NOTE October Unofficial CHANGE OF VENUE

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I think you've partly missed the point being made - even the companies producing bio fuels acknowedge there is not enough (useable) land on the planet to produce enough bio fuels to meet current fuel demand, hence boi can only help with, not solve, the problem.

Richard

This is where biofuels could come in, whilst I

Ahem! ;o)

The income

In article , Graham G writes

Rubbish. That's only true if you accept the obscenity of the CAP.

Put British agriculture on a level playing field with the rest, and transport costs alone would decide the matter.

Does anyone else think that Perrier and Evian should be given official permission to lie about the contents of their bottles, i.e. use, say, Welsh tap water, just so that their huge pollution output through transport is reduced? I wince inside every time I see one of their 'products' on a restaurant table. The whole bottled water thing is barking.

Regards,

Simonm.

I think Delboy had the right idea...

Actually, Charlotte always makes me take a couple of large water containers wherever we go, filled from the tap here as she doesn't like non-Yorkshire water!

So, a couple of bottles of Olde Sheffield Tappe anyone? Very cheap at only 3 quid a bottle...

In theory yes. in practice, the sintered ceramic onto which the catalyst is put (by evaporation, IIRC) breaks up, and traps particulates. Also, because of the urban cycle, the whole thing rarely operates properly, trapping sulphur compounds, and finally the process of catalysis itself breaks down the platinum surface. I think it does take part in the reaction but is given off as a by-product in the same state as it started, but that's chemically, not physically. My guess is that most of it is ejected up the exhaust pipe by the end of the box's lifespan.

Regards,

Simonm.

In article , Mother writes

Quite. Like round here, high in carbonates so really good for you...

Regards,

Simonm.

On or around Wed, 12 Oct 2005 08:30:37 +0100, "Graham G" enlightened us thusly:

good points, well made. And yes, of course, any reduction in fossil fuel usage is good.

What we really need, though, is a radical and comprehensive rethink of the way we operate - the concept of "goign to work" is, in a huge number of jobs, redundant. The dream of working from home, first mooted a good few years ago, is now a realisable thing: if I for example were a secretary, I could do all the typing of documents etc. sitting here where I am now. My boss could communicate with me by phone, ditto customers, I could send documents for approval to my boss and then deliver them automatically to the recipient, where they never actually need to be printed on paper at all unless needed for archive purposes. Digital PGP or similar signatures could easily be employed and could be kept reasonably secure.

Now obviously, not all jobs can operate like that: manufacturing industry (inasmuch as it's hands-on these days) still has to have people in the works. But a huge amount of business could be transacted without moving people and mass around all day long.

me neither. I could google for it, but ICBA...:-)

There have been a couple of campanies offering £10 for used CATs recently, so they presumably think recycling is worth it. But for a tenner, it's not worth taking them off, storing them, loading them etc. unless you are a scrap yard.

Richard

What they want is the ceramic matrix. Bash the cat with a big hammer, shake the bits out into a bucket, and fill it up over time. Hell, you could torch the box open, then poke the matrix out with a screwdriver.

Then try Johnson-Matthey metals- they may well give you a great price on recovery.

Steve

In article , beamendsltd writes

Given the nature of the chemistry, it may be possible to flush them through, but I can't imagine otherwise how you'd recover the platinum cost-effectively.

Must Google when I've got more time...

Regards,

Simonm.

You obviously live a sheltered life. CAP and the arable area aid payment will be done away with by 2015. They are being reduced on a sliding scale. The playing field is never level. The US subsidise their farmers, as do Canada. France invests vast sums into theirs, they have different laws about redundancy, Russia gives tax relief for machinery purchase, I could go on. Transport has a bearing on the costs of production but when in poland the average wage is less than a quarter of ours, their fuel has less tax, their land is two thirds of the price, they have more of it, tell me how the british farmer can compete with that. Its pure economics and has bugger all to do with CAP. All said and done every other european country recieves support to a similar level and we cannot compete.

My best friend is a dairy farmer, or was. He has just sold up because he was producing at 16ppl (below UK average) and recieved 18ppl. The final straw was his only employee asking for a pay rise to 6.50 an hour. I suggest my friend you study European and world agricultural policy as well as world economics in as much detail as I have before you pass comment on things that you do not fully understand.

