Re: [BlindHandyMan] To idle, or not to idle

[Dan Rossi]

I always like to analyze articles like this to see if the math they 
propose makes any sense.  OK, I'm a geek, I know it.

The one thing that always happens is they don't give you quite all the 
information and so you have to make some assumptions.

they say that Canadites idle their cars for an average of 5 to 10 minutes 
a day, and this is 75 million minutes a day.  Which, if you take the low 
end of 5 minutes a day, implies 15 million cars in Canada, which seems 
kind of low to me.  If you take the higher number of 10 minutes a day, you 
get even fewer cars.

anyway, they say if you cut the amount of idle time by 5 minutes a day per 
car, so we are assuming dropping the average from 5 to 0 minutes, they 
would save 680 million liters of gas.

OK, so you cut from 75 million minutes a day to 0 minutes a day.  multiply 
that out by days per year to get total minutes.  Divide by 60 to get 
hours.  So you are saving 456.25 million hours of idle time a year.

Divide the 680 million liters of gas savings by 456.25 million hours and 
you get 1.5 liters per hour, or about 0.393 gallons per hour.

So, here is where I run out of real world knowledge.  Does a vehicle 
really burn about 0.4 gallons per hour while at idle?  It seems kind of 
high, but I really don't know.  It could be kind of low.

If a car gets 30 miles per gallon, 0.393 gallons would get you 11.8 miles. 
So, idling is the same as driving your car at about 12 miles per hour.

what do the car guys say?

-- 
Blue skies.
Dan Rossi
Carnegie Mellon University.
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel:(412) 268-9081

[BlindHandyMan] plasma power generators

[Rob Monitor]

HI GUYS, Here's good question for all of you. What in the hell is a plasma 
power generator??? Well if any of you guys know what this is please let me know 
just the short version...
THANKS ROB FROM MINNESOTA

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [BlindHandyMan] To idle, or not to idle

[cheetah]

dan you have to much time on your hands.
grin
jim
At 10:28 AM 2/27/2008, you wrote:

>I always like to analyze articles like this to see if the math they
>propose makes any sense. OK, I'm a geek, I know it.
>
>The one thing that always happens is they don't give you quite all the
>information and so you have to make some assumptions.
>
>they say that Canadites idle their cars for an average of 5 to 10 minutes
>a day, and this is 75 million minutes a day. Which, if you take the low
>end of 5 minutes a day, implies 15 million cars in Canada, which seems
>kind of low to me. If you take the higher number of 10 minutes a day, you
>get even fewer cars.
>
>anyway, they say if you cut the amount of idle time by 5 minutes a day per
>car, so we are assuming dropping the average from 5 to 0 minutes, they
>would save 680 million liters of gas.
>
>OK, so you cut from 75 million minutes a day to 0 minutes a day. multiply
>that out by days per year to get total minutes. Divide by 60 to get
>hours. So you are saving 456.25 million hours of idle time a year.
>
>Divide the 680 million liters of gas savings by 456.25 million hours and
>you get 1.5 liters per hour, or about 0.393 gallons per hour.
>
>So, here is where I run out of real world knowledge. Does a vehicle
>really burn about 0.4 gallons per hour while at idle? It seems kind of
>high, but I really don't know. It could be kind of low.
>
>If a car gets 30 miles per gallon, 0.393 gallons would get you 11.8 miles.
>So, idling is the same as driving your car at about 12 miles per hour.
>
>what do the car guys say?
>
>--
>Blue skies.
>Dan Rossi
>Carnegie Mellon University.
>E-Mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Tel:(412) 268-9081
>
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>2/27/2008 8:35 AM