A11MakeshiftCrew

A11MakeshiftCrew

To-Do

Step 1:

• Try to find some relevant information (anywhere on the web) related to YOUR problem or topic.

• http://energy.gov/news2009/8381.htm
• http://en.openei.org/wiki/Main_Page

• Can you locate any relevant information about YOUR problem in OpenEI? Describe what you find there.
• What it would take for you to contribute information (which you may have found in step 1) to this site and what would motivate you to do so!

1. Describe the energy-related problem or topic your group selected.

Reducing emissions in cars (hybrids and electric and more) and renewable energy. We don't like smog, and we would really just like to get rid of the pollution and smell. Also, it would be super awesome to never have to depend on foreign oil again.

2. Describe any Web resources you found about that problem or topic.

Questions: What are we going to with conventional cars do after all the oil is gone? How can we reduce the smog around a city and create a more healthy environment overall throughout the world? Currently, is it cheaper to buy a hybrid car or a

conventional car?

This website <http://www.hybridcars.com/oil-dependence>

explains the cons of conventional cars. It also provides links to other news to support the negative aspects of oil dependence. Overall, it seems like this is a biased website that wants to go green.

It is a nice way to read about the different kinds of alternative fuel cars. One question I have yet to answer on the site is whether "clean diesel" is actually somehow cleaner than normal diesel. So far, it sounds like it is just a ploy to get people to buy it, since you get about 50% longer performance per gallon than with normal gasoline. That's all great, but diesel supposedly has higher particulate matter and NOx emissions, so I don't think it is actually cleaner. But, I am strongly considering diesel as my next car, if it gets more widely produced (I probably wouldn't buy a car for 3-5 more years… hoping the Rav4 will live to see 16 or 17!)

Another thing the website does not seem to attempt to answer is how the producers of electric cars propose to make them a plausible substitute for physical fuel-based vehicles. As far as I can tell, there is no way that they will become widespread until there is some infrastructure established, or until charging times become hundreds of times more efficient. Another disadvantage is if you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. You would have to bring a portable generator out to your car, which would then probably take hours to charge you enough to get anywhere. I love idea of electric cars… since we can potentially use solar or other clean methods to charge them… but they do not make sense from an economical or consumer point of view.

3. Describe any related OpenEI resources you found.

Bobby: Yes, I found 23 results using the word "cars" as the query in OpenEI. The first result was an external link to information about electric and hybrid cars in China

<http://en.openei.org/wiki/New_Energy_Car_Union>.

The link leads to an article written in August by the NY Times explaining how the government of China is spending billions of dollars on research and development for fuel efficient cars in order to gain a foothold in the new growing market. This would reduce emissions and combat against pollution as the market slowly shifts from conventional cars to hybrid cars. The head of the tail (conventional cars) would be slowly replaced each year by hybrid cars in the long tail distribution. The hybrid cars at the tail would essentially be funded by the conventional vehicles until the hybrids can be sustained at the head of the market in the distribution.

If I wanted to determine how economically sound it is to buy a hybrid car as opposed to conventional vehicle, I could use the hybrid car calculator to determine the "purchase price, fuel costs, repair and maintenance costs, resale value, and applicable tax incentives, and calculates expected lifetime costs for both vehicles, as well as cost and emissions savings from the HEV"

<http://en.openei.org/wiki/Hybrid_Car_Calculator>.

I compared the Toyota Prius (hybrid) vs the Honda Civic (conventional) and it seemed that for a couple thousands of dollars more, the Toyota Prius would not be too bad to buy in the long run. The emissions would be reduced by a few thousand pounds of CO2 and the maintenance is just less than half a hundred dollars. Also, I would save $200-400 in fuel costs which is pretty good with the rising cost of oil. There were a few other links that led to entries within the domain that talked about types of fuels vehicles use like hydrogen and biofuels.

Anne: One thing about the Hybrid Car Calculator that I did not like was that you can only compare a few conventional vehicles, and it requires you to compare the Prius to the a manual Honda Civic, which few people actually have.

4. Discuss what it would take for you to contribute information (such as what you may have found in step 1) to the OpenEI site and what would motivate you to do so.

Bobby: Maybe if I did more research and spent a lot of time on the subject, then I would contribute information to the website. Just like our class wiki, I would have to create a profile and sign in before I would be able to even create a page. That seems a little excessive just to post something if I do not have too much knowledge about the subject. What would motivate me to do so is if I had a job related to energy efficient cars. Then I would have more authority to contribute to the information sphere of hybrid cars.

Anne: I would contribute to the Open EI site if I was working in alternative energy and I wanted to make it easier for people to learn about (and buy) my product. I would also contribute if I knew a lot about something and saw that someone had entered wrong information on the Open EI site.

Andy: I would be most likely to contribute to the site if I had found something somewhere else that I thought was really insightful or little known, and only then if I felt really sure that it was from a credible source. If I had an extensive background in energy, perhaps I would also be more inclined to make small corrections here and there, as well as larger contributions.