Category Archives: Miss Information

Jun 23 12 comments
Environment, Miss Information

Gas powered lawn mowers=Environmental disaster

Miss Information

Miss Information for Week of June 23rd

I am going to pick on TreeHugger a little this week. I read a rather amusing article which made some pretty outrageous claims about gas powered lawn mowers.

  1. Using a gas powered lawn mower for 1 hour produces the same amount of pollution as 11 cars.
  2. There are 1,300,000, replacing half of them would be the same as removing 2,000,000 cars from the road.

It seems we should all be using self powered reel mowers or electric mowers if we want to mow our grass at all.

First of all, lets look at the article itself. As a source for this information, they provide a link to the US EPA website. If you follow that link, it does not bring you to anything specific to lawn mowers and pollution. A search through the EPA website shows a few press releases about out door power equipment, some of which date to 1994. So, what is the source for the claim of and 11 to 1 ratio of cars to lawnmowers regarding pollution? I searched high and low and could not find a single shred of data to back this up. (Update) Richard found two links: The first one, Green Landscaping and Wild Ones Handbook, gives 1 hour lawn mowing = 350 car miles, then states that that is old information. The newer version is 1 hour lawn mowing = 20 car miles, which sounds about right. In other words, 1 hour using the lawn mower = 20-30 minutes in driving a car as far as pollution is concerned. The second one, Landscaping with Native Plants fact sheet, gives the 11 to 1 ratio (it is about 1/4 way down the page under “Why should I choose native plants”). This second web page was written in 2002 and last updated in 2006. It appears the author used the now updated source used in the first link.

Secondly, the bit of information about replacing 650,000 gas powered lawn mowers is the same as removing 2,000,000 cars from the road just seems to be fantasy. What sized cars? What sized lawn mowers?

To do a little data collection myself, I mowed the lawn. I have a Toro 20072 6.5 HP walk behind lawn mower. Is this an average lawn mower? I don’t know, but I’ll bet it is pretty close. I filled the tank with 2 liters of gas and used the mower until it ran empty which took 70 minutes. That is 1.71 liters or 0.45 gallons per hour. So, the question is what model cars burn so little fuel as to emit almost no pollutants? Perhaps hybrids traveling under 30 miles per hour (on battery power).

Small engines do not have catalytic converters and cars do. I realize that when the TreeHugger article states “pollution” it may be talking about Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrous Oxides (Nox), Sulfur Oxides (Sox), and unburned hydrocarbons but the premise is not stated that way . Catalytic converters greatly reduce the above mentioned pollutants from cars but does not completely eliminate them. Any trip to Los Angeles during the summer will confirm this.

The long and the short

Any internal combustion engine produces pollution and we should endeavor to reduce the use of fossil fuels when ever possible. However, you can mow your lawn with a gas powered lawn mower guilt free, there are much better ways to go about saving the environment. Making miss leading statements like this only gives ammunition to the anti-environment groups which they can use to belittle and show that all environmentalists are wacky left wing nut jobs bent on destroying the economy and the American way of life.

Lets be careful out there.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Jun 16 0 comments
Miss Information, Solar Energy

Say Hello to Miss Information!

Miss Information

Miss Information, week of June 16, 2008

I decided to start a weekly thing called “Miss Information.” Miss Information is used often by people who want you to buy things, some times it is unintentional, other times it is not. As you can see, Miss Information looks good, sounds good, (often too good) and she can be down right convincing if you truly want to believe.  Half truths and intentional omissions are common and I believe they give good technology and or science a bad rap.

This weeks Miss Information comes from the Sam’s Club June July addition of “Source.” It has an extensive section on all things “Green,” including on page 15, a section on Solar Energy. The article starts out okay, I suppose (I am deeply suspicious of any mega retail company that suddenly becomes enthralled with the environment, but anyway…). Then in the bottom yellow box titled “Details about solar energy,” it makes two significant mistakes:

1. “If there is a power outage, you can still have electricity!” Well, sort of. If you want to spend about twice as much on your solar electric system you can have electricity when the power is out.  In a batteryless grid tied solar system (the most common type of system installed) the inverter shuts down when the power from the grid is gone.  This is to prevent utility company workers from getting electrocuted while they try to restore power.  A grid tied solar system with battery back up is about fifty percent more a batteryless grid tied system plus the extra labor to install all the batteries, extra wiring, etc. A grid independent system is several times the cost of a batteryless grid tied system.

2. “As your energy needs grow you can add more solar panels.” Again, sort of.  if you have a large enough inverter to handle the larger output from your solar array it may be possible to add more solar panels in the future.  This is almost never done by an installer because larger inverters cost more, take up more space and operate at a lower efficiency. Also, solar panels age and as they get older, their output drops. Coupling to panels together that have different output voltages will cause more current to flow in the lower voltage panel, which can damage it.

The long and the short

Solar Energy, both Photovoltaic and Solar Thermal are good choices to reduce energy use and thus expenses. They are expensive to install and payback will take several years. They do have their limitations and will not be the cure all and all for our energy problems.

Do your research and lets be careful out there.

Popularity: 4% [?]