The Cost of Being Green

Still, thats only 2% of the smog produced by engines, not including fireplaces and barbecues...  That's pretty small-fry to be going after, and the 20-30% price increase to small motors is much greater than the cost to put catalytic converters in cars.

By that argument, I shouldn't be doing a thing, as any changes I can affect are miniscule in nature.

1 gallon of lawnmower gas is equivalent 93 gallons of automobile gas in terms of smog forming pollution.  Should I not take the train to work once a week because it only saves me 80 gallons of gas a year?

-Allen

Back to the EV thing:  I'm still having a hard time imagining what would happen to CA's electrical grid if the majority of the State's car fleet were plug-ins, especially in summer.  Seems like the grid infrastructure and generation capacity would need to be vastly increased.  More wires and power plants.  CA has a lot of cars.

dave

No, we should go after the low laying fruit first.  They've already gotten an order of magnitude improvement by banning 2-stroke engines, and I'd be shocked if there weren't simpler things that could be done in the other 98% of engine emissions or fireplaces as I pointed out.  As I said, a lawnmower typically burns around 10-20 gallons of gas in it's lifetime, compared to a car that burns on average about 4000g.  The converter in the car costs about $300.  In the lawnmower, $50.  That's 7.5c per gallon of gas burned in the car, vs $2.50 per gallon in the small engine.  That's 33 times more expensive, and actually close to costing more than the fuel!

You might not want to take the train to work once a week if it uses 50 hours of time over the year that could have been spent doing something better - perhaps mowing with a slower push-mower.  Everything has an opportunity cost and that needs to be considered more.  Time and money is a limited resource too and it must be spent in the wisest way possible.

The electric vehicle charging problem is fairly straightforward to solve, PG&E can control when the vehicles charge, so they turn off their chargers during peak times and only charge when there is excess capacity on the grid.  Right now the excess capacity at night, ect, is dead time.  For this uneven power usage PG&E requires 'peak' power plants, which are generally gas turbine, because these are easy to start and stop.  Gas turbine power plants cost 4x coal plants, 3x nuclear, and 1.5x wind power, and actually are about the same wholesale cost as baseline retail power as far as $/kWH.  Using the vehicle fleet to mop up excess capacity during low times when gas turbine plants would be off would allow them to be replaced with less expensive and more environmentally friendly sources of power.  Electricity usage has always grown, and PG&E regularly has to upgrade the grid and replace parts as they wear out anyway, as long as the phase in of electric vehicles is gradual they will be able to keep up with it - I doubt they'll complain about the extra KWH they sell over baseline.

A lawnmower usually only uses about 10-20 gallons of gas in it's life.  This is another area where the returns of trying to 'green' the thing is pretty small.    Electrics do cost about the same, but they're only really practical if your entire front and back yards are reachable within 50' of an outlet.  They are also considerably weaker and don't do well at all for the weed and fire-suppression mowing of grasses outside my lawn in the spring.  The gas mower happilly chomps through knee deep brome.

Every act doesn't have to be magnificent in its scope. You don't need to save the world every time you make the effort. Lots of small sustainable actions add up. Besides, on the very local level (my lawn), I don't have to breathe gas fumes and get my ears assaulted.

Also, this type of electric mower has no cord. It uses a rechargeable battery.

Another huge source of air pollution is wood smoke. It would be easy to require that all new stoves sold in California have a catalytic converter. I had one of those stoves in North Carolina. Aside from the first few minutes of getting it going, you wouldn't even see smoke coming out of the chimney; just heat waves.

No, we should go after the low laying fruit first.  They've already gotten an order of magnitude improvement by banning 2-stroke engines, and I'd be shocked if there weren't simpler things that could be done in the other 98% of engine emissions or fireplaces as I pointed out.

Agree.  However, if someone needs to buy a new lawnmower, for a few bucks extra, would they or should they buy a "greener" one?

As I said, a lawnmower typically burns around 10-20 gallons of gas in it's lifetime, compared to a car that burns on average about 4000g.

It's not just a matter of how much fuel it burns in its lifetime.  One must take into account the emissions to burn said fuel.

The converter in the car costs about $300.  In the lawnmower, $50.  That's 7.5c per gallon of gas burned in the car, vs $2.50 per gallon in the small engine.  That's 33 times more expensive, and actually close to costing more than the fuel!

The EPA estimates a cat converter for a lawnmower costs $8.  It's not even worth calculating the cost per gallon at that price.

