Posted on 06/22/2008 12:17:23 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Remember methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), the green gasoline additive that was supposed to save the planet but was an environmental, public-health and economic disaster?
Remember ethanol, the green gasoline additive that replaced MTBE and was supposed to save the planet but has been an environmental, public-health and economic disaster?
Well, now Gang Green is pushing the hybrid vehicle. The jury remains out on whether it will be an economic and environmental disaster — it has some of the earmarks — but hybrid drivers already are saying their green machines are dangerous to their health.
Writing for the Heartland Institute, John Dale Dunn of the American Council on Science and Health notes many people who have bought taxpayer-subsidized hybrids are trading them in — at huge losses in some cases — for cars with internal-combustion engines because of concerns over unavoidable, prolonged exposure to electromagnetic fields created by hybrids' batteries.
Even The New York Times says their fears are "not without merit." The National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute are two of many agencies that say long-term exposure to a strong electromagnetic field is hazardous. Drivers say their hybrids raised their blood pressure, caused drowsiness behind the wheel and worried them sick about increased leukemia risk. Tests have documented "dangerously high" EMFs in hybrids, leading owners "to conclude driving the vehicles is not worth risking blood for oil," Mr. Dunn wrote.
We think this is all a bunch of hooey, of course, because a National Research Council review of more than 500 studies on EMFs found the fields do not cause disease or cancer.
Our view is tempered, however, by the knowledge that the greens were wrong on MTBE, wrong on ethanol, wrong on global warming and wrong about lots of other things. So motorists would be wise to wade into the shallow end of the car pool before taking the hybrid plunge.
I just bought a hybrid. I think it was close which was a better deal.... the gas powered Corolla, which was about $6,000 less, and gets around 31 MPH, or the Prius which gets around 48 MPH. I made the decision based on the used resale value. A 3 year old Corolla was worth about $4,500, the 3 year old Prius $10,000. The way I see it, the resale difference, and the better mileage more than offset the higher purchase price.
I don’t know about the batteries, the Toyota people said they would last for 8 years.....
Well darn it, hurry up Auto guys and Engineers. To use the new Freeper phrase, this would be Hugh!
MTBE used in boat motors ends up in water supplies. It's nearly impossible to remove. You know your water has MTBE when a hot shower yields the smell of turpentine or kerosene in the steam. I've personally experienced it in Greenwood Village (south of Denver) in 2000. MTBE also destroys the rubber fuel lines. I've had to completely replace the fuel lines in my 1974 Porsche 914 3 times since 1989 because of the MTBE induced damage. MTBE is/was a political boondoggle to grease the palms of a Canadian supplier.
As said, fuel cells are much more efficient. In an hydrogen fuel cell, the hydrogen and oxygen come together on opposites sides of a special membrane and instead of the hydrogen oxidizing (i.e. burning) to produce heat energy, the membrane causes a current to be generated as the two hydrogen molecules combine with the oxygen molecule and instead of heat energy it produces electrical energy and much less energy is wasted.
Now a gasoline fuel cell would do much the same, i.e. combining the hydrocarbons and the oxygen on opposite sides of a membrane to produce electrical energy instead of heat energy, giving much better mileage to your car. You would be giving up a complex and often finicky internal combustion engine for a very simple electrical motor.
The problem with fuel cells is that you can’t go from off to instant full current. Think of it as if you were running an old steam engine. It takes a while to get a full head of steam. Yes, they are searching for better fuel cells all the time, but the interim solution is to start your car off on batteries and let the fuel cell ramp up until it can run your motor and recharge the batteries. For sudden bursts of power, banks of super capacitors would store eergy that could be pulled off quickly.
One of the local FOX affiliates recently did a news report on something that sounds very similar to this. An old, retired mechanic had converted an early 90's model Geo Metro hatchback, video showed two containers that looked like Mason jars under the hood, with lines running out of them; they mentioned water and baking soda.
