Bah Humbug - Clarkson

[G4Z]

I was trying to inject a little humour. Either I will never make a stand up comedian or you have had a humour bypass.

[Trippledence]

Sorry to go back to the first post, but..

I have heard the term invalid car used to describe wheelchairs and the like before, I guess its an archaism that Clarkson was using to expresses his opinion, that the car looked like a 'Electronic Buggy for the less able' as they are now commonly known, or at least there abouts.

When you consider the car in question, it was small and cheap looking, much like these Buggys. You have to keep in mind with a show like top gear, which is now for of a magazine format than a car show, that its out to entertain, and a dig at an electric car, which isn't very fun to be honest, and the Politian who is driving it.

In light of this I don’t really see your point, or why it warranted a complaint, if your unhappy with a single joke or the presenting style there are hundreds of other channels to watch.

[Nat101]

Tell you what why dont I get pedantic and mention that petroleum diesel is a biofuel because of that fact it comes from an organic (or biological..) source.

Reread my last post with an eye for sarcasm.

Ethanol is not commonly considered to be biodiesel - I guess I'm a pendant for casual terms

Nowhere in that article does it state that Biodiesel must be mixed with conventional fuel, so your assertion of the 'facts' was incorrect. Pure and simple.

Now that I see you're belligerent as well as unnecessarily confrontational, I'll leave you to it.

[FatalSaviour]

http://www.wrightspeed.com/

is 0-60 in 3 seconds sporty enough

Damn you Moby. Here was I thinking I was going to have a super witty post and you steal the car I was thinking of...grrrr

[FatalSaviour]

I was trying to inject a little humour. Either I will never make a stand up comedian or you have had a humour bypass.

Or both
Sorry guys, I just had to...

[FatalSaviour]

In response to the original post about clarkson, if you don't like what he does don't watch it.

And about electric cars, until they can produce electricity without burning fossil fuels its far more efficient to burn the fossil fuels in the car rather than burning the fuel to heat water to produce steam to power a generator to make electricity to power the car (heh if my old english teacher saw that sentence she'd have a fit) I don't believe there is anything at the moment that can produce as much power as a nuclear power station, that could easilly replace fossil fuel power power stations.

I'm not disagreeing here, but just querying...
How efficient is a combustion engine on the whole?
Is it necessarily more efficient to burn fuels in small engines, as opposed to power huge, high pressure steam turbines to obtain the energy?

[RVF500]

I saw that episode of top gear and if I recall the piece was about the conservatives taking over their test track for a day. The main thrust of Clarkson's jibes was at David Cameron. Who I believe was in the car at the time. Of course as he has a habit of using irony and sarcasm ans suggestion his humour could well be missed or misunderstood by those unwilling or unable to see between the lines. he is also opinionated, caustic and unapologetically flawed. Make a pleasant non-politically correct change and that's why people watch him.

Why has the small snippet regarding a momentary shot of what looked remarkably like an invalid carriage dominated the original post? There is a certain irony in having such a vehicle at a test track. Not the normal run of vehicles you would see in such a place. Wouldn't you agree?

Personally I spent the whole programme laughing and being entertained. The fact that the BBC managed to do that is of more value as a talking point. Maybe why it's back again for another season.

[badass]

I'm not disagreeing here, but just querying...
How efficient is a combustion engine on the whole?
Is it necessarily more efficient to burn fuels in small engines, as opposed to power huge, high pressure steam turbines to obtain the energy?

Petrol engines are ~25% efficient
Diesel engines are more like ~40% efficient.

[kasavien]

Petrol engines are ~25% efficient
Diesel engines are more like ~40% efficient.

Maybe my assumption was wrong, i presumed that because water takes a relatively large amount of energy to boil and convert to steam, that this would be inefficient to start with, but then to use steam to power a turbine, seems that a lot of energy will be lost along the way. But please someone correct me if i'm wrong

[blue73]

I've never really understood why people get so wound up over things that are said or done on TV or in the movies or music. If You dont like it, dont watch it!!

[badass]

Maybe my assumption was wrong, i presumed that because water takes a relatively large amount of energy to boil and convert to steam, that this would be inefficient to start with, but then to use steam to power a turbine, seems that a lot of energy will be lost along the way. But please someone correct me if i'm wrong

I dunno how efficient coal/gas/nuclear power stations are but for some reason the figure of ~25% springs to mind IIRC thats across the board aswell as they generally seem to convert energy in the same ish ways.

