On Dec 20, 1:49*pm, Bill Wright wrote:
wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:30:02 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

"It was later established that the bus had run out of diesel."
Sounds like the fuel gauge was broken, if it was only "later"
established.

Sounds like the driver was an idiot, not topping up the tank before
setting off, as is the norm for buses at the start of a shift/long
journey.
Of course, if the driver was a greeniephile/PR tosser, he/she/it
wouldn't be all that tech knowledgeable and probably assumed the bus
ran on Magic Pixie Dust.

Anyway what's green about running a bus on batteries? The overwhelmingly
largest part of the electrical energy comes from coal or gas burnt in a
power station. Part of this energy is used to recharge the bus overnight
(they must do this or all the energy needed to move the bus would come
from diesel and they wouldn't be able to pretend that was green). But a
lot of it is lost in transmission and because the charger and the
process of charging and discharging a battery is very inefficient.

All this does is avoid a small amount of pollution in London at the cost
of causing a lot of pollution in the countryside. Perhaps that's the
idea. I've always thought Londoners carry on as if they've got
lead-poisoned brains. Maybe they want the rest of us to start running
round like headless chickens, same as them.

Bill

There are several possible technologies.
The whole thing however revolves around being able to recover energy
lost as heat in the brakes and engine when slowing down in a normal
bus, (ie regenerative braking) and having somewhere to store it.
(Battery)

Pointless taking such a machine on the motorway.

I supposeyou could make passengers get off and walk up hills and get
on at the top so making use of their potential enrgy.