You might not want to take the train to work once a week if it uses 50 hours of time over the year that could have been spent doing something better - perhaps mowing with a slower push-mower.  Everything has an opportunity cost and that needs to be considered more.  Time and money is a limited resource too and it must be spent in the wisest way possible.

Agree.  In my case, the time it takes to take the train to work is roughly equivalent to the time it would take me to drive and sit in traffic.  Maybe 10 minutes more as I have to walk 5 minutes on either end.  So it all works out for me.

The electric vehicle charging problem is fairly straightforward to solve, PG&E can control when the vehicles charge, so they turn off their chargers during peak times and only charge when there is excess capacity on the grid.  Right now the excess capacity at night, ect, is dead time.  For this uneven power usage PG&E requires 'peak' power plants, which are generally gas turbine, because these are easy to start and stop.  Gas turbine power plants cost 4x coal plants, 3x nuclear, and 1.5x wind power, and actually are about the same wholesale cost as baseline retail power as far as $/kWH.  Using the vehicle fleet to mop up excess capacity during low times when gas turbine plants would be off would allow them to be replaced with less expensive and more environmentally friendly sources of power.  Electricity usage has always grown, and PG&E regularly has to upgrade the grid and replace parts as they wear out anyway, as long as the phase in of electric vehicles is gradual they will be able to keep up with it - I doubt they'll complain about the extra KWH they sell over baseline.

Yup.

Good discussion here Josh.  Exactly what I was hoping to see out of this thread.

-Allen

And on a different note ...

CES to highlight tech for greening homes
By Brian Bergstein
AP Technology Writer / January 3, 2008

While most electronics companies are still trying to establish green credentials, 2008 could mark a turning point for previously obscure "home automation" technologies that now are being advertised as a way to save electricity -- not just personal energy.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/01/03/ces_to_highlight_tech_for_greening_homes/

-Allen

I read that brigg's & stratton and CA were arguing over wether the catalytic converters would add 18 or 30% to the cost of small engines, so I think it's several times $8.  The rare metals in them alone are expensive.  Probably B&S is including the design effort and other factors than just the part.  Converters choke engines and reduce horsepower for instance, so the engines may need to be resized.  Also catalytic converters burn up if they get too hot, which is why they're located several feet away from the engine in a car, which is fine in such a large machine.  Space restrictions on small machines are much more severe, and most are air cooled so wrapping a red hot pipe around them can cause cooling problems...

A good compromise would be to require converters on engines over 10h or so, which would cover most contractors mowers and riding mowers (~3/4 of mower hours and maybe 90% of fuel burned), while only affecting a small percentage of engines that are in less cost sensitive machines that also have more space available to implement it.

I read that brigg's & stratton and CA were arguing over wether the catalytic converters would add 18 or 30% to the cost of small engines, so I think it's several times $8.  The rare metals in them alone are expensive. 

 
From ... http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06090/678495-113.stm

The EPA estimates that adding converters could cost $8 per engine.

I've seen the $8 EPA reference in multiple articles on this subject.

Of course this same article says ...

Use of a catalytic converter can cut small engine hydrocarbon emissions by 35 percent, EPA officials say.

So we're talking a 35% cut on that already small 2% ... 

-Allen

I read that brigg's & stratton and CA were arguing over wether the catalytic converters would add 18 or 30% to the cost of small engines, so I think it's several times $8.  The rare metals in them alone are expensive. 

 
From ... http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06090/678495-113.stm

The EPA estimates that adding converters could cost $8 per engine.

I've seen the $8 EPA reference in multiple articles on this subject.

Of course this same article says ...

Use of a catalytic converter can cut small engine hydrocarbon emissions by 35 percent, EPA officials say.

So we're talking a 35% cut on that already small 2% ... 

-Allen

I was interested in what the expected reductions in emissions were supposed to be. To be quite frank, I'm not sure if adding converters to all mowers would be wise. As Zeelander pointed out, the exhaust system on the average residential mower is very short. Add the fact that they use a simple magneto/carburator for ignition/fuel mixture control, and I'm thinking there is good potential for converter fires. Should one happen while some poor schlub is doing weed abatement down in SoCal, the gains in emissions could be horribly offset by pollution due to wildfire. Call me dubious about the benefits.


Regards,
Scott

i have got to give props to allen. dude i think you have one of the largest bloggs ever on this site. and i thought i was a master at stiring up ome shit. great discussion much to think about. aloha