So how long have we got

In message <[email protected]>
Ian Rawlings <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 2006-11-01, Austin Shackles <[email protected]> wrote:

<snip>

> Centuries from now, our land rovers will be used by mad max-style
> gangs to roar through the deserts, waging local wars, I wonder if a
> 300TDi will run on boiled-down human fat? OK, getting a bit way out
> here ;-)
>

You've been to Stoke then?

Richard
--
www.beamends-lrspares.co.uk [email protected]
www.radioparadise.com - Good Music, No Vine
Lib Dems - Townies keeping comedy alive

In message <[email protected]>
"Nick" <[email protected]> wrote:

> 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!!
>
>

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
--
www.beamends-lrspares.co.uk [email protected]
www.radioparadise.com - Good Music, No Vine
Lib Dems - Townies keeping comedy alive

On 2006-11-02, beamendsltd <[email protected]> wrote:

>> Centuries from now, our land rovers will be used by mad max-style
>> gangs to roar through the deserts, waging local wars, I wonder if a
>> 300TDi will run on boiled-down human fat? OK, getting a bit way out
>> here ;-)
>
> You've been to Stoke then?

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

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

beamendsltd wrote:

> 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.

I had to laugh at the recent protest trying to close Drax because it
was the biggest coal power station in the country, totally ignoring the
fact they had spent millions fitting scrubbers so it's also the lowest
polluting in the country...

Greg

"Ian Rawlings" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 2006-11-01, steve Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Big power stations are more efficient than a little engine ? Even
>> allowing for distribution losses you´re still ahead.
>
> 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.

Well, unless you use the vast amounts of left-over heat to actually heat
people's homes as they do in Scandinavia rather than vent it off through
cooling towers so you can sell people electricity to heat their homes
with...

Except that these days very few people heat their homes electrically.

I object to being pilloried because British power generation policy was
geared to maximum profits in the days when it was a nationalised industry.

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.

"William Black" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Ian Rawlings" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> On 2006-11-01, steve Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Big power stations are more efficient than a little engine ? Even
>>> allowing for distribution losses you´re still ahead.
>>
>> 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.
>
> > William Black
>
> Hi Group

Do not forget that electric cars driven by a battery (motive power battery)
have to be charged up giving off nasty fumes which are explosive. That is
why you are not allowed to smoke in a battery charging shop. The production
of these motive power batteries is so polluting is that the workers have to
completely change their clothing on arriving at work and all waste incluing
water has to be disposed of as hazardous waste. These motive power batteries
are very expensive to purchase and maintain. Although denied, it was a
mystery to me why people working in the battery charging shop had an average
of one in eight going ill with cancer where other places nearby had about
one in one hundred. If you you go hybrid you have the weight and complexity
of two systems which makes it more expensive to purchase and maintain.
Hydrogen (for the fuel cells) is very dodgy stuff - people pushing this
stuff should be made to watch the news reel of the Hindenberg going up in
flames. Any great increase in the use of electricity means more substations
and when I last had dealings with this matter, the supplier expected the
consumer to pay for the substation.
There is another problem with electric vehicles which I know about having
worked with them - they are too quiet! People get used to hearing trucks
coming and step out in front of them because they did not hear it coming.
This is more common in large industrial areas.
Robbie >
>
>
>
>

On or around Wed, 1 Nov 2006 20:11:01 -0000, "Nick"
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>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!!

I'm not sure that it's valid to say that the electricity generation etc. is
inefficient - compared with the typical IC engine, it's probably much more
efficient; at the sort of scale the electricity companies work,
inefficiencies add up.

--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
"Would to God that we might spend a single day really well!"
Thomas À Kempis (1380 - 1471) Imitation of Christ, I.xxiii.

On or around Wed, 1 Nov 2006 21:54:44 +0000, Ian Rawlings
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>On 2006-11-01, Ian Rawlings <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> now the latest buzzword is Micro CHD
>
>Or even Micro CHP... "Combined Heat and Power". Oops.

CHP is obviously more efficient than simply generating. I doubt it's more
efficient, small gensets being what they are, than getting power from the
grid and burning the oil in a boiler - the typical domestic boilers claim
efficiency greater than 90%.

It'd work well in a fixed or nearly-fixed load situation where your
generator was optimised to produce n Kw, all of which is being used, plus
the heat from the generator.

In a domestic situation, though, your power usage varies typically from a
few hundred watts on a warm day when you're just running a fridge and a
freezer and maybe a computer up to several KW if you have the washing
machine, drier and kettle all on at once; ergo you need a genset capable of
at least say 10KVA for a typical-sized household (if you don't use electric
cooking) to be able to cope with the peak loads, and 90% of the time it
would be running well below optimum efficiency. It would be possible to
store electricity, in batteries for example, but that just adds another
layer or more of inefficiency.

