Close, but not quite, you'll wind up WORSE off because you now have a bread of mosquitoes that are more likely to grow into adulthood. So not only do you have a new virus to worry about (one that may requires new R&D to develop immunizations and treatments for) but you also have a large mosquito population that is more resilient to traditional means of population control.
This is a really risky move. Sure, the mosquitoes are now immune to Malaria and will no longer carry it. But what if this immunity protects them from some other virus that is capable of surviving in the mosquito for longer? Now you have suddenly increased the mosquito population, made it harder to kill the population and made them carriers for some new pathogen that may be just as deadly as Malaria. Genetically modifying something that low on the food change can and will have dramatic effects on the rest of the environment. Why would we run that risk for a problem that can be handled through immunization and treatment? Sure, medical coverage sucks ass in the jungle, but things could get a lot worse if the new mosquitoes carry a new problem into all of the local villages.
"I'm now in the acceptance phase of reading console war coverage. It's just not going away, and it won't until one stands victorious"
Uhh, why? Is there some unwritten law that states that there can be only one console? Having 3 different consoles gives us different type of technology, different functional designs, price competition, and all sorts of great stuff.
Think about it, if there were only "one" console, and all others were decimated in sales years ago...How long would it take to get a rumble pack? An integrated DVD player? The Cell processor? The Wii Mote? HD video out?
Heck, if we didn't have MS, Sony, AND Nintendo, the only changes to the console industry would be a yearly upgrade to processing power so that the latest driving and football sims could have marginally better graphics. There would be no financial gain by doing anything more risky.
So personally, I hope they all succeed. I hope they all turn a profit. And I hope they all continue to drive innovation in the console market.
The documentary on the Zimbardo prison experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/) is a must watch for anyone looking for insight into the Abu ghraib prison incident. Abu ghraib wave predictable and preventable, and it's a horrid shame that the enlisted men and women are being punished when the officers in charge and management should have known what to watch for and how to maintain discipline in their own troops.
Close, but your numbers are off. It's $0.002, 2 tenths of a cent, per song. So 1k users geting 24-7 music will cost you $262,800. To be fair, I think I type-o'd a 0 when I posted that math above.
FTFA: "The suggested new rates would increase to $.0008 per-play for 2006 (retroactively), $.0011 for 2007, $.0014 in 2008, $.0018 in 2009 and $.0019 for 2010"
Okay, so if we figure each time you play a song you owe $0.002 (rounding up for easy numbers), and on average you play 10 songs an hour (average 4 minutes each with 20 minutes for commercials/station ID), you're paying $0.02/hour. Over the entire day (and night) $0.48. Over an entire year $170.88... So how do they get from $170.88 to $120,000 (or the millions that some stations are claiming)?
I'm not saying anyone is lying about the cost, I just don't see how the costs are being calculated, anyone care to explain?
Sure, the RIAA could pay a CPA to lie, but then they would be guilty of all sorts of things (IANAL, but perjury and impeding and investigation come to mind). It would take a lot of money to pay off both the reporting accountant AND anyone else who knows the truth. It only takes 1 honest person to whistle blow on a cover up.
If the choice is a game that requires a phone home to play, or a game that comes loaded with some totally nasty DRM that tries to root kit its way onto my machine, I would gladly chose the phone home.
Because the person who presents the amounts will (hopefully) be a CPA, who would not only be risking contempt and perjury charges, but also losing their professional license.
This is another win for little guys trying to defend themselves. Foster wanted the RIAA to pay her legal fees, they bulked trying to claim that her lawyer inflated his fees. The Judge basically called them to the mat and said that if they are spending [large sums of money] persecuting Foster, then she is entitled to have her expensive lawyer's fees paid. Inversely, if the RIAA was paying a first year law grad to handle the case all on their own, and Foster had hired a $2500/hr dream team, the Judge would likely come down in the opposite way.
Napster got nailed not because they allowed users to share pirated bits. They got nailed because they ADVERTISED that fact. P2P sharing is not illegal. Setting up a service that advertises and knowingly facilitates pirating IS. YouTube is not advertised as a place to go for pirated videos, it is advertised as a place for individuals to post videos, and they are actively working to prevent permitted copy written material from appearing.
If that distinction does not hold up in court (or if a deal is not worked out prior to judgment) then it could set up a dangerous precedent that would likely soon lead to the RIAA going after P2P networks, open FTP servers, IRC servers, Usenet, etc... instead of individuals.
True, but if you're in the market for the twin turbo all wheel drive sportsline, you are most likely not in the market for a Golf. A more comparable package at that point would be the Subaru STI or other vehicles of the like. My knowledge in that area is a bit weaker though.
