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California May Reduce Carbon Emissions By Banning Black Cars
Legislation may by 2016 restrict the paint color options for California residents looking for a new car. Black and all dark hues are currently on the banned list. The California Air Resources Board says that the climate control systems of dark-colored cars need to work harder than their lighter siblings — especially after sitting in the sun for a few hours.
YES
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Mythbusters did a bit about this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(season_3)#Biscuit_Bazooka_Spinoff
Now mind you, it only came out to a 9 degree F difference, windows up etc., so really it's not particularly significant, and the law's still dumb.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
The problem, according to the article, is that the paint makers haven't been able to make "black" paint that meets those requirements.
Problem is that there is no current known way to produce paint which meets these requirements with for black paint or many other dark tinted paints. The end result is a mud-brown for black paint.
If the technology existed, then I would be all for this. However, at this time, it does not exist. And for the small, minuscule, savings this will produce for emissions, I have to say that this is ridiculous. You will save more on emissions by forcing all cars sold in the state to have limiters on their engines to restrict it from reving past 4000RPM and limiters on the max speed of 65MPH (or whatever the speed highest speed limit in the state is), than by banning cars with paint schemes that do not reflect 20% of UV and IR just to reduce the amount of time the AC has to turn on due to the heat added to the car from UV and IR light.
I don't think they really thought this through. And I hope that real scientists grill them on this because I can't believe that a reduction of 20% UV and IR will make any real difference on the temperature inside a vehicle when compared against the other primary sources of the heat (ambient temperature, radiated heat from the engine/exhaust, number of occupants in the car). And even then, the overall factors in how much this will reduce emissions has more to do with the efficiency of the AC in the vehicle and the temperature settings that the occupants use than how much sunlight is absorbed by the car's paint!
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
In a black car, you have to roll the windows down further to keep it cool. That means more drag on the motion, and the engine has to work harder, resulting in more pollution, and an increased consumption of fuel.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Compressors turn off while you're accelerating hard, so you don't notice. Try turning it on/off while doing a slower acceleration... on every car I've had it feels like molasses when the compressor is running. Way more than the couple % you're claiming. Did you mean 5 hp overall for a trip, including when it's off?
This is not always true for all Internal Combustion engines, and totally wrong in the case of turbodiesel engines, who's torque usually peaks right around 2k... just FYI.
grep -iw skynet
>>>A/C compressers in cars don't use much power, though. Maybe 5hp
That's true however an engine in an efficient hybrid car at ~2000 typical rpm is only generating around 25 hp, so you're talking about a 20% reduction in available power.
And if you upsize the engine to minimize A/C impact, well then you have a less-efficient car overall that wastes gasoline.
This is why the Prius II and Civic Hybrid II moved to electric-based A/C, to minimize the load on the engine.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Actually the Republicans are the one thing keeping this state from going completely bankrupt. Thank goodness for the required 2/3rds majority to raise taxes, or else the Democrats would probably be taxing us all at 50% to fund their bloated, useless, and dysfunctional programs. Not that that stopped them in the end, they just decided to call their new taxes "fees" to get around the constitution. Damned lawyers.
While I vehemently oppose nearly all of CA Republicans' stances on social issues, at least they are true fiscal conservatives unlike the Republicans in the US congress. Hey CA Democrats, how about tightening your belt in a recession and cutting all those pet projects that are going nowhere? That's what the rest of us have to do.
The legislation is not dictating color. Rather, it dictates that cars need to reflect at least 20% of all solar radiation, and the paint suppliers are having trouble coming up with a black paint that does that. If the suppliers can't get it going, CA may back down. CA has done that with other auto energy-efficiency legislation before.
A friend of mine in Florida had a 1990 Toyota Camry back around Y2K. Despite having a V6, the A/C was such a drain on the power that everyone referred to the 'A/C' button as the 'Turbo' button. There was a significant difference in available power when the button was toggled. He claimed it had been like that even when he first got it (when it was only 2 or 3 years old).
End of line..
Yes, but its a popular misconceptions that the air conditioner in a car is a poor use of horse power. In many many popular car designs running the A/C makes more sense energy wise then an open windows at speeds over 50 or so. The air envelop inefficiency of an open windows costs more power in moving the car down the road then turning the A/C compressor takes.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html