Quite agree. I often think that people should share their journeis more too, I used to know somone who drove to work every day from near me, everyday he would catch up with another colligue and follow them into work, yet neither party would consider sharing the car, silly.

me neither :o)

just read that through, could be taken the wrong way, no offense is intended. Just get very hot under the collar on that subject. Have been told by the ill informed all my life that farmers are the scurge of society and that its all because of CAP. In fact at school I was regularly beaten up for being a farmers son, cos the childs parents told them that farmers are rich horrible people, I wasn't the only farmers son who suffered that way either. In fact I know one farmers lad who for years pretended he had nothing to do with farmers. I know what the reality is and have to live with it every day and I can tell you if people knew just what went on behind the scenes. Few would understand why british farmers bother to carry on, and they would be justified to think that. I used to work an average of a 70hour week on farms for £5/hr, need more money then work harder, and thats how farmers are (my personal record was 437 hours in a month). There is no logic really, its a way of life and thats what many people fail to grasp. I will be the first to agree with anyone who says they complain too much and cry wolf. Historically they have and as a result have lost any public support they might once have had. Now in the current climate they really do need support. To put numbers on it, in my sales area when I started I had 800 customers, in the last year that has dropped by approx 80, and still falling.

You could argue that this is market forces and streamlining and I would agree, however the trend is changing. We are starting to see big farming businesses selling up (2000 acres plus), and in noticable numbers. Few of these are being sold whole, most are broken up into small blocks and are being bought by business owners who want a bit of the country life. The reason for this is that at £3500 acre farming on it doesn't stack up, believe me I've done the sums. The net result is that land is going out of production, or farming opperations are reaching vast scales (I know a chap farming 15000 acres now). this is going to have an effect on the quality and variety of produce that shoppers expect from British produce. Its a slippery slope, although don't think I'm all doom and gloom cos I believe there will be farming out the other side of it, but it will be very different to what you see now.

Rant over

Off for a lie down

graham

In article , Graham G writes

I suggest you don't waste ages attacking something you didn't read carefully in the first place.

And, for the record, I've studied Economics at degree level, and you are referring largely to distorting subsidies and taxes, not a level playing field.

Regards,

Simonm.

For the record I've studied a degree in Agricultural mangaement and policy, so I think I'm as qualified to discuss the subject.

Ok I'm prepared to stand corrected if you can more fully explain your statement. See as I read it it can be taken in a number of ways both good and bad. If I took it the wrong way then I appologise. However, I strongly disagree with your argument over a level playing field, define level? If you mean no subsidies then I'm affraid transport although having a bearing and I cannot deny that, would not be the decider. I think there are many other factors that should be taken into account. But for starters lets take your example of transport; we pay more than most countries so we cannot compete. Now wages, farm wages are higher in this country than many so we cannot compete. Now land prices, they are some of the highest in the world so we cannot compete. Now rents, we pay more per acre than many other european countries so we cannot compete. etc etc etc

In article , Graham G writes

I'd be the first to agree with you. I grew up in a farming community (although our family didn't farm), and I've _never_ thought of farmers as work-shy. I had school friends who'd get off the school bus in the evening and go straight to fetch the herd for milking, before schoolwork.

Not really. It hasn't been an open market in the UK since the War. The problem is that governments love to interfere by subsidy and taxation, and like any command economy (essentially what farming is nowadays) over time it becomes governmental micro-management.

It's frightening. I don't need to tell you the impact on rural communities, obviously. The question is whether we want it to be so. I happen to think not, but we live in a democracy. The tragedy is that most urbanites really don't care (this NG is likely to be unrepresentative!), and that includes the government.

I quite agree. But it doesn't have to be like this. Anecdotally, I met a NZ couple on holiday in Devon a couple of years back, retired farmers. They couldn't believe how tough it was for UK farmers. NZ (they said!) hasn't had any sort of intervention for some while and business is booming. They were very jealous of Devonian soil and growing conditions, and of the proximity of the farms to the consumers, which in comparison to NZ is understandable!

I also know someone who's daughter drives a milk tanker across from France - essentially hauling water across the Channel. It's lunatic economics, however you look at it and goes to prove that the CAP (and the rest of the EU) is a political project, not an economic one...

(_my_ rant over!)

Regards,

Simonm.

Well, unrelated but...

I've studied psychology to Doctorate level - and I still don't understand human nature... :-)

In article , Graham G writes

You're absolutely right about the differentials between UK farming conditions and continental ones - everything from labour rates through to land prices. Fact is however that the CAP not only reinforces these differences, but we end up with perverse situation that we watch UK farmers selling up whilst subsidising their continental competitors.

If you redressed the balance in just these few areas:

- removal wholesale of many of the EU regulations here that increase costs (e.g. forcing local abattoir closures)

- commercial fuel prices that match the continent

- removal of continental subsidies and preferential taxation schemes

- real equality of import/export rules, e.g. stopping things like the Beef import bans in France (I know they've just come off)

- changes to inheritance tax to prevent the breakup of family-farmed estates

British farming would prosper. And it should - we have some of the best conditions and bloodlines in the world.

Regards,

Simonm.