If you grew oil crops and processed those to run it, that would at least be
carbon-neutral, I guess, or more nearly so - I doubt it'd be possible to be
genuinely carbon-neutral though, in fact, I doubt any fuel-using mechanism
can be, taken in its entirety.

Or rather, any one such could be, but they sure as hell can't all be, since
there ain't enough room on the planet to grow the necessary crops.

--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
"There is plenty of time to win this game, and to thrash the Spaniards
too" Sir Francis Drake (1540? - 1596) Attr. saying when the Armarda was
sighted, 20th July 1588

On or around Wed, 01 Nov 2006 22:26:03 +0000, steve Taylor
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>Simon Isaacs wrote:
>
>> 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
>
>Where did the electric power come from ?

from the engine... also, I assume it does regenerative braking, if not, then
lexus/toyota need shooting.
--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.net my opinions are just that
"There is plenty of time to win this game, and to thrash the Spaniards
too" Sir Francis Drake (1540? - 1596) Attr. saying when the Armarda was
sighted, 20th July 1588

On 2006-11-02, Austin Shackles <[email protected]> wrote:

> In a domestic situation, though, your power usage varies typically from a
> few hundred watts on a warm day when you're just running a fridge and a
> freezer and maybe a computer up to several KW if you have the washing
> machine, drier and kettle all on at once

Part of the deal with micro CHP is that you flog the surplus energy
back to the grid, so they'd run at optimum efficiency all the time.
I'm not sure what happens to the surplus heat when you don't need it,
I suppose heating the outside air isn't going to cause much trouble!

ISTR that I'd need two micro CHP units to power the small data centre
that seems to have sprung up around the house..

> If you grew oil crops and processed those to run it, that would at least be
> carbon-neutral, I guess, or more nearly so - I doubt it'd be possible to be
> genuinely carbon-neutral though, in fact, I doubt any fuel-using mechanism
> can be, taken in its entirety.

I think the engines can run on a wide variety of fuels, although I
suspect that the ones available to the public will be tuned to run on
one popular one, in a similar way to most cars being set up to run on
diesel rather than on generic oils, as was supposedly the original
intention of Mr. Diesel himself.

> Or rather, any one such could be, but they sure as hell can't all
> be, since there ain't enough room on the planet to grow the
> necessary crops.

We need to start killing people... Spread the word!

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

Roberts wrote:

> Do not forget that electric cars driven by a battery (motive power battery)
> have to be charged up giving off nasty fumes which are explosive.
Yes, its called hydrogen. Its unlikely to be that toxic. Now a charging
cell that is charged WRONGLY can cause the acid to give off vapour, but
a properly handled charge should release only a little hydrogen.

Battery wise, we are likely to see more metal hydride than Lead Acids
used in the future, large capacitor technology possibly, or lithium cells.

General Motors claims to be within 18 months of engineering an electric
power train for the same price as an IC system, same weight, including
batteries (Lithium again=

> Hydrogen (for the fuel cells) is very dodgy stuff - people pushing this
> stuff should be made to watch the news reel of the Hindenberg going up in
> flames.

Anyone who actually knows what they are talking about would realise
hydrogen burns with an almost totally INVISIBLE flame. The Hindenburg
was more likely the reaction between the aluminium powder of the fabric
doping system they used and the polymer dope. Similar systems are still
- used as rocket fuels.

Besides, there are other fuel cell technologies (solid oxides) for
example, which DON´T employ Hydrogen directly at all.


Steve

I have one on the balcony in my flat ICE

--
Larry
Series 3 Rust and Holes

"Ian Rawlings" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 2006-11-01, Nick <[email protected]> wrote:
>
!!
>
> 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.
>
> --
> Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

Now a C5 towing a honda generator on a trailer, hows that for a hybrid

--
Larry
Series 3 Rust and Holes

"steve Taylor" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Simon Isaacs wrote:
>
>> 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
>
> Where did the electric power come from ?
>
> Steve

>>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!!
>
> I'm not sure that it's valid to say that the electricity generation etc.
> is
> inefficient - compared with the typical IC engine, it's probably much more
> efficient; at the sort of scale the electricity companies work,
> inefficiencies add up.

Its not just the generation itself that is inefficient in the power stations
but also the transmission network itself with all the losses in the cables,
transformers etc. For example the reason cables are not in the ground is
that they would get too hot.

Then there is the inefficiency of converting the mains to DC and the
inefficiency in charging the batteries and then converting the battery power
back to motive power.

Nick wrote:

> Its not just the generation itself that is inefficient in the power stations
> but also the transmission network itself with all the losses in the cables,
> transformers etc. For example the reason cables are not in the ground is
> that they would get too hot.

(MAINLY that the eddy current losses would be killers) Cables dissipate
much more when buried in other words. Distribution transformers are over
98% efficient, the whole transmission losses are of the order of 8-10%.
I think its generally accepted by engineers that the overall efficiency
of electric vehicles could be higher than IC engines.

Steve