[Stoo]

Please split off the ethanol/biodiesel etc debates off into another thread, this one is for the original topic of whether Mr Clarkson's comments were valid/offensive or or not, and the impact of them on the development of electrical powered transport.

ta

[Rave]

Efficiency of power stations.

The average thermal efficiency of UK coal fired stations is about 37%; interpolating from that data I would hazard a guess that it's possible to make a coal fired station close to 40% efficient given the (in general) somewhat aged nature of our coal fired plants. Coal is not a particularly easy 'form factor' to work with, and as you can see our gas fired plants are over 45% efficient. I see no reason why a plant burning petrol or diesel could not also approach this efficiency.

So, large scale plants are quite a bit more efficient than internal combustion engines; the question is whether the losses inherent in transmitting electricity, storing it in batteries, and then transforming it into motive power nullify this advantage- I suspect that they do, but I don't have stats to quantify it.

Personally, I think that running vehicles on rapeseed oil is our best oprion in the short to medium term, especially given the ridiculous system of EU farm subsidies that keeps much of our potentially productive land "fallow". Of course, the government doesn't see it that way, so they've recently increased the duty payable on SVO to the same as that payable on petro-diesel, totally taking away any advantage of using it. Only 'biodiesel' now attracts the reduced rate- and biodiesel has to go through a bunch of not particularly environmentally friendly esterification processes to make it functionally equivalent to normal diesel. It's typical government b*llocks- pay lip service to our Kyoto obligations while in practice legislating against genuinely enviromentally beneficial systems.

Edit: this post took three hours to compose, dinner/booze/fags got in the way, split it off if you like Stoo.

[badass]

Efficiency of power stations.

The average thermal efficiency of UK coal fired stations is about 37%; interpolating from that data I would hazard a guess that it's possible to make a coal fired station close to 40% efficient given the (in general) somewhat aged nature of our coal fired plants. Coal is not a particularly easy 'form factor' to work with, and as you can see our gas fired plants are over 45% efficient. I see no reason why a plant burning petrol or diesel could not also approach this efficiency.

Ignoring the rest, thats quite impressive. Power stations are pretty efficient.

Electric motors are around 90% efficient, however IIRC charging batteries is very inefficient so that kills the efficiency gains.

[iranu]

I don't personally think that Clarkson's comments about the electric car looking like an invalid carriage is anything to get upset about because it plainly does as has been proven in this thread someway back. I had the episode on tape and watched that bit a few times after reading the OP.

My auntie who was left wheelchair bound due to a car accident used to own one of the blue 3 wheeled invalid carriages pictured earlier. You required a motor bike license to drive one and they were operated by a "tiller bar". They were bloody death traps! My dad used to drive it and he said it was one of the scariest things he'd ever driven. They were capable of doing 60mph!!!!!!! The whole design philosophy behind them was to allow the disabled person to get into them on their own then fold up their wheelchair and store it and then close the sliding door, then drive it using their hands only. They were designed for getting about and doing short trips, much like that electric car shown.

Now I'm sure if you asked a disabled person whether they would like to own the classic invalid carriage or a normal modified car then they would plump for the car (on looks alone most probably). I am sure that disabled people would like their personal transport to look good as much as anyone else. Clarkson's joke was not against the disabled, it was against the obsurdity of the crappy little electric car that looked like the classic invalid carriage, which no-one, disabled or otherwise would want to buy.

The OP shows all the classic signs of the leftist, politically correct, humourless, authoritarian, bullying busybody - always willing to find offense where there is none and attacking someone who does not share their do-gooding philosophy and then foisting it upon the world so as to show how right they are. Anybody who has watched top gear or is aware of Jeremy Clarkson and knows his style will know he is going to say something to rile people up, it's part of the entertainment. If you feel upset by him or his views and his style might I suggest you either turn the TV off, switch channel or go find something else to do.

[badass]

The OP shows all the classic signs of the leftist, politically correct, humourless, authoritarian, bullying busybody - always willing to find offense where there is none and attacking someone who does not share their do-gooding philosophy and then foisting it upon the world so as to show how right they are. Anybody who has watched top gear or is aware of Jeremy Clarkson and knows his style will know he is going to say something to rile people up, it's part of the entertainment. If you feel upset by him or his views and his style might I suggest you either turn the TV off, switch channel or go find something else to do.