Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
hugh ] wrote:
The big advantage of using propane was not lower CO2 emission but
cleaner exhaust, minimal CO, minimal unburned hydrocarbons, no SO2 and
no nitrous oxides. Having encouraged conversion with lower fuel duty the
government then screwed it up by starting to phase out the differential.

Which government where and ever could put up with reducing revenue?

The 'barbarians' managed it when they seceded from the Roman Empire :-)

Somehow less legions breathing down your neck and demanding taxes seemed
a fair price to pay for the loss of a bunch of civilised roads, bath
houses and aqueducts that no one actually seemed to find that
useful..for the next 1000 years.


It won't be long before this one works out how to get the same sort of
income from electric vehicles as it does from IC ones. Probably a special
VED for them.


Nah. They will just make electricity more expensive, that's all.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher
saying something like:

let's see..12 hours at 70mph..that's 960 miles..

at 50mpg, that would be about 19.2 gallons..

How many cars have tanks that big?

My Scimitar does, but does a damn sight less than 50mpg.

Otoh, my SOJC has the main tank of 60L, and an aux tank of 72L,
totalling 29 Imp gals, which gives a range of 1453 miles @ 50mpg.

Huge wrote:

On 2011-04-26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Huge wrote:
On 2011-04-26, hugh ] wrote:

Having encouraged conversion with lower fuel duty the
government then screwed it up by starting to phase out the
differential.

An inevitability once LPG showed any sign of popularity.

The same will happen to electric cars. The grasping *******s have to
steal the money from somewhere - Ghod forbid they should stop ****ing it
away instead.


well not necessarily...since reducing oil imports will improve the
balance of payments and reduce the need for taxation.

Tee-hee. You don't actually believe that, do you?



If we don't import fossil fuels, that's a whole good bunch of excuses for
****ing about with unstable random countries gone for a start.

--
Tim Watts

Huge wrote:
On 2011-04-26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Huge wrote:
On 2011-04-26, hugh ] wrote:

Having encouraged conversion with lower fuel duty the
government then screwed it up by starting to phase out the differential.
An inevitability once LPG showed any sign of popularity.

The same will happen to electric cars. The grasping *******s have to steal
the money from somewhere - Ghod forbid they should stop ****ing it away
instead.


well not necessarily...since reducing oil imports will improve the
balance of payments and reduce the need for taxation.

Tee-hee. You don't actually believe that, do you?


I believe that it would reduce the *need* for taxation, yes....:-)

Huge wrote:

On 2011-04-26, Tim Watts wrote:
Huge wrote:

On 2011-04-26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Huge wrote:
On 2011-04-26, hugh ] wrote:

Having encouraged conversion with lower fuel duty the
government then screwed it up by starting to phase out the
differential.

An inevitability once LPG showed any sign of popularity.

The same will happen to electric cars. The grasping *******s have to
steal the money from somewhere - Ghod forbid they should stop ****ing
it away instead.


well not necessarily...since reducing oil imports will improve the
balance of payments and reduce the need for taxation.

Tee-hee. You don't actually believe that, do you?



If we don't import fossil fuels, that's a whole good bunch of excuses for
****ing about with unstable random countries gone for a start.

Oh, I agree. It was the "reduce the need for taxation" bit I was skeptical
about.



Well, we'll waste a few billion less without the nobbing wars thus reduce
the need for taxation.

Oh wait - this is Britain, they'll find something else to waste it on

slapself/

--
Tim Watts

In message , Steve Firth
writes
tony sayer wrote:

What's a 32 litre bottle of Butane gas cost .. anyone?..

It's not possible to get a 19Kg butane cylinder, the largest that I can
get locally is 15Kg which would cost £32.99. However the mention of
butane is an irrelevance, butane is not used to power cars, they run on
Autogas which is mostly propane.

....in the UK. In Holland it is a butane/propane mix, more butane in
summer, less in winter.
Autogas in the UK is typically commercial grade propane However there is
no definition or specification for "autogas" so they can sell you any
old crap - and some times they do!!


Propane is available in 19Kg cylinders, for £35 a cylinder.

It's actually cheaper to fill up at the pump where propane is £0.71 per
litre at Morrisons and any petrol station selling LPG close to a
Morrisons. If it's an isolated petrol station then the Autogas can be
around £0.80/litre.

The density of butane is 505g/litre so a 15Kg cylinder contains 29.7
litres - £1.11/litre, the density of propane is 510g/litre so a 19Kg
cylinder contains 37.25 litres - £0.94/litre. It's clearly cheaper to
fill up at the pump, and using butane or propane in a road vehicle means
that you haven't paid the fuel duty so in the unlikely event of being
stopped by HMRC you're in the crap.

--
hugh
"Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, Or who said it, Even if
I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason And your own
common sense." Buddha

In message , The Natural Philosopher
wrote
hugh wrote:
In message , Alan
writes
In message , The Natural Philosopher
wrote

I hope the electric racing formula comes to fruition, because that
will establish viable technologies really quickly.


