[yesplease]

There are about 100 million households in the US[1] and each uses electricity at around 900kWh/month[2]. Given that the average US household uses around 9%[3] of it's consumption for lighting, widespread use of CFLs[4] would result in savings of around 75 billion kWh of electricity per year.

To put this into perspective, the Aptera Typ-1e has a 10kWh pack that takes it around 120 miles per charge[5]. The average vehicle in America is driven more than 12,000 miles per year today[6]. Since there are about 245 million passenger vehicles in the united states[7] we travel around three trillion miles per year. Widespread use of CFLs would free up enough electricity to power vehicles similar to the Aptera about a trillion miles per year. A single passenger variant would likely travel 1.5-2 trillion miles on that energy.

We've got energy problems alright, we can't find ways to waste it fast enough!

P.S. This thread isn't about whether or not we would have enough raw materials to actually produce X amount of N type batteries, or vehicle safety, etc... It's just to illustrate the inefficiency we've all come to accept as common place. I would appreciate it if posts were on the topic of efficiency.

[1]http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
[2]http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_assumptions.html
[3]http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/reps/enduse/er01_us.html
[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp
[5]http://www.aptera.com/details.php
[6]http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/saving/efficiency/savingenergy.html
[7]http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_11.html

[dooberheim]

Merely unplugging and turning off unused appliances and lights would save even more than that.

I don't know the Aptera, but assume from the small battery pack that it is a small, light car. Small and light haven't penetrated the US driver's thinking yet - I'm hoping that Chavez will cut us off for 6 months or something similar. Then we might get somewhere along these lines.

DK

[yesplease]

It's classified as an enclosed two seat motorcycle for emissions purposes, but some just call it a sperm on wheels.

Definitely aimed at the fringe. They are a few grand more than a Prius but are way more efficient.

[Kingcoal]

I agree, Internal Combustion Engines used for vehicles are a fantastically inefficient use of energy. Unlike an electric motor, an ICE is, at best, about 40% efficient and that figure is based on highway driving. Most engines are well below that figure. In addition, that figure is based on highway use, around town I wouldn't be surprised if an ICE was below 10%

Electric motors are in excess of 90% efficient under almost all operating conditions. Also, unlike an ICE, the motor does not need to idle at stop lights. When you’re moving, it's on, when you’re stopped or coasting, it's off. Electric cars can be recharged at night, when the grid is mostly just idling. We will have fully electric cars in the future, unless there isn't enough oil to build them.

[Pixie]

Hey, I know you said you just wanted to use this thread to bitch, but I have been distracted by the shiny you pointed out to us: http://www.aptera.com/details.php That thing rocks and I want one! Why, if we could switch our car fleet over to stuff like this we could double or even triple the lifespan of our way of life!

Wait, maybe that's not a good thing.

[yesplease]

In addition, that figure is based on highway use, around town I wouldn't be surprised if an ICE was below 10%

It's around 15% based on what I've seen, but that is only because it's pushing around thousands of pounds of SUV. For instance the ICE in a Chevy Corvette may not run as efficiently as the same thing in a Suburban, because the vette doesn't require as much energy as the burb, even though it gets better mileage. Less load on the engine usually translates to lower engine efficiency even if it does mean better mileage.

Why, if we could switch our car fleet over to stuff like this we could double or even triple the lifespan of our way of life!

Wait, maybe that's not a good thing.

Define 'way of life'...

[SolarDave]

Speaking of lights, efficiency and materials....

There are something like 5 separate breakers in my breaker box, meaning five separate circuits - each wired separately with 14 gauge copper wire - to run the lighting in my house.

And yet - my built-in lights (the only ones using those circuits) total under 1,000 Watts for the entire house. I am wayyy past CFL's. In the ceiling "cans" I have 10 (1) 2.5 Watt (!!!) LED Par 20 lights. I have CFL's everywhere else.

I laugh at the fixtures that say "Warning! Use 100 Watt or less bulb" as I screw in 2.5 Watt bulbs. But I still have the copper wiring for 100 Watts everywhere.

I wonder when we will start thinking differently.

[Kingcoal]

Remember that it's peak oil, not peak coal - yet. We're running out of hydrocarbons, 70% of oil goes into transportation, so that's the emergency right now. We have to solve our transportation problem before anything else.

[patience]

Kingcoal, Yep! And from high school physics, Force = Mass x Acceleration. If we reduce the mass, the required force is less. Nothing new here. It's easy enough to do. Lighter car requires lighter udercarraige, reduces the mass further, and requires even less power. The smaller engine is lighter, too, etc.

