Diesel Crackdown

[Keith Simmons]

Colin, no need to apologise, just thinking of the mods 🙄.

Swansea tidal Lagoon is a prototype for larger Tidal Lagoons in the Severn Estuary and see if it's feasible as a affordable tidal energy for west Somerset.

That helps as a non polluting source if it works. More reliable than wind turbines.

Whoops, going off topic again. 😡

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[ken anderson.]

 

Posted by Percy Verance on 29/01/2017 11:31:01:

It wasn't just VW Keith. They were the first to be uncovered, but there were others too.........

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come on percy..spill the beans(who).up until recently the little island in the middle of the Med I visit fairly often..POP aprox 400K were using diesel to generate their electricity..it was stated for every £1 spent on diesel...it generated 77p worth of electric...mad economics......but now they've been joined/connected to the European grid ....i'm not convinced that burning natural gas is 100% safe/clean ect either ...but its what we assume is the way to go.....I think that nuclear power will kill far more people in time to come than diesel and all the rest combined...but hey we want everything on a plate Now.......  

ken Anderson...ne....1...... diesel/gas/electric dept.

Edited By ken anderson. on 29/01/2017 13:07:07

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Mark Kettle 1]

I'm glad you enjoyed it Gary.

[Peter Christy]

As an aside to this, I remember reading a very interesting article some years ago, making an interesting point about electric vehicles.

The chap had calculated, that if we could wave a magic wand and convert all our road vehicles to electric overnight, we would need to build a minimum of THIRTY-FIVE nuclear power stations like Sizewell "B" to charge them! He also went on to say that it might need as many as SEVENTY-FIVE!!!

Now I've no way of checking his figures, but I do know that we only just managed to scrape through the winter so far with no power cuts. We have no reserves left in our generating capacity during cold spells!

Makes you think, doesn't it?

--

Pete

[Martin McIntosh]

There will never be a viable alternative to mineral based power until the oil giants have extracted the last drop. They rule just about everything at the moment and quash anything which may nibble away at their profits.

I read an interesting letter in the press recently, cannot confirm the figures, but a guy stated that around 40,000 deaths are attributed to air pollution each year, which amounts to 7% of all fatalities in the UK. Scarcely believable and probably just government scare stories yet again.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Posted by Peter Christy on 29/01/2017 14:58:12:

As an aside to this, I remember reading a very interesting article some years ago, making an interesting point about electric vehicles.

The chap had calculated, that if we could wave a magic wand and convert all our road vehicles to electric overnight, we would need to build a minimum of THIRTY-FIVE nuclear power stations like Sizewell "B" to charge them! He also went on to say that it might need as many as SEVENTY-FIVE!!!

Now I've no way of checking his figures, but I do know that we only just managed to scrape through the winter so far with no power cuts. We have no reserves left in our generating capacity during cold spells!

Makes you think, doesn't it?

--

Pete

I'd be interested to see the calculation it seems a bit high. I just looked up the UK petrol and diesel annual consumption, converted that into a a daily mileage, divided by 100 miles (typical range of a Nissan Leaf with a 30 KWh battery) and came up with a figure that suggested one nuclear power station would be ample, assuming the cars were charged up overnight. But have them all on a fast 1 hour charge at the same time then this would be a huge spike in power demand.

[Trevor Crook]

I believe the latest concern on pollutants is oxides of nitrogen rather than particulates. NOx emissions are what the VW cheat software reduced during testing. Diesel engines emit far more NOx than petrol, so extra technology has to be employed. Many diesel cars now use an additive called Adblue, which reduces NOx. Trucks have been using it for some time. An additional tank is required, and of course running and maintenance costs increase.

Modern diesels are fearsomely complex, and after a few years you can expect problems with such items as the EGR valve, DPF and DMF. Since the purging of soot from the DPF requires a fairly long trip at a decent speed, diesel now only makes sense if you have to drive lots of longish journeys and cover a lot of miles.

Percy, I agree the ecoboost engine in Fords is excellent - I've only driven the 100bhp version in a Fiesta, and that pulled really well, and was very relaxed on the motorway. I've also driven the latest petrol 1l Astra, which had superb performance and averaged 50mpg over a couple of days on A-roads and motorways.

Our smaller car is a Fiat 500 with the 875cc Twinair two cylinder turbo motor. This pulls much better than its 85bhp suggests. We've run it from new for 6 years and 43,000 miles with no problems of any kind. I think if a small petrol engine is well maintained it should last well. The turbos are water cooled, and changing the oil and filter every 10,000 miles should minimise sludge build-up.

Finally, downsizing is nothing new. When I started driving in the 70s, 1.6 engines had more power than 2l ones had a decade earlier.