He was giving demos, claimed to be getting 72 mpg, was very open to anyone testing the mileage claim. He appears to be putting together a network of mechanics to install systems that he builds, locally. Seems like I remember a cost of $200.00, whether that was just the device, or included installation, I can't say.
I'll admit, it piqued my curiosity. But, it sounds so much like every other wild claim about increased mileage, I sort of blew it off. After reading through the website you provided, I still don't quite understand how it would improve mileage any more than running premium, though. The "Brown's Gas" sounds more like an octane booster.
I'd say overpriced gasoline at $4 a gallon contributes significantly to the increase in food prices too. But since fuel costs affect more than just food, the economic impact is far broader.
And ethanol burns cleanly, while petro fuels are some of the dirtiest imaginable.
Ethanol is not MTBE. Ethanol REPLACED MTBE.
Late reply, I'm up to my neck in grand kids here. I agree with you but I read somwhere that if ethanol wasn't subsidized it would cost 54 cents more per gallon, though I can't find a source.
All kinds of household appliances and devices put out electromagnetic fields. The list is very long. Unless we want to go back 100 years (as do the socialist Luddites) then we’d better accept it. The wiring in one’s house puts out an electromagnetic field, if I recall my science correctly.
90% of the population ought to have some form of cancer if the fields are dangerous in that regard.
He was giving demos, claimed to be getting 72 mpg, was very open to anyone testing the mileage claim. He appears to be putting together a network of mechanics to install systems that he builds, locally. Seems like I remember a cost of $200.00, whether that was just the device, or included installation, I can't say.
I'll admit, it piqued my curiosity. But, it sounds so much like every other wild claim about increased mileage, I sort of blew it off. After reading through the website you provided, I still don't quite understand how it would improve mileage any more than running premium, though. The "Brown's Gas" sounds more like an octane booster.
How does the engine control computer (in a newer car) sense the Brown's Gas and reduce the gasoline flow (by shorter fuel injector pulse) accordingly? In an older car, adding a gaseous fuel to the intake air would require rejetting the carburetor before any mpg increase would be seen. Then there's the issue of volume - that mason jar looks mighty puny, compared with the bore and stroke of each cylinder. Consider the skinny little hoses connecting the mason jar to the engine, too; it'd be like sucking the HHO into the engine via a soda straw.
My late uncle had an apparatus like this under the hood of his '64 Chevy pickup. He referred to it as a "water carburetor", but it was only a mason jar (yep, just like this rig), plumbed into the engine's intake manifold via an existing vacuum line. Drawing a vacuum caused the thing to bubble, which added a trace of water vapor to the fuel charge.
My uncle always claimed that it made the truck run better and get better mileage, but I used to drive that truck when I visited there during the summers, and ran it with and without the thing connected. No difference at all.
Looks to me like someone resurrected that old idea and jazzed it up with some wiring. Keeping your tires properly inflated will do more for your fuel economy than this nonsense.
LOL! Don't know if you heard or read about the survey of Prius owners done sometime back. I think I heard about it on Rush. The # 1 reason for ownership - they liked how it made them FEEL about themselves. Unlike Prius owners, my self-esteem is fine, and not wasting my $ makes me FEEL good!
I think they are using natural gas as the source and converting it to hydrogen. The conversion process uses less energy than if you converted from water.
I think they are using natural gas as the source and converting it to hydrogen. The conversion process uses less energy than if you converted from water.
Making cheap hydrogen is easy. Getting it where you need it and getting as much as you need is a small package, that is the hard nut to crack.
All I know is that I havn’t seen an accident with one of them where the driver survived.
Most of the time, they end up upside down.
Then give Grampa Dave the credit for inventing it. ;o)
c.) keep billions of dollars in energy money here in the United States instead of squandering it to finance our enemies;
d.) provide a source of energy that is clean and renewable, instead of some finite, poisonous crud that was originally used as a fuel only because it could be found laying around on the ground.
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