The true cost of Diesel?

Having thought long and hard about all this I cannot see a Diesel free world by 2040! Urban train lines will still need diesel trains, farmers will need diesel. Generators, particularly standby generators need diesel and of course ships, and the like. Stopping 50% would be a good start I think but new power technology will not cover all aspects of need.

I for one if still alive will keep a small generator ready. I am convinced you will need one.Whatever the cost.

Then is it just the UK? I doubt 3 rd. world countries will embrace the ideas offered. Small boats are powered not by electricity but diesel or petrol, are they going to ban all these and back to manpower or wind and sails.Countries where thousands of mopeds fill the streets, all two stroke giving off noxious fumes.

It is time now to start a new look at IC and CE and other types of engine and apply technology for cleaning up the exhaust output, catalysers seem able to clean the exhaust up. Particle extraction a bit more difficult but i read that the vortex type of extractor will do it.

All travellers experience the road jams caused by lorries, even if goods are sent by rail you still,need a smaller lorry at the other end to deliver! This is all a conundrum of some magnitude but think on, all the people who advocate all this may not be here.

In the USA distances between cities and living areas a vast. No electric car will get you anywhere fast. So I am sure they will not embrace the ideal of no diesel or petrol. I think better minds than mine must have seen this and they still want to pursue the illogical aim of a diesel/petrol free environment.

Chris and others have missed the underlying issue. Burning petrol and diesel both cause pollution.

How serious vehicle pollution is depends partly on where you live : I guess Chris happily chugging around in a 35 year old Landrover is more likely to live in rural mid-Wales than central London. In London pollution is serious because there is a much higher concentration of vehicles and people in a confined space. The results are evident in London's breathing related health statistics and visible damage to buildings.

Out on the open road pollution isn't obvious. First hand experience is misleading. If you're confident your petrol or diesel car is clean, try driving it into a single garage, closing the door, and revving the engine for an hour. Don't blame me if you end up in hospital or worse.

The reason diesel was pushed in the past was because diesel engines are more efficient; less CO and CO₂ per mile. Unfortunately, the idea missed a problem not well understood at the time. Diesels produce large quantities of unhealthy particulates, that is very small particles that stick in the lungs. The recommendation to use diesel was a mistake, and - very sensibly - the mistake is now being corrected. Diesel being dirtier than expected doesn't mean that petrol is suddenly 'clean', it's just the lesser of two evils.

Pollution is a double whammy. First are the ill-effects of up-close and personal pollution on health, second is the accumulation of green-house gasses in the upper atmosphere and the long term consequences of that continuing. If you don't believe in the scientific evidence behind Global Warming, preferring to think it's some kind of conspiracy, please explain what is causing world-wide average temperatures to increase. Announcing that the effect is a 'normal' fluctuation isn't an explanation, it's a wish.

What to do about pollution is hard. Humanity has never had it so good. Burning carbon is so easy. Trouble is, unless we change, the party will come to an end. That's bad enough, but the bill is looking to be much bigger than expected. I've no idea how our grand-children will pay it.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 04/11/2017 09:47:22

Go back about 1000 years and we were growing vines up Yorkshire way and making wine. The vines were originally introduced here by the Romans 100's of years before that. If it was that warm to enable vines to flourish then, what produced the "global warming" then? Hardly humans, not enough of them and none burning petrol or diesel.

Then in the 1600's it was so cold for so long that the river Thames froze over for months on end, ice thick enough to support fairs and stalls selling goods and even support bonfires and coaches and horses. What human intervention caused that "global cooling"? Certainly not humans stopping burning petrol and diesel, we still hadn't got them then.

I am not saying we are not contributing to CO2 emissions today, or pollution which we need to control, reduce and restrict on a global scale which is not without huge problems as Clive suggests, just suggesting planet Earth has natural global warming and cooling cycles that we don't control, and those are facts not wishes. Clive above raises some very relevant issues.

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 04/11/2017 10:38:43

It has been reported that CO2 levels are the highest they have been for a while, at the same time we are being discouraged from driving diesels.....

John

'the while' John refers too is the last 800,000 years. Read all about it.

Dave

The inset graph shows the Roman warm period at left, mediaeval at centre and modern one at right. The roman and mediaeval ones peak at about the same level as 2000.

Unfortunately since then we've piled on another half a degree in about 15 years. We seem to have bucked the long term decline since the end of the last ice age.

Neil

Perhaps the global warming 1000 years ago was due to an abundance of methane, the population used horses for transport then producing copious amounts of methane, ever stood near a horse when it has broken wind!!!

Dave

That's very true Chris, mankind is responsible for less than 10% of Carbon Dioxide emissions, the rest being natural. Unfortunately that doesn't mean we're off the hook.

Natural emission and absorption of CO₂ are more-or-less balanced. The gas is absorbed or released by the sea and plants interacting in a cycle. It might take a few decades, but occasional extra disruption caused by volcanic eruptions or solar activity are eventually absorbed by the system. The problem is one of balance. Human activity has been increasing the total amount of CO₂ in the environment for 300 years, with most of the burning during our lifetime. The evidence suggests that man's continuous year on year emissions aren't being dealt with by the natural cycle, so the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere is rising. As it's a 'greenhouse gas', the planet's average temperature also rises. The greenhouse effect is made worse by other greenhouse gases, like Methane, also high because of human activity. It appears that there's a run-away effect at the poles where it's getting hotter because melted ice can't reflect sunlight.

I think the most dangerous aspect of warming is that the results are not obvious yet. What's happening is mostly statistical rather than in your face. When global warming was first mooted, the statistical evidence was rather weak. Although the evidence gets stronger with every passing year it will be a while before our noses are rubbed in it. By then it will be too late.