The TDI package is like $1500 if I recall correctly. I put probably 15,000 miles on the car in my first year, averaged right around 43mpg, for about 350g of diesel. At an average around $2.60 that's $650 in fuel costs. A comparable performing Gas car (Mazda 3) gets about 30mpg average. Over the same 15,000 miles you'd need 500g of fuel. Gas has been around $2.40 for a while now, which puts your annual fuel costs at $1200. Provided fuel prices don't change, you'll have paid off the difference in initial cost in under 3 years. If (when) fuel prices do increase, you'll pay off the difference even sooner.
The weight difference isn't that huge. The 2.0l TDI is 40kg heavier than the 1.8l gas turbo engine. That's right around 88lbs. The old 1/4 calculation is 100lbs = 0.1 sec off your times. So I would hardly say that the extra weight of the diesel is going to greatly compromise power performance. The extra engine weight may effect handling though, but that can be corrected through engine placement and a weight balanced design. Or in my case, switching from a 3.4l V6 with an auto tranny to a 1.9l TDI w/ DSG will have no major effect on the total weight of my car.
"Spend that same money on the gasoline engine and you will also get performance gains... it's a moving target."
I can take a 1.9l TDI and for under $600 push it up to a stage 2 mod (chip, injectors) and see 125hp and 265lbs/ft At the wheels on a Dyno. Short of nitrous, there's not much you can do to a gas engine for that low of a price to get that kind of a gain. And nitrous isn't exactly easy on the engine.
The emissions issue is still the fuel issue. The 2007 light duty diesel engine have systems that reduce particulate exhaust, but you are correct, the LSD fuel will clog those systems. In November 2006 the conversion to ULSD began, and by the end of October 2007 you will no longer be able to buy LSD at any pump in the US. That's the reason for the complete lack of light duty diesels being sold this year, the EPA dropped two of the emission bins, but the fuel distribution hadn't caught up yet.
As for marketing, absolutely, they will be touted for their environmental friendliness, their good gas mileage, and acceptable performance. But for an insignificant investment, a Golf will still have all of those benefits, and be faster (in street driving) than most of the other commuter cars.
If someone wanted to, they could design a diesel engine that had performance characteristics more appreciated by the performance car market, but you would lose some of the other benefits of it being a diesel and there is a huge social stigma about Diesels in the US. End result would be that the (US) sales would never make up for the investment in design and tooling that went into making it. In Europe it may work though. You can get a 2.0l TDI with twin turbos that pushes some crazy numbers in a Golf on the other side of the pond.
"That little nightmare would run circles around any similarly sized diesel... Take a stock 2.0 liter engine out of a Civic and throw a turbo on it and you will give any diesel of the same weight a run for it's money."
Sure, but for how long? If you need to be launched off the line at 4k RPMs to be in the powerband, you're going to be going through clutches in a hurry (or what ever the next weakest link is). Also, I wouldn't put that engine up against the 1.9, I would put it up against a 2.0 TDI. The new 2.0 TDI turn 170hp and ~250lbs/ft @ 1800 rpm. I could launch that thing at peek torque all day long and still drive it for 100k miles before replacing the clutch. Throw a few mods on there (chip + injectors) and you're looking at closer to 240hp and 350 lbs/ft.
"I know that low or mid-range torque is very important, and is an advantage of diesels, but raw power can also be a huge advantage. Given weight constraints, diesels will never compete when power is what is needed."
Horse Power is just a calculation of force (torque) at a speed. It is an advantage only if your gear ratios are set up to use it. The vast majority of consumer auto tranny are geared for daily drivers, where an engine that has a power band in the 3.5k-8h range is incredibly inefficient and hard to drive.
"And it was already slow."
That's the thing, my Golf isn't that slow of a car. I drove a Camry once that got over 30 mpg... it was god aweful slow. I felt like I was risking my life trying to merge onto I95 just south of DC. The Golf does 0-60 in about 11 seconds, 1/4 mile in 17 seconds. Which is far from blazing, but a heck of a lot better than the anything else in the 40-50+ mpg range for fuel economy.
"The only problem with a diesel in that car would be that it already handled like a front-heavy pig - I'm not sure it could deal with any more weight up there"
The Golf is a bit nose heavy, she'll understeer if you push her hard enough, but it's pretty reasonable. It doesn't compete with the fiero, but it handles well enough to keep the tires between the lines even for spirited driving.
"Actually, it's the other way around! It takes about 25% more crude to make diesel than gasoline"
Interesting, I'll have to look into that, I could have sworn that it was the other way around.