[Peter Christy]

Frank: Well, it must be 10 years since I read the article, and technology has moved on, so I too would be a bit suspicious of those quoted figures. But that doesn't change the fact that we are woefully low on power reserves, thanks to successive governments unwillingness to invest. By the time the new Hinckley station comes on line (if it ever does), then I would guess annual consumption would have risen to meet - or at least be close to - its output!

Trevor: Your comment about downsizing engines is quite interesting! I've got a classic SAAB V4 (1971), which is a 1500cc originally rated at 65bhp. Its been mildly tuned, which would have added about 10 bhp back in the day, but due to the fact that it is now expected to run on fuel that would have rated a bit lower than 2-star back then, its probably lost about half that gain. Lets "guesstimate" about 70 bhp.

My wife has a modern "shopping trolley", a 1200cc petrol rated at 85bhp, plus the advantage of a 5-apeed box. Despite all that, it is considerably slower than the V4, certainly in terms of acceleration! Top speed is academic on today's roads, but I've had the V4 over 90, and still pulling, on the autobahns! (Was a bit noisy though! )

On the modern car, everything happens in the first half-inch of accelerator travel! After that, the noise varies a bit, but progress remains constant! How come a smaller, lighter car, with an extra 15bhp and another gear is so slow? I'm guessing its down to torque. That old V4 is a very torquey lump!

Can't match the modern car for economy, though its still good for well over 30 mpg on a run, despite its 46 years.....! And its more comfortable, and much more fun to drive!

--

Pete

[john featherstone 1]

seeing as were on the subject of cars iv'e just had a letter on the 23/1/2017 stating that on the 6/12/2016 my car was illegally parked in a disabled bay without a blue badge this is the first iv'e heard of this?? its a fine for £124.00 iv'e asked for proof of this and they have told me they will not supply with this is this a SCAM and what can I do about it ?????????? iv'e heard people tell me these xxsxstards put the ticket on you windscreen photograph it then take it of and bin it and you know nothing of it till months later when the balliff turn up

[Peter Christy]

Who has issued the fine? There are some very dodgy private parking companies around! One runs a big town-centre car park near here. The ticket machine requires you to enter your full registration number on a tiny keyboard, and there's no light in there! Talk about a license to print money! Its so bad it even made the local TV news! I refuse to use the place, and I suspect its mostly empty these days!

However, I would say, no proof, no payment! Was your car in the area when they claim it was? Presumably they have a registration number, but does their description match your car?

And they can't send the bailiffs without a court order, which they can't get without notifying you in advance.

If you're convinced you are innocent, I'd be inclined to play hard-ball with them! Too many scammers about these days....

--

Pete

[Shaunie]

Remember, it's up to them to provide proof of the offence, not up to you to provide proof of innocence. The cornerstone of English law is " Innocent until proven guilty".

Shaunie.

[WolstonFlyer]

Disabled Parking Bays on private property have NO standing in law, so it depends where they say you were parked, if they cannot provide evidence of the alleged parking then I would ignore them, unless this is a ticket issued by the council it is a 'parking charge' and not a fine. I am not a legal expert but know lots of people that have ignored the tickets and nothing has happened after they received 3 nasty threatening letters.

[Shaunie]

Always repudiate the claim and ask for proof of the offence. If you wait until the charge is in the hands of a debt collection agency they are not concerned if the charge is valid or not, they are just there to collect.

Shaunie.

[Steve Hargreaves - Moderator]

Don't they have to notify the registered keeper within 14 days too? Otherwise the ticket is null & void....

Certainly sounds dodgy to me John.....some bedtime reading here for you

[ted hughes]

I find it strange they won't supply any proof.

Presumably, if you don't pay, they will have to take you to court- then they'll have to supply proof.

Reminds me of the time Sky was forced to disclose the IPs of those people who download torrents- the company that forced them to do this was set up solely to try to bully customers to pay fines to them for "illegal" downloads.

In fact, they could not enforce any of this as it could never be proved WHO was doing the downloading.

I guess they made some money though, out of people who felt they had to pay (although Sky did warn us NOT to pay).

[stu knowles]

The Private Parking companies are, in the main run by former wheel clampers who were put out of business when the practice was made unlawful. Advice to 'just ignore it' is no longer current and some companies are going all the way to county court. There is a whole section on fighting these tickets on the Moneysavingexpert forum and another forum called Peppipoo. In the main though it is safe to say that they are scammers but if not handled correctly, they can get the upper hand

[Trevor Crook]

Pete, I just love those old Saabs, very distinctive and well built. However, solid it may be but because of all the modern safety and luxury equipment on cars now, don't assume it's heavier than your wife's car. I did a quick check on tinternet and apparently the kerb weight of a Saab 96 V4 is 873kg. You don't say what your wife drives, but my Fiat 500 has a kerb weight of 950kg, and most superminis are around a tonne, so your two cars probably have similar power to weight ratios. As yours has a bigger displacement, it probably has more torque, assuming your wife's car is normally aspirated, and this will be at lower revs than the newer car, so the Saab will be more sprightly in everyday conditions.

