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Ronaldo47

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Everything posted by Ronaldo47

  1. I fear that discretion has been increasingly replaced by tick box procedures in a number of fields. My wife bemoaned its introduction shortly before she left teaching. In the civil servuce at least, in some cases the object appears to have been to reduce the need for higher-grade (and therefore more expensive) staff who are capable of using their brains, by instigating check list processes that can be carried out by cheaper, lower-grade, staff.
  2. I heard a similar thing from someone who used to work in the old GPO Telephones Engineering division, where someone allegedly got chosen for a plum job attending an international conference because everyone at the appointment meeting knew of him because he was regularly seen coming in late in the morning! In a division of the Civil Service I once worked in, a Mr Armitage had risen from the ranks to became departmental head. It was rumoured that this was because everyone saw his name whenever they used the toilets, where all the ceramic porcelain was emblazened with the legend "Armitage Ware".
  3. Indeed, the king pins were sealed "for life", but the life wasn't long! I retrofitted mine with grease nipples but it didn't improve things greatly. When I replaced them for the first time on my then 5 year old Imp, I couldn't shift them and had to remove the hinge assembly and tip one of the technicians in the lab workshop at Plessey to remove the king pin using a fly press. I had a similar experience with the Harvey Spicer UJs on the rear wheels. The Rootes workshop manual instructed you to "tap gently on the ears of the yoke and the shells will emerge". In practice, removal of the half axle assembly to a heavy vice and slogging on the ears of the yoke with lump hammer was necessary.
  4. The only fuse in my 1966 Hillman Imp was the 1 1/4" one in the in-line fuse holder for the car radio that I had fitted myself.
  5. You need to bear in mind that the current rating of automotive fuses is the current at which the fuse will blow. Fuses for virtually all other uses, such as the 13A fuse for your mains plug, are rated by the maximim current they can carry indefinitely. This is generally around half of the automotive fuse rating. I have a few vintage 1 1/4" glass fuses that are marked with both types of current rating.
  6. More than 20 years ago I went to a lecture organised by what was then the IEE, on oil well drilling. It explained how it is possible to steer the drill bit to make holes that changed direction, making it possible to drill holes that start vertical and end up with horizontal ends. The lecturer mentioned the doomladen reports that occasionallly used to appear in the press of the "only 20 years' supply of oil left" type, and explained that this was because they were prospecting for new sources on a rolling 20 years window basis, as there was no point in looking for more sources than that.
  7. The 2025 date for all new boats to be designed with zero emission capacity that is quoted on the first page of this thread (September 25, 2020) clearly originates from paragraph 10 of the "Green Maritime plan" document. However, the quoted text, while accurate in itself, has been taken out of context, because it omits the wording of paragraph 8 which precedes it. "8. These zero emission shipping ambitions are intended to provide aspirational goals for the sector, not mandatory targets. They can only be achieved through collaboration between Government and industry, promoting the zero emission pathways that maximise the economic opportunitues for the UK economy while also minimising costs for UK shipping." So prima facie, while the building of electric boats represents a voluntary action by the builders that goes some way to help the Government to achieve its "aspirational goals", this would seem to be a voluntary initiative rather than something forced on them by legislation. Reference has also been made to boats that are used only on inland waterways for leisure, being covered by the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation Regulations. True enough they are: however, my understanding is that these regulations only apply to suppliers of fuel for such boats, and not to the boats themselves. Suppliers must supply a certain proportion of fuel above a threshold from renewable sources. The regulations do allow higher proportions of non-green fuel to be supplied on payment of a surcharge, and so could make conventional fuels more expensive, just as conventional coal was allowed to be sold as long as the merchant paid a hefty charge to register and kept detailed records of sales. The "Fuel supplers' guidance" pages make an interesting read if you like that sort of thing.. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/renewable-transport-fuel-obligation-rtfo-compliance-reporting-and-verification The "RTFO compliance 2024" document (179 pages) seems to be very enthusiastic about the use of green hydrogen, both to power conventional IC engines directly and for conversion to other types of fuel like ammonia. Using energy derived from algae gets an extensive mention, complete with flow charts (possibly the origin of the "bionic duckweed" solution to green motive power for railways that is sometimes despairingly mentioned by a columnist in "Modern Railways"). So great importance is being placed on new innovative technologies, many of which may well be practical for large sea-going vessels, but which, like hydrogen, do not appear to be very practical for a typical narrowboat that is actually used for cruising for reasons that have been discussed on another thread.