All you have to do, in practice, then, is to 1) Pay for tooling up, and 2) SELL it, to pay for tooling and make a profit.

In 1978, I was a tool designer at GM when they had a Chevette on the test track in Warren , MI, that got 78 mpg, using a small 3-cyl. Japanese diesel engine. It met emission standards, but it had one problem. THEY COULDN'T SELL IT. The technology is there. Notice, this was 30 years ago!

The problem has always been, and will always be what the majority wants to buy.

[patience]

For a look at why we have this consumer attitude, read on old book by Vance Packard, "The Satus Seekers", explaining the massive ad campaign that exploited the low self esteem of blue collar people by telling them they could BUY staus, via a new car with bigger body, tailfins, engine, etc., ad nauseum.

Let's put the blame where it belongs, an unholy alliance of corporate greed, ad men, oil men, and politicians that started it all, and supports it to this day.

[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Good day from Pheba, from the farm:
Last year we were using about 900 Kwh per month to fuel our farm and home. We are now using about 450 Kwh per month.
We only changed a few things.
First, our home is 9 years old, and was built without any central or window air conditioning. During the summer we keep all windows closed during the heat of the day, and turn the attic fan on after the outside temperature drops lower than the inside temperature. The house never gets over 85 to 87 degrees, even on the hottest day., and once the attic fan comes on the house cools down very nice. We have a lot of trees around the house, and three years ago I Planted a tree on the hottest side of the house, the east side.
I have a large laundry room with a clothing rack. I take clothes out of the washer, and pop them in the dryer for about 5 to 10 minutes. This is just long enough for some heat to remove wrinkles, I then hang the clothing up wet in the laundry room. I am very creative at hanging up clothing to dry in the laundry room. My husband put up a drying rack for small items.
The two most expensive items to dry are bath towels, and blue jeans. We have a two story home, and sheets and blankets get hung on the 2nd floor banister over the stairs. Putting a bath towel in a dryer is stupid. Why use power to dry an item that you plan on getting wet again. it makes as much sense as watering a lawn so you can mow it.
We put in the new type of light bulbs. We turn off all lights, and we use surge protectors to turn appliances off and on, especially our large television set.
We do not use a surge protector on the microwave or radio. Constant turning off and on seems to totally mess them up.
I once had a computer person tell me to leave my computer on all of the time. That goes against everything I believe in. The computer is always turned completely off when I finish using it.
Oh, another thing, and this is personal. I use a large bath towel to dry my body, and I hang it back up to use again. I then use a new small washcloth each time to dry private parts. I can launder a ton of washcloths for the energy used to launder one bath towel.
I have also cut my monthly auto mileage in half. I have done this by stopping silly trips, and I combine trips. If I have a physician appointment in our big city, which is 26 miles away, then I make sure I run several other errands on that same day.
Pheba.

[Pixie]

For a look at why we have this consumer attitude, read on old book by Vance Packard, "The Satus Seekers", explaining the massive ad campaign that exploited the low self esteem of blue collar people by telling them they could BUY staus, via a new car with bigger body, tailfins, engine, etc., ad nauseum.

Let's put the blame where it belongs, an unholy alliance of corporate greed, ad men, oil men, and politicians that started it all, and supports it to this day.

Yeah, we could sell small cars if the admen focused on making them sexy. Remember all those little two-person sports cars? If the Honda Insight had had a decent ad campaign focusing on how sexy the slick lines and high technology were, they could have sold it.

They'd have to get to people at Consumer Reports on their side. CR, and all the other car reviewers out there, have to stop judging cars on their acceleration. Acceleration is only useful if you think of the freeway as a race track. Any car that can get to 65 in the length of an on-ramp is as fast as it needs to be.

[dooberheim]

. Any car that can get to 65 in the length of an on-ramp is as fast as it needs to be.

The Suzuki Swift of 1990 meets those guidelines. 50 mpg on the highway, on gasoline. Dammit, why can't we go back to this?

DK

[Tyler_JC]

. Any car that can get to 65 in the length of an on-ramp is as fast as it needs to be.

The Suzuki Swift of 1990 meets those guidelines. 50 mpg on the highway, on gasoline. Dammit, why can't we go back to this?

DK

We can!

That's the great part about higher prices, it creates consumer demand for more efficient vehicles.

The cost to retrofit the entire US auto industry to produce super efficient plug-in hybrid/electric vehicles is somewhere in the neighborhood of $60-80 billion.

