Diesel scrappage

[Tim Streater]

Sat in the fish restaurant overlooking Dover Harbour today for lunch, watching the ferries come and go.

Now *there's* a source of pollution.

[Bill]

In message , Andrew writes

All I will say again, again and again is that my petrol auto Omega did

40 mpg on long runs, but 7 to 9 mpg moving elderly people in start, long stop, start, long stop etc. a few hundred yards at a time to shops, clinic, shops, our home, their home and so on. Always "full choke". The diesel auto Disco did about 25 mpg, the diesel Octavia does about 35mpg, or 65 on a long run if we are lucky with the lights.

For my use, the standard diesel argument has it back to front.

I'd have thought a normally aspirated diesel hybrid might be a reasonable starting point, although weight might lead to tyre particulate problems.

Are all the gas power stations needed for electric vehicles NOx free?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Turbos reduce particulates. You get the power not from dumping in fuel, but from lots of extra air instead.

Nope. Its present in gas turbine exhausts (jet engines) as well.

The only design of combustor I ever heard that got round the problem was a coal burner that mixed iron oxide with the coal, and then burnt the combination, leading to molten iron, pure CO2 and lots of heat.

Then the molten iron was reacted with air to reform iron oxide. Of course THAT process probably introduces NOx as well..

Coal power stations used scrubbers to rip out sulfur dioxide. Probably NOX can be scrubbed to nitric acid.

Nuclear is so much cleaner...

[Chris Hogg]

Mearns has a blog on the mortality resulting from the pollution caused by diesel cars

or

[Huge]

Well, the McLaren P1, anyway. All the rest of them are poo.

[Huge]

What, on top of the net £30bn that motorists already "contribute" to the Exchequer? Fuck that noise.

[Scott M]

Yep, crappy Jag/Peugeot V6 Diesel derivative. When it was first introduced on the S-Type it had various problems that put it in the "Cars to Never Buy" box but it seemed to actually gain problems when they put it in the Disco.

Apparently dealers have been heard to utter "it's had a good innings" when presented with broken ones at 50k miles. The great British car industry - still thinking it's 1956.

[Scott M]

The pricing of second hand Land/Range Rovers is utterly surreal compared to other 4x4s. There is *no* such thing as a "good" one for a start. I reckon the price is entirely held afloat by all this "best off roader by far" nonsense[1] - it's certainly not mechanical quality as, to a man, there's very rarely been something built in Solihull that doesn't require endless replacement parts.

I look after various cars and Land Rover parts quality is, frankly, crap. My favourite is various ally castings that rot away. God knows where the got the raw stock (Fred's Scrappie probably) but they must have given it to some local die-caster who'd never heard of any of the modern pressurised casting processes. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish.

[1] It always amuses me that people say BMW bought Rover for Land Rover's "off-road" know-how. At the time there wasn't enough technology to justify buying one car and stripping it down to see what was what, let alone bother buying the company.

[Tim Watts]

Which isn't ringfenced - the criminal bastards....

[newshound]

The charge is not a fund raising exercise, it is an incentive to change behaviour.

[Hankat]

I havent.

I havent replaced any filters at all apart from the one oil filter in 10 years in my petrol Hyundai Getz, no plugs replaced at all. Just the one battery too.

[<frde]

Because the pollution produced by the worst diesels is much worse for your health than with petrol cars.

Yes, but it isnt just about efficiency.

Apparently its trivial easy to determine at autopsy from the lungs which non smokers have 'lived' in the center of big cities.

[Steve Walker]

I was diagnosed with asthma some years ago and then managed to add pulmonary sarcoidosis to that. I have never had a problem standing, waiting to cross at a junction where there is a queue of cars, both petrol and diesel - I have however struggled for breath when a single truck or bus is in that queue.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

When my son was ill with suspected heart problems, the local hospital were concerned and referred him immediately to A&E at the children's hospital in the centre of Manchester - their expectation was for me to drive him there. It was eventually dimissed as murmur to be watched, but not acting upon.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

No. It is worth visiting Blackpool every so often, just to remind yourself just how tacky things can be.

SteveW

[James Wilkinson Sword]

You don't believe that treehugging nonsense do you?

That's all I care about.

Then they shouldn't live in cities.

-- =

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of= confidence. -- Doug McLeod

[charles]

waht about the taxis, delivery lorries, service buses, long distance coaches, tourist coaches, railway locaomotives ? Are they all to be banned as well?

[charles]

Some years ago, I'd taken my mother-in-law to the GP. The doctor came out and said "can you tak her straight to the hospital? It will be a lot quicker than getting an ambulance." So we got to A&E and it was over 2 hours before anybody saw her.

[charles]

If you want to see black smoke - go to Paddington station.

[Richard]

Just like speed cameras then. As soon as the revenue drops, they introduce bus lanes, etc.