They cannot even get KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) to work
reliably on racing cars.
Correction - Red Bull/Renault cannot get KERs systems to work
reliably, largely because Newey will not compromise at all on the Red
Bull aerodynamics.


Possibly more because he concentrated almost exclusively on the
aerodynamics.

which in light of the way tyres are behaving, may have been not the
optimal strategy.

And think of the other advantages that we could get from F1

A new set of tyres every time you stop for fuel.
A new engine at the same time as your MOT
Only single carriageway roads needed as you couldn't overtake.




--
Alan
news2009 {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

In message , Alan
writes
In message , The Natural Philosopher
wrote
hugh wrote:
In message , Alan
writes
In message , The Natural
Philosopher wrote

I hope the electric racing formula comes to fruition, because that
will establish viable technologies really quickly.


They cannot even get KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems) to work
reliably on racing cars.
Correction - Red Bull/Renault cannot get KERs systems to work
reliably, largely because Newey will not compromise at all on the
Red Bull aerodynamics.


Possibly more because he concentrated almost exclusively on the
aerodynamics.

which in light of the way tyres are behaving, may have been not the
optimal strategy.

And think of the other advantages that we could get from F1

A new set of tyres every time you stop for fuel.
A new engine at the same time as your MOT
Only single carriageway roads needed as you couldn't overtake.




And no going from A to B - only A to A
--
hugh
"Believe nothing. No matter where you read it, Or who said it, Even if
I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason And your own
common sense." Buddha

On 25/04/2011 14:31, Steve Firth wrote:
Dave Plowman wrote:

In k,
Steve wrote:
I doubt that most drivers would accept the driving characteristics of
the vehicle. Most people I met couldn't do a hill start with such a
small engine and one kindly burnt out the clutch trying.

That's only a question of having the correct gearing in first gear.

Not in this case, it was a Citroen Visa (652cc). First gear was fine for
any hill start for me, and I suspect anyone used to driving a 2CV
however I'd say the majority of those who tried it simply couldn't get
the hang of it.

My father had a 28 bhp Morris Minor and that never had problems with hill
starts even when fully loaded. The previous Morris 8 we had with a 3 speed
box did.

I had absolutely no problems with the Visa, but I was used to driving
puny engined vehicles. As I say, most people who tried couldn't drive it
at all, and one burned out the clutch. That, to me, says a lot about the
skills of the average driver who seems to expect 80bhp+ and torque to
match, not about the vehicle which was more than adequate for its role
as a lightweight "utility" vehicle.

My wife has recently bought a 1l Matiz, which is pretty good to drive,
even with both of us plus three kids in. However it's not good for the
motorway, as our nearest sliproad has a pedestrian crossing at the
bottom, followed by entry control traffic lights and the whole thing is
on a steep, uphill slope. Getting any reasonable speed by the end of the
sliproad is difficult and accellerating to line up with a gap in a line
of wagons that are all on the limiter is impossible! Low power is
absolutely fine around town, which is all she needs, but I'd hate to use
her car to get to work that way every day.

SteveW

Steve Walker wrote:

Slip road!

Try this

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en-GB&q=doncaster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Doncaster,+United +Kingdom&gl=uk&ll=53.605697,-1.219826&spn=0,0.019205&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=53.6 07696,-1.221945&panoid=GTHqDYwqr3yJkcqGalc93Q&cbp=12,193. 37,,0,13.47

or

http://tinyurl.com/65lljke


--
Adam

Steve Walker wrote:

My wife has recently bought a 1l Matiz, which is pretty good to drive,
even with both of us plus three kids in.

Aiiieee no! I've driven one in Italy, from Rome, across the Apennines.
On the long haul up from Rome to L'Aquila the maximum speed with two
adults and two overnight bags was 45mph. On the motorway, with a big,
sweaty, angry truck driver just 1/8" off the back bumper.

We were caught in a hail storm. The "steel" that the Matiz is made from
is as soft was aluminium foil and we took back a car that looked like a
golf ball. I was really glad that I paid the "super CDW" fee when I
rented it. The only other vehicle that I have driven that was as flimsy
and gutless was the Smart for Four. My old 2CV had more oomph and felt
safer to drive.

ARWadsworth wrote:
Steve Walker wrote:

Slip road!

Try this

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en-GB&q=doncaster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Doncaster,+United +Kingdom&gl=uk&ll=53.605697,-1.219826&spn=0,0.019205&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=53.6 07696,-1.221945&panoid=GTHqDYwqr3yJkcqGalc93Q&cbp=12,193. 37,,0,13.47

or

http://tinyurl.com/65lljke


Not as bad as it's made out to be, the "Give Way" goes into an
acceleration lane, which is over a hundred yards long. Bad layout of the
bit shown, but not that bad to use if you know what you're doing.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

In article , Steve Firth
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:

What's a 32 litre bottle of Butane gas cost .. anyone?..

