Talk:Well to wheel

Suggestion not to redirect 'well to wheel' to 'cradle to grave'.

Well to wheel is an expression to evaluate the cost of a fuel:

from well ( originally oil well) to wheel, i.e. what is the energy produced vs. what is the energy needed to produce the fuel. Examples (in this initial talk I just omit citations and references):

the following is just to outline the well to wheel scope, not to discuss which fuel is 'greener', just to give my reasoning why 'well to wheel' should not redirect to 'cradle to grave':

Diesel fuel has a certain energy density, i.e. per volume of diesel fuel there is a certain amount of energy that can be obtained from it. Gasoline fuel has a different energy density. To produce Gasoline fuel, more energy is added to the originating product than would be needed to produce diesel fuel. However, the arithmetic is not that easy, it seems paradox, but from one barrel of oil comes more than one barrel of gasoline plus other products. Looks magic, but it is not. However.... in the 'well to wheel' balance, gasoline is more 'expensive', i.e. it is more energy needed to make it. And unhappily, there is less energy in the amount of gasoline produced, even if it is more, than would be if it would all have been produced into diesel. And to add to it: a gasoline engine with its lesser compression cannot be as efficient as a diesel engine with its higher compression (carnot cycle, physics is the road block here, there is no 'magic' possible to turn that around). There are other fuels too, like alcohol which is produced industrially: very unhappily there is more energy put into the production than is returned when the alcohol fuel is converted back into energy...

This just to outline that the well to wheel theme has a very different scope than the from cradle to grave scope, although both do overlap.

Now, not to discuss the 'is diesel better', I just gave examples.

By starting this talk page I do not want to start a talk about which fuel is the better one,

I would suggest to separate 'well to wheel' and outline what it is about, without getting into 'this fuel is better than', just outlining what it means in terms of energy cost of fuel production and energy return.

Yes, there could be neutral (no fuel is 'better') pages or quotations from analysis work done on a value free comparison, that would be great. But all that should stay away from 'green' and stay wikipedia blue.

Anyone interested in discussing how to get this done? Should it stay the way it is?

Mike (talk) 06:05, 29 August 2012 (UTC)