Greta Thunberg and the climate

Change is not an on/off switch. Slow and steady changes the course. Don't think for a second that big oil
doesn't have it's collective eye on alternate energy. 1st step is to abandon coal and then heavy oil substituting
natural gas. Easy because of economics. Gradually convert heavy transport trucks from diesel to electric.
Tesla has a model coming out which will go 500 miles. That's about how much time the DOT will allow a truck
driver to go without a break. Big batteries exist that can recharge in a couple of hours at truck stops. It's all got to
make economic sense or big business and the naysayers will continue to whine about how we are chained inextricably
to oil. The 2nd and 3rd world all want the cushy life style of Europe an North America. We want their cheap labor.
Think of the effect of 500 million SUVs in operation in China, India and Brazil all snorting gasoline and little in the
way of smog equipment. Come on folks. We are already wallowing in our own waste. GB has the sense to tax
the shit out of gasoline resulting in the predominate use of small fuel efficient vehicles. Folks in the USA bitch
about having to pay $2.50 per gallon.
 
I was raised on a farm. When my dad bought a tractor and sold the team of work horses, I took that as a sign of progress. Was there a bit of nostalgia seeing the horses go? Yes, but not so much I would have kept them over that new tractor.

That, gentlemen is progress. Hope the foregoing is not lost on anyone. At the time, the tractor cost a bunch. The horses did the job and were paid for. PROGRESS IS THE FUTURE. Societies that fail to progress are bound to become extinct.
 
BTW Bill, I did lease a plug-in hybrid. Ford C-Max Energi. 150 mpg.
lazyeye6 said:
Change is not an on/off switch. Slow and steady changes the course. Don't think for a second that big oil
doesn't have it's collective eye on alternate energy. 1st step is to abandon coal and then heavy oil substituting
natural gas. Easy because of economics. Gradually convert heavy transport trucks from diesel to electric.
Tesla has a model coming out which will go 500 miles. That's about how much time the DOT will allow a truck
driver to go without a break. Big batteries exist that can recharge in a couple of hours at truck stops. It's all got to
make economic sense or big business and the naysayers will continue to whine about how we are chained inextricably
to oil. The 2nd and 3rd world all want the cushy life style of Europe an North America. We want their cheap labor.
Think of the effect of 500 million SUVs in operation in China, India and Brazil all snorting gasoline and little in the
way of smog equipment. Come on folks. We are already wallowing in our own waste. GB has the sense to tax
the shit out of gasoline resulting in the predominate use of small fuel efficient vehicles. Folks in the USA bitch
about having to pay $2.50 per gallon.
Click to expand...


Brazilians use mostly 100% alcohol for their cars. If not, it’s gasohol. 25% alcohol, 75% gasoline.
 
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JimC said:
BTW Bill, I did lease a plug-in hybrid. Ford C-Max Energi. 150 mpg.



Brazilians use mostly 100% alcohol for their cars. If not, it’s gasohol. 25% alcohol, 75% gasoline.
Click to expand...

Well, yes. And they also clear the rain forests in order to grow sugar cane, sugar beets and corn from which they
make the alcohol. This equals less dino fuel carbon along with less carbon sequestration.
 
The one thing this thread proves... is how difficult it is to have a level headed, reasoned, constructive debate about the environment.

Seriously, in general terms this forum attracts quite like minded people, and yet even a relatively small group of like minded people like this can’t get beyond a few pages before the debate collapses.

So imagine how impossibly difficult it is to get the entire scope of global human perspectives to all agree?!

I’m beginning to realise that THAT is most likely the biggest reason for lack of adequate progress.

All only IMHO of course.
 
Fast Eddie said:
The one thing this thread proves... is how difficult it is to have a level headed, reasoned, constructive debate about the environment.

Seriously, in general terms this forum attracts quite like minded people, and yet even a relatively small group of like minded people like this can’t get beyond a few pages before the debate collapses.

So imagine how impossibly difficult it is to get the entire scope of global human perspectives to all agree?!

I’m beginning to realise that THAT is most likely the biggest reason for lack of adequate progress.

All only IMHO of course.
Click to expand...


Forward thinking, creative, risk taking, adventurous, folk are the ones responsible for progress, in general. What I’ve seen here are those who realize we need a change in regards to burning hydrocarbons and those who are either climate deniers or are hidebound by today’s technology and cost. If you have the capacity to review the recent (150 years) past you begin to understand the limits and practicability of today has little or no relation to what will exist in the future. Already, solar and wind electricity production in the US exceeds that produced by coal. Coal is too expensive.

Do you think anyone in 1920 envisioned the mass air travel that exists today? Way too expensive! Most people will make long distance travel by train. Who, in 1960, would have ever thought nearly everyone would have a handheld wireless communications device? No way was there a battery small enough for a small handheld device. Maybe a battery pack worn as a belt. Not only would that small handheld device enable voice communication, you could access a data bank, news service and send and receive mail. Sure, when pigs fly!
 