It's not possible to get a 19Kg butane cylinder, the largest that I can
get locally is 15Kg which would cost £32.99. However the mention of
butane is an irrelevance, butane is not used to power cars, they run on
Autogas which is mostly propane.

Propane is available in 19Kg cylinders, for £35 a cylinder.

It's actually cheaper to fill up at the pump where propane is £0.71 per
litre at Morrisons and any petrol station selling LPG close to a
Morrisons. If it's an isolated petrol station then the Autogas can be
around £0.80/litre.

The density of butane is 505g/litre so a 15Kg cylinder contains 29.7
litres - £1.11/litre, the density of propane is 510g/litre so a 19Kg
cylinder contains 37.25 litres - £0.94/litre. It's clearly cheaper to
fill up at the pump, and using butane or propane in a road vehicle means
that you haven't paid the fuel duty so in the unlikely event of being
stopped by HMRC you're in the crap.

Thats near enough for use..

But the idea is to move away from fossil fuels .

Except perhaps Hydrogen split from water.....
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:
In article , Steve Firth
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:

What's a 32 litre bottle of Butane gas cost .. anyone?..
It's not possible to get a 19Kg butane cylinder, the largest that I can
get locally is 15Kg which would cost £32.99. However the mention of
butane is an irrelevance, butane is not used to power cars, they run on
Autogas which is mostly propane.

Propane is available in 19Kg cylinders, for £35 a cylinder.

It's actually cheaper to fill up at the pump where propane is £0.71 per
litre at Morrisons and any petrol station selling LPG close to a
Morrisons. If it's an isolated petrol station then the Autogas can be
around £0.80/litre.

The density of butane is 505g/litre so a 15Kg cylinder contains 29.7
litres - £1.11/litre, the density of propane is 510g/litre so a 19Kg
cylinder contains 37.25 litres - £0.94/litre. It's clearly cheaper to
fill up at the pump, and using butane or propane in a road vehicle means
that you haven't paid the fuel duty so in the unlikely event of being
stopped by HMRC you're in the crap.

Thats near enough for use..

But the idea is to move away from fossil fuels .

Except perhaps Hydrogen split from water.....

That's not fossil. That's synthetic, and hydrogen is a far worse fuel to
manage than hydrocarbon fuel.

On Apr 22, 8:19*pm, John Rumm wrote:
On 22/04/2011 18:35, tim.... wrote:



*wrote in message
groups.com...
responding to
http://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy/...la-701863-.htm
DA wrote:
Huge wrote:

Even if there were charging stations every 50 yards, the technology is
insufficiently mature. Or, in more, er, aggressive terms, it sucks.

The only way any technology improves is through use. No use = sucky
technology.
But charging is only a part of it. Little noise, high torque, lower fuel
(energy) cost, and little to no maintenance of the electrical vehicle are
all playing role.

Basically, the entire article is about how stopping for charging slows you
down. This concept sounds like a no-brainer to me. Of course you have to
plan your route if your range is limited for one reason or another. As one
commenter pointed out, you would not cross Pacific Ocean (8 255nm shortest
trip) in an A320 (3,300 nm average range), you have to plan your route and
stop for refueling twice.

We\'ve been conditioned to expect that a car can take us 500 km away at
any moment we wished. That hasn\'t always been the case and that\'s going
away now. If for no other reason, you at least have to stop and think
about paying for all the gas that you\'ll use on the trip. Thinking a
little ahead and considering if your car has enough charge for the trip
also seems like a reasonable thing to ask of the driver.

But at lease these "refuelling" stops add little time. *Refuelling an
electric car takes a long (or longer) than it did to use up the "fuel" that
you gain from each stop increasing the journey time by 200%.

What you need is a car that runs on Rechargable DDDDDDDDD Cells. As they
get low you pull into the filling station where your set are ejected and
begin recharge, and a fully charged set are installed. In 30 hours time,
your ejected set can be rotated into the next car that pulls in.

What you need is a redox battery. When the charge gets low you pull
into the filling station and just pump in fresh electrolyte, could
probably be as fast as filling a petrol tank. The used stuff is then
recharged for later reuse.

MBQ

On Apr 23, 3:05*pm, "Nightjar \"cpb\"@" "insertmysurnamehere wrote:
On 22/04/2011 18:06, DA wrote:

responding to
http://www.homeownershub.com/uk-diy/...la-701863-.htm
DA wrote:
Huge wrote:

Even if there were charging stations every 50 yards, the technology is
insufficiently mature. Or, in more, er, aggressive terms, it sucks.

The only way any technology improves is through use. No use = sucky
technology.
But charging is only a part of it. Little noise,

Making them much more dangerous to pedestrians.

Only the innatentive ones. Darwin will soon sort them out.

MBQ

Tim Streater wrote:

In article ,
(Steve Firth) wrote:

Steve Walker wrote:

My wife has recently bought a 1l Matiz, which is pretty good to drive,
even with both of us plus three kids in.

