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WHAT part of "very seldom" didn't you understand?Quote:
Originally Posted by akelly
And Afghanistan isn't a war in the traditional sense, it's a CIVIL WAR with the US taking sides to try and eliminate the Taliban. This is directly applicable to their stance after 9/11.
War is when both sides declare a conflict.
Well not quite - like it or not the Taliban were the government of Afghanistan and the country was invaded by the US - very shortly after, handed over to Nato.Quote:
Originally Posted by jakeslouw
Nato forces have then set up a puppet government that has since been legitimised through dodgy elections (they probably did not need to be dodgy). Really in many aspects not dissimilar to the background politics of the Vietnam conflict.
However while all this is all and good - it really does not have a lot to do with the actual topic of whether a old banger RR is more environmentally proper than a Prius.
Garry
Thank you for getting the thread drift back on line. Now, it was a Kulchoor shock to think of my Rangie as "an OLD BANGER".Quote:
Originally Posted by garrycol
I thought a banger was a pork sausage?
I didn't understand the part where you said 'it's usually the desire for resources that fuels EVERY war' - make up your mind, is it every war or just some? Perhaps you could list the wars that have been fought over energy resources and we can compare to the ones that have not?Quote:
Originally Posted by jakeslouw
And BTW - if you want to claim Afghanistan is not a war, you better back that up. Lots of US, Brit and Aussie soldiers will argue pretty convincingly that you have no ****ing idea.
Rare minerals is indeed one of the reasons the US stays in Afghanistan, China controls too much of the supply, the US want to build more defence and battery technology.Quote:
Originally Posted by akelly
Google search:
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Afghanistan"]Mining in Afghanistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
USGS Projects in Afghanistan
Quote:
The assessment revealed that Afghanistan has abundant non-fuel mineral resources, including both known and potential deposits of a wide variety of minerals ranging from copper, iron, and sulfur to bauxite, lithium, and rare-earth elements.
A few comments on this thread.
Firstly, the lifetime footprint of any vehicle is very dependent on the assumptions you make on all sorts of factors - length of life, recycling, type of use etc, to the extent that by picking the right figures you can get any answer you want.
While the Prius sounds good on the face of it, as noted by several above, once you get out of city traffic, many vehicles give better fuel economy at a much lower initial cost. And most of the current crop of small diesel cars give better economy in all conditions at around half the cost, while providing as much room and carrying capacity.
The problem with hybrid cars is not only the extra weight carried, but that the charge/discharge efficiency of any practical battery is little better than 80% (and often lower). To some extent this is balanced by the ability to use regenerative braking, but in the end, the gains from a hybrid system are very small, except in very bad stop/start traffic. And even here, automatically stopping and restarting the engine, as is coming into use in some cars with conventional transmission, is nearly as good.
Pure electric cars have been around for well over 100 years, and still suffer the same problems - cost, range, performance, energy efficiency and recharge times - as they did then. While battery technology has improved, it has not come close to advancing as much as have expectations for performance. And electric cars recharged off the grid as it exists today probably have as high a footprint as a conventional car - power generation in Australia is almost all from fossil fuel, using a generator that is about as efficient as a modern diesel at best - factor in the losses in the power distribution network losses and the charge/discharge efficiency of the EV, and the only reason that the footprint of the electric vehicle looks good is the extreme design measures that had to be used to get halfway acceptable performance and range (which if implemented in a conventional vehicle would greatly improve economy). Despite this, I think electric vehicles could well have a future as city cars, but for their success, the fixed costs of ownership need to be reduced to encourage the ownership of special purpose vehicles. It should also be noted that one of the advantages of EVs is long life (except batteries) and low maintenance (except batteries).
The problem with hydrogen fuel, as noted, is that it has to be produced somehow, and then distributed. If produced from a primary energy source, such as electricity from wind/solar, there is a significant loss (and using it in an EV would be more efficient), and if produced from a fossil fuel, this loss is greater, and using the fossil fuel directly would be more efficient. The only advantage of hydrogen as a fuel is zero emissions at point of use. The biggest problem with hydrogen is that it is very hard (read = expensive) to handle. Almost everything is permeable to it if it is under pressure (and if not it its energy density is very low), so it almost always leaks to some extent. This loses efficiency, but worse, it is flammable over a very wide range of concentrations. Liquefying it is suggested as a way of avoiding these problems - but it boils about twenty degrees above absolute zero, and operating at these temperatures brings a whole range of new problems, apart from the loss of efficiency. And it still leaks through almost everything.
And on the subject of "do the research now while we have time". While this seems to be an admirable objective, unfortunately the economic reality is that doing research before it can be economically used is very difficult to justify, especially in a high interest environment. It is all very well to say the government should fund this, but perhaps the funds could be better used elsewhere, for example in improving public transport.
John
A fuel already has energy stored in it, ready to be released.Quote:
Originally Posted by akelly
An energy storage medium (like a battery) needs energy added to it first, a decent chunk of that energy is lost, we cannot extract all of it.
Hydrogen does not exist as a fuel. We make it primarily by using electrical energy to split it from water. When it is finally consumed (be it fuel cell or fire) you get back a lot less energy than it took to produce.
Hence it is an energy storage medium.
In contrast oil and coal are fuels, we dig them up and they burn
Yes Afghanistan is also about resources. But also stabilising a region with other resources.
The energy recaptured in regenerative braking, came from the fuel tank. There are aftermarket plug-in conversions for the prius, they fit a much bigger battery to go with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blknight.aus
If anyone wants to build an electric vehicle, I know some people currently scrapping 3 electric forklifts. Hydraulics are spoken for, steel will be cashed out for scrap, electrics still need a home.
This still doesn't prove your point. You claimed all wars were about resources. The US (and others) did not go into Afghanistan (or Vietnam) because of resources - this is a fact. Unless you're going to post up something that supports what you actually typed, either admit you got it wrong (you can do that without posting) or at the very least read a book. I'm well sick of wiki-research nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by bee utey
I realise that there are benefits in not having the engine running while the car is sitting still, but I have often wondered how significant the disadvantages are.Quote:
Originally Posted by JDNSW
How long does it take for the power drained from the battery on each start to be replaced?
How much extra fuel is used because the alternator is working hard more often?
How likely is that that someone whose regular driving involves a lot of stop/start driving early in the trip before the engine warms up will have to replace the battery much sooner?
Has there been a significant increase in the number of drivers stranded at the traffic lights with a flat battery?
Perhaps all those things are so insignificant that they can be ignored, but I haven't seen them discussed elsewhere.