"though it's also true that things like alcohol and hydrogen will run in slightly modified gasoline engines"
The word "run" is key in that sentence. A straight ethanol burning engine can run stronger and more efficiently than a traditional gasoline engine, but... A hybrid (flex fuel) or converted gasoline engine will run with less power and efficiency than an engine designed for the fuel it is burning. Ethanol CAN be efficient if you crank the compression ratio up to the 16:1 area, or if you are running 10:1 compression with a good amount of boost. But if you take a typical gas burning 9:1 compression engine and make it burn e85 your gas mileage will drop and the power will plummet. I think Ethanol has a future in our transportation market, but not as a flex fuel.
"The reason that diesels have so much rotating mass compared to gasoline engines is that they typically have a large stroke."
Not true,
1.9l TDI: Diesel Engine Output 89hp @ 4000rpm Max Torque 202 @ 1900 Number of cylinders: 4 Capacity: 1896 cm3 Stroke: 95.5mm Cylinder Bore: 79.5mm Comp Ratio: 19.5
3400: Gas Engine Output 185hp @ 5200 Max Torque 210 @ 5200 Number of cylinders: 6 Capacity: 3400 cm3 Stroke: 92mm Cylinder Bore: 84mm Comp Ratio: 9.5
The diesel engine has a 3.5mm longer stroke, but its pistons are 4.5mm smaller. Yet it's rotating mass is significantly larger due to the the heft of the parts needed to stand up to the 19.5:1 compression ratio. The two engines have nearly identical torque ratings, but at vastly different RPMs. If you were to put these two engines in identical (consumer) cars with appropriate gearing, the Diesel would launch easy and faster, would last longer, and would get significantly better gas mileage.
"Wow. I'll take any gasoline powered sports car over any diesel powered sports car of the same weight and price any day. I don't care what the race is - autocross, oval laps, drag."
Thus the reason I said the "vast majority". Race cars is a very very insignificant portion of the total usage of vehicles in the world. But, to chime in on Diesel's behalf, not only did they win the LeMans, but the worlds fastest Pickup Truck is a Banks powered Diesel and last time I was following the rally circuit there were a number of cars running TDI engines.
"For a daily driver, I can't wait for the clean diesel to show up."
They're already here. The 2006 TDIs diesels produce less of every type of emission per mile driven than Gas engines. The 'dirty' thing that most people associate with Diesels is soot. Soot is basically unburnt/partially burn fuel, you get enriching the air:fuel ratio with out advancing the injection of fuel (or increase the fuel to the point where you can't advance the inject enough to compensate). Stock from the factory, TDI's are so fuel starved that you have to try pretty hard to get any noticeable amount of soot from them. Sure, if you stick a stage 2 chip and injectors on one with out upgrading the turbo, it'll look like a dump truck any time you hit the gas, but it'll have some balls to it. The new 2k8 Diesels are all switching to Common Rail Injection (or PPD for a few performance models) and introducing a new particulate filtering system. Common Rail Injection has already shown that it can be more efficient than the current Pump Duse systems, so that'll be a welcome change.
As for longevity, my Mother-inlaw bought a VW Rabbit new in the 70s. My wife learned to drive on it in the 90's. They sold it around 2000. In 2k5 we went out to get groceries and we saw it sitting in the parking lot. Same faded old bumper stickers and body damage. My wife actually bumped into the current owner again a while later and they chatted for a bit. Other than a new windshield wiper system (stock was one of those crappy vacuum systems) it was still driving just fine.
I wish my Fiero held up that well, I'm on my 3rd engine now. Although I think I push it a little harder than that old Rabbit.;)
It seems to me that accepting anything on blind faith is pretty much a defining character of humanity.
A person may be a scientist, but they are a human first. And the human need for theological security (after life, intangible reward/punishment system, moral guidance, etc...) means that some things will be explained in a matter of religion until such a time that science can prove it.
On a side note, I have never held that Science and Religion directly rule each other out. Just because you believe in a God(s) doesn't mean that your deity of choice did not create the laws of physics that us mere humans strive to unravel. Me personally, I'm an agnostic. I look for logic explanations of the behavior of things I experience in life. Science did not create those experiences, it just describes them.
"You could even grind the powder fine enough to be a slough, and 'pump' that into your vehicle's fuel tank."
The thought that one of my profs mentioned in a business class was that IF this technology advances enough, that you could literally go to Walmart and buy your fuel off of a shelf. Since at room temperature the stuff is completely stable, is there even a need to have a gas station like environment?
"Especially while diesel is on parity or cheaper than gasoline."