Aiiieee no! I've driven one in Italy, from Rome, across the Apennines.
On the long haul up from Rome to L'Aquila the maximum speed with two
adults and two overnight bags was 45mph. On the motorway, with a big,
sweaty, angry truck driver just 1/8" off the back bumper.

We were caught in a hail storm. The "steel" that the Matiz is made from
is as soft was aluminium foil and we took back a car that looked like a
golf ball. I was really glad that I paid the "super CDW" fee when I
rented it. The only other vehicle that I have driven that was as flimsy
and gutless was the Smart for Four. My old 2CV had more oomph and felt
safer to drive.

What did they say when you took it back? How did the conversation go?

Er it didn't go well. They came out to inspect the damage and the bloke
screamed at me hysterically (falsetto!) in Italian, "What have you done
to our car?" and I replied "I did nothing, it was God that did it."

It was fun watching him trying to mark the position of every dent on the
damage report. He gave up after a bit and just scribbled "all" on the
report.

Here's a photo of one of the hailstones:

http://www.primadanoi.it/FOTO/FOTONOTIZIE/grandine.JPG

And here's one of a car similarly damaged - same car park that the hire
car was in:

http://forum.abruzzometeo.it/attachm...d=11569604 75

Sadly I didn't photograph the Matiz. As you can see the damage depended on the strength of the car. There were several Astras around
that suffered little or no damage to bodywork. The Lancia in this photo and the Matiz looked like they had just come back from the
conflict in Bosnia.

The storm was estimated to have cause EUR 36 million of damage in just
an hour.

When I got back to the UK I discovered the hire company had charged my
card with the entire cost of the vehicle - £5500, despite having the
Super CDW. It took a lot of shouting to get the money refunded, I don't
know if the cheeky *******s thought that I wouldn't notice the charge.

I now take out annual car hire excess insurance, and I've made a not to
never, ever use Europcar again, *******s.

In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
I now take out annual car hire excess insurance, and I've made a not to
never, ever use Europcar again, *******s.

Many years ago when my mother was still alive, I used to fly to Aberdeen
for New Year and hire a car. Usually a Montego, since most of the others
of that size were RWD and hopeless in snow.

There was a 24 hour garage on the exit to the car park - no more than 100
yards from where the hire cars were parked. You got the car with a full
tank and if you returned it full, no surcharge.

Their idea of full for supplying the car full was by the gauge. Being me,
I stopped and brimmed it. Took 3 gallons. Brimmed it on return, and still
got charged for 3 gallons on my credit card. And never got it back.

--
*A nest isn't empty until all their stuff is out of the attic

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Their idea of full for supplying the car full was by the gauge. Being me,
I stopped and brimmed it. Took 3 gallons. Brimmed it on return, and still
got charged for 3 gallons on my credit card. And never got it back.

Barstewards, all of them. Sleasycar used to have a scam where on
returning the car you could not park it yourself. The car was taken out
of sight where they did the "vehicle inspection". Virtually every car
returned mysteriously acquired damage in the trip from the office to
their "secure parking" location.

On 26/04/2011 22:07, hugh wrote:

Only single carriageway roads needed as you couldn't overtake.

Perhaps you mean single track roads. I can usually find some overtaking
opportunities unless the traffic is very heavy.

And even on a single track road overtaking is possible with
understanding slower drivers. Happened to me today in Southern Scotland,
second time this year. Local drivers presumably who are used to single
track roads.

--
Roger Chapman

On 27/04/2011 11:58, Steve Firth wrote:

Barstewards, all of them. Sleasycar used to have a scam where on
returning the car you could not park it yourself. The car was taken out
of sight where they did the "vehicle inspection". Virtually every car
returned mysteriously acquired damage in the trip from the office to
their "secure parking" location.

I shan't mention the company, because they did fix it.

Last time I rented anything it was a van. It wasn't quite ready when I
turned up "because the local kids had let the tyres down". So I walked
around the corner to the tyre place and waited.

Now I don't know exactly what the tyre place did, but I do know that on
the M2 the (fortunately still empty) van lost the whole of the tread on
a rear tyre. I was left with two sidewalls and a completely detached
tread section. I suspect it had a slow puncture, and the rear tyre is
so far from the driver I didn't realise.

I could not find the locking wheel nut key, nor could the van hire
people tell me where it was.

The AA took 55 minutes (as is their wont - x% of all calls under an
hour) and insisted on a credit card number in advance. He found the
locking wheel nut key (apparently most vans keep it in the same place!)
and changed the wheel for me. And told me there was a nail in the other
back tyre.

So I went into the local office of the national van hire company, was
referred to a local tyre dealer, and got a replacement spare. The nail
didn't kill the other tyre.

A bit later the tyre dealers call me, and say there's a problem, and can
I come back in. OK, back through Canterbury traffic. The problem is
that I haven't paid for the tyre.

I called the rental company from the tyre dealer and was quite
forthright with them. They agreed not to charge me for the tyre.

