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Amsterdam Bans Diesel & Petrol Powered Boats Across 300 Sq Kms of the City


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7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Curiously, leisure boats are not the problem causing global warming so your efforts are futile. As are Amsterdam's.

 

Once commercial shipping, aviation and road transport fit solar panels, along with all the steel production in India and China to power their machinery instead of coal, then the planet might be saved. 

 

Until then, best to plan to mitigate the consequences rather than be all smug about cruising tiny boats about on solar energy, as if it will make a difference.

 

Just sayin', like....

 

 

 

2 hours ago, frangar said:

Well my 42 year old Land Rover is allowed in  the ultra low emission zone in london with no charge so I don’t see any reason why diesel boats should be banned. 

 

Maybe you would be happy on the tideway with a clockwork boat but I’d rather be on something with a reserve of power...and I’m not talking about just leisure boats but the tugs which haul the rubbish barges & the traffic which is building the super sewer & HS2 works...oh and let’s not get started on the plant that’s building those projects...

 

Im all for people powering their boats or vehicles how they decide...I don’t agree with self serving politicians forcing it. I find it most amusing that those saying we should ban all diesels then think nothing of jumping on a plane for a city break....The irony of Emma Thompson jetting in to talk to the daft protest in london seemed to be lost on the snowflake brigade. 

 

20 minutes ago, CV32 said:

The ultra low emission zone and other projects in London are completely useless until they sort out the river traffic .... https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/air-pollution-river-thames-boats-transport-shipping-ferries-nitrogen-dioxide-sadiq-khan-a8411561.html

It always makes a difference if people reduce their emissions, and whilst older vehicles will be allowed into ULEZ at the moment that might not be true in the future, as for the commercials, looking at the article CV32 posted the commercial bots by next year will have to clean up their act so as the canals will be under the Mayors authority who knows what he might decide

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7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Curiously, leisure boats are not the problem causing global warming so your efforts are futile. As are Amsterdam's.

 

Once commercial shipping, aviation and road transport fit solar panels, along with all the steel production in India and China to power their machinery instead of coal, then the planet might be saved. 

 

Until then, best to plan to mitigate the consequences rather than be all smug about cruising tiny boats about on solar energy, as if it will make a difference.

 

Just sayin', like....

 

 

 

All three are in the process of development, with container shipping not far off.  Norway seems to be a world leader in electric aviation and shipping, while China is at the forefront in road transport (although Germany has an experimental system up and running).  Mitigating and even reversing the effects of present systems will certainly be necessary for some time after the introduction of carbon neutral and non-polluting transport.

 

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Directly after the 9/11 tragety all aircraft in the USA were grounded for I think it was 3 days. The enviromenta folk all came out with their emission, Carbon dioxide detection gear to check. The fall in air polution generally was massive, they could see a clear sun again instead of a hazy one. An MOT tester only needs to wave their emissions tester wand about outside to check this.

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I wouldn't go bathing at Clacton for all the beer in Walton-On-Naze. Long haul Aircraft in trouble after departing Heathrow burn off and dump fuel for hours there in a holding pattern before returning to Heathrow.  Last month a BA Airbus A380 did this just off Clacton holding for 3 hours and on its return spent another half hour burning off more fuel over central London before landing safely.  That airplane was fueled for Hong Kong so would have got rid of something like 20,000 gallons.  Terrible.  This happens not infrequently in other locations too.

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42 minutes ago, bizzard said:

That airplane was fueled for Hong Kong so would have got rid of something like 20,000 gallons.  Terrible.  This happens not infrequently in other locations too.

 

Yes this seems terribly pointless when they could be giving it way to cash-strapped boaters.

 

I've heard all the excuses the pilots trot out about getting down to safe landing weights etc, but I don't believe a word of it. They managed to take off ok at that weight, and landing is far less effort!

 

I wonder if a large funnel could be constructed somewhere in a field near Clacton so they could squirt their 'excess fuel' into it perhaps, instead of just wasting it like they do now. I'm sure you could devise something Bizz, what with this being a talent of yours...

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Yes this seems terribly pointless when they could be giving it way to cash-strapped boaters.

 

I've heard all the excuses the pilots trot out about getting down to safe landing weights etc, but I don't believe a word of it. They managed to take off ok at that weight, and landing is far less effort!

 

I wonder if a large funnel could be constructed somewhere in a field near Clacton so they could squirt their 'excess fuel' into it perhaps, instead of just wasting it like they do now. I'm sure you could devise something Bizz, what with this being a talent of yours...

