I submit that we do live in that world – the one where hypothetical situations don’t ACTUALLY exist. Fortunately for us, hypotheticals are just thought experiments. Now consider… what if we didn’t?
If a car cooks for a long time and builds up sufficient vapour pressure in the tank, then maybe it could BLEVE, but the vapour fuel/air mix in a gasoline tank is too rich to be explosive.
Hollywood has convinced most of the population that any car that catches fire will immediately explode in a huge fireball.
Not so – actually, the traditional way of shooting thse things is a quarter-stick of dynamite, ten or twenty pounds of kitty litter and a gallon of rubber cement…
Agreed, Hollywood and its cohorts are directly responsible for a number of severe injuries due to the prevailing faith that every wrecked car is bound to explode. My ex-wife has a permanent limp after being “heroically” pulled out of her car by another motorist, never mind that her leg was pinned under the dash and steering wheel. Years earlier I saw one other motorist dragged screaming from a vehicle that wasn’t at any risk, no idea how that turned out but I doubt that it went well.
Molotovs don’t explode either, which is what the cars are being compared to.
In fact, the comparison to a molotov is quite apt, as a leaking fuel line/tank can easily lead to a large pool of flammable liquid and many opportunities for electrical sparks to set it off. Furthermore, the vapors from said flammable liquid are also *highly* flammable, which can cause a ‘FWOOSH’ under ideal conditions. Which isn’t a ‘BOOM’, by any means, but still a hazard.
The larger problem with vehicles in general, of course, being flying along at highway speeds in a vehicle weighing over a ton, and the inertia that speed and weight conveys. Particularly when paired by the general lack of observation and alertness displayed by most drivers. But that is a problem for both petrol and electric vehicles.
Hi. My dad rebuilt his own Jeep. He’s…not exactly what you would call a reliable car repairman. I can reassure you cars can and do in fact explode under the condition you’re referencing as ‘akin to a molotov’, I.E. catch fire and spread fire in a comically over the top way, when said parts are all found in junkyards and varying other sources. He tends to brag that he was too much of a dumbass to wear his seatbelt in that instance as it hurtled him from the car and he saw the seat catching fire behind his ass. I tend to instead reflect on the fact that he more or less picked all of the parts that made that mobile deathtrap.
The real fun part is they don’t have a good way to detect leaks. The so called hydrogen detectors are even more sensitive to carbon monoxide, so the background level is enough to drown out the hydrogen signal. Hydrogen is colorless and odorless, and has a much wider explosive range (the ratio of fuel to air) than gasoline. You can’t even rely on a lit match to find a leak because the flame color is a faint blue that is only visible in the dark.
I remember my high school chemistry (and physics) classes. you’d use electrolysis to generate a test tube full of hydrogen, place it face down on a glass plate, put some sort of flame near by, then very carefully lift the edge of the test tube and count the pops. They’d compete as to how many pops they could make from one test tube of hydrogen.
I’m with you, there. Hydrogen is the safest, cheapest, cleanest, most renewable fuel we could possibly use, especially when you couple it with nuclear power generation.
You might as well give up on hydrogen. Solid state batteries and 4th generation nuclear power are a far better option being both safer and cheaper. Between the two even the “Green New Deal” is dead in the water.
If we really want a better world soonest we’d push for a moon shot with 4th gen nuclear because it even eats the old nuclear waste and the waste _it_ produces degrades in centuries not millennia.
A spinwheel is the most efficient way of storing energy that we are aware of… Of course, you’d nee an awful lot of winding to get anywhere, but we’d all be in much better shape! and cars would be light enough to be lifted out of the average rut by an ordinary human…
Flywheel-driven buses have been built and used. Hybrid vehicles are allowed at Le Mans – but instead of batteries, they use flywheels that get spun up when the car is braking…
Its the hypotheticals that cause the most trouble.
So what if we lived in a world without hypothetical situations?
Is that a hypothetical question, or a rhetorical question?
I submit that we do live in that world – the one where hypothetical situations don’t ACTUALLY exist. Fortunately for us, hypotheticals are just thought experiments. Now consider… what if we didn’t?
CARS DO NOT EXPLODE.
Ask a firefighter.
If a car cooks for a long time and builds up sufficient vapour pressure in the tank, then maybe it could BLEVE, but the vapour fuel/air mix in a gasoline tank is too rich to be explosive.
Hollywood has convinced most of the population that any car that catches fire will immediately explode in a huge fireball.
