Ban all Beer ads!!!
Vodka is the stuff!!!
Vodka is the stuff!!!
We went to war with less than 40% public "approval", most of which was actually conditionalised as "yes but only if I see justifyable evidence to warrant it, which I havn't yet".
We went to war on the strength of, "trust me." Yet both major warmongers got re-elected (legally or otherwise isn't for debate here).
My point is that governments could quite easilly ban SUV's, they could even bring about a sensible phasing out of petrol cars - provided they dont do it right before an election, and heck I think if a government did it in a sensible way (a phased withdrawal of new petrol powered automotive products) then probably even earn some votes for it.
The facts are oil isn't running out that soon. We're going to run out, oh sure, but not until we've done considerably more damage to Planet Earth first.
That's the more worrying aspect of it, the blase attitude of dissassociation of individuals actions that is prevelent in the developed Western World.
I could recycle the coffee mug on my desk, but i'll probably put it into the dish washer and get out a fresh one... Another milligram of carbon enters the atmosphere...
little known fact - vitually everyone thought the world was round, and nobody seriously did after 600 AD, even the greeks knew it!
what about ponies?
Some forms of power are clearly cleaner than others. I think we should all go nuclear and if we're worried about nuclear waste and stuff we can put it into the big holes in the ground where there used to be an oil field.
/me highfives Becky
:up:
the tree-hugging hippies wont like that!
i agree though, nuclear is the only decent long term alternative. unless we want to cover the UK from lands end to john o groats in 100ft wind turbines......zzzzz
its like the plebs that say "dont test drugs on animals".....pffffffffft. ok, lets NOT cure cancer etc then, lets all die of curable diseases! or lets all be guinea pigs like those dudes who got royally screwed up in that recent clinical testing trial
this is going nicely off-topic
illepall I put some more oil on the fire..There is a way way overpopulation... of humans.. a few humans less that die of "natural causes" couldn't hurt
(sorry sorry sound a bit harsh not trying to disrespect someone) But in a general way of think I don't think it is helping natural selection, and thus the evolution our species by having everyone not able to survive on their ow kept alive for 40 years in a hospital. And not even giving them the choice if they even want to.... But indeed this is all a bit offtopic.. so might move the discussion there I do think though that with the internet and all WE can make a change.. power is no longer up there, it is down here amongst us!!
VIVA THE REVOLUTION
(SMOKE goes back to his powerhungry pc, ignoring the world, and hunting for the next pb, as this will be the solution to all man's problems!)
I'm pig ignorant about the environment, really, but there are a few things that stick in my mind and may or may not be right. I figure thanks to the catalyctic converter, the air coming out of my car is cleaner than the air going in. We have cats on power stations these days too. Now since the crap's gone from the exhaust, they're complaining about CO2 from my car, and from the power stations instead. Perhaps this is a problem, but why not plant a few trees to eat up the CO2? We have a problem with deforestation. Let's fix it with some reforestation. Besides, a growing tree eats up more than 2x as much CO2 as a mature tree. Once it's grown up, let's chop it down (and maybe burn it in a power station with a cat on it) and plant a new one.
As I said.. pig ignorant
As I said.. pig ignorant
No way is the air out cleaner than air in on a car. Lets do a basic stoichiometric analysis, an idealised chemical analysis of the combustion process:
Air/Fuel Mixture in = CxHy + z(O2 + 3.76N2)
This consists of a hydrocarbon, your idealised fuel, but in reality should also include detergents, aromatics, and lots of other things, mixing with air, again idealised as Oxygen and Nitrogen.
Exhaust Gas out = aCO + bCO2 + cH2 + dH20 + eO2 + fN2 + gNO2 + hHiCj
where a to j are multiplies to balance X, Y and Z in the first equation.
So you get (still idealised remember) carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, water, oxygen, nitrogen, nitrogen oxide and unburnt hydrocarbons. With a bit more work you can show that exhaust gas temperatures cause further reactions, which often result in NOx, and these are much worse than plan NO2.
Now, a three way catalyst will be, at most, 85% efficient when running at lambda. Combine that with a NOx trap, and an SCR Urea* catalyst (say 50% efficient over time) and you have a system that may be upto 90% efficient at reducing emissions at optimum conditions (i.e. not full throttle when the rate of conversion is low, and not at low temperatures (e.g. starting) when rich mixtures, incomplete combustion, a cold catalyst and a host of other factors play a bit role), but 90% efficient still means that a car will pump out a lot of nasty stuff over an 'average' journey.
