Australian solar powered car

[Lawsen]

I am an avid recumbent bicycle rider.  I am fascinated by the Australian solar powered car.  It does not have much collision protection.  Gasoline in California, U.S.A. is around $4/gallon and will be $6/gallon in a few years. 

Surf here:

http://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/

[Computeruser]

Gas is $1.50 per litre where i am now. I drive less and use public transit more, but I still drive. I see recumbent cycles on the road but they are few in number here. We have traditional bicycles and keep to bike trails with them.

Unfortunately the weather is such that bicycles are not practical on our busy roads for a significant part of the year. Public Transit is easier, safer and readily available where I am.

.... C

[EEVblog]

Gasoline in California, U.S.A. is around $4/gallon and will be $6/gallon in a few years. 

That's an absolute BARGAIN!, for a non-renewable resource that took millions of years to produce, gets increasingly difficult to extract, and pollutes our planet.
Cheaper than bottled water!
Seriously, live it up at these bargain prices!

Dave.

[joelby]

Stock up! You've got absolutely nothing to worry about.

The price in most of western Europe is USD 8/gal or more. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_pricing .

[Mechatrommer]

Gasoline in California, U.S.A. is around $4/gallon and will be $6/gallon in a few years.

Gas is $1.50 per litre where i am now.

gas is $0.59 per litre where i am now (see my flag) but consider that we are one of the raw oil producer and subsidized by our less corrupted "still under control" government. so where you are now?

That's an absolute BARGAIN!

i still find that solar/battery powered car is way too expensive to afford. i have a feeling that the economy will try to balance itself.

Stock up! You've got absolutely nothing to worry about.

i dont see the point, sooner or later, it will be depleted, and our country will be the same fate as yours. my advice is, enjoy your life as long as you can... and plan ahead on how to deal with "food" crisis.

[joelby]

i dont see the point

I was being facetious

[Mechatrommer]

i dont see the point

I was being facetious

me too

[SgtRock]

Dear DJ"
--When you say "pollutes our planet", are you referring to CO2? Please elucidate. My best regards to SWMBO and HWMBO.  Clear Ether

[EEVblog]

Dear DJ"
--When you say "pollutes our planet", are you referring to CO2? Please elucidate. My best regards to SWMBO and HWMBO.  Clear Ether

Cars (and other gasoline burning toys) are one of the worst (actually, I think they ARE the worst) contributors to air pollution on this planet.
Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and various VOC's come to mind (benzene), and there are others.
Not to mention the effects of actually drilling for the stuff and the associated processes.

I suggest you don't live next to a major arterial road 

Dave.

[vk6zgo]

I am an avid recumbent bicycle rider.  I am fascinated by the Australian solar powered car.  It does not have much collision protection.  Gasoline in California, U.S.A. is around $4/gallon and will be $6/gallon in a few years. 

Surf here:

http://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/

Remember,USA has "gallonettes" ,as they are only 3.785 litres.
Converted into "Real" Imperial Gallons, which are about 4.6 litres,the price goes up to $4.68US a gallon or thereabouts.

Of course in Western Australia,it hovers around $A1.40 per litre.or $A5.30 per US gallon,so the USA are still doing better,at around $A0.968 a litre.

The solar challenge car didn't overall save any energy,as it  was accompanied by an escort of conventional vehicles.

VK6ZGO

[ciccio]

I'm fascinated by these small solar toy-car, and even more fascinated by the crew of young, enthusiastic students that design, build, maintain and drive them.

I wrote "toy car" because this technology cannot be the one that solves the problems of pollution, abuse of non-renewable energies, etc.

No that some "heretic" scientist is defying the Bible of Global Warming, we begin to understand that the road to  renewable  energies is many times paved with:
1) Money (an example: my taxes and electric bill increase and additions  going in the pockets of those who covered the south of Italy with hundreds of wind turbines that are turning, but are NOT CONNECTED to the mains: they got money for installing them, not for operating them ).
2) Pollution (we move our pollution to other places). See this link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

And those who are my age (I was born in the 50's)  remember how was he real pollution, when cars had no catalytic converters and  made 8-10 km per liter, houses used coal for heating, trucks and bus were smoking along the road.
Sometime the car is the only feasible transportation: I can't demand a bus only for me, or I can't pedal for 25 km when it rains...


 

[Zero999]

I am an avid recumbent bicycle rider.  I am fascinated by the Australian solar powered car.  It does not have much collision protection.  Gasoline in California, U.S.A. is around $4/gallon and will be $6/gallon in a few years. 

That's cheap, it's already $8.23 gallon here: I converted to dollars and US gallons for you.