It turned out that the only breakdown insurance on the van was the new
vehicle warranty that specifically excludes tyres - so the AA charged
me. It took a recorded delivery letter before they refunded the AA fee.

So, I was an hour late starting, I lost an hour by the M2, another hour
in the tyre dealers and traffic... and no compensation. No, I tell a
lie, they didn't charge me for the rental.

Andy

Andy Champ wrote:

I called the rental company from the tyre dealer and was quite
forthright with them. They agreed not to charge me for the tyre.

It turned out that the only breakdown insurance on the van was the new
vehicle warranty that specifically excludes tyres - so the AA charged
me. It took a recorded delivery letter before they refunded the AA fee.

You were lucky, jings I'm sounding like a Yorkshireman now, I was given
a car with a leak on one tyre by Nationwide. I discovered it within
yards of the rental office, as it felt odd when I made a left turn. I
called them to ask them how to get it fixed - they told me to wait for
"their specialist repairer". I could walk to the office from where I was
and asked them for another car, they refused.

I ended up waiting two hours for a man who said he could do nothing, he
pumped up the tyre got me to drive to Kwik Fit where I had to pay for a
tyre. I drove back to the rental office, where they told me with
straight faces that since I had "deliberately punctured" their tyre I
would lose the deposit on the car.

Took two years and a lawyer to get the cash back.

Another one crossed off my list of "companies to rent cars from".

In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Steve Firth
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:

What's a 32 litre bottle of Butane gas cost .. anyone?..
It's not possible to get a 19Kg butane cylinder, the largest that I can
get locally is 15Kg which would cost £32.99. However the mention of
butane is an irrelevance, butane is not used to power cars, they run on
Autogas which is mostly propane.

Propane is available in 19Kg cylinders, for £35 a cylinder.

It's actually cheaper to fill up at the pump where propane is £0.71 per
litre at Morrisons and any petrol station selling LPG close to a
Morrisons. If it's an isolated petrol station then the Autogas can be
around £0.80/litre.

The density of butane is 505g/litre so a 15Kg cylinder contains 29.7
litres - £1.11/litre, the density of propane is 510g/litre so a 19Kg
cylinder contains 37.25 litres - £0.94/litre. It's clearly cheaper to
fill up at the pump, and using butane or propane in a road vehicle means
that you haven't paid the fuel duty so in the unlikely event of being
stopped by HMRC you're in the crap.

Thats near enough for use..

But the idea is to move away from fossil fuels .

Except perhaps Hydrogen split from water.....

That's not fossil. That's synthetic,

Dunno its natural innit;?..

and hydrogen is a far worse fuel to
manage than hydrocarbon fuel.

Does the carbon make it slippery or sumfink;?..
--
Tony Sayer

Huge gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying:

And even on a single track road overtaking is possible with
understanding slower drivers. Happened to me today in Southern
Scotland, second time this year. Local drivers presumably who are used
to single track roads.

There's no way you're going to be overtaking a local on a single track
road in Scotland. You'd be lucky to keep up with them at all. At least,
that's what experience from many holidays in Kintyre teaches me.

I think he might've meant vice-versa...

tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Steve Firth
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:

What's a 32 litre bottle of Butane gas cost .. anyone?..
It's not possible to get a 19Kg butane cylinder, the largest that I can
get locally is 15Kg which would cost £32.99. However the mention of
butane is an irrelevance, butane is not used to power cars, they run on
Autogas which is mostly propane.

Propane is available in 19Kg cylinders, for £35 a cylinder.

It's actually cheaper to fill up at the pump where propane is £0.71 per
litre at Morrisons and any petrol station selling LPG close to a
Morrisons. If it's an isolated petrol station then the Autogas can be
around £0.80/litre.

The density of butane is 505g/litre so a 15Kg cylinder contains 29.7
litres - £1.11/litre, the density of propane is 510g/litre so a 19Kg
cylinder contains 37.25 litres - £0.94/litre. It's clearly cheaper to
fill up at the pump, and using butane or propane in a road vehicle means
that you haven't paid the fuel duty so in the unlikely event of being
stopped by HMRC you're in the crap.
Thats near enough for use..

But the idea is to move away from fossil fuels .

Except perhaps Hydrogen split from water.....
That's not fossil. That's synthetic,

Dunno its natural innit;?..


Depends on your definition of 'natural'

and hydrogen is a far worse fuel to
manage than hydrocarbon fuel.

Does the carbon make it slippery or sumfink;?..


No. Lack of carbon makes its molecularly small, putting great stress on
seals. Its odourless and colourless. So its totally invisible till you
light a fag.. Its also bulky. Not in weight, but in size, so while it
has the greatest energy density per unit weight of any chemical fuel,
(why its used in rockets) its got a fairly poor energy density in terms
of space occupied (which is why we use kerosene for jets: which don't
have a lot of space in them for aerodynamic reasons.