Now multiply it by tens of millions for each car and each mile completed, and you end up with a problem. Diesel is no better really - it has lower emissions of CO and CO2 (generally), so gets taxed less in the UK (iirc), but these still pump out NOx, uHC's, and with the added bonus of carcinagenic particulates. Current diesel catalyst and particulate traps help, but by no means reduce these nasty things.
Anyone who says their car is environmentally friendly is talking out of their anus.
*These Urea based catalysts aren't popular. Mainly because it involved urine in the conversion procress. It's usually goats urine, but human urine would be fine. You have to keep a little tank filled up. Imagine filling the car up with petrol and then taking a leak in another hole on the car to make it cleaner. Very odd, and off putting for the public.
And electric cars are worse for the environment than any conventional car (imo).
Air/Fuel Mixture in = CxHy + z(O2 + 3.76N2)
This consists of a hydrocarbon, your idealised fuel, but in reality should also include detergents, aromatics, and lots of other things, mixing with air, again idealised as Oxygen and Nitrogen.
Exhaust Gas out = aCO + bCO2 + cH2 + dH20 + eO2 + fN2 + gNO2 + hHiCj
where a to j are multiplies to balance X, Y and Z in the first equation.
So you get (still idealised remember) carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, water, oxygen, nitrogen, nitrogen oxide and unburnt hydrocarbons. With a bit more work you can show that exhaust gas temperatures cause further reactions, which often result in NOx, and these are much worse than plan NO2.
Now, a three way catalyst will be, at most, 85% efficient when running at lambda. Combine that with a NOx trap, and an SCR Urea* catalyst (say 50% efficient over time) and you have a system that may be upto 90% efficient at reducing emissions at optimum conditions (i.e. not full throttle when the rate of conversion is low, and not at low temperatures (e.g. starting) when rich mixtures, incomplete combustion, a cold catalyst and a host of other factors play a bit role), but 90% efficient still means that a car will pump out a lot of nasty stuff over an 'average' journey.
Now multiply it by tens of millions for each car and each mile completed, and you end up with a problem. Diesel is no better really - it has lower emissions of CO and CO2 (generally), so gets taxed less in the UK (iirc), but these still pump out NOx, uHC's, and with the added bonus of carcinagenic particulates. Current diesel catalyst and particulate traps help, but by no means reduce these nasty things.
Anyone who says their car is environmentally friendly is talking out of their anus.
*These Urea based catalysts aren't popular. Mainly because it involved urine in the conversion procress. It's usually goats urine, but human urine would be fine. You have to keep a little tank filled up. Imagine filling the car up with petrol and then taking a leak in another hole on the car to make it cleaner. Very odd, and off putting for the public.
And electric cars are worse for the environment than any conventional car (imo).
More off-topic I'm afraid :sorry:
It really depends on what you consider a long time.And I don't think anyone knows the facts
Maybe you're familiar with the term peak oil production, or formally 'Hubbert's Peak Theory' - there's a lenghty article on wikipedia if you're interested peak oil
Basically it says that global oil production follows a bell curve, and most scientist that believe in the theory seem to agree that we have either passed the peak (or the top of the curve if you will) already, or that it will happen within the next 10-20 years..after which production will start to decrease.Then the obvious question is; how will a dwindling global production meet the ever growing energy demands (China, et al)? How will that effect our economies, being totally dependant on fossil fuels..?
Perhaps we'll not see the full consequences of the depleting oil reserves in our lifetimes, but I don't see anything wrong in thinking of the generations that will have to live here after we're gone.
Apart from that we pretty much agree I think.My SUV comment was more pointed at the states though.
It really depends on what you consider a long time.And I don't think anyone knows the facts
Maybe you're familiar with the term peak oil production, or formally 'Hubbert's Peak Theory' - there's a lenghty article on wikipedia if you're interested peak oil
Basically it says that global oil production follows a bell curve, and most scientist that believe in the theory seem to agree that we have either passed the peak (or the top of the curve if you will) already, or that it will happen within the next 10-20 years..after which production will start to decrease.Then the obvious question is; how will a dwindling global production meet the ever growing energy demands (China, et al)? How will that effect our economies, being totally dependant on fossil fuels..?
Perhaps we'll not see the full consequences of the depleting oil reserves in our lifetimes, but I don't see anything wrong in thinking of the generations that will have to live here after we're gone.