Not so – actually, the traditional way of shooting thse things is a quarter-stick of dynamite, ten or twenty pounds of kitty litter and a gallon of rubber cement…
Agreed, Hollywood and its cohorts are directly responsible for a number of severe injuries due to the prevailing faith that every wrecked car is bound to explode. My ex-wife has a permanent limp after being “heroically” pulled out of her car by another motorist, never mind that her leg was pinned under the dash and steering wheel. Years earlier I saw one other motorist dragged screaming from a vehicle that wasn’t at any risk, no idea how that turned out but I doubt that it went well.
Molotovs don’t explode either, which is what the cars are being compared to.
In fact, the comparison to a molotov is quite apt, as a leaking fuel line/tank can easily lead to a large pool of flammable liquid and many opportunities for electrical sparks to set it off. Furthermore, the vapors from said flammable liquid are also *highly* flammable, which can cause a ‘FWOOSH’ under ideal conditions. Which isn’t a ‘BOOM’, by any means, but still a hazard.
The larger problem with vehicles in general, of course, being flying along at highway speeds in a vehicle weighing over a ton, and the inertia that speed and weight conveys. Particularly when paired by the general lack of observation and alertness displayed by most drivers. But that is a problem for both petrol and electric vehicles.
also check mythbusters!! 🙂
https://youtu.be/pm5YPhbXgZg
Hi. My dad rebuilt his own Jeep. He’s…not exactly what you would call a reliable car repairman. I can reassure you cars can and do in fact explode under the condition you’re referencing as ‘akin to a molotov’, I.E. catch fire and spread fire in a comically over the top way, when said parts are all found in junkyards and varying other sources. He tends to brag that he was too much of a dumbass to wear his seatbelt in that instance as it hurtled him from the car and he saw the seat catching fire behind his ass. I tend to instead reflect on the fact that he more or less picked all of the parts that made that mobile deathtrap.
AUGH Jacqui!
She doesn’t appear to be very bright, does she? Or at least she appears not to have much in the way of people skills?
Don’t be ridiculous. Gasoline cars are perfectly safe. Every other option is worse.
This is the lady who camped outside of Area 51. XD
I figured that remark was ideologically driven.
And gasoline cars aren’t perfectly safe . . . they’re just the least bad option.
Though diesel cars are a bit safer.
I thought it was Jacquline Bontemps – seeing as she has not been in the picture in a few years and I had mentioned her here recently.
Yeah, now that I look at it she is too short a bit too curvy and her nose is all wrong.
Here is Jacquline from October of 2002 –
http://wapsisquare.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2002-10-18.jpg
It is Jacqui: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/out-of-this-world/
And now she is standing in front of Area Castela.
I am now imagining Jacquline camping next to Castela. Then an MIB agent pops out from behind a dandelion and berates her for her poor camouflage.
Nim, you forgot to allow for years of stylistic drift. Just like all of life even art goes through evolution.
Still waiting on my hydrogen fuel cell car, you know, the one that runs on water 🙂
The real fun part is they don’t have a good way to detect leaks. The so called hydrogen detectors are even more sensitive to carbon monoxide, so the background level is enough to drown out the hydrogen signal. Hydrogen is colorless and odorless, and has a much wider explosive range (the ratio of fuel to air) than gasoline. You can’t even rely on a lit match to find a leak because the flame color is a faint blue that is only visible in the dark.
I remember my high school chemistry (and physics) classes. you’d use electrolysis to generate a test tube full of hydrogen, place it face down on a glass plate, put some sort of flame near by, then very carefully lift the edge of the test tube and count the pops. They’d compete as to how many pops they could make from one test tube of hydrogen.
I’m with you, there. Hydrogen is the safest, cheapest, cleanest, most renewable fuel we could possibly use, especially when you couple it with nuclear power generation.
And that’s exactly why it’s been buried.
“Safest”. Sure, except for the fact that it percolates through every material known to man.
You might as well give up on hydrogen. Solid state batteries and 4th generation nuclear power are a far better option being both safer and cheaper. Between the two even the “Green New Deal” is dead in the water.
If we really want a better world soonest we’d push for a moon shot with 4th gen nuclear because it even eats the old nuclear waste and the waste _it_ produces degrades in centuries not millennia.
I’d imagine she’s flexible enough to put her foot in her mouth but… it does make continuing the conversation more difficult…
Castela is actually more of an external combustion engine, I’d say…
Open Mouth; Insert Feet
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
All our cars should be key-wound.
A spinwheel is the most efficient way of storing energy that we are aware of… Of course, you’d nee an awful lot of winding to get anywhere, but we’d all be in much better shape! and cars would be light enough to be lifted out of the average rut by an ordinary human…
Now I’m racking my brain trying to remember the author of that short story!
Flywheel-driven buses have been built and used. Hybrid vehicles are allowed at Le Mans – but instead of batteries, they use flywheels that get spun up when the car is braking…
Gavote: Larry Niven, maybe?