If you do the analysis something like diesel/Avjet is in fact about the
best chemical fuel there is for most purposes. It's liquid, at most
temperatures we encounter.. it's dense and fits in small tanks. It's got
a fairly high energy density, its molecularly large enough not to seep
out of most simple connectors, and its got flash point that makes it
both quite hard to accidentally ignite, but low enough so that
deliberate combustion is not that hard either.

The man who comes up with a cheap energy efficient way to synthesise
diesel, from water and CO2, will be awarded a Nobel Prize..

Its about the only practicable 'off grid' fuel we have.

On 28/04/2011 09:51, Huge wrote:

And even on a single track road overtaking is possible with
understanding slower drivers. Happened to me today in Southern Scotland,
second time this year. Local drivers presumably who are used to single
track roads.

There's no way you're going to be overtaking a local on a single track road in
Scotland. You'd be lucky to keep up with them at all. At least, that's what
experience from many holidays in Kintyre teaches me.

Actually I am quite sure they were both locals. And I was there and you
were not.

I don't think I have been to Kintyre so it could be that the locals
there are terminally stupid but in other areas in Scotland where single
track roads are common the locals I have seen have on the whole driven
sensibly.

--
Roger Chapman

On 28/04/2011 10:40, Huge wrote:

And even on a single track road overtaking is possible with
understanding slower drivers. Happened to me today in Southern
Scotland, second time this year. Local drivers presumably who are used
to single track roads.

There's no way you're going to be overtaking a local on a single track
road in Scotland. You'd be lucky to keep up with them at all. At least,
that's what experience from many holidays in Kintyre teaches me.

I think he might've meant vice-versa...

Oh, I see. Good point.

But totally wrong.
--
Roger Chapman

Depends on your definition of 'natural'

and hydrogen is a far worse fuel to
manage than hydrocarbon fuel.

Does the carbon make it slippery or sumfink;?..


No. Lack of carbon makes its molecularly small, putting great stress on
seals. Its odourless and colourless. So its totally invisible till you
light a fag.. Its also bulky. Not in weight, but in size, so while it
has the greatest energy density per unit weight of any chemical fuel,
(why its used in rockets) its got a fairly poor energy density in terms
of space occupied (which is why we use kerosene for jets: which don't
have a lot of space in them for aerodynamic reasons.

If you do the analysis something like diesel/Avjet is in fact about the
best chemical fuel there is for most purposes. It's liquid, at most
temperatures we encounter.. it's dense and fits in small tanks. It's got
a fairly high energy density, its molecularly large enough not to seep
out of most simple connectors, and its got flash point that makes it
both quite hard to accidentally ignite, but low enough so that
deliberate combustion is not that hard either.

The man who comes up with a cheap energy efficient way to synthesise
diesel, from water and CO2, will be awarded a Nobel Prize..

Its about the only practicable 'off grid' fuel we have.



That .. was in a roundabout way the reason for pointing it out. What we
of course need is a new portable fuel but that doesn't seem to be
happening anytime soon..
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:
Depends on your definition of 'natural'

and hydrogen is a far worse fuel to
manage than hydrocarbon fuel.

Does the carbon make it slippery or sumfink;?..

No. Lack of carbon makes its molecularly small, putting great stress on
seals. Its odourless and colourless. So its totally invisible till you
light a fag.. Its also bulky. Not in weight, but in size, so while it
has the greatest energy density per unit weight of any chemical fuel,
(why its used in rockets) its got a fairly poor energy density in terms
of space occupied (which is why we use kerosene for jets: which don't
have a lot of space in them for aerodynamic reasons.

If you do the analysis something like diesel/Avjet is in fact about the
best chemical fuel there is for most purposes. It's liquid, at most
temperatures we encounter.. it's dense and fits in small tanks. It's got
a fairly high energy density, its molecularly large enough not to seep
out of most simple connectors, and its got flash point that makes it
both quite hard to accidentally ignite, but low enough so that
deliberate combustion is not that hard either.

The man who comes up with a cheap energy efficient way to synthesise
diesel, from water and CO2, will be awarded a Nobel Prize..

Its about the only practicable 'off grid' fuel we have.



That .. was in a roundabout way the reason for pointing it out. What we
of course need is a new portable fuel but that doesn't seem to be
happening anytime soon..
when you look at stored energy, which is what fuel is, we only have so
many technologies that work.

Stressed materials like clockworks springs
Kinetic energy like flywheels
Potential energy like water-up-a-hill.
Heat energy like a red hot lump of metal.
Electrical energy like a battery or a capacitor or a 'charged'
superconducting solenoid.
Chemical energy like a tank of diesel
Nuclear energy like a lb of U-235.

There are no 'new fuels'

And to create the ones we have always takes at least as much energy as
we can get out of them.

In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:
Depends on your definition of 'natural'

and hydrogen is a far worse fuel to
manage than hydrocarbon fuel.

Does the carbon make it slippery or sumfink;?..

