Topic: Trump has declared war on water saving toilets and it’s hilarious (15 times) :) - page 2. (Read 849 times)

Go back and look at my comment.

It says exactly this.

"If your original source of energy is coal, an electric car is inferior to a gasoline car."

Nothing complicated about it. Very simple. I gave the reasons.

You can now go and buy your fossil fueled car and feel good about it.

I meant how much is produced in total, from taking it out of the ground to when it make your wheels turn not just when it combusts.  There are a ton of factors to consider.

Overall though coal isn't even the biggest generator of electricity anymore.

Natural Gas produces 50-60% less CO2 than coal.
I don't think Renewable or Nuclear produce very much at all.

Total electricity produced in America:

Natural gas 35.2%
Coal 27.5%
Renewables 16.9%

For each kilowatt of energy, coal will produce 2 molecules of co2 for every one that gasoline produces.

If your power plant is coal fired electric is worse.

first ask the right question...

https://www.best-emf-health.com/dangers-of-electromagnetic-radiation.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z32f4qt/revision/2

https://bodyecology.com/articles/little-known-dangers-of-emf-php/

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposure/extremely-low-frequency-radiation.html

https://www.saferemr.com/2014/07/shouldnt-hybrid-and-electric-cars-be-re.html

https://healthyliving.azcentral.com/health-risks-with-a-high-voltage-transformer-12280084.html

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/07/09/vickie-warren-on-effects-of-electromagnetic-fields.aspx

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/electromagnetic-fields-fact-sheet

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/emf/index.cfm

Do you have any data that shows electric vehicles are ecologically worse?

Calculating the overall cost of mining the minerals => driving a Tesla vs  Drilling for oil => Driving your normal car is not something either of us are qualified to do.

The research I've done tells me it's a very complicated calculation, but electric cars are the overall winner.  I can not find a single reputable source that agrees with you and lots that explicitly disagree with you.

The calculation also leaves out the energy required to mine all of those rare Earth minerals. I think you will find that if this energy expenditure is included, electric vehicles are distinctly ecologically the loser, even if it makes economic sense. Don't get me wrong, I think electric cars are great and are the future, but as they are now they are little more than a base concept with lots of slick marketing and subsidies.

Internal combustion engines can be made far more efficient than what is currently on the market. Roll out of commercial efficiency improvements have been suppressed, especially when it comes to diesel technology. Also don't forget the batteries will reach end of life much faster than the car itself as well.

"A combustion engine's thermal efficiency is the heat of combustion of the fuel / work produced.

Contemporary automotive combustion engines have a peak thermal efficiency of around 38%. It can be as high as 40% with large volume EGR, direct injection, and a newer cam phase/lift adjustment system. EDIT: As of 2018, the newest engines are over 40%, with Mazda’s Skyactiv-X a tick higher at something like 44%. I think it’s possible we’ll see a near 50% peak efficiency gasoline engine before everything becomes electric.

Unfortunately typical efficiency on the freeway is only 30%, and goes down the lower your engine load is, down to near 0% at idle (where it's only generating a few hundred watts of electricity to run your car).

An electric motor's efficiency is measured by electrical power in / work produced.

It can also be as low as 0% when stalled, but when it gets moving this number is usually pretty high. Peak efficiency depends on a lot of things, but any cheap electric motor can achieve around 80% and the ones you find in electric cars have something like 92-95% peak efficiency, and typically run at over 85% efficiency.

However this isn't really a fair comparison. Before the electricity reaches the electric motor, it has to (in reverse order):

    Pass through the motor controller where it gets converted to AC and its voltage is adjusted, plus all the wiring which has some nontrivial voltage drop at higher current. (around 95% efficient on electric cars)
    Be released from the battery, by converting the chemical energy in the battery to electricity (~98% efficient on lithium ion batteries)
    Get stored in the battery in the form of chemical energy (depends on how fast you charge it, but ~98% efficient).
    Be transmitted from the power plant to wherever your car is charging (varies widely, but fairly efficient)
    Be generated at the power plant from thermal energy, or some renewable source (varies widely depending on heat source and type)

If we use a 40% efficient non-combined cycle coal power plant for example, the electric car actually has lower efficiency from coal to wheel vs. the gasoline car from tank to wheel. However gasoline is an expensive, high quality fuel which costs many times more per unit energy than natural gas, coal, nuclear power, etc. which is why an electric car is far cheaper to run as far as fuel goes. Part of the cost of gasoline is the energy and resources it takes to extract, refine, and transport the oil, and if those are included in the energy cost of gasoline then electricity usually wins, as evidenced by the lower cost per mile."

https://www.quora.com/How-energy-efficient-are-electric-motors-compared-to-combustion-engines?share=1

I think you're right about the rare Earth minerals.  Many people overlook that.

But from what I've read electric cars are significantly more efficient than combustible cars.  What makes you think otherwise?


Also, coal is just one of the ways we generate electricity.  Tesla is building those solar charging 'gas' stations.  I could see that catching on.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/evtech.shtml#end-notes

Okay ... can I respond to that from my Cybertruck?

