10,517 miles per gallon.

[Joe Blake]

http://www.gizmag.com.au/go/7630/

Well done to those kids.

Joe

[Mark Parsons]

Hi Joe,

10,517 MPG... :confused:

Has the size of a gallon changed? Has the length of a mile changed? I understand the article is UK and imperial gallons (vs US) and statute miles (5,280 feet) must be referenced. Still 10,517 miles per gallon???

What technology is being used to achieve this? The article does not get into any of the rules or technology. Use electric motors from fully charged big batteries to get the first 5,000 miles then remove the heavy batteries and start the tiny gas engine and generator to get the rest? Solar panels and a some very sunny days? A sail and some windy days?

Regards,
Mark

[Joe Blake]

Hi Mark,

http://www.shell.com/home/content/uk-en/society_environment/eco_marathon/about/about_eco_marathon_0204.html

This link goes to the Shell Eco-Marathon (UK) with its rules 'n' stuff.

[Cut and paste]

# Forward propulsion must be achieved through combustion of normal Shell petrol, LPG, diesel or hydrogen.
# It is forbidden to push the vehicle, erect sails or us[e] any special additives in the fuel.
# Electrical energy from a battery may not be used except for a self-starter, instrumentation or fuel metering.

The 10,000+ mile was from Microjoule in France. The link is written in French so I don't savvy too much of it.

The Shell website talks about 10,701 miles from Microjoule.


Joe

[Mark Parsons]

Hi Joe,

This is amazing stuff. If a vehicle can be produced that obtains over 10,000 mpg in lab and research conditions why can't we get a magnitude less (1,000mpg) for daily life vehicles? Alright, even 1% of this fuel economy is 100 mpg. Instead I drive around in a vehicle that gets less than 0.2% of this fuel economy. Sure, it is bigger, badder, heavier, less aerodynamic, and my foot might be a little heavy on the pedal at times, but 0.2%??:mad:

Didn't I read about an X-Prize offered for the first person or organization to show a 100mpg car that meets somewhat user friendly criteria.

The Microjoule folks should be able to pursue and collect this prize with ease.

Regards,
Mark

[Joe Blake]

Hi Joe,

This is amazing stuff. If a vehicle can be produced that obtains over 10,000 mpg in lab and research conditions why can't we get a magnitude less (1,000mpg) for daily life vehicles? Alright, even 1% of this fuel economy is 100 mpg. Instead I drive around in a vehicle that gets less than 0.2% of this fuel economy. Sure, it is bigger, badder, heavier, less aerodynamic, and my foot might be a little heavy on the pedal at times, but 0.2%??:mad:


Well, I'm probably screeching at the converted here, but I think many people still don't have it in their hearts (although perhaps a lot of heads have it) that nobody is going to be able to create a cheap, simple replacement for petroleum. I think possibly part of the problem is that try and "compartmentalise" one problem into seemingly separate issues and think that "if we can just ... " then it'll all go back the way it was. Not the way Mum and Dad had it, or the Grandies had it, a sort of mythical "Golden Age", but the way they themselves had it. To stop damaging climate change (or at least slow it) it'll take more than just changing to compact fluoro lights and solar heating/electricity. To give us a longer "crude life" in world terms isn't going to be solved by buying hybrids.

No, it'll be a whole raft of things, including, but not limited to, redesign of the entire way ALL the resources are best employed; public transport; totally redesigning the living environment; maintaining the ecology of the WHOLE planet, not just the local ponds and woods; approaching our eating habits from a different direction; changing our philosophies (eg what value having "sacred cows" if they consume resources but you don't utilise them and cause yourself immense physical, yet entirely preventable, harm); re-evaluating the concept of "comfort" and "convenience" (make "convenience" a criminal offence??? when designing a system of any sort whether it be a motor vehicle or a house where it is "costly" in environment/energy)? "Comfort" I think can validly be considered as possibly contributing to efficiency and justifiable, but "convenience" seems to have to work much harder to be an "efficiency" plus. Those to me seem to be only SOME of this issues that need to be included in the debate.

It'll be a hard task, and I'm almost certain we won't succeed, because it will require major mental mindset reconstruction at a lot of levels.

Whilst I'm very reluctant to go unnecessarily down a nuclear pathway, our (Australian) government has been touting this as a solution to our ills, and have been saying this now, (in its current guise) for about a year now, and yet admits that the proposed reactor(s) haven't even been designed yet, and will take at least 15 years to become operational, and yet my own personal experience has been the effectiveness and efficiency of both solar panels and batteries (to name but one form of energy harnessing and storage) have been increasing over the last few years, and when taken in conjunction with increasing efficiency in consuming appliance I'm already doing more with less. As mentioned previously (I think) my newest computer is now consuming less than 80 watts going flat chat, and it will run directly off a 12v battery.

So if we can convince the "general public" that they CAN have a "comfortable" (but not luxurious) lifestyle while consuming less, it may actually be the case at some stage households, through various technologies and techniques, may become more self sufficient, supplying more for themselves, thus reducing the need for so many nuclear powerplants ... but the fact that the nuclear powerplant solution may (MAY) solve things, there's probably a reluctance to change "Well, if we're going to have sufficient power from nuclear, why start looking at making trouble by changing things unnecessarily."

And don't get me started on population growth ...

Sorry, even if I'm wrong I suspect that it'll only be in "degree" not "direction". There seems to be a wave of "nay sayers" who take some self-mesmerising pleasure in saying things like "Well, the doom sayers predicted the climate would get warm. But over here at this time it's actually gotten cooler, so they're wrong. There's no problem at all." The problem is climate change, not global warming. ANY change can (not WILL) be disastrous.

They point to episodes in the past where the CO2 was higher, the temperature was warmer etc etc. I don't disagree. But they never seem to recognise it's the RATE of change, not [just] the amount. Consider two mates who go SCUBA diving together. They use the same gear, dive together, at the same depth, for the same time, they even arrive back at the surface together, yet one guy gets hit with "the bends" and dies. What was the difference? One diver returned to the surface very slowly, giving time for his body to adapt circumstances (ie blood level of nitrogen). The second guy, while staying at the bottom for longer in a constant pressure, returns to the surface too quickly and dies. The ONLY difference was the time taken for change to occur.

Thus with greenhouse effect. It's not just the amount of change (which in fact can be relatively minor), it's the time over which the change occurs.

Anyway, I would say that there are far MORE things than just what I've mentioned we have to address, and I suspect that your question's answer will be a reluctance to appreciate the degree of the problem strongly enough, and some unreasonable delusion [a tautology?]that "It won't happen to us. "They" will fix it", because the solutions in the past were (in the main) solutions to the problem of "convenience", "wealth creation", or "Personal power", rather than survival.

(Gets off soapbox).

Joe