EVcast #169: Neil Young Sings the Songs of the EV

hi you were talking about purge canisters and the emmisions they  would produce if left sitting for three days i can at least tell you this factoid the surface area in of all the charcol in a evap canistor is said to be enough to cover an entire football field. This being said how much vapor is realy escaping into the atmosphere ?? They also just made California smog stations buiy evap testing equipment because they say that is were most of the emmission from cars is coming from now and this testing only applies to pre 1996 vehicles. This is because the computer controls the purging of the system and test for leaks in the evaprative system. Hence they can control the purging of the systym and shut it off to test it. I just wonder if they can control it why not make it work for the vehicles in question I think its a farse there is ways to control the vapors . 

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   I am very interested in the evaporative emissions issue for cars.  It seems like common sense to think that the most pollution from cars comes out of the tail pipe.  It seems simple, you burn something, you make pollution. Simple, right.

    Apparently not so fast.  Unburned fuel in the air contributes greatly to smog forming pollution (not sure about global warming).  So California has been fighting evaporative emissions for decades to improve air quality.  This is one of the reasons that we have winter-gas versus summer-gas blends.  They actually change the gas blend for the summer to reduce evaporation in the hot weather.

    The most direct experience that I have had with evaporative emissions is opening the gas cap and hearing a FIZZZ sound.  That is gas vapor escaping into the air and causing pollution.

    So back to CARB.  There is a carbon canister in the car to collect evaporative emissions.  I guess this canister is located near the gas tank.   I wish I understood how it worked.  But here is one thing I do know, if your gas tank is full of liquid fuel, there is very little gas vapor because the space it taken up by the liquid.  There is no room for gas vapor.  When the tank is nearly empty, it is full of gas vapor, which is bad.

    This is a well know problem and has been addressed in cars like the Toyota Prius.  Inside the Prius gas tank is a bladder that expands when it is full of liquid gasoline and contracts when the liquid gasoline leaves the tank.  There is no space for gas vapor to form.

     This bladder technology is necessary to be rated as a PZEV (Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle) by California.

     OK, so if the Prius has the bladder technology, and it is converted to a Plug-in vehicle, is there really an issue with the evaporative emissions?

Thanks
John C. Briggs

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Bo and Ryan,

As to Neil Young doing an album on ev's...... This is going to be some real competition for your musical's.  I look forward to the next one as the content was a golden moment for you but on the tone deaf part Neil is gonna take you to the cleaners. 

I love your shows guys keep up the good work.

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Please add this video about the Th!nk City to your video link area:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPsp0zZwjZM

It is a good little video made by supporters of the Th!nk City.

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Dag,
   Excellent video on the Th!nk.
Thanks
John C. Briggs

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