  8. I was under the impression that the proposals to use hydrogen were based on the assumption that surplus green energy that would otherwise be wasted, would be available to power the inefficient methods of hydrogen production. That is the rationale for the hydrogen-powered scottish islands ferry experiments: the island generates more green energy than it is possible to export. Given that the proposed switch to heat pumps and electric cars means that the grid is going to have problems keeping up with demand, plus the proposals for battery banks to maintain the grid when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow, which would soak up spare off-peak generating capacity, is there going to be much surplus electricity available at a cheap enough price to make hydrogen production on a large scale viable economically?
  9. My understanding is also that it is misleading to say that steel can be made in an arc furnace. All the arc furnace can do is melt existing steel scrap and put it into a more suitable form for re-use. Unless the scrap is of high quality, specifically that it does not contain non-ferrous metals, it will be more prone to rusting than steel made from iron ore, as the non-ferrous metal content will be liable to form centres for electrolytic corrosion. The use of recycled steel was I think the cause for the poor body life of certain japanese cars in the 1960's, as well as the Vauxhall Velox's reputation as a rust-bucket. There are steels and there are steels, in that the quality of the iron ore can have a significant effect on the quality if the steel. Swedish steel is generally of high quality because the ore from which it is made has beneficial properties and can be used to make steel with a consistent performance. Recycled steel which in practice will almost inevitably have been made from scrap from different sources, will be unlikely to exhibit such a consistent quality. It's different for Aluminium, where melting aluminium ore in an arc furnace is the well-established method of manufacture. However, it does require a lot of electric power, and so tends to be made where cheap hydroelectric power is available.
  10. When I bought some genuine Formica more than 30 years ago, it was only available in sheets about 10' long by 4' wide. I only wanted it for a kitchen table I was making, so I had plenty left over!
  11. The Green Marine plan document does mention that money would be spent on researching green energy propulsion.
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  13. This was reported in "Modern Railways" last year. One of the german regional railways had invested in a fleet of green hydrogen-powered trains, but found they couldn't be reliably refuelled at temperatures lower than minus 20°C, a common winter temperature in that part of Germany, so the original fleet of diesels had to be brought back into service. Apparently a german bus company had exactly the same experience. They replaced their new hydrogen-powered buses by new diesel-powered ones. I guess it's not the sort of problem we would have in the UK, where it is rare to get temperatures that low.
  14. Town gas was usually produced locally ( hence the name Town Gas?) in numerous relatively small gas works and distributed short distances at a lower pressure than natural gas, so loss of hydrogen by leakage or diffusion would have been less of a problem. There was no national gas network before the UK's conversion to natural gas, as there had been no need for one. Conversely, the national natural gas network was constructed to transfer natural gas distances of hundreds of miles, originally from a single storage terminal. It is seldom remembered today that the original plan, devised by the former North Thames Gas Board, was to import cheap natural gas in liquified form from Algeria, using a fleet of tankers, to a terminal on Canvey Island in Essex, from which pipelines would extend via London to the Midlands and the North. Provision was made for a prospective second terminal on the Mersey for importing liquified natural gas from the USA. My late father used to work for North Thames Gas, and I still have a copy of an edition of the NTG staff magazine that describes and illustrates the scheme as originally conceived in some detail. While the gas grid was still under construction, North Sea Gas was discovered, so the gas grid had to be redesigned to provide East-West connections from the East Coast gas terminals to join the originally-planned North-South pipelines. Unless Hydrogen is to be generated locally like town gas used to be, which seems unlikely as I understand the proposals are to do it near the sources of cheap electric energy to avoid putting strain on the electricity grid, Hydrogen would need to be tranported over much longer distances and at higher pressures than the Hydrogen-containing town gas ever was.
