To our resident Tree Hugger Mike

Grant Lamontagne · **on:** October 17, 2011, 04:38:51 AM

Watching the new episode of Mythbusters tonight and they have determined that while a bike may use less gas and produce less co2 than a car, it's producing more carbon monoxide and other polluting gases- in one case, over 8,000% more!

Maybe time to start rethinking your hatred for Tin Tops!

Def

Carlos · **Reply #1 on:** October 17, 2011, 05:05:05 AM

But why is that, did they explain? Is it because cars have better pos-burn treatment than bikes?

I've always liked bikes, but have no license to drive them, no money to buy one and probably would not (physically) last too long on one. Now it they're bigger polluters than cars, it's just another excus... err reason, that is.

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #2 on:** October 17, 2011, 05:19:36 AM

That was the gist of it- auto manufacturers are putting lots of money into cleaner burning engines while bike manufacturers are apparently not investing as much. They attempted to make the bike even more efficient by builting a lightweight bubble around the bike to reduce drag, which did have a significant effect- it reduced the consumption from an already good 50+mpg to over 70, reduced the CO2 by about 20g over the same distance, but really didn't do a lot for the carbon monoxide or hydrocarbon levels the bike produced.

Def

Mike, Lord of the Spammers! · **Reply #3 on:** October 17, 2011, 09:54:46 AM

Sadly that is true, motorbikes are no where near as green as modern cars

If you took a 1 litre VW, it'll happily do about 50-60 mpg now and have very good emmissions, sadly while a 1000cc bike will be massively faster and more fun, it'll only return between 32-50 mpg, and the emmissions will be worse, as there's a less stringent regulation covering them

Simply put no one would buy one of the small capacity bikes (ie 50-250cc) if there performance was further hobbled by more draconian emmission regs.

Having said that, bikes can still have the best of both if they just spent time developing a small, light and relatively punchy turbo diesel unit for a motorbikes. Royal Enfield did a 416cc diesel bike, and that had very good emmissions (for the time) and while it only did 55mph, it could return in excess of 350mpg in normal use, plus it has the advantage of being able to run on bio diesel (which I am opposed too) or reclaimed cooking oil (which I am all for).

Certainly if my back doesn't allow me to carry on cycling (haven't cycled for 6 weeks now

) I'll be looking at either an electric bicycle or either an already converted diesel motorbike, or perhaps making my own out of a diesel generator and an old MZ motorbike, cash permitting

On the plus side they still emit less on account of using much less fuel that a car, and by not being stuck in traffic watching the fuel gauge head rapidly towards empty

Further reading...

http://www.dieselbike.net/royalenfield/royalenfield.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_motorcycle

http://www.dieselbike.net/

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #4 on:** October 17, 2011, 12:51:42 PM

Actually, I think the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions were higher in actual tests, not a higher percentage. At any rate, I don't know much about this topic, I just felt it was an interesting result. The whole point of the testing was to see if the folks that were riding motorbikes for the sake of the environment were actually right in doing so, and the bottom line was no, it's not.

Interestingly enough, on a semi-related topic, there is a guy at one of the dockyards that I work at who has converted his Chevy S10 to all electric. He has an electric motor powered by 5 batteries, and gets around 80kms (50 miles) on a full charge. It cost him less than $10,000 to do the conversion and seems simple enough that just about anyone could do it in their yard, which leads me to wonder (insert conspiratorial smiley here) why auto manufacturers with unlimited access to engineers, machine shops, design software, testing grounds etc can't seem to do what two regular guys (the guy with the truck seems like he may have skipped a few evolutionary steps if you know what I mean!) have done at home.

As I said before, I'm not a tree hugger, but it appears that this type of design, while it may cost a bit to get into, could save an awful lot in the long run. I'm considering doing a mod like that to my Jeep...

Def

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #5 on:** October 17, 2011, 01:04:45 PM

Doing some quick reading it seems that converting my Jeep is not recommended- apparently the 4x4 system makes the vehicle too heavy to do reliably.

Def

Mike, Lord of the Spammers! · **Reply #6 on:** October 17, 2011, 01:15:55 PM

Weight is the single biggest killer for electrical vehicles $:-\$

We all know why there are no major motoring manufacturers making truly electric cars

On a side note most people agree that battery technology still isn't quite there yet, and even then it's hardly a truly green option in heavier vehicles due to the strip mining where the lithium, nickel ect come from, not to mention the vast number of fuel miles neccessay to get it to the factories, then to the point of sale $:-\$

Even in electric bicycles the short term (under 30 miles on average) carbon foot print is similar to that of a 50cc 2 stroke moped $:-\$ After that the Electric bicycle quickly pulls it back then pretty much stops polluting as the power needed to recharge the battery is pretty negligable

This is pretty interesting...

http://www.brompton.co.uk/news/item.asp?n=11511

If you want to be truly green in terms of transport then it's still a case of walking, cycling or taking public transport

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #7 on:** October 17, 2011, 01:29:53 PM

Public transport is hardly green, it only appears that way as it would mean less vehicles on the road. Diesel engines on buses and commuter trains is still significant and would only increase if more people took them, as the added capacity would mean more of them on the road (or tracks) as well as heavier capacities and extra cars.

