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Mazda Says Its Upcoming Gas-Powered Cars Will Emit Less CO2 Than Electric Cars
cartechboy writes: "One of the arguments for electric cars is that we are reducing greenhouse gases and emitting less CO2 than vehicles with an internal combustion engine. But Mazda says its next-generation SkyActiv engines will be so efficient, they'll emit less CO2 than an electric car. In fact, the automaker goes so far as to say these new engines will be cleaner to run than electric cars. Is it possible? Yes, but it's all about the details. It'll depend on the test cycles for each region. Vehicles are tested differently in Europe than in the U.S., and that variation could make all the difference when it comes to these types of claims. At the end of the day whether future Mazdas with gasoline-powered engines are cleaner than electric cars or not, every little bit in the effort to reduce our carbon emissions per mile is a step in the right direction, right?"
Mazda abuses copyright to stop 3rd parties from publishing manuals. Can't get a Haynes or Chilton manual for any Mazda newer than about 1995.
http://www.haynes.com/products... 2 seconds on Google.. come on, man.
So the only real way to reduce CO2 emissions per mile is get more miles per gallon of fuel.
No. My ~40mpg motorcycle pollutes far more than my ~27mpg car. It's all about how well the engine burns the fuel and handles the emissions before they leave the pipe, not necessarily just the volume of it.
Breeding means generating more nuclear fuel from stuff that is not fissile material in the first place. For example, in a classic nuclear fuel rod only a few percents of the uranium is of the 235 isotope variety, which is fissile (= radioactive, potentially dangerous and useable as nuclear fuel), the rest is the 238 isotope and is not fissile... but is intead "fertile", because once it gobbles up a passing neutron (= beta radiation), it quickly transmutes into the 239 isotope of plutonium - and this kind of plutonium, in turn, is fissile.
And, fortunately, you can have it so that while the 235 uranium "burns" it produces the right neutrons for the 238 to turn into 239, or "breed" into plutonium. Or breed the fertile 232 thorium into fissile 233 uranium, too. That's the principle of a breeder reactor. And you may use your fresh new fuel to breed yet some more fuel, too, so that potentially, all the uranium and all the thorium in the world may be converted into nuclear fuel - that's called "supergeneration", because then you are not even limited by the tiny amount of starting fissile material anymore.
For every amount of starting fuel you can have various ratios of breeding happening. In fast breeder reactors you can have three or four times more breeding than consuming, so that every unit of fuel spent generates, on the side, three or four units of additional fuel from fertile material. In molten salt thorium reactors this ratio is projected to be 1-on-1 to limit the risks of nuclear proliferation (= using the breeding process to make a lot more fissile material, in order to make weapons).
Maybe we deserve this world ?