Wet Petrol

[tom p]

Yeah but what about all the pollution from disposing of the old ones and manufacturing the new ones eh eh?

(AIUI there's actually a decent argument for scrapping fossil cars early, but I don't know if it applies to lawnmowers.)

There was an interesting radio programme about that (best thing since sliced bread), and it concluded that you would need to drive a shitload of miles for lots of years to make it worthwhile scrapping a working old car for a new electric one. There's about 2x the embedded carbon in a new electric compared to a new petrol car (12 tonnes vs 6, if memory serves), and it's equivalent to a year's worth of all your emissions, so it seems that right now it's not worth doing.
If the grid was more decarbonised and/or the manufacturing plants were as decarbonised as possible, then it might be a good idea

[dyqik]

Yeah but what about all the pollution from disposing of the old ones and manufacturing the new ones eh eh?

(AIUI there's actually a decent argument for scrapping fossil cars early, but I don't know if it applies to lawnmowers.)

There was an interesting radio programme about that (best thing since sliced bread), and it concluded that you would need to drive a shitload of miles for lots of years to make it worthwhile scrapping a working old car for a new electric one. There's about 2x the embedded carbon in a new electric compared to a new petrol car (12 tonnes vs 6, if memory serves), and it's equivalent to a year's worth of all your emissions, so it seems that right now it's not worth doing.
If the grid was more decarbonised and/or the manufacturing plants were as decarbonised as possible, then it might be a good idea

For power tools with replaceable and transferrable batteries, this should be better - you only need enough batteries for your snowblower to be able to run the lawn mower, strimmer, chainsaw, mulcher, etc., rather than having batteries built in to each car.

Add in the short life and high emissions of individual 2-stroke and very small carburetted 4-stroke engines, and it becomes more obvious.

[Boustrophedon]

I have spent more on replacement Li batteries for two electric drills than I have ever spent on petrol for my lawnmowers, hedge clippers and chainsaw.

And you expect me to even consider throwing these away to buy electric ones?

No.

[Bird on a Fire]

Yeah but what about all the pollution from disposing of the old ones and manufacturing the new ones eh eh?

(AIUI there's actually a decent argument for scrapping fossil cars early, but I don't know if it applies to lawnmowers.)

There was an interesting radio programme about that (best thing since sliced bread), and it concluded that you would need to drive a shitload of miles for lots of years to make it worthwhile scrapping a working old car for a new electric one. There's about 2x the embedded carbon in a new electric compared to a new petrol car (12 tonnes vs 6, if memory serves), and it's equivalent to a year's worth of all your emissions, so it seems that right now it's not worth doing.
If the grid was more decarbonised and/or the manufacturing plants were as decarbonised as possible, then it might be a good idea

Thanks for this - had a listen earlier.

For cars, they reckon scrapping a working car to buy a new BEV doesn't pay off carbon-wise till you've gone 37,000 miles (5-6 years of average driving). If you're buying new anyway, choosing a BEV over ICE pays off after 16,000 miles (so about 2.6 years). (For it to pay off financially they reckon 300k miles and 80k miles respectively - the market has yet to catch up with the relative externalities here).

Which isn't as bad as I thought. I don't really know how it would compare for power tools in qualitative terms, but seeing as most people are using each power tool for fewer hours a day than a typical car would be driven, and their lower power consumption, I'd suspect it'd take even longer to be worthwhile scrapping working tools to buy electric.

So maintaining old tools well and running them as long as you can is probably fair enough. I support Don and his W.A.P. (wet alcoholic petrol).

[nekomatic]

What’s your budget? Looks to me like you can pick up a separating funnel off eBay for twenty quid or so if you look hard. It might not be as big as you want but you can do the separation in batches.

Or you could use some kind of carboy, like a camping water carrier, and angle it so the tap is at the lowest point.

Or any vessel with corners, that you can angle so one corner is at the lowest point, then dip a thin tube in and suck the water out from that corner.

For final drying I wouldn’t bother with a column, just mix with the drying agent then filter with a funnel and filter paper.

[Bird on a Fire]

At any rate, I don't think you should pour it down the drain if it potentially contains toxins. There's a real risk it'll end up in a river.

I'd check if the council take old fuel at the dump, or else a friendly local garage might be able to help.

[Boustrophedon]

Thanks guys, I have bought an auxiliary petrol tank, a plastic tank that hangs up with a valved outlet on the bottom. Should do the trick nicely.

I shall take care how I dispose of the residuum.*

* I love 'uu' words, can you think of any more?

[Gfamily]

* I love 'uu' words, can you think of any more?

How about muumuu
"A woman's loose-fitting dress, usually patterned and brightly coloured, a local adaptation of the ‘Mother Hubbard’ dress introduced by missionaries in Hawaii."

[monkey]

Continuum, or even better, supercontinuum.

[Bird on a Fire]

You can also have a duumvirate, or a two-in-the-Republic romp as Roman newspapers liked to call it.

[Millennie Al]

For cars, they reckon scrapping a working car to buy a new BEV doesn't pay off carbon-wise till you've gone 37,000 miles (5-6 years of average driving). If you're buying new anyway, choosing a BEV over ICE pays off after 16,000 miles (so about 2.6 years). (For it to pay off financially they reckon 300k miles and 80k miles respectively - the market has yet to catch up with the relative externalities here).

How can the externalities not be accounted for given that there are huge taxes on petrol and diesel?

[Millennie Al]

I shall take care how I dispose of the residuum.*

* I love 'uu' words, can you think of any more?

Continuum, vacuum, and. of course, muumuu, which is twice as good.

[Martin_B]

... and. of course, muumuu, which is twice as good.

As KLF decreed

[Bird on a Fire]

For cars, they reckon scrapping a working car to buy a new BEV doesn't pay off carbon-wise till you've gone 37,000 miles (5-6 years of average driving). If you're buying new anyway, choosing a BEV over ICE pays off after 16,000 miles (so about 2.6 years). (For it to pay off financially they reckon 300k miles and 80k miles respectively - the market has yet to catch up with the relative externalities here).

How can the externalities not be accounted for given that there are huge taxes on petrol and diesel?

They're clearly not huge enough. If carbon externalities were correctly priced a BEV would pay off financially the moment it pays off carbon-wise, not 64k/263k miles later. And note that EVs will pay off carbon-wise even quicker as the grid decarbonises.

[Pishwish]

I have spent more on replacement Li batteries for two electric drills than I have ever spent on petrol for my lawnmowers, hedge clippers and chainsaw.

And you expect me to even consider throwing these away to buy electric ones?

No.

I bought a qualcast (really a homebase brand) cordless chainsaw a couple of years ago and never used it till this week. Although I am using it to cut thicker trunks (about 2 foot diameter) than the instruction manual suggests, a single charge gives a relatively short operating time, about enough for 2 or 3 cuts. The 36v battery is about the size of a brick. Now I am sure that a cheap petrol chainsaw would have its drawbacks too, but I doubt it would be that impractical.