an environmental rant..

[Paul the 6th]

Sounds like every single one of you will enjoy this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Emergency.../dp/0871138883

I never really knew about the politics, history, economics or effects of peak oil until I read this book. It shocked me into making conscious decisions about things like recycling and sparked an interest in alternative to fossil fuels, but sadly as it stands, there is no other energy source which contains as much stored energy, can be transported easily, is as stable at room temperature, is as easy to refine or which costs as little as petrol/diesel currently does... and these fossil fuels ARE in ABSOLUTELY everything we buy/do/see your bicycle, your best walking boots, that recycling bin outside your back door, even your home made organic bread...

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Hybrids are a flawed concept driven by idiots who should be educated with a shovel to the nose.




One I'll be happy to chat about. We got a new boiler, our gas bill dropped by 30%. That's massive and will pay for itself within a few years. That's what I call a good idea

Whether they actually condense anything or not is not a great concern so long as efficiency is as high as possible. noticeably, higher than the 20 year old technology it replaces.

Lots of very cool things to be done with domestic heat, CHP, heat pumps etc. Just a little more complex than normal, but the possible gains are huge.


What annoys me more is the modern thing of making things overly complex and unserviceable beyond the warranty period. Applies to so many things. The waste is unbelievable.
Would be nice to see a return to building of quality equipment which could be repaired rather than thrown away.

You see Chris you have highlighted the "flaw"

As the consumer you are using less gas (assumed as ur bill has gone down) will the saved c02 actually out weigh the new manufacture and install + scrapping the old one? (I dont know the answer but as the consumer we see the money saving and go oooooh goody)

Most modern equipment can be repaired you just have to be happy with make do and mend not new shiny all the time...

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by 454697819

You see Chris you have highlighted the "flaw"

As the consumer you are using less gas (assumed as ur bill has gone down) will the saved c02 actually out weigh the new manufacture and install + scrapping the old one? (I dont know the answer but as the consumer we see the money saving and go oooooh goody)

Most modern equipment can be repaired you just have to be happy with make do and mend not new shiny all the time...

Yes, for that I think it will.

It's quite simple to equate money to CO2. The boiler was £1000, so it can't have "cost" more than x kg of CO2. If it pays for itself, it must be a saving.

despite living in 2010, we are still in the dark ages.

We burn oil/coal/gas to heat water to produce steam, to drive turbines, to produce electricity.

The same as we did 100 years ago!

Even nuclear fuel is used to heat water to produce steam.

Its beyond antiquated.

There are unmeasurable amounts of kinetic and potential energy on this planet. The oceans move, the wind moves, rain falls on top of hills, snow melts on top of mountains. The sun shines, The planet's core is thousands of degrees and we still burn stuff to make steam!


Politics is what stops it being used. A fear if upseting the equilibrium.

Just imagine if the government said we were all personally responsible for producing whatever power we want to use! How quickly would we all be rigging up wind turbines, water turbines and solar panels? How quickly would there be a solar panel on everything?

Via a business I used to be involved in I was privvy to a gadget that could have changed the world. A very simple device that was in use by the military. It could power anything, anywhere. The company responsible for it is now no more. I have no idea where the owner of the company is now. The whole thing wrapped up and dissapeared. Unfortunately I can't say anything more about it (so please don't ask).

The technology is out there and available now. But fear of upsetting the equilibrium prevents it from making its way into production or use outside of the millitary.

Why isn't every vehicle fitted with a hydroxy unit as it leaves the factory? Free power, less emissions and greater economy from water for a minimal investment. It could very easily be retro fitted to every vehicle by legislation. Its isn't.

This to me proves the Global warming hoax. If governments wanted to do something about it they could very easily do so. They don't. Global warming is a con. Its a controller fear. We have to be frightened to be controlled. Our attension has to be focussed on something bad so we don't notice we're being screwed.

Capitalism is directly at odds with global warming. We must continue to "grow" but that is in direct contradiction to "saving the planet". The western world will always put growth first so any other agenda is second.

So we pretend to grow conscientiously.

And so what if the planet is warming up. What are we going to do? give up? Or adapt?

Of course we are going to adapt. In the time it takes the planet to warm up we'll have adapated to it as a matter of course. We have the technology to do so. Which will, in turn, heat up the planet.

And just as an aside, Global warming is caused by heat. Everything we use on a daily basis now produces heat. Lights, cars, toasters, washing machines, central heating, computers, and ironically fridges and freezers.

For those that understand enthalpy, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Only transfered from one state to another. We are in an ever increasing spiral of converting more energy into heat and it is this that is warming up the planet. The CO2 thing is just a handy "explanation" as it stops the extra heat we are all creating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year escaping into space. Its keeping it in.

CO2 isn't responsible for global warming. Its responsible for keeping in the extra heat in, that we constantly produce, that is causing global warming.

So there!

C

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Berlin

Why isn't every vehicle fitted with a hydroxy unit as it leaves the factory? Free power, less emissions and greater economy from water for a minimal investment. It could very easily be retro fitted to every vehicle by legislation. Its isn't.

Er, what?

No such thing as free power

A "kers" based hydroxy unit is free power.

You could also run a wind turbine behind the radiator or take the power source from the turbo or exhaust gasses on overrun. you could also use a thermocouple from the engine manifold.

All "free" power.

C

Originally Posted by Berlin

Just imagine if the government said we were all personally responsible for producing whatever power we want to use! How quickly would we all be rigging up wind turbines, water turbines and solar panels? How quickly would there be a solar panel on everything?C

You're not wrong there, just look at the 3rd world.
I've just got back from the Dom Rep and they have to pay about 2/3rd of the monthly earnings towards thier elect/water if they want all the hard work done for them.
So nearly every house has turbines, solar panels and rain water harvesting systems fitted so save as much money as possible. This is in the cities though, I imagine they've got very little choice out in the mountains.

So there is your solution; charge everyone £1000 per watt of elec they use and people will start becoming more self sufficient.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Berlin

A "kers" based hydroxy unit is free power.

You could also run a wind turbine behind the radiator or take the power source from the turbo or exhaust gasses on overrun. you could also use a thermocouple from the engine manifold.

All "free" power.

C

Yeah KERS would be good, no idea whether the actual power recovered would be worth the expense. Considering to develop hydrogen you'd have to have a fuel cell, storage etc which would be complex.

Wind turbine behind the rad, you'd pay for in air resistance. All the flow through the engine compartment gets CFD'd on modern cars to optimise it for cooling effectively with the least amount of high pressure area at the front.

Some way to recover waste heat would be good, but not sure how you'd do it in a viable way.

If the fan generator was brushless, the resistance would be negligible and the air going around the engine is more than turbulent enough to negate losses.

And a small hydroxy unit would be no problem to install. Even larger versions and multi cell versions can be accommodated quite easily. Just think outside the "box". It could be molded into any shape and attached pretty much anywhere.

Or why not go the whole hog?...

[yorkie_chris]

You're taking energy out of the air stream, there has to be some pressure loss there. One thing says "it's negligible loss" but if it's negligible loss, it must be negligible output.

Just same as the RAT turbines on jets, they don't run them all the time to drive the cabin electrics and such because the drag outweighs the gain.


One way you could do it, the waste heat from the engine is adding energy to the flow, so try to make it act like a ramjet, and extract some of that energy that way.
Problem is ramjets don't really work until you're up into high supersonics because otherwise there is no compression of the flow.
So, with the speeds of cars (basically at a standstill) you'd need a compressor and basically run it on turboshaft engine principle.

No idea whether that would be applicable to the volume and quality of heat dumped from a car engine!