Apart from that we pretty much agree I think.My SUV comment was more pointed at the states though.
I really wasn't anticipating anyone actually taking my statement as an asserted opinion
pfft
Word. I've put about 1500 miles on my commuter bike so far this year. Bike as in one with pedals. My car is certainly not particularly friendly to its envrionment, so I drive it only when I need to. Helps keep me at a reasonable weight, cuts down on costs, and generally makes me feel better. Its nice to spend the money on the autox car instead.
Of course, I suppose over there you don't have the proliferation of regular-debt-ridden middle class people driving 6500lb trucks because they are "cool" or whatever. Jeebus, the smallest cars you can even buy here are still generally 2500lbs or more, most "small" cars here are around 3000lbs these days. Companies like Honda even specifically engineer bigger, fatter versions of their cars solely for our market.
I think that is the proverbial nail on the head . . . .
We all whinge and whine about what the government is and isn't doing. What it should be doing and why it isn't doing it, all of which are valid points, but at the end of the day the buck stops here. I am very aware atm of what my actions are doing. I'm turning more lights of, at work, at home. I'm not flushing the toilet as often as I used to, i it's brown flush it down, if it's yellow be mellow. I'm walking to a lot more places and a lot further. I'm turning heaters of earlier, only heatring the water once a day. I'm trying to do the little things because I can't do teh big things.
If we all did the little things, then big things will happen. If we changed out buying habits, big business will listen. If we swamped the councils with compostable refuse, the governements will listen. If we recycle and run a 'greener' home then our kids will listen.
We have to do our own thing as much as telling others to do it too. Thats the way you get change.
A major point for me atm is food. How far it's travelled, how it's grown, what happening to the local enviroment. I don't eat fish, unless I've caught it myself or it's been hook and line caught. Those massive factory ships are at sea for months at a time and run at about 80-95% bycatch. Which is useless, dead and thrown back in the sea. They destroy the ocean floor in the maritime equavilent of Strip Mining and we have no fish left . . . Quite literally, we have no fish left.
I don't eat beef anywhere near as much as I used too. Beef is the most energy intensive animal produce out there. It takes about 30,000litres (Could be wrong there, buts it's a huge amount anyway) of water to put one Steak on your plate. Cows are a major . . . . yes a major contributer of methane, a far more harmful and reactive 'greenhouse' gas than CO2. I don't agree with cutting down the amazon rainforest to make way for bad pastures for emmaciated cows destined for Mcdonalds Beef Paties. If I buy beef, I buy british, organic, good tasting, homegrown cow. I don't eat at MCDonalds, I don't buy cheap supermarket shit meat.
It's stuff like that that can change the world. Just take more thought into how you go about your daily lives, make these things a habit and actually stop yourself from partaking or doing something.
Thats the way we save this green and blue home of ours. There ain't any others you know. This planet, it's the only one. And we can't get back what we've lost.
-
And in regards to the Nuclear power issue, doesn't it cost more in energy to make a nuclear power station than you actually harvest from one?
(thisnameistaken)
DELETED
by thisnameistaken
I smoke and drive. What does that make me?
@ SamH: As you said you didn't know, I wasn't directing my anus comment at you at all. It was directed to no one in particular, but someone who might actually believe it to be true. You already said you didn't Hope I didn't cause you offence.
@ SamH: As you said you didn't know, I wasn't directing my anus comment at you at all. It was directed to no one in particular, but someone who might actually believe it to be true. You already said you didn't
Hope I didn't cause you offence.lol. Good point actually. I'll have to remember that one.
environmentally friendly doesn't mean pollution free.
http://video.google.com/videop ... 672012&q=saab+trionic
They also had a commercial where they drove in london during rush hour traffic or something like that and the exhaust gas was cleaner than the air
That sounds like environmentally friendly to me. Maybe someone should invent a car that runs on fart.
But that's like saying if you take a lump of excrement out of a pile of excrement you've made the pile of excrement slighly nicer... Stick the car in 'clean' air and it'll be making a contribution to pollution. Stick a car next to 1000 taxis and lorries and yes, the exhaust emissions might be slightly better than the surrounding air, but it's still not exactly a good thing.