Does it matter? Not to me. Although the consequences could be biblical I shall be long past caring by the time trouble really kicks off. Feel a bit sorry for the grandchildren though!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 04/11/2017 18:59:29

I am not going to be very helpful here, the amount of contrails from aircraft cause shadow effect of the Sun. As such it is part of the pollution on the Earth. We are as humans contributing to the warming effect if it is in fact a warming effect and not natural. Throw into this the output from active volcanoes and we then have dust in the air and sulphuorus compounds as well. How they differentiate between all the outputs can be a bit wobbly!

Also in addition the Methane given of from Bovines farting is considerable and is a key effect in the assumed global warming clutter. There is no clear attributable effect that can be pinned down exactly to suit the theories and forecasts being offered. What i do know is that in the UK seasons no longer follow those of yore. That is March winds April showers etc.The dynamics of weather have changed all around the world, flooding and drought all in a contra state. The Corealis effect on the Jet Streams around the world have shifted and this is causing large variations of weather where it is wetter Northwards and drier southwards. El Nino is an additional factor right at the core of what is called the Roaring Forties, strong winds that match up with the Jet Streams. both North and South.

No one can look into the future and predict exactly what is going to happen! I am more in mind to try it and see what happens and only then make the clear decisions on the presented evidence.

True data such as Glaciers melting away and less ice North and South are indications of warming, but, is it possible that the center of the planet is warming with so many earthquakes and activity of volcanoes being more evident and more violent ? Can Nuclear devices be having a bad effect? Shocking the Planet deeply? There are so many variables that I do not think many of them are truly connected.

Regarding gw and methane, there is one imprtant issue, usually overllooked in these discussion.

There are vast amounts of methane locked in Siberian and also Canadian permafrost, over land and in shallow seas.

Liberation of even *few percent* of said methane, which could happen fast given right conditions, will entirely destabilize our climate with potential of warming by 4-6*C in just a decade or two.

This is *serious* warming, if happened we would struggle for survival. Massive wars and famine would follow, technological civilization would end and dieoff of huge numbers of humans on the scale never seen in history would commence.

There is also mounting evidence that learge swaths of permafrost in Syberia and particuarly ESAS (East Syberian Arctic Shelf) are getting dangerously destabilized and rapid release of huge amount of methane driven by positive feedbacks is increasingly likely.

But for the moment lets enjoy while party lasts, we can do absolutely nothing to stop it.

Martin

I agree with what you say Dave, and it won't affect me either as I shall also be long gone, but like you I feel more than a bit sorry for our grandchildren and grandchildren everywhere when I consider the future.

The problem is really one of rapidly rising population world wide. That is fuelling the ever increasing need for more and more fossil fuel for all the various forms of transport and power generation, generating the increasing pollution. But it won't end there, because there will be a similar need for more and more food and water for this increasing population, with less and less land available for producing food. I think long term the increasing need for fuel, food and water as the world population continues to rocket will produce war; that war will be very nasty (aren't they all?) and will result in a serious reduction in world population. Whether or not civilisation will then sort themselves out in a sustainable way will probably determine whether mankind continues or dies out I guess.

Anyway, this is all a bit morbid, I have a perfectly good pint of Spitfire getting warm; I shall go and drown my sorrows in it and follow that pint with another!!!

Chris  

PS  I see Martin is seeing the same future for mankind, our posts crossed!

Edited By ChrisH on 04/11/2017 19:44:49

I was taking a ride along Douglas seafront on a horse tram when the horse let one go, the tram is open front to back, luckily there were no solids or we could have been candidates for a game of freckles.

Mike

Horses - what about staffies?

An interesting observation from Australia on global warming, although dated June 2011:

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/a-cool-look-at-global-warming.pdf

Dave
The Emerald Isle

Neil, those as well.

Dave

The whole thing puts me in mind of two religions fighting it out to "prove" that man-made global warming God exists, or not

It will be a long battle, since no-one can ever prove either way

Latest from the sceptic side, yet ANOTHER graph

You can find the true believers side at bbc.co.uk

I wish they'd simply focus on reducing pollution, there's waay too much smoke and mirrors

Edited By Ady1 on 05/11/2017 09:25:30

What REALLY bugs me about the whole thing is the accuracy of the data

I was doing sea temp stuff in the 1980s and it was a bit of a hit and miss affair using whatever was available at the time and I would give it a minimum error of a degree or two either side

What was happening 500 and 1000 years ago is a guess made upon an entire skipload of assumptions

From the 1990s we've started getting proper accurate data, one satellite can cover an amazing area of the planet using exactly the same equipment to record its numbers

Edited By Ady1 on 05/11/2017 09:34:29

As Ady1 says, 30 years ago the sea temperature readings might have been +- a degree, a hundred years ago if they were scientifically measuring the sea temperature it would probably be nearer to 2* to 3* +-, and actual measurement before them probably irrelevant. The normal method of measuring temperature etc of prehistoric times is to measure the width of tree rings, slow growth times the rings are narrow, and fast growing time the rings are wider. There is a slice of an old Kauri tree in the Otago Museum, from memory its at least 7 or 8 ft in diameter, and I think there was a graph with that tracing the weather pattern through its life time. It was felled in 1885, and dates back to 1465/75.

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 05/11/2017 11:30:33

Where did you here that Clive, I thought it was just a ban on cars and vans?

It’s 2025 and 2030 in some cases by the way and includes countries like India:

**LINK**

HI Vick,I was referring to vehicles, but the ramifications all seem to be relying on some unknown breakthrough on battery tech. or a simple non polluting power source! Removing the engine that consumes oil from the scene will cause a great deal of bother as the personal transport ie. electric car becomes twice the price of now.

Better start breeding horses or if we are going into an ice age some Huskies.

Clive