I'd love to run a classic, but I always chicken out and buy something modern!

[Nigel R]

". I've seen work done recently that demonstrates that it will be possible to power a supersonic airliner with electricity based on battery breakthrough"

Do tell.

[Nigel R]

"Have a look here to see a real-time view (updated every 10 minutes) of how our electricity is sourced. The amount bought from France is fairly small - the link is anyway bi-directional and maxes out at 2GW.

Right now the demand on the national grid is around 40GW and we are actually supplying France with 0.1GW, though we are getting 1GW from the Netherlands. Coal is contributing a bit over 5GW, nuclear 7.4GW and Combined Cycle Gas Turbines nearly 21GW."

The gridwatch site is excellent if you like a few unbiased figures. Interesting to see the output from solar has now been added too, and they've lined this up on the historic graphs with the pumped hydro and biomass outputs, so you can see the hydro and biomass being turned on for peak demand times.

Its also blindingly obvious from that page that nuclear, gas and coal aren't going anywhere anytime soon. And any kind of move to "electric" transport is going to remain reliant on those three for charging purposes for many many years to come.

[Colin Leighfield]

SuperNash, it is based on the understanding that a major limitation on battery efficiency is the connections between large number of plates. Work done in the USA (I can't immediately remember the reference, will try and refresh myself later), has demonstrated that by using the principle of the surface area of a large aircraft being used as a single plate of the battery, the amount of energy that could be stored is vast and would be sufficient to power a supersonic airliner. The bigger the airframe the better.

I asked a friend working in the excellent engineering research facility at Warwick University if this was feasible and he said yes, although some way off. They are doing a lot of work on battery technology for vehicles and there's no doubt that we will see great advances in coming years, I imagine that breakthroughs such as Graphene technology will play a part in this.

Don't assume that I'm any kind of expert in this or anything else, I'm just passing on things that I have picked up as I go along.

[Nigel R]

Thanks Colin - principle makes sense now.

A few engineering hurdles to get over I would say!

I work in aircraft power systems and although hybrid drives are being mooted (and this would appear on regional prop driven aircraft first I would think, where it is easiest to conjoin the two power plants), a complete electric airliner is not something being talked about right now. Although there are a few prototype setups using a full electric drive on lightplanes e.g. the electric extra http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2016/12/extra-330-electric-airplane-record/

[buster prop]

I wouldn’t buy a Diesel car at the moment because they may lose a lot of value in the near future, also I don’t do as many miles as I used to only 8K last year. The report about extra parking charges for Diesels was worrying, a few cities now but the idea will definitely spread to a town near you! I know we were encouraged to go Diesel because of low CO2 and hence lower road tax but I think the heyday of Diesel cars is coming to an end. I haven’t had a Diesel since about 2000, a Citroen BX19. Compared to modern Diesels it was slow and noisy although I liked the 55mpg economy. Now I’m looking to changing my 2008 1.6 petrol Focus for a newer one, dealers forecourts round here are stuffed with Diesel Focus's.

[Robin Colbourne]

Posted by buster prop on 30/01/2017 11:15:37:

I think the heyday of Diesel cars is coming to an end. I haven’t had a Diesel since about 2000, a Citroen BX19. Compared to modern Diesels it was slow and noisy although I liked the 55mpg economy. Now I’m looking to changing my 2008 1.6 petrol Focus for a newer one, dealers forecourts round here are stuffed with Diesel Focus's.

The change to common rail injection has killed the previous longevity of diesels. Like Busterprop, I also had Citroen BX. Mine was a 1.7 turbo diesel estate (great for carrying models), and it would accelerate up hills in top gear.

Old diesels were dead simple, and were often good for 300,000+ miles with just routine servicing. Modern diesels, in the search for efficiency, smoothness and lower emissions, have multiple parts which are likely to fail at around the 100,000 mile mark, any one of which failing may result in a bill close to the car's value at that point:

• Dual Mass Flywheel
• High pressure injection pump (running at 20,000 to 30,000psi so very susceptible to the slightest amount of wear, mechancial pumps operated at around 5000psi)
• Solenoid or Piezo electric injectors which must be 'introduced' to the ECU by a computer with the necessary software
• Diesel Particulate Filters (which clog if the vehicle doesn't reach full operating temperature on a regular basis)

Some diesel powered urban vehicles just keep the diesel injection pump on an idling cycle to 'get the fire lit' and inject LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) to vary the power. This way the diesel particulates are minimised.

As the particulates from diesels are solids they do not remain airborne for as long as gaseous emissions, hence the reason why they are worse in towns. The majority of Diesel particulates from farm vehicles and ships are likely to be on the ground or in the sea before they can do much harm to people.