 

 

Apart from a heavy touch down likely busting the under carriage the extra weight carried increases the stall speed and would be a job to stop that weight with reverse thrust and brakes and overheating popping tyres before running out of runway. Average touchdown speed depending on wind strength and all up weight of a jetliner is on average around 145 mph, this can increasee to about 160-170 mph if too heavy with  too much or full of fuel.

    No need for any form of polluting engines in aircraft.  Rubber duration is the power of the future, All the quilty passengers and crew before departure to spend hours winding the planes propellors backwards to twist the long elastic bands taught enough to reach their desired destination. One twist too less and it might not arrive.

Edited by bizzard
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8 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Apart from a heavy touch down likely busting the under carriage the extra weight carried increases the stall speed and would be a job to stop that weight with reverse thrust and brakes and overheating popping tyres before running out of runway. Average touchdown speed depending on wind strength and all up weight of a jetliner is on average around 145 mph, this can increasee to about 160-170 mph if too heavy with  too much or full of fuel.

 

Ah so I see you've bought into their excuses too!

 

OTOH, I gather the take-off weight of a fully loaded Jumble Jet is almost 50% fuel. 

 

I hope they are not declaring 0% propulsion. 

 

 

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6 hours ago, bizzard said:

Apart from a heavy touch down likely busting the under carriage the extra weight carried increases the stall speed and would be a job to stop that weight with reverse thrust and brakes and overheating popping tyres before running out of runway. Average touchdown speed depending on wind strength and all up weight of a jetliner is on average around 145 mph, this can increasee to about 160-170 mph if too heavy with  too much or full of fuel.

    No need for any form of polluting engines in aircraft.  Rubber duration is the power of the future, All the quilty passengers and crew before departure to spend hours winding the planes propellors backwards to twist the long elastic bands taught enough to reach their desired destination. One twist too less and it might not arrive.

but what happens if the plane has to return to Heathrow with the rubber band still very much twisted?   all that potential energy would certainly be wasted, and may represent a hazard to the ground crew.  would they have to circle London for hours working off their excess windings?

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1 hour ago, Murflynn said:

but what happens if the plane has to return to Heathrow with the rubber band still very much twisted?   all that potential energy would certainly be wasted, and may represent a hazard to the ground crew.  would they have to circle London for hours working off their excess windings?

The elastic bands would have to be over twisted anyway to account for any landing delays, like bad weather, overcrowded landing slots, pilots sobering up, diverting because of illness onboard and blocked up toilets, believe it or not both those last are very common and why they always serve passengers plenty of egg dishes which constipates them and are dead mean with the drinks, both of which reduce the number of pumpouts needed. which have to be paid for.   To stop the propellors rotating at any time is quite simple. Each rubber motor unit has its own ''Stopping Stick'' which is of special scientific construction with a soft rubber tip gradually hardening along its length until its solid at the inner end which slide in and out of lubricated tubes facing the propellors and operated by Meccano gearing and cables to the flight deck where there are the appropriate big levers adequately labeled which when pulled thrusts the sticks forward and smartly into the propelor blades bringing them quite gently but firmly to a stanstill,  BrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrbbbbbbbrrrStop.  The noise of this operation can unsettle the passengers if they're new to flying as it sounds very similar to the lolly stick rubbing on bicycles spokes as the wheel rotates.     Hope this answers you inquiery.  B.

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3 hours ago, Murflynn said:

what do they do with all the excess heat generated by the use of the stopping stick?   do they feed the surplus heat into the global warm bank?

It doesn't get hot being in the slipsteam of the prop, however there is like most things on aeroplanes a back up emergency brake mechanism to halt the prop. It is a robotic metal hand that grasps hold of the rubber band close to the propellor shaft and squeezes it tight until the prop stops. The  hand is also used to adjust prop speed-airspeed and is controlled by a grandfather clock adjustable governor knob the operation of this knob is under the firm control of Trixie the flight hostess as she is a part time lap dancer and so is expert at controllin things.

Edited by bizzard
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18 minutes ago, bizzard said:

grandfather clock adjustable governor knob the operation of this knob is under the firm control of Trixie the flight hostess as she is a part time lap dancer and so is expert at controllin things.

 

You seem to kno a lot about this sort of stuff....

 

:giggles:

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On 13/05/2019 at 08:51, Mac of Cygnet said:

 

All three are in the process of development, with container shipping not far off.  Norway seems to be a world leader in electric aviation and shipping, while China is at the forefront in road transport (although Germany has an experimental system up and running).  Mitigating and even reversing the effects of present systems will certainly be necessary for some time after the introduction of carbon neutral and non-polluting transport.

