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Start Your Engines ???
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by Paul Tick
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It was one of the coldest
mornings of the season thus far and I was taking a walk at dawn. I was
thinking over what to write for my next Coop Scoop article on green
living. As I walked, the crisp morning air was frequently interrupted
as cars in driveways were idling to warm up for the drive to work and
school while the car owners were still inside their homes. The exhaust
that poured from the car tail pipes gave me my subject for this article.
The old fashioned way to warm up a car, that so many still use, is to
keep it running while you rush around taking care of those last minute
details before leaving the house. It was previously believed that long
warm up times were needed to get the engine hot enough to reach its
peak performance level. Engineers studying today's cars however, have
found that as your car idles at the cooler temperature, the gas in the
engine is only partially combusted. Fuel residues build up in the
engine and damage its components.
A study by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation shows that the best
way to raise your engine's temperature to its most efficient level is
to drive it almost immediately after you start it up. Even in freezing
weather, it takes only a few minutes for a car engine to warm up. While
the engine is warming up, you save more fuel by being careful to
accelerate slowly.
American drivers idle their car between 5 and 10 minutes per day. Two
minutes of idling time uses the amount of gas it takes to drive about
one mile. A car that idles for only 10 seconds uses more fuel than if
the engine was shut off and then restarted. Thus, when you are waiting
in a line of cars at the driveup teller or when you are stuck in
traffic or when you are waiting in your car outside for your friends to
get their act together, turn off your engine and restart it when you
are ready to go.
Another gas saving measure is that after you shut your engine and are
ready to restart it, be sure not to depress the accelerator. You
already have enough gas in the pipeline for this next startup. The only
warning about this is that you should not shut your engine when in you
are in regular street traffic; this is against the law and could be
dangerous if you start up slowly and the person behind you speeds up
quickly. Some people worry that shutting off and restarting your car
uses up too much gas and wears out the car parts but car technology has
vastly changed over the years. Today's cars use electronic fuel
injector systems that rigorously control the amount of gas delivered to
the engine and fuel is no longer wasted during the startup. Restarting
your car, for the average driver adds about $10 per year to the cost of
driving yet, over the year, more than three times that amount will be
saved in reduced gas costs and reduced wear and tear on the car engine.
More important than the cost savings are the environmental benefits
when we stop idling our cars. One study shows that if everyone reduced
their idling by 10 minutes per day, we would reduce our nation's carbon
dioxide emissions by over 15.48 million metric tons per year. If we had
the technology to eliminate idling in stop-and-go traffic we could
reduce our overall fuel consumption by a whooping ten percent and we
are close to that already. The Toyota Prius engines automatically turn
off when the car is stopped at a red light or stuck in traffic, and
when the driver steps back on the accelerator the engine is fully ready
for action.
Hopefully, this information will be useful for you to reduce your
carbon footprint. But please don't forget the most important thing of
all--use your car only when you have to. Start or continue to car pool,
use the bus or train, bike ride and walk as much as possible. Stay
healthy and keep the planet healthy, too.
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Resources
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California
Energy Commission: www.consumerenergycenter.org/myths/idling.html
Slate: www.slate.com/id/2192187
Ask your environmental questions at Slate's Green Lantern: www.slate.com/id/2174662/landing/1
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