Diesel has been pretty stable at around premium +$0.10 around here. But seeing as how my diesel gets 44mpg (real life average) and has just as much torque as my Fiero (which gets about 20mpg), I'm fine with that premium.
"I don't think that diesel will stay cheap, however, if more diesel cars are sold."
It's a balancing act. The Trucking industry (ie: the back bone of the consumer nation) depends on Diesel, so there is a lot of pressure on the refineries to keep diesel prices down. Also, you can get more diesel per barrel out of crude than you can gasoline. And finally, there are realistic ways to develop significant quantities of bio-diesel. One of the big fuel industries that is just getting started is coal plant algae farms. Given the US's dependency (and mass possession) of coal, this technology is a double win: It cleans up our power production systems AND creates a fuel that can be used in existing diesel engines. But yes, if in 2008 20 million consumers trade in their Gas burning cars for Diesels in the US, there would be infrastructure problems and price hikes. But Supply and Demand will with all likelihood make the conversion more gradual.
"It will be interesting to see how diesels do in the US market once the cleaner "low-sulfur" fuel is available."
We've had low-sulfur diesel for years. The new stuff is 'Ultra low-sulfur'. I don't remember the exact proportions of PPM sulfur, but it's a good drop off. The big reason for the change is emissions though. LSD will clog and kill the 2007 and newer diesel catalytic converters. The ULSD takes a little bit more to refine, and loses a bit of its lubricity, but that can easily be corrected with a 5% bio-diesel blend. BD has much higher lubricity than LSD/ULSD and a significantly higher cetane rating.
"high compression ratio, which limits RPM, which limits power."
Uhh, high compression ratios do not limit RPMs. Rotating mass and valve train limit RPMs. Heck Indy cars turn 10k RPMs and run upwords of 16:1 compression. Dragsters run super low compression (6.5:1) but make up for it with supercharges putting out 50+psi. There's a calculation you can do to change boost pressure into effective compression, I can't remember the specific math, but I'm pretty sure 50psi would put the effective compression well over 10:1.
"Run any kind of fuel in a diesel-cycle engine and you will run into this limitation."
The primary rpm limitation of diesels (so far as I know) is just the shear mass of the rotating assembly. If you ever get a chance, lay a diesel connecting rod next to a gas one.
"In general, if you are building a race car, efficiency isn't your primary concern."
Hardly! Look at Nascar, HP limits, plate limits, body limits... The whole point of Nascar is to make each car (power performance wise) identical. That gives you 3 chances to shine: 1) Driver skill, 2) Pit skill, 3) Efficiency. If you can pull an entire race on one less pit stop than everyone else, you just bought yourself a free lap.
I'm not saying the Gas engines are worthless or anything, just that they are inferior to Diesel engines in the vast majority of scenarios.
[quote]So a PC with free software costs more than one with $100+ software? What are "co-marketing funds"? Kickbacks?[/quote]
Yes. I'm not sure on how the situation is now, but I had heard that for a while MS was negotiating highly exclusive contracts. Basically, the PC distributor paid for a license to install Windows on EVERY machine they produce. Any machine that DIDN'T have Windows on it would be charged a fee under the theory that any PC with out an OS installed would likely get an illegal copy of Windows installed. So if you spread the licensing cost of Windows out over every PC the distributor built, it may be $100 for each PC, but any PC they built W/O Windows would be charged a $300 fee to recoup the 'inevitable' loss to pirated Windows.
I made no such assumption, but "every race" is hardly winnable by any single engine type. Gasoline combustion engines (and diesels too) can not compete in the 1/4 mile with Ethanol. Each type of race has its own goals and different tools to best reach those goals.
If a consumer is looking for a car that packs a solid punch performance whys, has lower maintenance fees, and will last longer than typical consumer vehicles, and gets significantly better fuel-mileage, then yes, Diesels are the obvious choice. But once you get into the pro/race market, cars become so specialized that other factors take precedence (ie: horse power over torque, power to weight ratio, RPM band, etc...)
As for that link you posted, it was informative as too the rule differences, but the rest of it was some armchair BS. And as for the rules, I'm not surprised by them. If you're going to run the Iditarod with a snowmobile instead of sled dogs, you're going to have different rules applied.
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Close, but not quite, you'll wind up WORSE off because you now have a bread of mosquitoes that are more likely to grow into adulthood. So not only do you have a new virus to worry about (one that may requires new R&D to develop immunizations and treatments for) but you also have a large mosquito population that is more resilient to traditional means of population control.