This whole debate reminds me a lot of the myth that electric vehicles are better for the environment. It is all just marketing. Instead of burning gas you are burning coal at some far away plant, less efficiently than an internal combustion engine I might add. That is not to mention all of the rare Earth minerals that have to be mined to make the thing work and all of the pollution that creates. Facts are irrelevant though, because like low flow toilets, it is about virtue signalling and adding another layer of bureaucratic controls and taxes, not really about protecting the environment.

I'm assuming $500 parts and labor, which is likely really low. I'm also assuming 300,000 new low flow commodes put in since 1994, which would be about one in each home or business. That may be inaccurate.

But you have to consider that ALL OF THEM that didn't work properly, which was a lot, were then again replaced. All at cost to the public. Regarding your argument that the "Main Purpose" has to be considered, that is fair for those ones (1) that did work properly (2) that were not on purchase more expensive than the old style.

All I'm doing is quoting Wikipedia and commenting on it. What's the point? It's simple. If you have a social engineering scheme that you believe in, don't think you are smart to force it on the public without truly extensive testing. The scheme that works great in your head quite likely won't work in the real world.

Seems like you neither. You're assuming a 500$ cost to install this yeah sure. And the only benefits is the saved water?

So you're considering that the main purpose of the installation (flushing) isn't worth anything? Or you believe that only brand new toilets were replaced?

I mean you can't say "this toilets cost 500$ and they only save 1$ of water". No, these toilets cost 500$, their first purpose is to flush your poop away AND they save 1$ of water.

Now of course if those cost 500$ MORE than not low flush toilets your argument would make sense. But that's not what you're saying here.

Scientists do not create, test and manufacture things, like commodes. Engineers do. Engineers then look at issues like equipment performance, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.

Businessmen and consumers operate equipment. But you'd ignore their opinions? That's ignoring reality. I can't imagine why anyone would complain about someone saying that a government mandated rule was bad. Why attempt to ridicule Trump on this? A person would only look foolish as the facts came out. How about some facts from Wikipedia?

The early low-flush toilets in the U.S. often had a poor design that required more than one flush to rid the bowl of solid waste, resulting in more water used than a single flush of a standard toilet.....

In 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that, while low-flush toilets are estimated to have saved the city of San Francisco 20 million gallons of water per year, the reduction in water volume caused waste sludge to back up in the city sewer pipes, designed expecting a higher ratio of water to solids. The city was attempting to solve this by adding chlorine bleach to the pipes, a proposal that raised environmental objections.[3] In house drain system design, smaller-diameter drain pipes are being used to improve flow by forcing waste to run higher in the pipe and therefore have less tendency to settle along the pipe.
....
The first generation of low-flush toilets were designed like traditional toilets. A valve would open and the water would passively flow into the bowl. The resulting water pressure was often inadequate to carry away waste. ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-flush_toilet

How about some economic facts? From the wikipedia entry, "low-flush toilets are estimated to have saved the city of San Francisco 20 million gallons of water per year." That's at current water rates about $200,000 per year savings.  Assuming 300,000 households in SF and an average cost of $500 to install these commodes, you are advocating a 150M investment that returns 200K per year. That's a rate of return of 0.1% per year BEFORE THE EXTRA EXPENSES bolded above. So clearly you've created a new economic negative for your supposed climate positives. In short, you don't know what you are talking about. You, and your friend Al Gore, bungled it up, using pseudo science and a know-it-all, social controller attitude to force ignorance and stupid ideas on the public. Actually that's typical for climate advocates, though.

A similar example was the compact fluorescent bulb. That was claimed by governments and environmentalists to be the thing that was going to save the world. But they really, seriously underperformed. Did the control freaks such as you advocate stop pushing the CFL? Nope. The rules take on a life of their own. Meanwhile private industry (and scientists!) developed the white LED, then brought it to commercial viability, then the CREE LED. Now the world of lighting really is a different place. No thanks to your authoritarian controllers.

Trumps word over a scientist.  Because he owns lots of toilets.

And I don't think you're trolling.

jesus

You are referring to the 1375 page bill that was passed by a democrat congress and a democrat senate, into which one of those liberals inserted the toilet regulation bill?

You left those facts out didn't you? Why? All it does is show the extent you will bend the facts to make a point.

I'd take the opinion of someone owning hotel chains and tens of thousands of toilets over some ivory tower "environmental scientists" any day of the week about how well toilets work.

But don't worry, your esteemed environmental scientists can always get jobs cleaning commodes.

My second favorite was Low Energy Jeb. It really painted a picture that would not be very attractive to the voters. And Crazy Joe.

Relevant to the thread.
Not relevant when considering federal regulations.  I just think water conservation is a pretty complicated subject - the kind of thing society should turn to data, collected by environmental scientists, when making a decision like this.

Has your opinion on anything changed at all after realizing it was Bush and nearly every member of Congress that signed the 92 EPA Energy act (with the toilet regulations), and not some liberal assault on our rights by Gore and Clinton?  

Jugs are better in pairs.

Sounds like a fake story. But there's some truth to it. In an effort to save sometimes people ended up wasting not just more water, but time and stress. I say get a jug.