Ever since I read that Throttle Jockey column where Sue Carpenter put forth that motorcycles are guilty of spewing more smog than their caged companions, well, I’ve been a bit guilt-ridden, so alternatives have been catching my eye. Like this Bikes in the Fast Lane report on an ethanol kit a French company has developed for motorcycles. And it doesn’t seem to hurt performance. Mike Werner says that Thorn Bikes entered a "Honda CBR 1000 in September’s 24 hour endurance race, the Bol D’Or. The motorcycle, supplied by Honda themselves, is powered by E85, so it’s a ‘green’ racing machine, but not Kawasaki (in case you didn’t get it.. a pun on the "green"). Elf, the French oil company, is another major contributor to this project."
Along those lines, I heard Michael Krasny’s program with Richard Muller about his book on global warming titled "Physics for Future Presidents" that explains "the basics of physics that all voters and politicians should know in order to make educated decisions."
Richard Muller is a professor in the physics department at UC Berkeley and faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Listen here.
Actually, after some testing done by the French government, they’ve decided that it’s not that bad after all. If you take a motorcycle fitted with a Euro-3 compliant exhaust, and look at the end-to-end ride, the bike wins hands down. CO2 emissions are on par with cars, but since the bike spends less time riding (and looking for parking), it pollutes less than cars.