Hulver's site || Comments || cowboy films. diesel. suburban blight. ted sorensen. country music. perverse incentives. arm gouges.

Does the MPG make up for by ObviousTroll (4.00 / 1) #6 Tue May 20, 2008 at 02:00:59 PM EST

the insane cost of fuel? diesel used to be cheaper than gas, these days it's, what, 40 cents more?

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Has anybody seen my clue? I know I had it when I came in here.
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yes. by clock (2.00 / 0) #7 Tue May 20, 2008 at 02:16:10 PM EST

my cow-irker and i discussed this. his car gets ~25mpg on gas that is $4/gal. i get 49 mpg on fuel that is $4.40/gal. i win.

_{Clock is right. [nt] --vorheesleatherface}

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What's the horsepower to weight ratio? by ObviousTroll (2.00 / 0) #14 Tue May 20, 2008 at 04:40:39 PM EST

I was getting 50 mpg with my Geo Metro, back in the day, but it had zero acceleration and the braking characteristics of an air hockey puck.

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Has anybody seen my clue? I know I had it when I came in here.
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: Curb weight of Jetta by lm (2.00 / 0) #16 Tue May 20, 2008 at 05:06:24 PM EST

A 2008 Jetta with a stock four banger gasoline engine clocks in at 3,230 lbs, the TDI weighs in at 3,197. Both deliver 177 foot pounds of torque. 0 to 60 of the TDI is about 8 and a half seconds.
There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
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: lm hit it on the head... by clock (2.00 / 0) #17 Tue May 20, 2008 at 06:01:54 PM EST

...90 horses in the golf is more than enough to me going. acceleration is more than acceptable and i can stop on a dime if need be (being as light as it is).
honestly? acceleration means exactly jack to me right now. i am on the highway all of the time and i set my cruise and forget in. in houston you can sit in the middle lane at 70 mph and forget about the rest of the world (at the time of day that i commute).
we will very soon be re-prioritizing the desirable traits of our vehicles. get me 100 mph and i won't give a shit about handling, smooth ride or amenities. cars will be tools. maybe that's sad...but i don't care. i'm planning to dump the car for a bicycle as soon as i can.

_{Clock is right. [nt] --vorheesleatherface}

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NY Times had a bit about that by lm (2.00 / 0) #10 Tue May 20, 2008 at 03:18:17 PM EST

Right now, most diesel powered vehicles get ~ 25% better gas mileage than gasoline powered counterparts. Diesel is presently ~ 16% more expensive than gasoline.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
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Plus diesel has more interesting long-term options by fluffy (2.00 / 0) #24 Thu May 22, 2008 at 01:36:54 AM EST

It's a lot easier (and possibly more energy-efficient although I don't know the numbers) to turn biomass into diesel than into ethanol.
busy bees buzz | sockpuppet revolution
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depending on the bio mass, it can be by lm (2.00 / 0) #25 Thu May 22, 2008 at 07:09:14 AM EST

I don't know how to compare the best in class between ethanol and biodiesel, sugar cane and palm oil, but biodiesel is pretty easy to make, especially from waste like leftover animal renderings and used cooking oil.

I wanted to buy a diesel when I bought a new car. But the only options were way out of my price range. On paper, I could have had a new TDI Jetta for about a 4k premium over what I bought my Yaris for. In practice, TDIs fly off the lot as soon as they come in so the dealer's won't negotiate much and its rare to find one equipped such that sticker price is much less than 10k more than I bought my Yaris for.

There is no more degenerate kind of state than that in which the richest are supposed to be the best.
Cicero, The Republic
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: Multiple-vendor vs. single-source by fluffy (2.00 / 0) #29 Thu May 22, 2008 at 12:43:17 PM EST

The fact alone that biodiesel can come from basically any lipid makes it infinitely more compelling than ethanol. Pretty much everything has lipids, while not everything can be fermented.
On the other hand, there's a similar argument to be made for cellulosic ethanol, BUT at this point it's still essentially science fiction (small amounts of cellulosic ethanol have been produced in the lab but currently the amount of energy required to convert cellulose into something fermentable is quite huge). Wikipedia does mention a "gasification" method which sounds like it might be much more energy-efficient, but it also sounds like production in quantity requires a huge amount of bootstrapping before it'll really work out.
Also, the absolutely most fungible and adaptable form of energy is electricity, which can be powered by all of the above AND have the efficiencies of scale to make it much more self-sufficient. I have a very strong suspicion that the long-term winner (at least here on Earth) will be hydrogen fuel cells, with hydrogen generated either at home or at the filling station via electrolysis.
(I also think that in a few million years when our descendants are spacefaring, their power will primarily be solar or ramjet-fueled fusion, depending on whether they're in orbit or in transit, but aside from that being the setting for my current webcomic it's more or less out of my scope of practical interest.)
busy bees buzz | sockpuppet revolution
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