OT: Steering a train?

[Stuart Noble]

I guess you need all this time to reboot your laptop and mess about with your toys. IME people who spend all day on the phone are those who can't organise anything properly in the first place

[Andy Hall]

Nope.

I use a Mac. It doesn't need daily rebooting. Nor does the PDA.

I completely agree. That's why I don't need to spend all day on the phone. However, one can't always legislate for others.

[Stuart Noble]

I think we gathered that from another thread....:-)

It doesn't need daily rebooting. Nor does the PDA.

[Huge]

Couldn't agree more. And the Carriage Office had the opportunity recently, when they were all replaced to meet requirement to be able to carry a wheel chair (a complete waste of money, IMNHO) to specify that they should all run on LPG or methanol, so similar.

(Not because I don't think that the disabled shouldn't travel by cab, but wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to set up a dedicated service for wheelchair users using properly converted vehicles, rather than forcing thousands of cabbies to buy new vehicles?)

[Andy Hall]

Cheaper for who, though? It must be relatively inexpensive for the Carriage Office simply to mandate a specific cab spec.

I agree with you though - it's a bit surprising that Yellow Ken didn't jump on the opportunity to mandate some fuel changes. Perhaps there's a problem fitting the LPG tank along with the bale of hay.

[dennis]

You don't think the fact that LPG is just as polluting as petrol has anything to do with it? A modern diesel is probably the least polluting option ATM. Hydrogen when we get fusion or invade Africa and take over the Sahara.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Trouble is black cabs don't use modern diesel engines.

[Dave Liquorice]

I was under the impression it was slightly cleaner (less toxic things derived from burning long chain hydro carbons) but the major problem is that is still a fossil fuel. Now if it was LPG from landfill, sewage works or WHY that would be a different matter.

[Andy Hall]

There seems to be a degree of pollution from all of these fuels.

For example, the buses in Frankfurt Airport run on Hydrogen. One would expect the combustion product to be pretty much water, but they stink worse than diesels. Perhaps this is various oxides of nitrogen

- I don't know.

ISTM that there are objective labels attached to this. For example, we talk about fossil fuels - two headlines - they are supposed to be running out and use generates so-called greenhouse gases.

Then I read an article on the BBC News website today (so it must be right) that we should all become vegan because cow farts account for

20% of greenhouse gas emissions.

With these data points it's easy to see why these eco-bites are not taken very seriously.

[Neil Williams]

I don't think they *were* all replaced - there were various conversions of older vehicles, I think, as there are still plenty of them out there.

Neil

[Andy Hall]

You should see how excited some of those guys are at Waterloo station when they have to pick up a person in a wheelchair.

I helped a lady in a wheelchair a couple of weeks ago when the driver wouldn't get out of the cab. He had got some kind of conversion to an old cab with ramps in the back but sais he couldn't be arsed to get them out. There was a second driver with newer cab, better equipment and attitude so she went for that.

On the one hand she was pissed off with the guy's attitude (so was I) but on the other had more important things to think about so went for the line of less resistance.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Merton Council in London use LPG powered vehicles - and the dustcarts produce no smell at all from the exhaust. And no - it's not masked by other smells - as the one we were filming was empty and clean. They are also far quieter than diesels. Of course if the pollution you're considering is CO2 and that's the main concern they may be no better than diesel.

But both London taxis and buses smell more than they should for vehicles which spend near all their time in town.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think it was Panorama tonight at 8.30 on BBC1 which was all about saving energy in the home and they mentioned this - cows burps and farts. More than all the cars in the world, they said. But then they also said CFLs used only 20% of the energy of a filament bulb so their 'facts' were probably just journalist speak.

[David Hansen]

On Mon, 05 Mar 2007 23:40:29 +0000 (GMT) someone who may be "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote this:-

Do reveal the "lies" then and tell us the "real" figures.

[Huge]

They surely do. London stinks by comparison to New York.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You've not understood any of the many threads about it on here? Or watched the programme?

[LSR]

... and water vapour is a FAR more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 or methane.

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:42:56 +0000 (GMT) someone who may be "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote this:-

I have understood them. However, none of them have presented a convincing case for the "fact" you asserted.

I'm not a mind reader, so have no idea which programme you are referring to.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You seem to have clipped the relative part - that a CFL only uses 20% of the energy of a filament lamp. Of course a 20 watt filament lamp only uses

20% of the energy of a 100 watt one too...

Perhaps you need to read all my post, then, before selectively quoting from it.

[OG]

Yes, but water vapour tends to reach 100% saturation and condense out of the atmosphere giving atmospheric H2O a fairly short typical lifetime.

CO2 on the other hand has a much longer lifetime, hnce the 30% increase over the last 50 years