So how long have we got

Can someone explain to me how an electric car is eco friendly when it needs a PowerStation, overhead cables and all the huge inefficiency to power it. Fair enough if it has solar panels on it!!

Well if the worst comes to the worst it will be every man for themselves and at least I have a head start with a Mad Max contraption waiting and ready for that :)

|| Can someone explain to me how an electric car is eco friendly when || it needs a PowerStation, overhead cables and all the huge || inefficiency to power it. Fair enough if it has solar panels on it!!

It's slow, quiet and no fun at all, so it must be good for us.

Automotive muesli.

Well, I used to think that they were better in that the pollution is at the power station where it can be tackled relatively easily, but now the latest buzzword is Micro CHD, using small generators in our homes to make heat and electricity, which are apparently more efficient and produce less pollution than a large powerstation.

So as soon as you think you've got a handle on part of the problem, someone comes and kicks the applecart over. What we need to do is do what the anti-4x4 lot do, make your mind up, clap hands over ears and shout LALALALALALALA.

self-emplyed ???!!!!

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:11:01 -0000, "Nick" scribbled the following nonsense:

shhh Lexus Hybrid is so green and clean, but the effective MPG taking into account that some of the time is on electric power (and hence no petrol used) is still less than 30mpg, so the engine must be *very* thirsty

Big power stations are more efficient than a little engine ? Even allowing for distribution losses you´re still ahead.

Steve

That's what I thought, but Micro CHD systems use lean-burn engines to generate electricity and use the exhaust heat to heat water, apparently they do both more efficiently than using centrally generated electricity and feeding it to homes. Not sure on the figures but that's what's said about them, by the government, various greenies and a few more organisations. I'm not sure if they're right but I'd like to use them anyway given how dodgy the local power supply out here is!

Or even Micro CHP... "Combined Heat and Power". Oops.

If the big power stations could ALSO pump their waste heat out to be used, they would be 80% efficient too. That´s the trick. I suspect that micro CHP would seriously improve the overall efficiency of a home energy system with a vehicle to charge as well, since the unwanted energy (who needs central heating in Summer) would have somewhere to go

Steve

Where did the electric power come from ?

Steve

I suspect you're right but don't have any documentation to judge, so not sure if the efficiency figures take the heat generation into account.

I'd whack a pair of generators in the garage to generate all my electricity, then sod the grid, they can't be arsed to keep electric coming to my house so screw the lot of them!

Now if you fuelled them on woodchips, and a gasifier you´d have bugger all carbon footprint. What I´d like to know is how much land it would take to do it.

Steve

And a reply in a light vein....

In message , Oily writes

Yes, and you probably use it sensibly sometimes and have a bit of fun at other times. If so, you are living in the right universe, unlike those who would be our "masters". Have you read the Blunkett diaries?

What I'm trying to get at is that the people who have spent oodles of

*my* and *your* money, yet failed to make work properly their lists of who has guns, of who needs financial assistance, of medical records and so on, seem to have got themselves into a position where they feel able to decree what I can and can't do. If you make huge lists, you should be able to oversee the construction and maintenance of simple databases. They don't seem to be able to. I'm not even against lists per se, I just hate total incompetence and negative "can't do" attitudes affecting me.

Yes, intelligent, thinking people appreciate professionalism, skill, the ability to select appropriate tools for the job and so on. That's exactly what I'm saying, that politicians and some journalists don't appreciate thought. Will politicians put a tax on saws because I breathe out more Co2 when I build a bookcase? Much better to go to MFI and buy one that has been sawn in China and shipped around the world.

There's a need for a slick positive PR slogan to promote an image diametrically opposed to the "Chelsea Tractor" and the vision it conjures up.

What for? A sense of achievement perhaps? It almost sounds as though you are one of "them" that I've flushed out. The experience of building a wooden yacht from plans I found to be quite amazing. You literally find yourself communing with the mind of the designer. My design was one of the first by Alan Buchanan, who later became and still is known for the beauty of his creations. As should be those who designed the 110 that I ride. There are paper users and paper pushers. Which are you?

I ought to be out there now, recycling. Instead I'm writing this.

But there are mobility vehicles especially designed for the purpose. There are also milk floats. Both fit for purpose, just like a Landie. It the idiots telling me what purpose I have that get to me.

In our path we have an Omega estate that I use for business (although retired people still require me to help). It carries tools, heavy drums of cable testgear etc. Often has to be used with the back seats down. Fully loaded it does 40mpg on the motorway, 27mpg overall, but I annoy everyone by coasting to lights etc and never, well hardly ever, using the brakes. Behind it is the 110, used as described elsewhere. Both these vehicles are essential to my chosen lifestyle. I am usually the only driver here. Car tax has risen, so the third car, the Fiesta, stands forlorn on its SORN. All the tax hikes have achieved is to make it necessary to use a gas guzzler to drive the occasional short journeys because I can now only afford to tax and insure the two more practical cars.

I thought when the load got heavy, the good get going.

How many beaurocrates does it take to change a lightbulb? Is this some kind of joke? :-)

Indeed, although I am guilty of tabloiding somewhat, i.e. suggesting that all said beaurocrat does is count lightbulbs. I'll be a journalist yet.

These "carbon offsetting" schemes are a bit dodgy though, for example I found out recently that one of the schemes in which you are lead to believe that a tree is planted in return for your contribution turns out to just be a promise by the forest caretakers not to cut a tree down for 99 years. So if 10 people buy a tree, then a random 10 trees will stand for 99 years. Not so bad perhaps, but the forests are protected in some way anyway (can't remember details) so are unlikely to be cut down in the first place.

You've been to Stoke then?

Richard

Shhhhhh - your not supposed to ask tricky questions, it's not eco. And anyway, power stations aren't usually in cities, so they don't count. Que picture of cooling towers belching out "smoke" - used every time by some moron at the BBC.

Richard

I was thinking more of Basingstoke on a Friday night! Or indeed any other night.. Or day.