Biodiesel

Thanks for your questions, I'll try to give you some answers:

The Prius has two batteries, a 12 V lead acid battery just like other cars but it is smaller, about the size of a lawn tractor battery. They usually last 5 to 7 years and are recycled by the same factories that recycle normal car, truck, motorcycle batteries etc.

The other battery which we refer to as the hybrid battery or the traction battery is a sealed nickel-metal hydride battery. These normally do not fail during the life of the car, at least so far they haven't and some have several hundred thousand miles on them. There have been a few damaged in accidents and a very few of the early ones (1999 to 2003 model years) have developed bad cells, but there have been significant improvements since the early model. These damaged or failed Ni-MH batteries, I am told, are are returned to the Panasonic factory to be recycled. There are a lot of mostly empty ships returning to Japan.

I consider the car to be "eco-friendly" because it will easily get 50+ MPG and has fewer emissions than any other vehicle that I know of except 100% electric vehicles, which are not practical for most of us. It requires no more resources to build than any other vehicle, as far as I know, and it will out last most other cars. Might even go as long as your Mercedes but it hasn't been in production long enough to know yet.

What vehicle can you name that is as good as the manufacturer or enthuastic owners claim it is? Manufacturers exagerate to help sell their product, it's called advertising. Proud owners tell other people how great their car, TV set, new table saw, or whatever is. Just pride of ownership and if they didn't like it they wouldn't have bought it.

I'll go out on a limb and say that most of us don't buy the car because it's eco- friendly anyway, that's nice but it's not a driving factor. Most of us enjoy the technology and like having a car that uses less imported oil than almost any other.

 

Hi WaterOx,

You apparently have been FUD'd (look up FUD on Wikipedia).

The Prius is ecologically beneficial because it uses half the gas of other cars with the same interior space and performance and it puts out 1/10 the noxious polutants of a similar car.

As to Biodiesel it can only be used up to B10 in clean diesel cars, which still put out several times the noxious polutants as a Prius. So, on a petroleum usage basis, and noxious emissions basis, cars conforming to present new production regulations, that are diesels are a just not up to Prius snuff. Additionally, in order to meet the most basic (ie lousy) permission level for emissions in the US, the diesels had to be reduced in engine efficiency, and have to burn extra fuel to clean the DPF on occaision.

Please do not drive in front of me with that 83 Merc. I can smell those things 1/2 mile away ahead on the highway. And they are nasty. You know, the government was giving people with cars like yours money a few months ago, so they could afford modern technology. Maybe your heard of the "Cash for Clunkers" program?

Prius Chat has many European members. And they will tell you how bad it is to live in a metropolitan area where over 50 percent of the cars are diesels.

The Prius battery uses nickel. Which is the same metal that makes up 30% (oops -
Edit: 303 and 304 Stainless Steels have about 10 % Nickel) of the metal in tablewear most people eat their food with. Its not noxious, its valuable, and thus recycled. The Prius battery assembly only weights 90 pounds, and the amount of nickel is about 1/3 that weight. Many SUV's have that much nickel in them in anti-corrosion steels. Toyota buys nickel from INCO. Its been quoted that the fraction of nickel used for Prius batteries is less than 1 % of what INCO makes for all the other uses of nickel (turbine super alloys, stainless steel, non-automotive batteries, others?). The Prius battery uses a caustic electrolyte, which is much less hazordous than the acid in the battery in your car.

The Prius battery is designed to have a 150K mile service life. This has been the great majority of Prius owners' (that have driven that far) experience. Many taxi drivers have gone 200 K miles on the original battery. And a fiew reported 300K miles.

Another commonly exposed falsehood is the energy required to make a car versus how much it takes to run one. Several studies indicate for standard cars its 25 % of the overall energy consumption to manufacture and recycle the car, and 75 % of the total is the energy is used to fuel a car.

Now, I cannot blame you for the money savings your getting with that car, as long as you stay out of a metropolitan area with it. But, your really not saving energy usage with it over a Prius on a total energy consumption basis. Those older 300D and TD Merc's were in the 21 to 24 mpg (Find a Car) running on a fuel with 1.15 times the energy of gasoline. And of course the Prius does double that mileage on that gasoline fuel. And of course, Biodiesel is not a year-round fuel. Do not try to run on that fuel when its cold.

 

:welcome:
Some of our posters get a bit testy, answering the same mistaken beliefs over and over, I will try another tack.