[IanB]

Gasoline in California, U.S.A. is around $4/gallon

$3.79/gal in my bit of California. It's ever so cheap isn't it? Cheaper than water.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--When you consider the high price of gasoline, please also consider the following factors"

1) Drilling bans; The NIMBY phenomenon increases the price of oil by limiting the supply. In the Gulf the US is not sinking new wells, but this has not stopped every one else from drilling for the same oil. In other area of the US oil is just not being drilled, period. The Alaska Oil Pipeline was going to kill millions of Caribou. There have been small leaks, and other environmental damage from the pipeline, yes. But the level of damage has been about 6 orders of magnitude less that predicted by the Environmental Lobby.

2)Government regulations; Some of which are reasonable, but others amount to over-regulation by Anti-Capitalists and Eco-zealots. Environmental activists are trying to stop the extension of of a pipeline to carry Canadian tar sands oil. Apparently they think if they can stop it, the Canadians will just keep the oil, rather than sell it elsewhere. Also in the US the Eco-Zealots have managed to stop the clean and efficient diesel engine (the same one being used in Europe) from being used in stead of gasoline engines.

--3) Corporate taxes; Corporate taxes are double taxation. First the Corporation pays a (in the US 35%) tax on profits, then the shareholders pay income taxes on the same profits. Then the consumer pays higher prices at the pump.

4) At the pump taxes; At the pump taxes vary wildly. In the US the city of Chicago charges about 75 cents more than any place else. These taxes have a direct effect on the cost of doing business and employing people. In most of Europe these taxes run between 4 and 7 dollars US per US gallon.

--Many people justify all the above by saying Oil Companies are evil and greedy. The same people think Insurance Companies are evil. As a matter of fact, it would be less work to make a list of the businesses these folks do not consider evil than the ones they do. Apparently they feel that no level of taxation, short of outright confiscation, is enough.

--You are certainly free to grumble about the Oil Companies when you have to pony up at the pump. Just remember to include the Government while you are at it.

--There is a general rule of thumb regarding commodities that are taken from the earth. That rules is; That if the base price of the commodity doubles, then 10 time as many deposits will become profitable to exploit. Also there may be
more oil than you think, it may not all be of biogenic origin. Check out Gold's hypothesis. See link below.

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

--Does anyone have a guess as to how long it will be before the US EPA and the UN IPCC declare the global warming gas "Water Vapor" to be an anthropogenic pollutant in need of regulation.

Best Regards
Clear  Ether

[Zero999]

4) At the pump taxes; At the pump taxes vary wildly. In the US the city of Chicago charges about 75 cents more than any place else.

I find that difficult to believe. I'm pretty sure we pay more tax than that.

--Does anyone have a guess as to how long it will be before the US EPA and the UN IPCC declare the global warming gas "Water Vapor" to be an anthropogenic pollutant in need of regulation.

That will never happen because the greenhouse effect of water vapour is saturated. If you care to look up the infra-red spectrum transmitted through the atmosphere you'll find that a large proportion of it is almost completely blocked by water vapour. The other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere such as CO₂ and CH₄ are not yet fully absorbed so an increase in the concentration of these gasses will increase the amount of solar energy absorbed by the atmosphere.

[Time]

Average price in the US is $3.67/gal or something.  I pay $3.80 in the Los Angeles area.

http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

[SgtRock]

Dear Hero999:
--My remark about Chicago charging more than anyplace else, should have added "in the US". Of course in the UK you pay way more taxes per gallon. See my later remarks in the same post.

--With regard to your statement that:

"That will never happen"

--Presumes that US EPA and the UN IPCC have a rational and not a political basis for their pronouncements.

--Are you saying that it is impossible to increase the level of water vapor in the atmosphere, because it is always saturated. That is not a trick question. I am just trying to understand what you said. If that is what you meant then my research tends to support your conclusion. Best Regards
Clear Ether

[Zero999]

--Are you saying that it is impossible to increase the level of water vapor in the atmosphere, because it is always saturated. That is not a trick question. I am just trying to understand what you said. If that is what you meant then my research tends to support your conclusion.

That's true to an extent but the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere will increase if the temperature increases, due to evaporation from the sea.

What I mean is that adding more water vapour to the atmosphere will not result in any global warming because the greenhouse effect caused by water vapour is already as strong as it possibly can be.

The greenhouse effect is caused by gasses in the earth's atmosphere absorbing radiation from the sun which heats the atmosphere. The more radiation absorbed, the higher the global temperature will be. Water vapour only absorbs a certain spectra of infra-red wavelengths, the rest of the absorption is due to other greenhouse gasses. Adding more water vapour won't increase the global temperature because it's already absorbing all the radiation it can. Indeed more water vapour will increase condensation, forming more clouds which reflect infra-red radiation back into space which is one of the negative feedback mechanisms in the climate system but there are positive ones too: e.g. faster decomposition of vegitation will create more CO₂ and CH₄.