No. Lack of carbon makes its molecularly small, putting great stress on
seals. Its odourless and colourless. So its totally invisible till you
light a fag.. Its also bulky. Not in weight, but in size, so while it
has the greatest energy density per unit weight of any chemical fuel,
(why its used in rockets) its got a fairly poor energy density in terms
of space occupied (which is why we use kerosene for jets: which don't
have a lot of space in them for aerodynamic reasons.

If you do the analysis something like diesel/Avjet is in fact about the
best chemical fuel there is for most purposes. It's liquid, at most
temperatures we encounter.. it's dense and fits in small tanks. It's got
a fairly high energy density, its molecularly large enough not to seep
out of most simple connectors, and its got flash point that makes it
both quite hard to accidentally ignite, but low enough so that
deliberate combustion is not that hard either.

The man who comes up with a cheap energy efficient way to synthesise
diesel, from water and CO2, will be awarded a Nobel Prize..

Its about the only practicable 'off grid' fuel we have.



That .. was in a roundabout way the reason for pointing it out. What we
of course need is a new portable fuel but that doesn't seem to be
happening anytime soon..
when you look at stored energy, which is what fuel is, we only have so
many technologies that work.

Stressed materials like clockworks springs
Kinetic energy like flywheels
Potential energy like water-up-a-hill.
Heat energy like a red hot lump of metal.
Electrical energy like a battery or a capacitor or a 'charged'
superconducting solenoid.
Chemical energy like a tank of diesel
Nuclear energy like a lb of U-235.

There are no 'new fuels'

And to create the ones we have always takes at least as much energy as
we can get out of them.

Well these here windy mill things .. perhaps we could get large windmills to drive
small windmills over the highways and byways of this 'ere scepter'd isle, then sails
could be used to drive us all around..
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:
Depends on your definition of 'natural'

and hydrogen is a far worse fuel to
manage than hydrocarbon fuel.

Does the carbon make it slippery or sumfink;?..
No. Lack of carbon makes its molecularly small, putting great stress on
seals. Its odourless and colourless. So its totally invisible till you
light a fag.. Its also bulky. Not in weight, but in size, so while it
has the greatest energy density per unit weight of any chemical fuel,
(why its used in rockets) its got a fairly poor energy density in terms
of space occupied (which is why we use kerosene for jets: which don't
have a lot of space in them for aerodynamic reasons.

If you do the analysis something like diesel/Avjet is in fact about the
best chemical fuel there is for most purposes. It's liquid, at most
temperatures we encounter.. it's dense and fits in small tanks. It's got
a fairly high energy density, its molecularly large enough not to seep
out of most simple connectors, and its got flash point that makes it
both quite hard to accidentally ignite, but low enough so that
deliberate combustion is not that hard either.

The man who comes up with a cheap energy efficient way to synthesise
diesel, from water and CO2, will be awarded a Nobel Prize..

Its about the only practicable 'off grid' fuel we have.


That .. was in a roundabout way the reason for pointing it out. What we
of course need is a new portable fuel but that doesn't seem to be
happening anytime soon..
when you look at stored energy, which is what fuel is, we only have so
many technologies that work.

Stressed materials like clockworks springs
Kinetic energy like flywheels
Potential energy like water-up-a-hill.
Heat energy like a red hot lump of metal.
Electrical energy like a battery or a capacitor or a 'charged'
superconducting solenoid.
Chemical energy like a tank of diesel
Nuclear energy like a lb of U-235.

There are no 'new fuels'

And to create the ones we have always takes at least as much energy as
we can get out of them.

Well these here windy mill things .. perhaps we could get large windmills to drive
small windmills over the highways and byways of this 'ere scepter'd isle, then sails
could be used to drive us all around..

Now, you are taking the ****...

That .. was in a roundabout way the reason for pointing it out. What we
of course need is a new portable fuel but that doesn't seem to be
happening anytime soon..
when you look at stored energy, which is what fuel is, we only have so
many technologies that work.

Stressed materials like clockworks springs
Kinetic energy like flywheels
Potential energy like water-up-a-hill.
Heat energy like a red hot lump of metal.
Electrical energy like a battery or a capacitor or a 'charged'
superconducting solenoid.
Chemical energy like a tank of diesel
Nuclear energy like a lb of U-235.

There are no 'new fuels'

And to create the ones we have always takes at least as much energy as
we can get out of them.

Well these here windy mill things .. perhaps we could get large windmills to
drive
small windmills over the highways and byways of this 'ere scepter'd isle, then
sails
could be used to drive us all around..

Now, you are taking the ****...

Be wary that someone from Green**** will promote this as the next Green
big thing;!!...
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:
[snip]

Well these here windy mill things .. perhaps we could get large windmills to drive
small windmills over the highways and byways of this 'ere scepter'd isle, then sails
could be used to drive us all around..

Tssk, you're not thinking this through. To make it work we need skyhooks.
Suspend anyone who wants to travel from parachute harness so their feet
don't touch the ground. Start up the windmills and move the country under
the suspended individuals. When they see where they want to be they can
drop out of the harness. We could arrane to move the country 600 miles
north in the morning then back again in the evening. It's a winner.

On 30/04/2011 12:14, tony sayer wrote:

Well these here windy mill things .. perhaps we could get large windmills to drive
small windmills over the highways and byways of this 'ere scepter'd isle, then sails
could be used to drive us all around..

I had a nice morning on wind driven transport. Great fun sailing, but I
wouldn't want to rely on it.

This is what killed the sailing ship - not speed, but reliability. A
steam freighter _will_ cross the Atlantic in three weeks. A good
sailing ship might do it in two. Or four. Or maybe even 8.

Andy

Andy Champ wrote:
On 30/04/2011 12:14, tony sayer wrote:

Well these here windy mill things .. perhaps we could get large
windmills to drive
small windmills over the highways and byways of this 'ere scepter'd
isle, then sails
could be used to drive us all around..

I had a nice morning on wind driven transport. Great fun sailing, but I
wouldn't want to rely on it.

This is what killed the sailing ship - not speed, but reliability. A
steam freighter _will_ cross the Atlantic in three weeks. A good
sailing ship might do it in two. Or four. Or maybe even 8.


Average clipper ship speed was a little over a fast walking pace.
They needed a crew of hundreds to run

Average tanker does about 30mph with a crew of half a dozen.

Andy

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
[snip]

This is what killed the sailing ship - not speed, but reliability. A
steam freighter _will_ cross the Atlantic in three weeks. A good
sailing ship might do it in two. Or four. Or maybe even 8.

Average clipper ship speed was a little over a fast walking pace.

A clipper ship could make 17 - 18 knots.

No steamship was as fast as a clipper.

If you can walk at 17 knots you're doing better than any sprinter.

They needed a crew of hundreds to run

The crew of a clipper ship was generally around 30.

Average tanker does about 30mph with a crew of half a dozen.

The top speed of a supertanker is 16 knots - slower than a clipper.

A supertanker has a crew of between twenty and forty. On average more than
a clipper.

Heck not bad four "facts" and you got every one wrong.

On 30 Apr 2011 21:29:53 GMT, Steve Firth wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Average clipper ship speed was a little over a fast walking pace.

A clipper ship could make 17 - 18 knots.

No steamship was as fast as a clipper.

A more valid comparison would be with a modern cargo ship. The Emma
Maersk has a cruising speed, typical for a large cargo ship, of 25
knots (although recently 20kts and in some cases speeds as low as 12
kts have been used to lower costs). Whilst the tea cutters averaged
(unpredictably) about 17kts the more usual sailing cargo vessel
managed about 8kts.

Apart from predictability the killer for sail ships was of course the
cost per ton of cargo and also the Suez Canal - which sailing ships
could not use reliably. The Suez Canal made steam ships, of no
greater average speed than the best clippers, far faster and much more
reliable on the India and Far East routes while the clippers still
went out by the Trade Winds and home by the Cape of Good Hope. In 1875
the Cutty Sark came to the UK from Shanghai in 108 days, but the SS
Glenartney took only 42 days through the canal.

The Cutty Sark carried about 1,500 tonnes, had a crew of 30 and
couldn't use the Suez Canal. The Emma Maersk carries over 150,000
tonnes, has a crew of 13 and does use the Suez Canal.

Peter Parry wrote:
[snip]

The Cutty Sark carried about 1,500 tonnes, had a crew of 30 and
couldn't use the Suez Canal. The Emma Maersk carries over 150,000
tonnes, has a crew of 13 and does use the Suez Canal.

None of which or any of the other good stuff that you posted is in dispute.
As was previously stated the major advantage of steam was reliability of
journey time. We'll not know for some time what sail could have offered in
performance and if sail ever did make a comeback then the Suez canal would
need electric traction tugs as are used on the Panama locks but for the
length of the canal.

None of which makes any of TNPs "facts" factual.

In article
al.net, Steve Firth scribeth thus
Peter Parry wrote:
[snip]

The Cutty Sark carried about 1,500 tonnes, had a crew of 30 and
couldn't use the Suez Canal. The Emma Maersk carries over 150,000
tonnes, has a crew of 13 and does use the Suez Canal.

None of which or any of the other good stuff that you posted is in dispute.
As was previously stated the major advantage of steam was reliability of
journey time. We'll not know for some time what sail could have offered in
performance and if sail ever did make a comeback

Well they do have sail assist systems 'tho I don't know of any in
use....


--
Tony Sayer

On 1 May 2011 11:10:14 GMT, Steve Firth wrote:

We'll not know for some time what sail could have offered in
performance and if sail ever did make a comeback then the Suez canal would
need electric traction tugs as are used on the Panama locks but for the
length of the canal.

The problem is not so much navigating the canal, tugs can be used for
that, but of getting to and from the ends when the winds are
unpredictable or blowing in the wrong direction (such as in the
Mediterranean where the prevailing wind is west to east) or Red Sea
where the wind is from the north and west and any ship heading north
is sailing into the wind.