Re: i want some fish n chips...

Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[snip]

and Piaggio make scooters with two wheels
at the front.

Isn't that more a trike than anything else?

Look at the MP3 models here <http://www.piaggio-center.co.uk/piaggio.php>;

Hmm - interesting, but expensive at £5k, and why have the extra wheel if
you don't get to leave your lid at home? I'd rather stick with a
bicycle than one of those, I think.

The selling points are apparently to do with shorter braking distances

It might be an advantage, but you should ride in a fashion where the
difference is irrelevant. On the few occasions I've come a cropper due
to not having enough space to brake, full 1G braking wouldn't have saved
me.

However, I might have a different opinion after trying one of these
strange three wheelers in the wet. With ABS, it'd be like magic, I
reckon.

and better cornering, and being able to stop and engage the 'tilt lock'
(or whatever they call it) instead of putting your feet down and getting
your Gucci shoes all wet (or fighting with your tight skirt, presumably,
if so clad).

But you've got to clamber out and put your feet down at some point,
surely? And if it's raining, you'd better be wearing weather protection
or you're going to get wet anyway.

They are also self-supporting when parked, so there's no need
to lift them onto a stand, which would appeal to the less gorrilla-like
types.

Modern bikes are often missing a centre-stand. Side stands all round,
so it seems - although it seems that with scooters, they're more
inclined to have the centre stand and be missing the side stand
(sensible way round if you ask me).

They certainly seem to be better conceived than this old one
<http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/photos-cars2/bsa_ariel_3_99.htm#BSA Ariel 3>
which was justifiably rare even when new.

There are some very odd old vehicles, aren't there? But it looks like
quite a neat bit of kit, actually - and I'm intrigued by the cantilever
mounted wheels, which indicates to me that there might well be other
fancy engineering within.

I came across one mentioned on a (real-life-type) auction Web site -
sold in 2004 for £70!

the two front wheels are quite close together and the vehicle 'banks' like
a two-wheeler, and they are legally classed as motorcycles for licencing,
tax, etc.

And helmet wearing, I suspect - which irks many. But aside from that:
`coo'!

Quite different from the Vespa trike goods vehicles in Italy or
the Indian tuk-tuk taxis.

Indeed. But still: two wheels is bicycle, while three is tricycle.

Technically, yes. Tilting trikes are a very intriguing idea
<http://www.maxmatic.com/ttw_index.htm>.

Yet more! I do quite like the idea. I still like two wheels, mind - I
quite like the semi-enclosed two wheelers like the old Quasar.

<http://www.angib.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ff/quasar0.html>

I'd quite like to have go with one of the more modern
Messerchmitt-style bubble-cars.

I want to see the good electric ones turning up.

[snip]

I don't want to be tied to a mains plug for re-charging - not easy to
arrange from an upstairs flat!

I hadn't thought of that. Hmm. Foolish child.

But I reckon that as and when, that issue will be dealt with 'cos
electric is the way it's going and a lot of people live in flats. But
it's a point I'd not considered myself - well, I've even got a garage on
the side of the house, I have (I am basically a creature of the
suburbs).

Not sure what the solution will be, mind.

Road-side charging points are technically feasible, but I can see the oil
companies and the anti-street-clutter lobbies getting heated about
installing them in every street (and the 50 or so households in my close
fighting over the ten parking places). Communal vehicles rather than one
per household are a partial answer, but they bring their own problems.

The problem with road-side charging is not the clutter but how to get
the right person paying for the electricity and the cost of installing
the kit in the first place. Methods for avoiding clutter could include
magnetic induction loops for power transfer, or mounting sockets into
existing street furniture such as lamp-posts. Petrol station companies
might see road-side charging as an opportunity: how about `pay per
charge' roadside boxes operated by Shell?

Lack of range, and the time it takes to re-charge, are also serious
problems for electric vehicles and we don't have sensible means of
overcoming those yet.

Oh yes we do. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Charging>

`In 1995, some charging stations charged BEVs in one hour. In November
1997, Ford purchased a fast-charge system produced by AeroVironment
called "PosiCharge" for testing its fleets of Ranger EVs, which charged
their lead-acid batteries in between six and fifteen minutes. In
February 1998, General Motors announced a version of its "Magne Charge"
system which could recharge NiMH batteries in about ten minutes,
providing a range of sixty to one hundred miles.[21]

In 2005, handheld device battery designs by Toshiba were claimed to be
able to accept an 80% charge in as little as 60 seconds.[22] Scaling
this specific power characteristic up to the same 7 kilowatt-hour EV
pack would result in the need for a peak of 336 kilowatts of power from
some source for those 60 seconds. It is not clear that such batteries
will work directly in BEVs as heat build-up may make them unsafe.

In 2007, Altairnano's NanoSafe batteries are rechargeable in a few
minutes, versus hours required for other rechargeable
batteries.[citation needed] A NanoSafe cell can be charged to over 80%
charge capacity in about one minute.[citation needed]'

Fast charging has been dealt with. Electric vehicle range has been
adequate for local delivery services for many decades - hence the milk
float. That sort of range is also entirely suitable for most commuting.

