Anyone for a cardboard PC?

Isn't that true of all the materials in any automobile? Is the mining and processing of nickel somehow different that that for the processing of the other materials, (steel, aluminum and plastics)?

It would seem that the pollution in the manufacturing process would be pretty well correlated with the weight of the vehicle.

If batteries are really proportionally greater pollution sources, we'd better watch out when the all-electric cars start to appear!

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson
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Yes. Weren't all in-line engines water cooled -- I thought only the radial designs were air-cooled.

Barely. Despite the name, radiators don't cool by radiating. They cool by conduction of heat to the passing airstream.

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Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Maybe I should have
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Reply to
Grant Edwards

Yes. I don't recall the details, but separating Ni from its ores is apparently highly polluting (in terms of toxic waste output) and requires a lot of energy input.

Apparently, not so.

That is the point. But it will not happen in my lifetime or yours, the ICE will very easily dominate for at least another half-century and after that... not my problem.

Reply to
larwe

I think the Ranger V770 was the only air-cooled V-twin engine in wide usage in WWII. There are certainly a lot of modern small aircraft engines with inline opposed cylinder banks that are air cooled. None of these produce the power of the larger radial engines, though.

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Mark Borgerson

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Mark Borgerson

f
g

I checked, and you are right that nickel production is more pollution- prone than iron or aluminum. That is a result of the fact that most nickel ores are sufides and refining releases a lot of sulfur.

There's a good article on the whole Prius vs. Hummer debate at:

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exploding-the-myth

On a recent trip to New York City, I observed that there are=20 a lot of Prius taxis. I don't think NYC taxi companies are using those cars for the sake of being environmentally friendly-- which makes a good argument that the car is more cost effective in city driving.

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

That's because every single estimate in the "analysis" assumes the best case for the Hummer and the worst case for the Prius. For an analysis of CNW's "study" (i.e. marketing propaganda), see:

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Reply to
Nobody

Lycoming produces a number of 6-cylinder aircraft engines.

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Lycoming has been doing 8-cylinder engines since the 60s. I think the IO-720 is the only one left in production. They're definitely a high- end product for high-end light twins. In 2009 a new IO-720-A1B cost USD $113,621, with a rebuilt engine retailing for USD$75,435 and a factory overhaul priced at USD$66,289.[4]

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Jabiru produces a limited number of smaller 8-cyliner horizontally opposed engines---primarily for the kit-built market.

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Mark Borgerson

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Mark Borgerson

Ya, that's high-end.

I noticed that on the Wikipedia page on the Comanche 400 (which uses an IO-720 it says "there have been cooling problems with the rear cylinders of the horizontally-opposed eight cylinder engine". Multi-row radials sometimes had similar problems cooling the rear cylinders.

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Grant
Reply to
Grant Edwards

I would think that modern computer simulation techniques could optimize airflow to minimize those problems. A good engine computer and individually controlled fuel injectors could also control rear-bank temperatures---but probably at the cost of power and fuel efficiency.

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

Same here. Back in the late 40's when they were still making multi-row radials, it was still somewhat trial and error, but these days both air flow and heat transfer are fairly well-understool and easily-simulated problems.

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Grant
Reply to
Grant Edwards

I suspect that there is some real impediment to the design of 8-cylinder opposed bank air-cooled aircraft engines, then. The IO-720 design goes back to the

60s. If it were easy to solve those cooling problems, the reduced frontal area of flat 8s would probably be worth the trouble. Instead, we are seeing a lot of turbines where there used to be both radials and large horizontally-opposed ICEs.

It does look odd to see some of the conversions where a lighter turbine is hung WAAAAY out in front of the position of the original radial to maintain the weight and balance.

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Mark Borgerson

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Mark Borgerson

Ah! I've always wondered why turbine otter conversions had such a long nose. It didn't seem like the turbine would be that much longer. The weight/balance issue never occurred to me.

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Grant
Reply to
Grant Edwards

...again!

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Reply to
Boudewijn Dijkstra

RR Merlin was liquid cooled. Not water, but ethylene glycol.

The sound of a Merlin engined Spitfire flying overhead is simply awesome.

A bit more offtopic, XH558 Vulcan is back in the air in the uk and was seen and heard overflying a country fair a couple of weeks ago. I remember them at the Abingdon air show years ago. 3 or 4 Vulcans flying over head and the sky would darken and the ground would shake.

See:

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for more info.

Anyway, enough of this aviation anorak mode. Back to work :-)...

Regards,

Chris

Reply to
ChrisQ

They are using them because the city mandated that they use them, in yet another example of bureaucracy gone mad. There was a big outcry that the city's changed taxi nonsense basically cut all US manufacturers out of the NYC taxi market (though you will now see some hybrid SUV taxis too).

Reply to
larwe

It only cut US manufacturers out because the US manufacturers were not producing the right sort of vehicles. This is largely why most of the world cut out the US manufacturers and they went bust.

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Reply to
Chris H

Depends what you mean by "right". US manufacturers were by and large making the right vehicles for American tastes in vehicles. The problem

- if there is one - of pollution is best controlled by making fuel expensive. Absent that kind of control, there is little consumer incentive to buy uncool organic hemp vehicles with peace signs on the hubcaps. I realize Europeans are born with a genetic desire for such vehicles, but it's certainly not the case in America.

Anyway, hybrids are not a serious answer, they're strictly a stop-gap measure awaiting some actual technological development. A highly polished turd, if you will.

Reply to
larwe

LOL, try to tell that a German. Setting a speed limit on the Autobahns there is politically as easy as banning guns in the US... Much to my delight, I must say (I would be very unhappy if either restriction takes place, that is).

Dimiter

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Dimiter Popoff

It has more to do with taxes than genetics. You'd be shocked if you knew how much it cost to buy and drive a car in many European counties. Also in many older European cities and villages, with streets predating the invention of the car, a big car is rather impractical as you would have difficulties manoeuvering the car and finding a suitable parking spot is close to impossible with a Hummer sized car. Like the US many Europeans buy the biggest car they can afford and that is practical, environmental concerns are low on the priority list for most (at least until recently before tax policies started promoting the Prius like cars).

Reply to
Dombo

Like they said in TopGear; what is the point of having Germany if they no longer have highways without speed limits.

Reply to
Dombo

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