# Which is "GREENER"



## Bernd (Feb 10, 2011)

That's the question. Which of these, the one with the four wheels or the one with the eight wheels, is GREENER?


Eight Wheeler

or

Four Wheeler

Good luck on your test. You have till 4:00PM Eastern standard time to answer the question.

Bernd


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## Stan (Feb 10, 2011)

Maybe I am color blind because I don't see any green paint in either picture. If you want to start a discussion on whether building highways is more or less environmentally costly than railways then we need a lot more information.

The climate change people have inundated us with cherry picked data that are used to prove whatever case they are presenting on a given day.


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## hitandmissman (Feb 10, 2011)

They both are the same, neither is greener than the other. One uses steam which needs coal to run. The other you have to plug in to recharge, which uses electric which is made by burning coal. So both pollute.


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## kcmillin (Feb 10, 2011)

I would be willing to bet that the Locomotive hauls more tonnage per unit of energy than the electric car. So the locomotive is more efficient than the car.

Kel


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## Foozer (Feb 10, 2011)

Loco


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## milotrain (Feb 10, 2011)

Kel is right, and likely it cost less energy to produce the locomotive than it does to produce the Volt. However, the energy production at the time of building the locomotive was much dirtier than the energy production is now for the volt. Indeed to really have an honest metric by which to weigh these you'd have to line item the construction of both at the same point in history to find out which cost less energy to make. Also there is no question that the locomotive will last longer than they Volt, so by a longevity or an "energy and work out for energy and work in" function the locomotive wins.

But as Stan so rightly points out, give me a bucket of statistics and I'll "prove" whatever you want. Is the climate changing? Sure is. Why? Dunno, no one is really totally sure of what happens inside a combustion chamber much less the massive fluid system that is the planet. How's it changing? Well it's colder today than it was yesterday but that's about as far back as I remember.


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## Niels Abildgaard (Feb 10, 2011)

The locomotive if it runs around a nuclear power statio and can get charged directly from the steam generator.
A Heissler?


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## Bernd (Feb 10, 2011)

I say the eight wheeler too. Reason, no on board generator. The Volt has a gas generator to help charge the battery.

I'm no green weenie and "A" hole at times maybe. I thought it would be fun to see what people have to say about a question like this. I thought it ironic that something built in the 20's or 30's can be greener.

The other thing I notice when something like this gets mentioned is that they forget were some of their product comes from.

That's it. This subject can be dropped now. I'm sure it could start some controversy between people and cause hard feelings.

I also checked out the Nissan Leaf. Interesting the people they interview to get their sales point across. They have a map of dealers. Seems like they are all in the warmer climates. Seems battries work better in warmer climates. Love to see the test results of one of these after about 5 years in the middle of winter in the northern boarder states.

Bernd

Note to Mods: If this thread gets out of hand, permission to "delete".


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## milotrain (Feb 10, 2011)

Not to keep this going but the Prius had battery problems in it's first run in colder states but they've got that worked out for the most part now. I actually really like the Volt. I think a lot of the difficulty dealing with any kind of new transportation is educating the public. In NYC you would get absolutely mobbed if you tried to take away the subway, people love it. It's the greatest way to get around, fast, cheap, dead reliable, and you can be sloshed and you still get home in one piece. In LA it's almost impossible to convince the rich middle and upper class to use the subway, despite the fact that it's very good in LA. The difference is that in LA people haven't figured out that it's great yet, because they haven't lived with it and learned how great it was.

Same thing is true with hybrids (regardless if they are actually good), the first major marketing push was to convince people that they didn't have to plug in the Insight or the Prius. "You don't plug it in!!!" was the constant cry. They had to educate the public. Now all people want is a plug in Hybrid because now they see why it's such a good idea, but prior to the no plug in Hybrid you would have been mobbed had you tried to sell a plug in hybrid.

I like the volt. I think many people will find that they don't drive enough in a day to use much gas if any. Certainly I would never use gas unless I was on a long trip and almost everyone in a larger metropolitan area would use very little gas. That's good, we should use more electricity because typically electricity is produced cheaper and cleaner than Petrol. Also I think that while there is this huge push for better centralized power systems that we will see an increase in localized and home power generation. Partly because fuel cell technology like Bloom is opening up the doors to NG power production without a generator and partly because as more and more ways of generating power get cheaper, smaller locations can be more and more diversified in their power generation, and diversified power generation is the one thing that everyone agrees is important.

Indeed I want to run my house off a condensing steam engine that condenses through a radiant floor system. Burn whatever I can get my hands on, scrub the exhaust and charge a "volt like" car.