Lets imagine that the Prius is not cleaner than an electric car, (Only 21% of my electricity comes from coal) I imagine it is still cleaner than a 1983 Diesel, on an uncontrolled fuel. To my knowledge, I am driving the vehicle that will pollute the least amount on my 110 mile commute. (I could not find an electric vehicle that would carry my gear 110 miles without a recharge)
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...sight-civic-hybrid-jetta-gas-tdi-wrx-sti.html

While I have little doubt your 1983 is well cared for and reliable, but how many exist so you can recommend one to your mother, your neighbor, the world? The Prius (or Insight, or several other choices) is a currently manufactured car, that anyone can buy and with no change in their driving style, double their mileage. (more mileage is available to those who can change their driving style) My (perhaps mistaken) understanding is that modern Clean Diesels require a regulated fuel by Federal law. (I am not claiming the BioDiesel does not meet the standard, only that Federal Law says you must prove it does)
Ultra-low sulfur diesel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I remember a BioWillie station about 40 miles away, but currently the nearest biodiesel station I can find is an unmaned station 120 miles away in Jackson. Biodiesel in Mississippi seems to be self manufactured, not purchased. This may well make ownership a rather limited solution for the average Joe, not to mention my mother. It bodes ill for Biodiesel users who drive through MS, they will be back on petro-diesel..

I am happy you have found a way to lessen your dependence on foreign oil, I hope you are happy I have found mine!

(no one specifically mentioned it, but Toyota pays $200 for failed Traction batteries, so very few of them should avoid recycling)

 

Define "green"

I doubt CARB would allow it as a new car. They seem opposed to anything over B20
http://www.arb.ca.gov/diesel/verdev/reg/biodieselcompliance.pdf

 

i hope to build out a bio-diesel chevy suburban down the road ...

a toy hauling, road tripping, rolling living room, running on spent soy and corn oil ... leaving nothing in it's wake but the scent of yesterday's french fries

well, it's my dream

plus, i figure i can slap a turbo on it and really haul nice person :thumb:


never been a fan of the '83 mercedes diesel, but i'm glad to hear it works for you

the prius works better for me :thumb:

i don't know which one is greener, but i didn't know it was a contest

i suppose if it's the mutt's nutts, you can snatch up a bunch of '83 benz diesels, tune 'em up, market 'em and unload 'em for a penny or two

good luck with your new business ... let us know how it goes :thumb:

 

I'd like to place an order for 1,000,000 of those 1983 Mercedes Benz and the free bio-diesel to run them. Then I would like an ongoing supply of them growing at an exponential rate to replace the currently about 1,000,000 Prius on the road and those being imported to the USA each year. I doubt this order can be met so people will continue to buy Prius. Point is mute.

I'm really happy to read about your environmentally friendly car running on renewable fuel, good on ya!

Different strokes for different folks, as long as we all pull together, hey!

 

Pat, you have hit on the key issue. Biodiesel is great for people who can get it cheep or free, but it's not scalable to the masses in general since the supply is limited. It makes sense to use the biodiesel that is available, which is why it is good we have people like the OP on this thread. I say good for him.

Once too many people start embracing biodiesel, it won't be free or cheep anymore. In our area we have seen the same thing happen with pellet stoves that burn compressed wood pellets, corn, or even cherry pits. When they were first introduced, the pellet stoves were a great bargin. The wood pellets were nearly free. Not anymore. In some cases they now cost as much as fuel oil, plus you have the hassle of dealing with a solid fuel. Any time you can use a free waste product it's a good deal. Once that waste product becomes a commodity the equation shifts.

Tom

 

patt... you got a good point there.

personaly i dont like this idear because diesel in a old car like that is not burning eco friendly and also will biodiesel not. only some of the co2 will be ofset but not the NOX etc etc.

 

Hi WO,

The Prius nickel is mined where the other 99 plus % of the Nickel used by society is mined. I do not believe Zinc is used in the Prius battery. The major use of zinc is as an alloy component with Aluminum, to make die-castings alloy. In a car you will see this in alternator housings. The Prius does not have an alternator. If you see white spec corrosion on an aluminum looking part, its most likely a die-cast part using the zinc-aluminum alloy. The Prius inverter housing does not show that white corrsion, so it is apparently cast aluminum. The Prius 12 V battery is about half the size of traditional cars. And diesels having higher compression ratio need a an even bigger starter battery. So maybe we should be asking you do you know where the Lead for your tripple sized (comapred to a Prius) starter battery is coming from?

That DPF (diesel particulate filter) requires burning of fuel to keep clean, occasionally. What they do is inject extra fuel into the exhaust stream that comes out of the engine. This superheats that flow, and the superheated gas , still rich in oxygen as its a diesel, then burns up the soot deposits in the DPF. If they did not do this, the DPF would require frequent replacement.