Don't get me wrong. I'm no environmentalist. I love a proper engine just as much as the next man, and I'll burn gasoline for as long as
The simple fact is that from design concept to disposal a single car does a fair amount of damage to the world we live in (we think - we don't actually know how the world would be without the cars, maybe it's not entirely human influence in the first place, we just don't know). Multiply this by every car ever made, and ever likely to be made and you have a problem. Now drive each of those cars for an average of 100,000 miles and the problem isn't getting any better.
I can to fuel my car habits, but progress is progress and we haven't made all that much yet.
In that test they were a) measuring only two things, CO and uHC's and b) comparing it with a two stroke. Reducing uHC's on a warm engine with a catalyst and a decent ECU isn't rocket science, and reducing the injected fuel to cater for the increased HC's in the 2-stroke exhaust isn't difficult either. But what about than d Nox emissions, arguably as bad or worse than the two they measured? And what impact does manufacturing catalysts, plastic interiors, tyres etc have on the environment? And the disposal isn't likely to be 'clean' either.
JJ - Methane, the major constituent of fart is a hydrocarbon, CH4. It is perfectly viable as a fuel if you can harness enough of it. I don't know the calorific value nor the volatility of methane, or even it's knock resistance, so I can't begin to guess how useable it would be, and what quantities you'd need. Cows, for example, produce a lot of the worlds atmospheric methane content (is a cow environemntally unfriendly?), so perhaps you could run a small car on cows?
Don't get me wrong. I'm no environmentalist. I love a proper engine just as much as the next man, and I'll burn gasoline for as long as
The simple fact is that from design concept to disposal a single car does a fair amount of damage to the world we live in (we think - we don't actually know how the world would be without the cars, maybe it's not entirely human influence in the first place, we just don't know). Multiply this by every car ever made, and ever likely to be made and you have a problem. Now drive each of those cars for an average of 100,000 miles and the problem isn't getting any better.
I can to fuel my car habits, but progress is progress and we haven't made all that much yet.
In that test they were a) measuring only two things, CO and uHC's and b) comparing it with a two stroke. Reducing uHC's on a warm engine with a catalyst and a decent ECU isn't rocket science, and reducing the injected fuel to cater for the increased HC's in the 2-stroke exhaust isn't difficult either. But what about than d Nox emissions, arguably as bad or worse than the two they measured? And what impact does manufacturing catalysts, plastic interiors, tyres etc have on the environment? And the disposal isn't likely to be 'clean' either.
JJ - Methane, the major constituent of fart is a hydrocarbon, CH4. It is perfectly viable as a fuel if you can harness enough of it. I don't know the calorific value nor the volatility of methane, or even it's knock resistance, so I can't begin to guess how useable it would be, and what quantities you'd need. Cows, for example, produce a lot of the worlds atmospheric methane content (is a cow environemntally unfriendly?), so perhaps you could run a small car on cows?
You are right, trees eat up CO² but they dont take it out of the system.
Plants die, get worked up by organisms...and there is our CO² again....
and in the end you cant plant as much trees to eat up all those extra CO². CO² out of the atmosphere can be bind in stones and corall reefs, but the production of them reacts to slow(10'000s to 1'000'000s of years) on the rapidly increasing amount of CO² in the atmosphere.
My Saab has that ecopower tiptronic system thing, so I decided to test out the air cleaning system with a small scientific experiment.
Test 1: I stood outside for 10 minutes and breathed. All was well.
Test 2: I stood outside for 10 minutes with a cigarette, All was well, although I took a day off my life for the purposes of this experiment.
Test 3: I stood outside sniffing the exhaust gasses of my Saab for 96 seconds, then suffered the onset of a migraine.
My conclusion is that the air coming out is not cleaner than the air going in. It is infact considereably more dangerous than a cigarette.
Test 1: I stood outside for 10 minutes and breathed. All was well.
Test 2: I stood outside for 10 minutes with a cigarette, All was well, although I took a day off my life for the purposes of this experiment.
Test 3: I stood outside sniffing the exhaust gasses of my Saab for 96 seconds, then suffered the onset of a migraine.
My conclusion is that the air coming out is not cleaner than the air going in. It is infact considereably more dangerous than a cigarette.
You, my friend, are odd
I like it!I hope that was a joke...
You obviously hadn't read my post . . . .
Yes, cows are (in the numbers we use them) bad for the enviroment. Some, I'm sure, can argue they are worse than cars . . . but I reckon it's a close run thing . . .
Aren't you meant to have left us in peace?
BF1 - tobacco, non tobacco?
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