The other thing that I wonder about, and often isn't brought up in the electric car discussions is where the power comes from. While watching a documentary on electric cars last year I noticed that this fact was absent from the movie. Take the province I live in as an example- it's not terribly large, although with just under a million people, it's one of the most densely populated provinces in the country- at least according to Wikipedia, who sadly knows more about my home than I do...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_Scotia

I believe just about all (if not all) of our power is generated by a coal burning plant, and the three large smoke stacks can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. It seems to me that if everyone converted to electric vehicles over the next few years, it would be a very bad thing for us. Imagine that out of those million people, two thirds have cars, and out of those 600,000 cars, two thirds of them are being charged overnight. 400,000 people all plugging in their cars between 10pm and 6am is going to cause a massive drain on that plant, meaning it's going to be belching out massive amounts of hydrocarbons, CO2 and other nasties, while the other 200,000 (night shift workers) people are going to continue to require power during the day when all the other businesses are also consuming, keeping the plant running at significantly higher levels than it currently is. This seems like a vary bad thing, and doesn't seem like much of a benefit at all, especially when you consider that the cost of petroleum to power this giant machine is going to become more specialized since it won't be produced in the same mass quantities, meaning the cost of charging said electric vehicle is going to go up significantly. Unless of course you have a small nuclear power plant in your basement that is...

I've been looking more and more at diesel conversions for the Jeep, and I think I may start raiding my local fast food restaurants for used veggie oil and have the best of both worlds!

Def

Sazabi · **Reply #8 on:** October 17, 2011, 03:50:29 PM

Mike, if you don't mind my asking: why're you opposed to bio diesel? I'm just curious, is all.

Mike, Lord of the Spammers! · **Reply #9 on:** October 17, 2011, 04:34:49 PM

Because it has the horible knock on effect on bio diversity $:-\$

Why grow corn, when you can make more money growing rape seed $:-\$

As to Grant's point, well over here at least you can buy you power from renewable or sustainable source's so it's not too bad. I do agree with you about more demands placed on coal fired power stations being a VERY bad thing however

Sazabi · **Reply #10 on:** October 17, 2011, 05:53:38 PM

Quote from: Mike, Lord of the Spammers! on October 17, 2011, 04:34:49 PM

Because it has the horrible knock on effect on bio diversity $:-\$

Why grow corn, when you can make more money growing rape seed $:-\$

As to Grant's point, well over here at least you can buy you power from renewable or sustainable source's so it's not too bad. I do agree with you about more demands placed on coal fired power stations being a VERY bad thing however

Ah, I did a bit of digging and I see what you mean; I was just confused because somewhere in my chemistry notes I have a recipe for converting veggie oil into "biodiesel" (as opposed to Biodiesel - i.e. more directly from crops).

jzmtl · **Reply #11 on:** October 17, 2011, 06:07:51 PM

Problem with cooking oil is it'll work when it's only a fad and only a few people are doing it. Otherwise there's not nearly enough to go around.

Sean · **Reply #12 on:** October 17, 2011, 06:08:38 PM

Then there are all these people, including me who went and are going out and buying
up all the 49cc 2 stroke scooters that are really bad polluters. If I didn't ride mine for
a week and started it up it would smoke like a chainsaw and when I hit the road I'd look
into the side view mirror and almost be embarrassed at the blue haze left lingering for
the first few miles.

Mike, Lord of the Spammers! · **Reply #13 on:** October 17, 2011, 06:25:22 PM

Quote from: Sean on October 17, 2011, 06:08:38 PM

Then there are all these people, including me who went and are going out and buying
up all the 49cc 2 stroke scooters that are really bad polluters. If I didn't ride mine for
a week and started it up it would smoke like a chainsaw and when I hit the road I'd look
into the side view mirror and almost be embarrassed at the blue haze left lingering for
the first few miles.

Yeah I remember those days too

In winter my old MZ looked like it was being chased by a thunder cloud

Whoey · **Reply #14 on:** October 18, 2011, 10:01:48 AM

it doesn't matter when you see the greatest news ever:

http://inhabitat.com/all-electric-delorean-car-to-hit-the-streets-in-2013/]All-Electric DeLorean Car To Hit the Streets in 2013!

[/url]

Mike, Lord of the Spammers! · **Reply #15 on:** October 18, 2011, 01:56:35 PM

Page won't load $:-\$

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #16 on:** October 18, 2011, 02:42:39 PM

Sweet!

I'm going to start warming up my Flux Capacitor right now!

Def

tattoosteve99 · **Reply #17 on:** October 18, 2011, 04:41:59 PM

A friend of mine has a newer jeep 2008. He put a controller and new throttle injection system on it and now he gets 18-25 mpg. I said wow, what about emissions? He said his carbon monoxide showed at .00001% Holy bat manure batman!

Threeme2189 · **Reply #18 on:** October 18, 2011, 10:02:02 PM

Quote from: Whoey on October 18, 2011, 10:01:48 AM

it doesn't matter when you see the greatest news ever:

http://inhabitat.com/all-electric-delorean-car-to-hit-the-streets-in-2013/]All-Electric DeLorean Car To Hit the Streets in 2013!
(Image removed from quote.)[/url]

I'm need one of those!
That's a sweet looking ride

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