mellow maromi

If people would get off their lazy arses, get a job, save up some money, and buy hybrids, while losing the "If its foreign made it sucks" attitude, america would be a better place.

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MistressMorgan

WOw I didnt know ethanol polluted so much! im going to have to research this a little more. It seems people are going to have to start thinking outside of the box in order to find a self sustainable energy. OH MY GOSH I HAVE A SOLUTION!!! Lets walk everywhere.... oh no wait thats right, people are lazy and in a hurry, theyll never go for that.

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PsiKnot

If people were just sitting on their lazy arses, why would they need a car?

Buying hybrids actually would make no differance in this problem. Hybrids while useing less gas or ethanol, would still use the same quantity of gas as it would ethanol if it were to use strait ethanol.

There are several American companys that offer hybrids. And whats wrong with wanting to buy products manufactured in your own country?

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Thinking is the leading cause of death among the stupid.
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Toecutter

mellow maromi, you are out of your mind! Hyrbids are quite efficient FOR CITY DRIVING!

But consider this for a moment:

The typical internal combustion engine running at idle in a car (let's say at an idle speed of 600-1000 rpm) burns 1 part fuel per 8 parts air. This is far more rich a mixture than running at highway speed in optimum conditions, which, even for big block Chevy 572, is 1 part fuel per 12 to 15 parts air.

For the cases when you're running at idle, or in stop and go traffic, you're actually putting more wear and tear sitting with the engine idling than starting the engine, driving, then turning off the engine when you come to a stop light. It takes more fuel to just leave it running, and you're wearing the parts too quickly.

That is where the hybrid gets it's efficiency: when the gas engine kicks in to charge the batteries or directly power the electric drive motor, it's running at optimum efficiency-that 1:12 to 1:15 ratio.

However, the typical economy sedan only manages to get 15% of the chemical potential energy out of gasoline, putting it to kinetic energy at the wheels. The remaining 85 percent is used up from friction, and other parasitic losses.

Now, throw the same engine and couple it to a stator assembly/generator to create the electricity necessary to power your hybrid, and you've just added another energy conversion, which again, has parasitic losses. So, take that 15 percent, and multiply it by the percentage of efficiency of your stator assembly, the amount of resistivity in the conductors, and the efficiency of your drive motor. You're now BELOW 10 percent in operating efficiency.

Of course it doesn't matter if you're in the city, as you're getting more from the gasoline in city driving conditions. But America is a big country with lots of long distance roads, especially out in the midwestern states or the west coast. Hyrbids are useless for that kind of driving.

Finally, consider the fact that even when the Japanese or other countries need to haul stuff, a hyrbid can't make a good run to the city dump, or tow a trailer full of your stuff when you want to move to another home. Sooner or later, you need a big displacement engine that runs on gas or diesel to do the job.

Diesel would be the better way to go, as it's more efficient, burns cleaner (in chemical content, even though it looks worse than it really is), and with turbochargers, puts out the necessary horsepower to compete with gas engines. The diesel-powered vehicle speed record is now around 313 mph from a heavily modified Dodge Dakota pick-up running a twin-turbo diesel down at Bonneville. I think it was Team Bully-Dog that pulled that one off.

As for using Wikipedia, remember that Wikipedia articles are EDITED BY THE UNEDUCATED MASSES (aka, the "grassroots movement"). Are you really going to believe what some redneck chain smoker living in a trailer has to say about cigarettes, Three Mile Island, or the political situation in Iraq? Because, by Wikipedia's operating methods, that's what you're getting, unless actual sources are linked in the articles.

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Barronmore

Do we really have to go through this again? Wikipeidia is a fine source to use. And just like every other source (including other encyclopedias) there are some incorrect statements. So, instead of just taking one sources word for it, take a look around at multiple sources and see what they all say.

There has been study after study after study done showing that Wikipeida is just as correct as Encyclopedia Britannica. And no, it's not redneck hicks that are making entries into Wikipeida. There are a lot of intelligent, highly capable people that make it an excellent resource to educate yourself. Yes, Wikipeida has it's 'political' problems (wrong entires, revisionist history, etc) but so does every other single 'source' of information. As long as you stay away from 'hot topic' issues (and use multiple sources if you do look them up) then your wikipeida searching will be great.

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worldpeace2529

It would take too much corn to make it, so i'm against it, corn is meant for food, not pollution, I hate pollution and i'm for everything that can decrease it, but ethanol... is well... I'd rather have scientists do more research on electric or hydrogen cars or w/e

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mellow maromi

If it were up to me all the cars would run on uranium Fission.

One gram of that stuff can power the car for 5 years non stop, or so i heard.

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