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Idling * Canada - An Exhaustingly Bad Habit
Idling for five minutes a day in a small car will burn 38 liters of gas a year and release 88 kilograms of carbon dioxide (twice as much in a large car.) For every thousand small and large cars that idle for five minutes a day, that’s 132 tonnes! Toronto,ON,Canada -Natural Life -25 Aug 2007: -- A recent study suggests that in the peak of winter, Canadians voluntarily idle their vehicles for a combined total of more than 75 million minutes a day – equivalent to one vehicle idling for 144 years... According to Natural Resources Canada, for every liter of gasoline used, the average car produces about 2.4 kilos of carbon dioxide. If every driver of a light duty vehicle avoided idling by five minutes a day, collectively over the year, we would save 680 million liters of fuel and over 1.6 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions... Diesel vehicles, on the other hand, do require a few minutes to warm up before being driven. Fortunately, there are available a variety of anti-idling devices designed to reduce the need for idling to warm up the engine, cool the vehicle or run auxiliary equipment when stopped... Diesel trucks create a particular problem, especially the hundreds of thousands of heavy duty, long-haul trucks with sleeper cabs that crisscross the continent. The drivers of these trucks are required to take safety rest periods at truck stops or rest areas every day. Most truck drivers leave their engines running during these rest periods to provide power for heat, air conditioning, refrigeration and other systems. This engine idling burns nearly a billion gallons of diesel a year in the U.S. alone, emitting an estimated 20 tons of air pollution and greenhouse gases... In order to reduce this sort of truck idling, systems have been developed to provide alternative power. One such technology is called Truck Electrified Parking (TEP.) TEP provides grid-supplied electrical power through electrical outlets mounted on pedestals at truck stop and rest area parking spaces. Truckers need to install 120-volt appliances or converters, but the cost works out to less than the cost of burning diesel fuel. The system has been tested in New York State and became operational along transportation corridors in Washington and Oregon just this past summer... (Photo by eere.energy.gov: A truck stop electrification unit)
Labels: idling reduction
posted by Unknown @ 8:04 AM
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