-Rick
This is a really risky move. Sure, the mosquitoes are now immune to Malaria and will no longer carry it. But what if this immunity protects them from some other virus that is capable of surviving in the mosquito for longer? Now you have suddenly increased the mosquito population, made it harder to kill the population and made them carriers for some new pathogen that may be just as deadly as Malaria. Genetically modifying something that low on the food change can and will have dramatic effects on the rest of the environment. Why would we run that risk for a problem that can be handled through immunization and treatment? Sure, medical coverage sucks ass in the jungle, but things could get a lot worse if the new mosquitoes carry a new problem into all of the local villages.
-Rick
Yeah, because we don't want any of those slur flinging bigots around here.
-Rick
"I'm now in the acceptance phase of reading console war coverage. It's just not going away, and it won't until one stands victorious"
Uhh, why? Is there some unwritten law that states that there can be only one console? Having 3 different consoles gives us different type of technology, different functional designs, price competition, and all sorts of great stuff.
Think about it, if there were only "one" console, and all others were decimated in sales years ago...How long would it take to get a rumble pack? An integrated DVD player? The Cell processor? The Wii Mote? HD video out?
Heck, if we didn't have MS, Sony, AND Nintendo, the only changes to the console industry would be a yearly upgrade to processing power so that the latest driving and football sims could have marginally better graphics. There would be no financial gain by doing anything more risky.
So personally, I hope they all succeed. I hope they all turn a profit. And I hope they all continue to drive innovation in the console market.
-Rick
The documentary on the Zimbardo prison experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org/) is a must watch for anyone looking for insight into the Abu ghraib prison incident. Abu ghraib wave predictable and preventable, and it's a horrid shame that the enlisted men and women are being punished when the officers in charge and management should have known what to watch for and how to maintain discipline in their own troops.
-Rick
Close, but your numbers are off. It's $0.002, 2 tenths of a cent, per song. So 1k users geting 24-7 music will cost you $262,800. To be fair, I think I type-o'd a 0 when I posted that math above.
-Rick
"1) The costs are per listener. That's $170/year/listener, now figure they have over 10k listeners..."
That would explain it a bit better. Thanks. And if you're going to post something worth reading... don't be a coward!
-Rick
FTFA: "The suggested new rates would increase to $.0008 per-play for 2006 (retroactively), $.0011 for 2007, $.0014 in 2008, $.0018 in 2009 and $.0019 for 2010"
Okay, so if we figure each time you play a song you owe $0.002 (rounding up for easy numbers), and on average you play 10 songs an hour (average 4 minutes each with 20 minutes for commercials/station ID), you're paying $0.02/hour. Over the entire day (and night) $0.48. Over an entire year $170.88... So how do they get from $170.88 to $120,000 (or the millions that some stations are claiming)?
I'm not saying anyone is lying about the cost, I just don't see how the costs are being calculated, anyone care to explain?
-Rick
Sure, the RIAA could pay a CPA to lie, but then they would be guilty of all sorts of things (IANAL, but perjury and impeding and investigation come to mind). It would take a lot of money to pay off both the reporting accountant AND anyone else who knows the truth. It only takes 1 honest person to whistle blow on a cover up.
-Rick
If the choice is a game that requires a phone home to play, or a game that comes loaded with some totally nasty DRM that tries to root kit its way onto my machine, I would gladly chose the phone home.
-Rick
Because the person who presents the amounts will (hopefully) be a CPA, who would not only be risking contempt and perjury charges, but also losing their professional license.
-Rick
This is another win for little guys trying to defend themselves. Foster wanted the RIAA to pay her legal fees, they bulked trying to claim that her lawyer inflated his fees. The Judge basically called them to the mat and said that if they are spending [large sums of money] persecuting Foster, then she is entitled to have her expensive lawyer's fees paid. Inversely, if the RIAA was paying a first year law grad to handle the case all on their own, and Foster had hired a $2500/hr dream team, the Judge would likely come down in the opposite way.
-Rick
"...working to prevent permitted copy written material from appearing"
should read
"...working to prevent unpermitted copy written material from appearing"
Makes a little more sense that way.
-Rick
Napster got nailed not because they allowed users to share pirated bits. They got nailed because they ADVERTISED that fact. P2P sharing is not illegal. Setting up a service that advertises and knowingly facilitates pirating IS. YouTube is not advertised as a place to go for pirated videos, it is advertised as a place for individuals to post videos, and they are actively working to prevent permitted copy written material from appearing.
If that distinction does not hold up in court (or if a deal is not worked out prior to judgment) then it could set up a dangerous precedent that would likely soon lead to the RIAA going after P2P networks, open FTP servers, IRC servers, Usenet, etc... instead of individuals.
