According to the Dail Mail, crazy European legislation forcing car drivers to keep headlights on ALL day could inflate fuel costs by up to £160 a year.
What are the numbers? Well, this is one that I worked out earlier. It's in chapter 9 of Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, on page 58. Let's say the four bulbs for the running lights on a car use about 100 W. Allowing for the engine's and generator's inefficiencies, this 100 W of bulb power requires a petrol power of 730 W. For comparison, the petrol consumption of an average car running along at 50 km/h and consuming one litre per 12km is 42000 W. So having the lights on while driving requires 2% extra power.
If you drive 50km per day and fuel costs £1.20 per litre then you spend £5 per day on fuel. Putting the lights on is going to increase your costs by 2%, which is 10p per day. That's £37 pounds per year, for a typical driver. Obviously the answers come out differently if we change the vehicle to a Hummer, or if we replace the incandescent bulbs by modern LEDs.
I hope this helps!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The book's finished!
I'm happy to announce that Sustainable Energy - without the hot air is finished.
It's got a publisher, a cover design, and a publication date of December 1st 2008.
All that remains is some frantic last minute editing and correcting; then an 8-week wait.
The book will remain free on my website.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)