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## Bernd (Feb 10, 2011)

I have ridden the subway in NY. I can see why they like. My daughter graduated from NYU and I drove down. No place to park, I don't recall if I saw a gas station in the city and when living in those apartments in NY I can see why they like the subway.

The thing that gets my goat is they try to sell it as a pollution free car. Doesn't seem like people look where the source is that provides that product and what makes it go. I took a look at lipo battiers and their composition. I hope they recycle them when they are no longer any good.

Bernd


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## milotrain (Feb 10, 2011)

Well yeah, the problem with nearly everything is what people try to "sell" you.


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## bentprop (Feb 10, 2011)

Definitely the 8 wheeler.Why?
It was too heavy for it's track.Ergo,it doesn't go anywhere,so doesn't need ANY energy :big:
Don't get me started on electric cars.They're the biggest con-jobs any manufacturer has ever tried to foist on to an unsuspecting public.


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## tel (Feb 11, 2011)

The greenest of the green!


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## Niels Abildgaard (Feb 12, 2011)

bentprop  said:
			
		

> Definitely the 8 wheeler.Why?
> It was too heavy for it's track.Ergo,it doesn't go anywhere,so doesn't need ANY energy :big:
> Don't get me started on electric cars.They're the biggest con-jobs any manufacturer has ever tried to foist on to an unsuspecting public.



The loco was later sold to a powerstation and worked there.
If we have 100 heat units from uranium,coal or gas and put it into the loco,we will get maybe 15 unit work.
If we make electricity 33 and loose 3 in the grid.Puting into battery and taking out again leaves us 15 between tire and road.
 Burning natural gas in a combined cycle powerstation can yield 50 at the consumer and thus 25 between tire and road or more or less the same as if the natural gas had been converted to liquid fuel.
The loco is best


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## seagar (Feb 12, 2011)

Neither is green. one is blue and one is silver. Rof} *bang*

Ian (seagar)


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## steamer (Feb 12, 2011)

There ya go ...Seagar is thinking! ;D

As a point of curiousity....is that a steam charge loco or and air charge loco?

I guessed I missed it.....

Dave


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## steamer (Feb 12, 2011)

and OH as a side bar but related ,,,,two years ago was an election year...a local politician came down my street driving a Prius.  She stopped and got out 5 houses up from me and started the meet and greet crap.

Anyway...I was on the street in front of my house with my boat on the trailer, working on some part of the plant before I was to meet up with a friend for some steamboating.

She finally came to me and I was sure she had the voter list as she was about to walk by.....I am list as on the "wrong side of the isle"....but her curiosity about the boat got the better of her.
She came over and asked me...politely, what the hell was this thing.

"Steamboat"
Do you burn Coal?!......in an accusatory kind of inflection

No mam.  I burn wood.

She then started in on the virtues of environmental responsibility,,,etc.

I stated that my steamboat was more green than her prius!
Her jaw hit the ground....before the onslaught began, I explained.

I burn Biomass. The wood I burn is destined for the landfill.  That makes me carbon neutral

My boat will last 30 + years...her Pris maybe 10.  The energy needed to recycle her car would far exceed that needed to reclaim my boat.  There for I was greener than she was.


She walked away in a huff  ;D priceless!


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## js2112au (Feb 12, 2011)

Good story Steamer!
I don't get the way some people have this idea that burning wood is bad for the environment. 
I bet if you burned her Prius.... that would be far more harmful! 8)

My vote's for the old loco!

I agree that the electric car thing is a big con.

Environmentally friendly? Hah!

All these batteries that have to be replaced at regular intervals don't get recycled like the battery companies claim. I've seen dumps that the metal recyclers put old lead acid batteries in and you can't recycle Li-Ion/LiPoly batteries, it's simply not possible. They're designed to degrade so the ionic lithium content is not quite as toxic by the time they reach end of life.

Then there's the highly toxic processing of lithium for use in batteries.

Car companies just throw us these occasional gestures of "environmental friendliness" in a feeble attempt to placate or distract us while they stay all warm and cozy in bed with the oil companies.

</rant>


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## Stan (Feb 12, 2011)

I took another look at the locomotive. Does anyone know what its power source is? It is called 'fireless' and it has no visible stack for a boiler or a diesel. Maybe runs on a wound up rubber band to be greener!


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## Niels Abildgaard (Feb 12, 2011)

Stan  said:
			
		

> I took another look at the locomotive. Does anyone know what its power source is? It is called 'fireless' and it has no visible stack for a boiler or a diesel. Maybe runs on a wound up rubber band to be greener!



It has a big cirkular tank like a boiler filled with two third water and one third steam at 20 bar in the morning and very much less later and You need to hook it up to a steam producing stationary boiler overnight
Very safe for refineries and gunpowder mills..


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