-Rick
True, but if you're in the market for the twin turbo all wheel drive sportsline, you are most likely not in the market for a Golf. A more comparable package at that point would be the Subaru STI or other vehicles of the like. My knowledge in that area is a bit weaker though.
-Rick
The TDI package is like $1500 if I recall correctly. I put probably 15,000 miles on the car in my first year, averaged right around 43mpg, for about 350g of diesel. At an average around $2.60 that's $650 in fuel costs. A comparable performing Gas car (Mazda 3) gets about 30mpg average. Over the same 15,000 miles you'd need 500g of fuel. Gas has been around $2.40 for a while now, which puts your annual fuel costs at $1200. Provided fuel prices don't change, you'll have paid off the difference in initial cost in under 3 years. If (when) fuel prices do increase, you'll pay off the difference even sooner.
-Rick
That's called an Algae farm, and they're already working on it ;)
-Rick
The weight difference isn't that huge. The 2.0l TDI is 40kg heavier than the 1.8l gas turbo engine. That's right around 88lbs. The old 1/4 calculation is 100lbs = 0.1 sec off your times. So I would hardly say that the extra weight of the diesel is going to greatly compromise power performance. The extra engine weight may effect handling though, but that can be corrected through engine placement and a weight balanced design. Or in my case, switching from a 3.4l V6 with an auto tranny to a 1.9l TDI w/ DSG will have no major effect on the total weight of my car.
"Spend that same money on the gasoline engine and you will also get performance gains... it's a moving target."
I can take a 1.9l TDI and for under $600 push it up to a stage 2 mod (chip, injectors) and see 125hp and 265lbs/ft At the wheels on a Dyno. Short of nitrous, there's not much you can do to a gas engine for that low of a price to get that kind of a gain. And nitrous isn't exactly easy on the engine.
The emissions issue is still the fuel issue. The 2007 light duty diesel engine have systems that reduce particulate exhaust, but you are correct, the LSD fuel will clog those systems. In November 2006 the conversion to ULSD began, and by the end of October 2007 you will no longer be able to buy LSD at any pump in the US. That's the reason for the complete lack of light duty diesels being sold this year, the EPA dropped two of the emission bins, but the fuel distribution hadn't caught up yet.
As for marketing, absolutely, they will be touted for their environmental friendliness, their good gas mileage, and acceptable performance. But for an insignificant investment, a Golf will still have all of those benefits, and be faster (in street driving) than most of the other commuter cars.
If someone wanted to, they could design a diesel engine that had performance characteristics more appreciated by the performance car market, but you would lose some of the other benefits of it being a diesel and there is a huge social stigma about Diesels in the US. End result would be that the (US) sales would never make up for the investment in design and tooling that went into making it. In Europe it may work though. You can get a 2.0l TDI with twin turbos that pushes some crazy numbers in a Golf on the other side of the pond.
-Rick
"That little nightmare would run circles around any similarly sized diesel... Take a stock 2.0 liter engine out of a Civic and throw a turbo on it and you will give any diesel of the same weight a run for it's money."
Sure, but for how long? If you need to be launched off the line at 4k RPMs to be in the powerband, you're going to be going through clutches in a hurry (or what ever the next weakest link is). Also, I wouldn't put that engine up against the 1.9, I would put it up against a 2.0 TDI. The new 2.0 TDI turn 170hp and ~250lbs/ft @ 1800 rpm. I could launch that thing at peek torque all day long and still drive it for 100k miles before replacing the clutch. Throw a few mods on there (chip + injectors) and you're looking at closer to 240hp and 350 lbs/ft.
"I know that low or mid-range torque is very important, and is an advantage of diesels, but raw power can also be a huge advantage. Given weight constraints, diesels will never compete when power is what is needed."
Horse Power is just a calculation of force (torque) at a speed. It is an advantage only if your gear ratios are set up to use it. The vast majority of consumer auto tranny are geared for daily drivers, where an engine that has a power band in the 3.5k-8h range is incredibly inefficient and hard to drive.
"And it was already slow."
That's the thing, my Golf isn't that slow of a car. I drove a Camry once that got over 30 mpg... it was god aweful slow. I felt like I was risking my life trying to merge onto I95 just south of DC. The Golf does 0-60 in about 11 seconds, 1/4 mile in 17 seconds. Which is far from blazing, but a heck of a lot better than the anything else in the 40-50+ mpg range for fuel economy.
"The only problem with a diesel in that car would be that it already handled like a front-heavy pig - I'm not sure it could deal with any more weight up there"
The Golf is a bit nose heavy, she'll understeer if you push her hard enough, but it's pretty reasonable. It doesn't compete with the fiero, but it handles well enough to keep the tires between the lines even for spirited driving.
