On 5/13/2009 11:32 AM dpb spake thus:

David Nebenzahl wrote:

On 5/12/2009 6:01 AM dpb spake thus:

wrote:
...
Replacing one car with two doesn't sound all that good for the
enviroment or economical either.

Should help the economy rebound...

I can see they can help in metro areas but won't help very much at all
if any in the wide open spaces. Hybrids may eventually, but except
for midgets or families w/o kids or other stuff to carry, at least to
this point they aren't particularly convenient, at least to the way US
folks are accustomed. Don't see either really taking off w/ wild
popularity any time soon despite wishes of "them that be" for some
other alternate universe of their imagining...

I'd have to read the actual studies, not just some summary, to have
any real input on the conclusion other than it just doesn't seem right
that there could be such a large difference if the complete cycle were
considered on a consistent basis for both. Thermodynamics generally
doesn't lead to one outcome being so predominantly favorable as that
makes it seem.

It can if one of the methods being compared (the infernal combustion
engine) is ****-poor as an energy conversion mechanism. Apparently the
method used to generate electricity is more efficient.

Which method would that be? 30% range is pretty much it for
conventional generation.

I'd still have to see where the analysis boundaries were drawn and what,
precisely, was compared to what rather than some summary as gospel.
(And, no, I'm not interested enough in the particular studies to go do
that... )

It is pretty disappointing not to know more about the methodoligies used
in the experiment. I'm also not all that keen on hunting down the
original article in /Science/.

My understanding from the commentary I heard before I found these
articles was that the researchers took identical amounts of input "fuel"
(switchgrass) and used them to power the two cars (one using liquid
biofuel, the other electricity). What isn't known is how they converted
the grass into electricity. Also not known is whether they actually used
identical masses of grass in the experiment, or whether they simply
extrapolated from different amounts. (For instance, it's possible that
the conversion to electricity is more efficient due to economy of
scale--burning the fuel in a large plant as opposed to a small portable
engine--and that they simply calculated the yield based on that.)


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism