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Old 9 May 2001, 23:58 (Ref:90882)   #1
Sparky
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The motorist and 'Global Warming'

From Pistonheads.com:
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The Association of British Drivers is claiming that recent research shows that global warming has been halted and is calling for road tax and fuel prices to be slashed as a result.

The ABD draws our attention to a recent scientific research paper (Monnin et al, Science, vol 291, p 112, 05 January 2001) which claims that instead of causing higher temperatures, higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually follow rises in the Earth's surface temperature.

Monnin studied temperature changes from the last ice age to the present day using data from the Greenland ice cores, and found that the start of carbon dioxide increases lagged behind the start of the temperature increases by up to 800 years.

ABD Environment Spokesman Bernard Abrams comments: "This is the death blow for man-made global warming theory. As independent scientists had long suspected, we see that hotter temperatures cause increases in carbon dioxide, not the other way round. As a result, global warming lies stone cold dead, with John Prescott's road tax framework and the fuel duty escalator alongside it in the mortuary."

"Under these now discredited policies, private and business car drivers have seen the cost of motoring go through the roof, with further rises in the pipeline. And now, as we can see, for no good environmental reason."

The Association of British Drivers has pointed out previously that another piece of research, by Butler and Johnston (Journal of Atmospheric Solar and Terrestrial Physics, 59, 1225) demonstrates clearly that changes in the output of the Sun are the cause of subsequent climate changes.

ABD Chairman Brian Gregory commented: "Gordon Brown might as well tax the Sun for shining, and John Prescott's impression of a carbon dioxide King Canute can be seen for the sham that it is. Climate change is a scientific phenomenon arising naturally, global warming was a political phenemenon designed to excuse crippling taxes on transport and industry. We are pleased to be writing its obituary."
What do you think? Although I'm probably preaching to the converted here, (I think we're all car-nuts!) Do you feel that the private motorist has carried the burden of being solely responsible for the world's atmosheric deterioration for too long, or are the claims about ozone and pollutants wholly justified?

What are your thoughts? Do you feel guilty 'enjoying' your car?
Do press releases like the one above do us justice, or do they make us look like a bunch of selfish uninformed fools?
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Old 10 May 2001, 01:02 (Ref:90891)   #2
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Sparky- I remember hearing half a dozen years ago that atmospheric pollution due to transportation amounted to 10% of total pollution. But there is a finer point; the individuals (motorists in this case) are easy prey and are far from having organisations and lobbies like major polluters (industry). And who'd go into the trouble in inspecting and enforcing regulations on house-holds (which are, IIRC, more significant polluters)...

So, the easiest way is to exact heavy toll from motorists. For a government, 'tis a bit like stealing a candy from an infant.

Funny that you mention it. Today Pa Wolf went to registration renewal for our Fiat 126p. The exhaust analyser claimed the car had incorrect emission. The reason: factory data claims 2รท3% CO, whereas (due to his points and carburettor adjustmens) our car had 0.9%.

Last edited by Wolf; 10 May 2001 at 01:03.
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Old 10 May 2001, 10:32 (Ref:90952)   #3
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The problem with this one Sparky, is that for every piece of 'conclusive' evidence arguing against the reality of global warming, there is another arguing in favour of it. Unfortunately, that's the way of science. It's called 'critical-realism' in philosophy of science circles (guess what lecture I attended last week!!) which basically means that the debate will see-saw backwards and forwards as more and more evidence is accumulated until eventually we get somewhere close to the truth. Trouble is, most people, and an awful lot of scientists, don't appreciate this, so we keep getting this triumphalist 'eureka, yes it does' and 'eureka, no it doesn't' until no-one believes anything the scientists say anymore.

I do think that eventually we will know enough to make a judgement call, but not yet. Meantime, the cars most people drive now are far less polluting than their predecessors, and those who of us who drive older cars for the fun of it, or go racing, are in such a minority as to make negligible difference. So, no, I don't think I feel too guilty.
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Old 11 May 2001, 02:26 (Ref:91140)   #4
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I'm a firm believer on the man made global warming and I'm extremely concerned about the effects that such an event could have.

However, as Wolf mentioned, cars are not the only ones to be held accountable for this.

Just think about this. To supply a country with it's electrical needs you need to produce a large ammount of power from hydroelectric plants (only for those countries with large hydric resources), Atomic energy (only for the "privileged few) or thermoelectric plants. And although the biggest energy consumers in the world rely on the first 2 the rest of the world is burning huge ammounts of coal right now. I mean, in the northern part of the country there's the largest open air coal mine in the world (if I'm not mistaken) and I recall reading how much coal the produced and it was something of the order of n*100 thousand tons of coal PER DAY. And that's coal that's burning each day and produced by only one mine.

However, that doesn't mean in any way that the resposability of the car owner in all of this can be taken off because he just drives a miserable car which burns 10 gallons per week. One should be aware that there's no such thing as a clean car. Our car, diesel, petrol, 1L, 5L, injected, carburated, etc. does contaminate. Does produce CO, CO2, sulfates, nitric oxides, etc. Having that in mind one should at least keep the car in optimum condition to keep contamination to a minimum.

That also means that developments of newer and cleaner technologies (such as Hydrogen) should be pursued.
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Old 11 May 2001, 14:25 (Ref:91234)   #5
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Sharky you have to get a car powered by electricitie then you can charge the batteries using current produced by the biggest poluters of them all, the coal powered hydro plant.
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Old 11 May 2001, 14:46 (Ref:91241)   #6
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I don't defend the electric car. In fac, I've always said that electric cars offer absolutely no benefit to the enviroment and have 'cons' like lack of power and autonomy.

And it's not only that cars need an electrcal source (which can come from a coal burning plant) but you have to store all that energy in batteries and when you're doing that you're immediately implying the use of materias such as Nikel, Cadmium, Lithium and Mercury which are among the most dangerous substances in the face of the planet.

However, electricity isn't the only other alternative. There's also hydrogen which burns clean but it still has a long way to go on the development.

Of course the further development of the combustion engines, in particular of the diesel engine, and hybrid technologies help in taking a step forward on enviromental issues.
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Old 11 May 2001, 16:13 (Ref:91276)   #7
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How about this I spotted today, also from Pistonheads.com:

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General Motors is promoting the use of E85 renewable, alternative fuel in its company-owned vehicles in south eastern Michigan. In partnership with BP, GM will ask employees at GM facilities located in Pontiac, Warren and Detroit, Michigan. who drive E85 compatible vehicles to refuel at a nearby Amoco station. The alternative fuel is composed of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petrol

In just a few months, all 2002 model year GM full-sized sport-utility vehicles, including Chevrolet Tahoes and Suburbans and GMC Yukons, equipped with 5.3-litre V8s will also be E85 compatible.

Ethanol is domestically produced from agricultural products. Currently ethanol is made primarily from corn, but in the future, it could also be produced using woods, grasses and waste cellulose-containing materials. It is a renewable fuel, meaning the supply of ethanol is virtually unlimited.
How about that?! A completely renewable, and therefore virtually unlimited fuel source! Now if they could only develop a vehicle power unit that ran solely on tap water and pumped out oxygen as waste! (Hmmn? Oh sorry, I started dreaming again!)

Sharky, I completely agree about the 'displaced' need for the burning of fuels for the recharging of electric vehicles. Just because power plants are doing the burning rather than the individual, and these plants aren't within sight, they're easily disregarded.

Hydrogen seems to offer the hope for the future, but as Sharky says (And as we discussed some time ago) the development is a long way off.

How does your love of motosport tally with your concerns of the environment?
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Old 11 May 2001, 17:18 (Ref:91285)   #8
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Ballard Power located in Vancouver has developed a fuel cell that is now working. They have several busses operating with there fuel cell. How it works I don't know.
As a motor racing enthusiast we can do like CART and race using alcohol (ethanol) fuel. For private use it has several disadvantages. It gives lower miles per gallon, if it burns flames are not visible, it can also eat up some seals(gaskets). Is ethanol not the fuel of joyce in Bracil or Argentina. I'm not sure about this but one of these countries uses alcohole fuel.

Last edited by Hans.ca; 11 May 2001 at 17:19.
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Old 11 May 2001, 17:32 (Ref:91291)   #9
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Alcohol fuel was used in Brazil some years ago. From what I understand it was used mostly for economical reasons. First of all, they wanted to give the agricultural (specially the sugar indistry) a boost and second of all they didn't want to depend much on other countries for their fuels. However, it didn't turn out to be a very succesful measure. In fact, I think that the program was dropped and every car in brazil now runs with petrol again (though I'm not sure). Anyway, from what I understand, the biggest problem with alcohol is it's cost. I think I read somewhere that Methanol (like the one used in CART) costs 14 dollars per gallon (prio to any taxes that could apply). However, I guess you could consider a government policy in which takes gathered from petrol would act as a mean to slash down methanol prices and therefore encourage people to switch to that fuel.

I think I once heard a statistic some years ago that said that only about 2-5% of the contamination production in F1 is the resposability of the cars during race-qualifying-etc. The other 95-98% is mainly due to the transportation (trucks, planes, etc) and another part to the making of the car itself.


But regarding your question Sparky, that's not a very easy question to answer. Certainlly an F1 car is not exactly an "eviromentaly friendly" machine......but, I guess you could say that they're just 22 cars compared to millions around the world and that it really doesn't add up to much....but....I don't know, I'll have to think it over.
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Old 11 May 2001, 18:05 (Ref:91303)   #10
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I have mixed feelings concerning alternative fuels and renewable fulel systems. Something needs to happen however.

One of the problems I see with using ethanol on a wide basis is that it will place a massive strain on the ethanol production companies. It takes a lot of corn or other vegetable product to produce a substantial amount of ethanol. The US farming communities are operating at a surplus and we ship a lot of grain product to other parts of the world, but we cannot produce enough corn or wheat to supply even our road vehicles with enough ethanol. Also, ethanol does not burn with near the energy of gasoline and thus takes more to do the same job and is less efficient. The same goes for most other alcohol based fuels, they do have have enough volatility. If vegetable stocks are supplemented with cellulose products (wood, paper, etc.) then how long until trees are being harvested strictly for the use in making fuel. Already too many trees are being harvested in the name of paper products.

In a lot of rural America natural gas is used for trucks and farm equipment but it also generates its own set of problems with cold weather. The fuel will condense a lot of water and freeze up carburettor and injection systems and it too has less volatile energy than gasoline, but it gets used because it is fairly cheap in the central states of America.

I think that we need a couple of things for another fuel to oust pertoleum as the mainstay. We need a good and cheap fuel cell system, and we need a high temperature superconductor to improve efficiency in electrical components. These two things together can make electrical storage and transmission happen with minimal loss and lower frictional losses in mechanical components.
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Old 23 May 2001, 01:43 (Ref:95396)   #11
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Well, the new BMW doesn't produce CO2 anymore, it only needs H and the result is just water.

Sure we car users are guilty. Global warming is not only but also our fault. Just a pity that Bush doesn't think CO2 is unhealthy...maybe he should just breathe it for a while ...hehe
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Old 23 May 2001, 02:17 (Ref:95401)   #12
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When it's all said and done, I think you'll find that the manufacture of tyres is a big contributor to pollution... and so are the remains when the little bit of tread wears away.
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