  15. The Government's "Maritime 2050" and "Clean Marine Plan" documents make reference to hydrogen-powered vessels, including one that was being developed for use in car ferrys for the Scottish islands, using locally-generated hydrogen made by utilising surplus wind power electricity. The project seems to have had problems, as no purely hydrogen-powered vessels are currently in service. https://transform.scot/2023/07/11/fossil-free-ferries-cpg-inquiry/ Norway has however recently introduced a Hydrogen-powered car ferry, said to be the world's first. https://www.google.com/amp/s/theorkneynews.scot/2023/09/09/a-new-day-for-the-ferryman-oisf/amp/ But as other posters have said, practical considerations mean that hydrogen propulsion for a UK canal boat does seem to be a no-no. I note that the linked Press Release in post #1 of this thread refers to " To address this, the Clean Maritime Plan mandates new vessels to possess zero-emission capabilities starting in 2025. " However, my understanding is that the Clean Maritime Plan (or at least the version I downloaded dated July 2019) merely sets out ambitions and specifically does not envisage mandating targets. For example, page 6 paragraph 8: "These zero emissions shipping targets are intended to provide aspirational goals for the sector, not mandatory targets. They can only be achieved through collaboration between government and industry, promoting the zero emission pathways that maximise the economic opportunities for the UK economy while also minimising costs for UK Shipping " paragraph 10 "In order to reach this vision [ In 2050, zero emission ships are commonplace globally] by 2025 we expect that : i. All vessels operating in UK waters are maximising the use of energy efficient options. All new vessels being ordered for use in UK waters are being designed with zero emission propulsion capability. Zero emission commercial vessels are in operation in UK waters. " Perhaps some legislation has been, or will be, enacted to give legal force to these ambitions and aspirations, but I haven't seen or heard of any such legislation. In their absence, the 2025 date would appear to be merely one of the "zero emission shipping aspirational goals" of paragraph 8. On the face of it, the document does not apply to canal boats anyway. Section 8 of the "Maritime 2050" document on which the Green Marine document is based, says it covers the following three sources of shipping: * Domestic shipping - ships which have come from a UK port and are making a call at a different UK port. *International shipping - ships calling at UK port (sic) which have come from or are going to an international destination. * Shipping in transit - ships which are not calling at a UK port but which are passing through UK waters. Canal boats do not normally travel between ports, so don't appear to be included Of course, these documents have no statutory effect themselves, legally-enforceable provisions must be set out in Acts of Parliament and/or Statutory Instruments enacted by Parliament. I suspect that the Government have been occupied with other more pressing matters over the past few years to get round to shipping, but I am happy to be corrected.
  16. The coal gas that we had before the switch to natural gas in the 1970's, contained about 50% Hydrogen, but coal gas was distributed at a much lower pressure than natural gas, and generally in iron pipes, rather than the yellow plastic gas mains and relatively thin-walled copper piping used in houses today.
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  18. Plus gas, (or petrol lighter fluid if you have no Plus Gas, or even motor spirit), can be effective on badly-rusted bolts, but you will also need patience. The technique I have used with some success is to first apply some fluid and then work the head to and fro with a spanner. Steel is not infinitely rigid, and with luck you should see a ring of rusty fluid start to appear at the interface between the bolt and what the bolt is screwed into. Flush the rusty fluid away and repeat with clean fluid. The appearance of the rusty ring indicates that the thread adjacent the surface has released slightly, enough to allow some movement between the bolt and what it is screwed into. Repeated to and fro moving of the spanner and flushing with clean solvent will pump out more and more rust, allowing more and more of the thread to be released as the fluid penetrates deeper and releases more of the thread. Applying too much torque too soon could shear off the bolt. Conversely, if you don't see a ring of rusty solvent no matter how much you move the spanner to and fro, then the rust will have effectively welded the bolt in position, and cutting it free will be necessary.
  19. As the present resident of 10 Downing Street has just announced his desire to cut public spending to reduce taxes, I very much doubt that any significant additional cash for canals would be forthcoming.in the near future.
  20. Yes, definitely wasps. We did once have bees using the same air bricks to make a nest under the floor at the front door and I regretfully had to dispose of that too. When I rewired our house shortly after moving in some 40 years ago, I found an abandoned wasps nest the size of a football attached to the joist with the old electric cables passing through it.
  21. I have found ant powder to be very effective in destroying wasps nests. Some years we see wasps coming and going through the air bricks by our front door, and an application of ant powder to the air bricks they are using so that the wasps have to walk over it, has always resulted in no more wasps the following day. My wife is allergic to insect stings so they really do have to be eliminated.
  22. A couple of decades ago, the school where my wife was then teaching, did a fundraising event for what was then a well-known national charity. Some of the sixth formers were concerned about how much some of their promotional goodies being given to the participants would have cost, and on investigating, apparently found that well over 90% of the funds raised by the charity went to administration costs. They never had any involvement with that charity again, and decided to only support those where most of the money raised was actually used for charitable purposes. My recollection is that subsequently, negative publicity about how little of that charity's income actually got used for charitable purposes, led to it changing its name and (hopefully) a change in its behaviour.
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  24. I remember seeing footage on a TV news programme a few years ago of a village in a narrow valley, I think in the West Country, where a heavy flash flood had ripped through it, entering some houses well above windowcill height, and leaving parked cars unusable. The programme showed footage, filmed by a resident while the road was still partially flooded, of a parking warden ticketting the previously-submerged and therefore undrivable, cars.
  25. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
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