 

But, by and large, such technologies put cleanliness and efficiency in opposition to each other. Electric is only, at present, a 'good' energy from the point of view of the avoidance of air pollution but, I suspect, is very much more costly in efficiency terms. The real breakthrough will come when we devise a source of energy that doe snot involve either pollution or very inefficient conversion processes that change one form of energy into another. Either that or we all go back to cave dwelling.

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5 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

The real breakthrough will come when we devise a source of energy that doe snot involve either pollution or very inefficient conversion processes that change one form of energy into another.

 

Hydrogen fuel derived from renewable energy has always seemed like a pretty good bet to me. The "inefficient conversion processes" are necessary because you need the energy store to travel with you, whatever it is.

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6 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

But, by and large, such technologies put cleanliness and efficiency in opposition to each other. Electric is only, at present, a 'good' energy from the point of view of the avoidance of air pollution but, I suspect, is very much more costly in efficiency terms. The real breakthrough will come when we devise a source of energy that doe snot involve either pollution or very inefficient conversion processes that change one form of energy into another. Either that or we all go back to cave dwelling.

Electric motors are 90 odd % efficient in some cases nothing really better that in the ICE world plus its easy to make, store and transmit whats not to like about it?

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9 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Hydrogen fuel derived from renewable energy has always seemed like a pretty good bet to me. The "inefficient conversion processes" are necessary because you need the energy store to travel with you, whatever it is.

I did say very inefficient - even a first year physics student would recognise that any conversion process has some losses ie inefficiency. 

 

The other factor is the interaction of the means of transporting the energy with the rest of the equation. Eg, battery technology is at present very heavy and thus a further part of the comparative efficiency is in the additional energy required to move it around, compared with, say, petroleum products. 

 

One of my continuing gripes with some of my Environmental friends is that they all too frequently focus on part of the equation and ignore that rest, with the potential of making things worse not better. Electricity has all sorts of downsides esp with battery power - at the present. One factor that seems to get very little mention is the comparative safety of different energy technologies - eg diesel is inherently safer than petrol as far as unwanted combustion is concerned, but worse from a particulate aspect. All eco debates are hampered by the fact that we cannot (at least today) compute the total impact of any change, we have to make assumptions about the boundary conditions - at what point do we stop calculating the impact on the grounds that it is then trivial. If we cannot calculate the impact, how do we know it is trivial? 

Edited by Mike Todd
Batteries failed in keyboard!
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2 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

Hydrogen fuel derived from renewable energy has always seemed like a pretty good bet to me. The "inefficient conversion processes" are necessary because you need the energy store to travel with you, whatever it is.

It seems like a good idea for me as well, if wind turbines make hydrogen rather than being turned off, its a win win {the owners get paid to stand them idle] I have no doubt it wont suit them but for longer distances Hydrogen works

2 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I did say very inefficient - even a first year physics student would recognise that any conversion process has some losses ie inefficiency. 

 

The other factor is the interaction of the means of transporting the energy with the rest of the equation. Eg, battery technology is at present very heavy and thus a further part of the comparative efficiency is in the additional energy re

Modern batteries are light and getting more power dense weekly

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7 minutes ago, peterboat said:

It seems like a good idea for me as well, if wind turbines make hydrogen rather than being turned off, its a win win {the owners get paid to stand them idle] I have no doubt it wont suit them but for longer distances Hydrogen works

Modern batteries are light and getting more power dense weekly

The defining requirement on our main car purchase has, since we returned to boat ownership, but not liveaboard, is the journeying to and from wherever the boat/car has last been left. This is made more acute by living in Cornwall. On average, our journeys are around the five hour mark (up to seven for eg Liverpool) and currently I do not see a time horizon for being able to do this in a single run (interrupted only by short comfort break!) other than in a petrol/diesel car. The timings are often constrained so that adding to the time by even an hour would mean either a start of finish in darkness. 

 

I know that it seems odd that we choose a life style that combines laid back phases where an hour's delay is commonplace with other phases where time is of the essence but that's the reality of the 21st C.

 

As it happens, I have long yearned for an electric car and it may well be that if our lifestyle continues to justify a second  small car for local journeys, then the next one will be electric.

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40 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

One of my continuing gripes with some of my Environmental friends is that they all too frequently focus on part of the equation and ignore that rest, with the potential of making things worse not better.

 

I agree with this -- it's pointless if you don't look at the whole picture. 

42 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

even a first year physics student would recognise that any conversion process has some losses ie inefficiency. 

 

Unfortunately, successive governments have failed to recognise it by building huge power stations to feed a national grid, instead of encouraging local CHP schemes. Big business doesn't make much profit from the latter -- I wonder if there is a connection (pun intended)?

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