-Rick
"Actually, it's the other way around! It takes about 25% more crude to make diesel than gasoline"
;)
Interesting, I'll have to look into that, I could have sworn that it was the other way around.
"though it's also true that things like alcohol and hydrogen will run in slightly modified gasoline engines"
The word "run" is key in that sentence. A straight ethanol burning engine can run stronger and more efficiently than a traditional gasoline engine, but... A hybrid (flex fuel) or converted gasoline engine will run with less power and efficiency than an engine designed for the fuel it is burning. Ethanol CAN be efficient if you crank the compression ratio up to the 16:1 area, or if you are running 10:1 compression with a good amount of boost. But if you take a typical gas burning 9:1 compression engine and make it burn e85 your gas mileage will drop and the power will plummet. I think Ethanol has a future in our transportation market, but not as a flex fuel.
"The reason that diesels have so much rotating mass compared to gasoline engines is that they typically have a large stroke."
Not true,
1.9l TDI:
Diesel Engine
Output 89hp @ 4000rpm
Max Torque 202 @ 1900
Number of cylinders: 4
Capacity: 1896 cm3
Stroke: 95.5mm
Cylinder Bore: 79.5mm
Comp Ratio: 19.5
3400:
Gas Engine
Output 185hp @ 5200
Max Torque 210 @ 5200
Number of cylinders: 6
Capacity: 3400 cm3
Stroke: 92mm
Cylinder Bore: 84mm
Comp Ratio: 9.5
The diesel engine has a 3.5mm longer stroke, but its pistons are 4.5mm smaller. Yet it's rotating mass is significantly larger due to the the heft of the parts needed to stand up to the 19.5:1 compression ratio. The two engines have nearly identical torque ratings, but at vastly different RPMs. If you were to put these two engines in identical (consumer) cars with appropriate gearing, the Diesel would launch easy and faster, would last longer, and would get significantly better gas mileage.
"Wow. I'll take any gasoline powered sports car over any diesel powered sports car of the same weight and price any day. I don't care what the race is - autocross, oval laps, drag."
Thus the reason I said the "vast majority". Race cars is a very very insignificant portion of the total usage of vehicles in the world. But, to chime in on Diesel's behalf, not only did they win the LeMans, but the worlds fastest Pickup Truck is a Banks powered Diesel and last time I was following the rally circuit there were a number of cars running TDI engines.
"For a daily driver, I can't wait for the clean diesel to show up."
They're already here. The 2006 TDIs diesels produce less of every type of emission per mile driven than Gas engines. The 'dirty' thing that most people associate with Diesels is soot. Soot is basically unburnt/partially burn fuel, you get enriching the air:fuel ratio with out advancing the injection of fuel (or increase the fuel to the point where you can't advance the inject enough to compensate). Stock from the factory, TDI's are so fuel starved that you have to try pretty hard to get any noticeable amount of soot from them. Sure, if you stick a stage 2 chip and injectors on one with out upgrading the turbo, it'll look like a dump truck any time you hit the gas, but it'll have some balls to it. The new 2k8 Diesels are all switching to Common Rail Injection (or PPD for a few performance models) and introducing a new particulate filtering system. Common Rail Injection has already shown that it can be more efficient than the current Pump Duse systems, so that'll be a welcome change.
As for longevity, my Mother-inlaw bought a VW Rabbit new in the 70s. My wife learned to drive on it in the 90's. They sold it around 2000. In 2k5 we went out to get groceries and we saw it sitting in the parking lot. Same faded old bumper stickers and body damage. My wife actually bumped into the current owner again a while later and they chatted for a bit. Other than a new windshield wiper system (stock was one of those crappy vacuum systems) it was still driving just fine.
I wish my Fiero held up that well, I'm on my 3rd engine now. Although I think I push it a little harder than that old Rabbit.
-Rick
It seems to me that accepting anything on blind faith is pretty much a defining character of humanity.
A person may be a scientist, but they are a human first. And the human need for theological security (after life, intangible reward/punishment system, moral guidance, etc...) means that some things will be explained in a matter of religion until such a time that science can prove it.
On a side note, I have never held that Science and Religion directly rule each other out. Just because you believe in a God(s) doesn't mean that your deity of choice did not create the laws of physics that us mere humans strive to unravel. Me personally, I'm an agnostic. I look for logic explanations of the behavior of things I experience in life. Science did not create those experiences, it just describes them.
-Rick
"You could even grind the powder fine enough to be a slough, and 'pump' that into your vehicle's fuel tank."