And guess what, Americans spend roughly a trillion dollars a year on new automobiles.

Retool your entire business at a cost of only one month's revenue.

It's too bad that car companies are too stupid to do the basic calculations.

Fortunately, I'm capable of doing math.

Kia Motors to build $1.2 billion auto plant in Georgia

At a cost of $1.2 billion, Kia Motors will be able to build 300,000 cars per year.

Assuming they wanted to pay off their entire factory's construction cost in one year, what would the cost per vehicle be?

$1,200,000,000 divided by 300,000 is $4,000.

That's right. Four thousand dollars per vehicle in order to pay off the investment in only one year.

And considering that car companies don't plan on shutting down the factory after only 12 months of operation...



I hope I've just proved that the "WE CANT RETOOL THE FACTORIES!!!" argument is complete and utter fantasy.

But wait. What would it cost to retool the entire US auto-manufacturing capacity to build all of the cars we need in a year?

16,000,000 cars times $4000/car is:

$64 billion.

Want to build enough factories to replace the entire US autofleet in one year?

240,000,000 cars times $4000/car is:

$960 billion.

Now of course, that figure is useless because we don't need (nor would anyone want) the capacity to replace the entire US auto-fleet every year.

Would anyone like to challenge my calculations?

Even if I'm underestimating the cost by $100 billion, I'm still proposing a solution to our transportation problem that is as cheap or cheaper than the current bailout proposed by the Bush Administration.

[Tanada]

Tyler, I promise nobody is supplying that KIA factory with free raw materials and free labor for the year! Or any other factory for that matter! Even slaves add expenses, they have to receive minimum food, water, shelter etc etc....

As for the raw materials those have gone through the roof thanx to $90.00 oil and the building boom in China.

[Tyler_JC]

Tyler, I promise nobody is supplying that KIA factory with free raw materials and free labor for the year! Or any other factory for that matter! Even slaves add expenses, they have to receive minimum food, water, shelter etc etc....

As for the raw materials those have gone through the roof thanx to $90.00 oil and the building boom in China.

I'm talking about capital depreciation for the factory...

[yesplease]

Optimizing light truck aerodynamics.

There are 80 million light trucks on the road today with suboptimal aerodynamic forms. Previous research has found that several miles per gallon can be saved by specifically tailoring truck bodies for reduced aerodynamic drag. Even greater savings can be obtained if the shape of the trucks is numerically optimized.
[...]
The prototype air dam and optimally shaped canopy generated a 21.23% savings in terms of fuel economy.

I have a feeling the end result is something like this. I suppose we could make it all fancy like with color matching factory bolt-ons but we don't need to.

[Tyler_JC]

Optimizing light truck aerodynamics.

There are 80 million light trucks on the road today with suboptimal aerodynamic forms. Previous research has found that several miles per gallon can be saved by specifically tailoring truck bodies for reduced aerodynamic drag. Even greater savings can be obtained if the shape of the trucks is numerically optimized.
[...]
The prototype air dam and optimally shaped canopy generated a 21.23% savings in terms of fuel economy.

I have a feeling the end result is something like this. I suppose we could make it all fancy like with color matching factory bolt-ons but we don't need to.

I feel like the efficiency game misses the point.

Why waste oil for transportation when you don't need to?

A decent plug in hybrid electric like the Chevy Volt (coming to a showroom near you next year) virtually eliminates the need to waste precious crude oil on something as ludicrously inefficient as an internal combustion engine.

Chevy Volt

If you drive 60 miles per day, you get 150 MPG with the Chevy Volt.

If you drive less than 40 miles per day, your gasoline consumption is a big fat zero.

When you see Toyota looking to sell a MILLION hybrids this year and the Volt with a production level that is 10 times the Prius's schedule in its first year...

It starts to feel like a solution.

[yesplease]

Any reduction is great in my book. Personally, since at least half of all miles on my pickup are unloaded the mods mentioned combined with a taller fifth would likely bring me from ~30mpg to ~40-50mpg. My DD should be good for ~60-80mpg, but there are times when the pickup is preferred.

Sure a Volt would be great, but the cost doesn't pan out compared to something like this or a DIY EV unless oil went stratospheric. And even if production does pan out, cheap modifications to cars and driving style can easily take a good chunk out of our oil consumption.

[vampyregirl]

Hmmm some of the gloom and doom enviro discussions here remind me of a legend i heard about the lost city of Atlantis. According to the legend the Atlantians became masters of nature but they abused there power which led to there destruction.