turned into corn fields, and concluded that ethanol from corn creates more environmental damage than it saves.

 

[skadistic]

yes, we get this. but i'm not just talking rednecks in texarkana.

many americans in cities shun buses.

Actually that has to do with the long commute times offered by many metro area public trans. and not the bus it self. From my house to D.C its 10 min to drive ( 30 in traffic ) and 4 hours by way of public trans.

And why do you use redneck as a negative term?

 

[MobBoss]

yes, we get this. but i'm not just talking rednecks in texarkana.

Easy bucky...my wife was born in Texarkana.

many americans in cities shun buses.

The reason they do is that driving your car is just not inconvient enough yet. I would much, much rather drive my car somewhere by myself than ride a bus and have to sit anywhere near a bum reeking of urine.

 

[Trajan12]

As someone who rides the bus regularly,

I have fun driving, and knowing I'm in control(pretty much) of where I can go and the time it will take, also who's in and out of my personal space, will be a huge bonus once I get my license.

 

[George2816]

There is no sweet side to E85. It gets far worse mpg than gasoline and there was an article earlier this year in US News and World Report about the cost of corn for food already rising because of the pressures being put on supply due to the government's push for ethanal. Ethanal does not have the same energy potential as regular gasoline.

Corn based E85 is bad but sugar based E85 is like 5-10 better. (BTW E85 is about 10-15% less effiect. E100 also turns to slush at about 32 degrees F That why we will never have e100. BTW did you know they will redo the fuel effiect starting in 2009 car models!!)

 

[Godwynn]

rednecks in texarkana.

I enjoyed this part.

 

[El_Machinae]

There is no sweet side to E85. It gets far worse mpg than gasoline and there was an article earlier this year in US News and World Report about the cost of corn for food already rising because of the pressures being put on supply due to the government's push for ethanal. Ethanal does not have the same energy potential as regular gasoline.

The corn lobby, unsurprisingly, is trying to make money off of the ethanol fad. Corn is NOT the best solution, but the lobbyists aren't really concerned about that (it's not their job). Corn is massively subsidized and so all the people competing to make ethanol (switch grass, willow, poplar, sugars, etc.) are trying to outcompete the price of a subsidized industry.

The corn lobby is really detrimental to America, actually. And, you're quite right in stating that making food compete with fuel is kinda silly.

When we compare ethanol to gasoline, there are some good indicators to looks at: carbon footprint, cost, pollution, etc. I don't think that actual volume (or energy density) really matters, to be honest. When I'm going to be getting ethanol, I'm going to be calculating its benefit based on $/km travelled. If I can drive 100km for less money on ethanol than on gasoline, I'm going to consider it a success. After that, I want it to be a lower carbon footprint than gasoline (which will require environmentally friendly growth and harvesting techniques)

Skadistic: Wow! I don't think it's really fair to poo-poo the electric, to be honest. I mean, the bike was just mishandled on a power test, which is not really a poor showing on the bike's part. Comparing it to a power-drill was a good analogy...

Why do you think the Ethanol helped get the viper going so fast? I don't know enough about cars to guess what its main benefits would have been.

 

[Perfection]

I'd put money on electric vehicles. We're gettign to the point where we can get motors to efficiently do a wide variety of tasks in a manner that we couldn't before, and batteries are getting more and more capable of meeting consumer demands. If we can get a relatively inexpensive high-capacity battery that has a long cycle life (and we're heading in that direction) then electric motors will be able to sucessfully compete with internal combustion engines.

 

[El_Machinae]

I hear mostly about the strides in fuel cells.

 

[Perfection]

I'm skeptical about fuel cells. There's a lot of infrastructural work that would need to be done, and they aren't exactly atmopherically nuetral if there's significant hydrogen leakage.

 

[El_Machinae]

I've heard of one that runs off of sugar, and some that run off of hydride pellets.

 

[skadistic]

Skadistic: Wow! I don't think it's really fair to poo-poo the electric, to be honest. I mean, the bike was just mishandled on a power test, which is not really a poor showing on the bike's part. Comparing it to a power-drill was a good analogy...

Why do you think the Ethanol helped get the viper going so fast? I don't know enough about cars to guess what its main benefits would have been.

I'm by no means pooping on electrics. Being the speed freak I am I love that bike. It was just a bad accident. The bike is pure sexy and the tech. behind it is sweet.

As for the Viper there are many factors. E85 has a higher comparative octane rating. Above 100 if I remember correctly. Also it has 1200 hp !! Thats made with advanced spark timing and high boost. The higher 'O' rating means it is less likely to prematurely detonate under alot of boosted pressure. So you can squeeze more power out of it. Its all in the tuning. As with gas powered cars new tuning tech leeches its way down to production cars. So when you see a car like that run those times some of the lessoned learned can be aplied to more efficiant E85 tuning in say a Ford Fuzion or Chevy Cobalt. And it did all this with much much lower emission out put. And all the juice can be grown again.