Bah Humbug - Clarkson

[Woodchuck2000]

May I suggest that rather than complaining about a throwaway comment that offends you in some bizzare way, you complain to the person who sold you a TV with only one channel and no off-switch.

Seriously folks, if you don't like it then don't watch it.

Failing that, go and burn the BBC's embassy in Tehran or something...

[Woodchuck2000]

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.

For the record, a modern turbocharged diesel engine approaches 47% thermal efficiency. However, about two thirds of the brake output is lost to friction and other systems (alternator, A/C, PAS, braking etc.) so you're looking at about 15% at the tyre.

By the time you factor in transmission, conversion and power-factor losses, plus electrochemical heating in the battery, even 90% efficient electric motors are <not> going to give you better overall efficiency than a good diesel.

Similarly, the Toyota Prius is a lot less efficient than a modern Turbodiesel...

Electric powertrains are still nowhere near as mature as good ol' IC systems - it's going to take at least another ten years before any serious contest.

[Whiternoise]

speakin of rapeseed, someone told me yesterday that to get enough to provide a sustainable fuel source that could act as a valid oil replacement, we'd have to plant up the whole of Southern Enlgand (including Wales).

But, to the original point, i don't think he was 'wrong' to make a comparison. He could have said a helluva lot worse about 'invalids' and at the end of the day, the beeb response was pretty much correct imo - it's comedy and shouldn't be taken seriously - as people have said before, if you don't like his sense of humour, don't watch it.

[RVF500]

How about importing some palm oil from Asia to make up the defecit? After all we import our fossil based vehicle fuels. Then perhaps someone could point out to the South Americans that if they planted palms (assumig they grow in the amazon) instead of cutting down the rainforests as fast as they can. They may just make some money out of it. Or are they the wrong sort of trees? Either way it's an idea.

Do our farmers actually grow anything in the south of England except grass due to the CAP? Might stop them from going bankrupt if they were allowed to grow rapeseed.

[badass]

speakin of rapeseed, someone told me yesterday that to get enough to provide a sustainable fuel source that could act as a valid oil replacement, we'd have to plant up the whole of Southern Enlgand (including Wales)

Thats brilliant!
92% of the UK's land is used for farming. It seems that half of it only gets binned anyway. Here's a good use for it!

[herulach]

did anyone see fifth gear tonight with the whole energy neutral island honda have got going? Pretty impressive, obviously not practical everywhere, but cool non the less

[iranu]

We could easily grow crops such as rapeseed and sugerbeet in this country for alternative fuels. I also expect that alot of the third world could grow specific types of plants too, it would certainly produce much needed foriegn currency.

Unfortunately we are a member of the EU and as such we do not control our own agriculture not to mention the distortion that the CAP has on world markets thereby keeping some of the worlds poorest from competing. Hopefully the high oil price may well get those idiots that govern us to take their thumbs out their rear ends and start implementing some form of stratedgy for an increased use of bio-fuels, but I'm not going to hold my breath.