Perhaps we should all accept how stupid we (the masses) are and, with heads bent down, gleefully accept the wisdom of government and big business to decide what is best for us? That seems to work well.
 
lazyeye6 said:
Perhaps we should all accept how stupid we (the masses) are and, with heads bent down, gleefully accept the wisdom of government and big business to decide what is best for us? That seems to work well.
Click to expand...


Occasionally, the government has a visionary leader. Eisenhower and his interstate highway program. Kennedy and his vision to go to the moon and back.
 
It’s hard to believe even some who use the very technology to view and post on this forum are unable to envision a future where hydrocarbons are replaced by renewables.
 
JimC said:
Forward thinking, creative, risk taking, adventurous, folk are the ones responsible for progress, in general. What I’ve seen here are those who realize we need a change in regards to burning hydrocarbons and those who are either climate deniers or are hidebound by today’s technology and cost. If you have the capacity to review the recent (150 years) past you begin to understand the limits and practicability of today has little or no relation to what will exist in the future. Already, solar and wind electricity production in the US exceeds that produced by coal. Coal is too expensive.

Do you think anyone in 1920 envisioned the mass air travel that exists today? Way too expensive! Most people will make long distance travel by train. Who, in 1960, would have ever thought nearly everyone would have a handheld wireless communications device? No way was there a battery small enough for a small handheld device. Maybe a battery pack worn as a belt. Not only would that small handheld device enable voice communication, you could access a data bank, news service and send and receive mail. Sure, when pigs fly!
Click to expand...

I dunno Jim, I think differently... I think that in 1920 people probably expected us to be doing things way more differently 100 years into the future than we are today.

As a kid, one of my favourite sci-fi television programmes, about a human base on the moon, was ‘space 1999’ ... so that was set 21 years ago and we haven’t even been back to the moon in 50 years!

But maybe this is where our two thought paths converge... maybe if we had developed more, we would be doing things a lot greener than we are. Maybe the technology that helped us develop better and cleaner ways of using fossil fuels and refining our old generation modes of transport etc are really guilty of holding us back from breaking new ground?

As I read somewhere recently... “the electric light bulb was not arrived at via continual development of the candle’...

Well it made me pause for thought at least.
 
Fast Eddie said:
I dunno Jim, I think differently... I think that in 1920 people probably expected us to be doing things way more differently 100 years into the future than we are today.

As a kid, one of my favourite sci-fi television programmes, about a human base on the moon, was ‘space 1999’ ... so that was set 21 years ago and we haven’t even been back to the moon in 50 years!

But maybe this is where our two thought paths converge... maybe if we had developed more, we would be doing things a lot greener than we are. Maybe the technology that helped us develop better and cleaner ways of using fossil fuels and refining our old generation modes of transport etc are really guilty of holding us back from breaking new ground?

As I read somewhere recently... “the electric light bulb was not arrived at via continual development of the candle’...

Well it made me pause for thought at least.
Click to expand...


No, we are not thinking differently so much as expressing the same thing differently.

“so thatwas set 21 years ago and we haven’t even been back to the moon in 50 years!”

Have you ever asked why we haven’t been back to the moon in fifty years? Because we have a populous in the US that is more favorable of mindless wars than space exploration. Therefore, we have government leaders who engage our military in endless conflicts in foreign countries under the guise of National defense. Also, our business leaders view wars more profitable than space exploration.
 
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JimC said:
No, we are not thinking differently so much as expressing the same thing differently.

“so thatwas set 21 years ago and we haven’t even been back to the moon in 50 years!”

Have you ever asked why we haven’t been back to the moon in fifty years? Because we have a populous in the US that is more favorable of mindless wars than space exploration. Therefore, we have government leaders who engage our military in endless conflicts in foreign countries under the guise of National defense. Also, our business leaders view wars more profitable than space exploration.
Click to expand...

Yes, but whatever the reasons, my point is that science fiction was predicting moon bases and space exploration on a scale we can only dream of even today. In fact it probably seems further away now than it was then.

I think that, in general, we are further behind than people predicted we would be. Partly because of the politics you mention, and partly for other reasons. But we are where we are.

Often people say how things are changing so fast these days. Take motorbikes. People will say ‘wow, things have moved so far in the last 30 years’.

But 30 years ago we still have Fireblades and GSXRs etc.

If you think back 30 years from 1990... the leap was far bigger.

If you think back 30 years from 1960 it was bigger still.

And think back 30 years from 1930 it was even bigger still.

In mobile phone and computer technology progress has been (still is) exponential, but in many other areas it is slowing down.

And maybe that’s where we’re going wrong... we need the kind of progress that took us from floppy discs to super chips to take place in EVs and battery technology and renewable energies and etc.

But we seem to be stuck developing that candle... or at least polishing that floppy disc...!
 
