cars

Daytime Running Lights, or Reduced Speed?

Which wastes more fuel? (and thus produces more carbon dioxide). This is a difficult to question to answer for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that a speed change from 71 mph to 70 mph is different than a reduction from 56 to 55 mph. Read More...

Time, Speed, and Money

I try to stress to people that driving faster on shorter trips doesn't really make THAT big of a difference in time. Also, you can save money by driving slower. This was essentially the idea behind my optimal commuting speed calculator. The problem is that this calculator doesn't really work if you don't get paid by the hour. I decided to make a graph anyway that shows the decrease in your efficiency (and thus increase and how much you spend on gas) at the same time showing how much time you save. That way, you can use your own weighting of the importance of time.

For this graph, I used an efficiency of 25 miles per gallon when driving 70 mph. The trip distance is 20 miles and the cost of gas is $4 per gallon.
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You can see going 90 mph instead of 50 mph save you 10 minutes, but cost more than $2.50 dollars MORE than going 50 mph.

Model for Fuel Efficiency as a Function of Speed

It has been a while since I have looked at efficiency models, but I am still interested. I found a site that calculates efficiency data based on a number of factors such as:- Air drag- Speed- Drive train power loss- Tire pressure
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How about power with less carbon dioxide

Everyone is concerned about power and carbon dioxide, right? Well, maybe we should look at some alternative energy sources. I previously proposed using the rotation energy of the Earth, but that didn't go over too well with the internet community. How about people power?

Can people be used to produce power? Obviously. Do people produce carbon dioxide? Sure, its called breathing. Would we do better to use people? I don't know, but I will try to make some simple calculations. Read More...