You are not bringing any awareness to us. The people who have responsded have been through discussions such as this for literally years now here on Prius Chat with many different diesel advocates.

In fact, one of long timers, who is married to a guy who was an actual Toyota hybrid mechanic, have a car just like yours, and they run it on SVO, with a change-over valve.

As to the really negative effects of diesel soots, you might want watch this: NOVA | Dimming the Sun | PBS . Is it coincidental that the Sub-Saharan drought relented about the time the EU started mandating DPF's , even in older cars (yea they had to be refit on the 1983 300 TD's over there to be allowed continued use of the roads)?

 

what i do not understand is that you talk about a valid point that you have about the prius battery mining but you still want to drive a full electric car.
where do you think components in a full EV come from?

the mine where the nickel for the prius battery is mined is the same mine where also nickel is from that is used in the body of cars and wheels.
there is more nickel in the body of the hummer then in the prius.

further panasonic ev can recycle about +95% of the battery after the potential life of more then 10 years is over.

so i dont think there is any point for you wurying about the battery in the prius especially if you want to drive a fully electric car with a lot more battery's in there.
or do you think that these fully ev get Litium batterys and that those are not mined for?

point for donee
iin the EU only new cars are fitted with this DPF.
and it was not needed for older cars to be fitted
only bigger trucks and busses that did not have a DPF where not alowed in some parts of the bigger city's
fitting a DPF was the sollution.
also in the netherlands there was a program where the placement of the DPF in older cars was subsidised by the gorvenement buth after a bublic funded investigation this was stopped because it was clear that the DPF did put out less of the measured particals but started to put out some new smaller parts that where before never measured for the exuast system testing each year.
and these smaller parts where even more health problematic ( smaller parts enter human longs and possible cancer )

 

Never stopping at a gas station would indeed be nice. As for supporting big-oil have you found a replacement for the motor oil in your car? If not, how often to you have to change / add oil? Being a 1980s German car I would bet your car actually consumes quite a bit of oil. The Prius, not so much.

You do seem like you are trying to ruffle feathers here. What is your point?

 

Since you didn't address diesel hybrids or using E100 or emission rating, it's hard not to take the post as an attempt to ruffle.

Remember, we want a solution for the masses... that's 10's of millions of new vehicles... quickly.
.

 

You should have noted, the sore spot for Prius owners are those who repeat lies. "Big Oil" is a mere pinprick by comparison.

I keep reading, but unless you never get over half a tank from your house, I am not seeing how you are not 'supporting big oil' as well. I am still not hearing any infrastructure to Biodiesel across the US.

I reversed the numbers on my gas mileage, 24 to 42. I reduced my emissions by about 6 times. It is at least 10 dB quieter than my Forester. I bought a car my wife will consent to drive. (it is not really a solution if no one uses it) It is possible I am using less cash per mile than BioDiesel , 2.20 $PG /42 MPG = 0.052 $PM If you are paying $2.00 per Gallon, you need to be getting 38 MPG to do as well. It is possible you are.

You note that we are not addressing 'big oil' although nearing a million owners each using half what they did before has got to reduce our consumption. Where are you addressing the points we raised? How is burning an unregulated fuel through an ancient (in EPA years) powerplant never intended for it 'eco-friendly'? How do you scale your plan to the 1 million users owning Pirus? More importantly to the masses NOT driving a Hybrid or BioDiesel?

(As with Electric Vehicles, Hybrid Vehicles, E85 Vehicles, BioDiesel Vehicles, Fuel Cell Vehicles, etc. I see no need to snipe at others doing better, there are still plenty of folks driving gas hogs to convert first. It simply is not a 'winner take all' race where only one technology can 'win')

Me? I would cheerfully have paid $1000 more to get a Prius capible of burning E85, 30 MPG burning E85 would be less 'big oil' used than 42 MPG of E10. But I am still trying to do my part.

 

I do even more for the environment and avoiding Big Oil by not driving. My daily routine involves walking everywhere I need to go. You should do that instead of using biodiesel. What, you say that's impractical? It works for me, I don't see why it shouldn't work for everyone.

Do you see the fallacy of this argument? Sure, not driving is better than driving, but most people need to drive to work. Biodiesel is better than using imported oil, but most people can't use biodiesel. If biodiesel were commonly used, it wouldn't be cheap and widely available. At the present time, it's not a scalable technology.

Tom

 

Ah, how short their memory is.

I hope you enjoy your solution, I hope you understand why it is not a solution for millions.

Every where is walking distance, if you have the time. I walked 2500 miles in 155 days. But this does not scale well for a million walkers.