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lazyeye6 said:
GB has the sense to tax
the shit out of gasoline resulting in the predominate use of small fuel efficient vehicles.
Click to expand...
Norman,
Whilst the tax may have forced the public to use smaller vehicles I am not convinced of the more efficient argument, the money has not been used effectively to drive progress. I started driving in 1984 and my car managed 38mpg (small/medium sized ford Escort) my current car (small - economy- car Mini) manages 43mpg which is hardly significant progress in nearly 40 years.
Jim is right, we need to look forward. Perhaps innovators should look at ways vehicles can charge batteries as they go along rather than provide charging points which would be in significant demand - a turbine system powered by the forced air as a vehicle drives forward?
I am not an engineer but the lights on my childhood bike were powered by a dynamo which used the forward motion of the front wheel, surely we have advanced on that system in 50 years?
 
Last edited:
Eljahara said:
Norman,
Whilst the tax may have forced the public to use smaller vehicles I am not convinced of the more efficient argument, the money has not been used effectively to drive progress. I started driving in 1984 and my car managed 38mpg (small/medium sized ford Escort) my current car (small - economy- car Mini) manages 43mpg which is hardly significant progress in nearly 40 years.
Jim is right, we need to look forward. Perhaps innovators should look at ways vehicles can charge batteries as they go along rather than provide charging points which would be in significant demand - a turbine system powered by the forced air as a vehicle drives forward?
I am not an engineer but the lights on my childhood bike were powered by a dynamo which used the forward motion of the front wheel, surely we have advanced on that system in 50 years?
Click to expand...

With the bicycle dynamo the energy for motion is created by the rider. Who also therefore powers the dynamo and creates electricity.

In an EV the energy for motion comes from the battery. So far scientists have been unable to use energy to create the same, or more, energy than is taken to produce it. That would be perpetual motion, which physics tells us is impossible.

Basically, man cannot create energy, only transform it from one source to another. And each time it’s transformed, some is lost.

What is being done is the harvesting of energy from braking to create electricity. But it’s only as a small top up, not a main source. It could only work as a main source if the vast majority of driving was down hill (using brakes more than motor).

Toyota are trying to develop a fully solar EV. But a practical version of that is still a long way off.
 
Hi Nigel,
I get the perpetual motion argument, what I was thinking was that an air scoop could force air towards a small turbine which could then generate the electricity to put back into the battery - a bit like a small wind generator - keeping the battery charged enough (50/60%) to get to your destination and then charge to 100%
 
Fast Eddie said:
Yes, but whatever the reasons, my point is that science fiction was predicting moon bases and space exploration on a scale we can only dream of even today. In fact it probably seems further away now than it was then.

I think that, in general, we are further behind than people predicted we would be. Partly because of the politics you mention, and partly for other reasons. But we are where we are.

Often people say how things are changing so fast these days. Take motorbikes. People will say ‘wow, things have moved so far in the last 30 years’.

But 30 years ago we still have Fireblades and GSXRs etc.

If you think back 30 years from 1990... the leap was far bigger.

If you think back 30 years from 1960 it was bigger still.

And think back 30 years from 1930 it was even bigger still.

In mobile phone and computer technology progress has been (still is) exponential, but in many other areas it is slowing down.

And maybe that’s where we’re going wrong... we need the kind of progress that took us from floppy discs to super chips to take place in EVs and battery technology and renewable energies and etc.

But we seem to be stuck developing that candle... or at least polishing that floppy disc...!
Click to expand...


Yup, we are slowing down. Trump even wants us to regress, re: coal burning.
 
Eljahara said:
Hi Nigel,
I get the perpetual motion argument, what I was thinking was that an air scoop could force air towards a small turbine which could then generate the electricity to put back into the battery - a bit like a small wind generator - keeping the battery charged enough (50/60%) to get to your destination and then charge to 100%
Click to expand...

Maybe there’s something in it, I don’t know, but the general argument is that the energy absorbed by the fan is going to cancel out that created by it.

But now you’ve got me thinking about hybrids... and using the exhaust gasses to power a turbine....
 
Eljahara said:
Hi Nigel,
I get the perpetual motion argument, what I was thinking was that an air scoop could force air towards a small turbine which could then generate the electricity to put back into the battery - a bit like a small wind generator - keeping the battery charged enough (50/60%) to get to your destination and then charge to 100%
Click to expand...


Have ever heard of the compound turbo engine? It’s a conventional internal combustion engine with an exhaust driven turbine. The turbine is used to drive a small electric generator used to power all ancillaries, such as water and power steering pumps, air conditioner, etc.
 
JimC said:
Have ever heard of the compound turbo engine? It’s a conventional internal combustion engine with an exhaust driven turbine. The turbine is used to drive a small electric generator used to power all ancillaries, such as water and power steering pumps, air conditioner, etc.
Click to expand...
As Fast Eddie says, we seem to have lost our innovators and progress has slowed -the compound turbo seems to have merit - especially if we could adapt the IC part to workon cleaner fuel
 

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