The thought that one of my profs mentioned in a business class was that IF this technology advances enough, that you could literally go to Walmart and buy your fuel off of a shelf. Since at room temperature the stuff is completely stable, is there even a need to have a gas station like environment?
-Rick
"Especially while diesel is on parity or cheaper than gasoline."
Diesel has been pretty stable at around premium +$0.10 around here. But seeing as how my diesel gets 44mpg (real life average) and has just as much torque as my Fiero (which gets about 20mpg), I'm fine with that premium.
"I don't think that diesel will stay cheap, however, if more diesel cars are sold."
It's a balancing act. The Trucking industry (ie: the back bone of the consumer nation) depends on Diesel, so there is a lot of pressure on the refineries to keep diesel prices down. Also, you can get more diesel per barrel out of crude than you can gasoline. And finally, there are realistic ways to develop significant quantities of bio-diesel. One of the big fuel industries that is just getting started is coal plant algae farms. Given the US's dependency (and mass possession) of coal, this technology is a double win: It cleans up our power production systems AND creates a fuel that can be used in existing diesel engines. But yes, if in 2008 20 million consumers trade in their Gas burning cars for Diesels in the US, there would be infrastructure problems and price hikes. But Supply and Demand will with all likelihood make the conversion more gradual.
"It will be interesting to see how diesels do in the US market once the cleaner "low-sulfur" fuel is available."
We've had low-sulfur diesel for years. The new stuff is 'Ultra low-sulfur'. I don't remember the exact proportions of PPM sulfur, but it's a good drop off. The big reason for the change is emissions though. LSD will clog and kill the 2007 and newer diesel catalytic converters. The ULSD takes a little bit more to refine, and loses a bit of its lubricity, but that can easily be corrected with a 5% bio-diesel blend. BD has much higher lubricity than LSD/ULSD and a significantly higher cetane rating.
"high compression ratio, which limits RPM, which limits power."
Uhh, high compression ratios do not limit RPMs. Rotating mass and valve train limit RPMs. Heck Indy cars turn 10k RPMs and run upwords of 16:1 compression. Dragsters run super low compression (6.5:1) but make up for it with supercharges putting out 50+psi. There's a calculation you can do to change boost pressure into effective compression, I can't remember the specific math, but I'm pretty sure 50psi would put the effective compression well over 10:1.
"Run any kind of fuel in a diesel-cycle engine and you will run into this limitation."
The primary rpm limitation of diesels (so far as I know) is just the shear mass of the rotating assembly. If you ever get a chance, lay a diesel connecting rod next to a gas one.
"In general, if you are building a race car, efficiency isn't your primary concern."
Hardly! Look at Nascar, HP limits, plate limits, body limits... The whole point of Nascar is to make each car (power performance wise) identical. That gives you 3 chances to shine: 1) Driver skill, 2) Pit skill, 3) Efficiency. If you can pull an entire race on one less pit stop than everyone else, you just bought yourself a free lap.
I'm not saying the Gas engines are worthless or anything, just that they are inferior to Diesel engines in the vast majority of scenarios.
-Rick
[quote]So a PC with free software costs more than one with $100+ software? What are "co-marketing funds"? Kickbacks?[/quote]
Yes. I'm not sure on how the situation is now, but I had heard that for a while MS was negotiating highly exclusive contracts. Basically, the PC distributor paid for a license to install Windows on EVERY machine they produce. Any machine that DIDN'T have Windows on it would be charged a fee under the theory that any PC with out an OS installed would likely get an illegal copy of Windows installed. So if you spread the licensing cost of Windows out over every PC the distributor built, it may be $100 for each PC, but any PC they built W/O Windows would be charged a $300 fee to recoup the 'inevitable' loss to pirated Windows.
-Rick
I made no such assumption, but "every race" is hardly winnable by any single engine type. Gasoline combustion engines (and diesels too) can not compete in the 1/4 mile with Ethanol. Each type of race has its own goals and different tools to best reach those goals.
If a consumer is looking for a car that packs a solid punch performance whys, has lower maintenance fees, and will last longer than typical consumer vehicles, and gets significantly better fuel-mileage, then yes, Diesels are the obvious choice. But once you get into the pro/race market, cars become so specialized that other factors take precedence (ie: horse power over torque, power to weight ratio, RPM band, etc...)
As for that link you posted, it was informative as too the rule differences, but the rest of it was some armchair BS. And as for the rules, I'm not surprised by them. If you're going to run the Iditarod with a snowmobile instead of sled dogs, you're going to have different rules applied.
-Rick