But what can these things actually *do* - well, to save me looking it
all up in bits, I'm hoping that Wikipaedia has got it right (the quoted
figures tie up with what I recall having read about specific vehicles
that are available now, or have at least been demonstrated in production
prototype form to provide the stated performance)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Travel_range_before_rechargin
g_and_trailers>


` * Lead-acid batteries are the most available and inexpensive. Such
conversions generally have a range of 30 to 80 km (20 to 50 miles).
Production EVs with lead-acid batteries are capable of up to 130 km (80
miles) per charge.

* NiMH batteries have higher energy density and may deliver up to
200 km (120 miles) of range.

* New lithium-ion battery-equipped EVs provide 400-500 km (250-300
miles) of range per charge.[24] Lithium is also less expensive than
nickel.[25]'

I reckon 250 miles range before needing a 1 minute recharge (and that's
what we'll be seeing on the road in about five years, I reckon; takes
time for the developments to come to market) would be fine by most
people.

There's also a cunning plan intended for electric buses: don't bother
building the bus with a big battery pack or super-fast charging
technology, just charge the thing via a magnetic induction loop at every
bus stop.

Hydrogen is tricky stuff (although not as dangerous
as it's often depicted, as long as it isn't stored at liquifying pressures)
and fuel-cells are a long way from being 'green' to make and dispose of -
as well as costing a huge amount.

I can't say I've seen anything in fuel cell construction that ought to
be a toxic hazard or similar. I'd guess that they were pretty much
fully recyclable from reading about 'em. You'd certainly want to
recover that palladium...

The hydrogen-powered buses on order
for use in London, cost almost ten times as much as diesel buses; and
hydrogen stored as a gas /will/ leak - the molecules can pass through most
solids so a leak-proof tank is just a dream.

Umm. My dad used to work with a leak-proof tank that held liquid helium
- and it was entirely leak-free. It had to be - any leak, any leak at
all, and you lose helium very quickly indeed and that's expensive. They
did have a leak once and it took a lot of work to find and fix - very,
very expensive work. All those cryogenic NMR machines have coils
sitting in liquid helium, contained inside a leak-free casing. And if
they can do it with liquid helium (the trickiest thing to seal up in the
known universe), they can do it with hydrogen.

Valves are trickier, mind - but a big tank of liquid helium needs a
vent, not a sealing valve...

The big question is `Can the engineers come up with kit that'll do the
job as well in the context of ordinary road vehicles'. Given their
track record, I reckon the answer is `yes'. So I'd not worry about
leaking hydrogen at all.

The only advantage they
offer is that the particle and gas pollution they create will happen
wherever the hydrogen is 'made' rather than on the streets of central
London

Not the only one: an efficient industrial process to create the hydrogen
will probably result in an overall efficiency increase, so there will be
less pollution per mile in total. Oh, internal combustion engines with
reciprocating (reciprocating, I ask you!) pistons are just stupid -
stupidly inefficient, stupid everything. Think huge industrial plants
making hydrogen in an efficient, steady flow way. Think enormous
multi-stage steam turbines in the power station wringing every last
available joule out of the high pressure steam feed from the low-loss
boiler fed by an incredibly efficient burner.

What's fitted inside a car just can't compete with that.

(and electric trams or trolly-buses would do that at least as
effectively, and probably more cheaply in the long run).

Well, an electric bus with `every stop recharging' might do as well as
trolly-bus and work out cheaper, not to mention not buggering up the
skyline with lots of ugly overhead wires.

And as electricity generation moves over to non-fossil fuel sources, the
emissions will drop. Not only that, but even coal power stations emit
much, much cleaner exhaust than do motor vehicles - at least, the ones
in the UK do.

Veg oil would be the preferred fuel, I
think.

Fuel production shouldn't take land from food production.

No, indeed not, while some people are hungry. But we can grow stuff we
can't eat, and it makes more sense to use any surplus as fuel for machines
to generate electricity or transport than to feed it to cows or make
processed foods to make westerners obese.

I don't see that it makes sense to stop meat production, because I don't
see any way to manage a balanced agricultural economy without using
animals to put back what's taken out by plants, if you see what I mean.
Said Mr Organic.

But aside from that: while we *can* grow stuff we can't eat, we
shouldn't be doing that if the land can be used to produce useful food
while the world still has hunger problems. It's happening now and it's
causing starvation *NOW* because it's put grain prices up *NOW!*.

The policy of growing biofuel feedstock is *ALREADY* killing the poor by
starvation. And I'm hopping mad.

Thing is, starvation's caused by lack of money, not by a global shortage
of food. The situation isn't simple - but... But if the starving poor
see fields being used for biofuels and not human food, they're going to
riot and they'll have my encouragement.

Another thing is that Brazil didn't have any problems when it started
with alcohol-run vehicles - but that is, I assume, because it already
had lots of sugar plantations and they're just there to make money -
sugar's not exactly a required part of anyone's diet. So it doesn't
matter what you do with your sugar just so long as you sell it.

It seems to me that what we could do usefully is use waste products as
biofuel feedstock, and only put land over to biofuel production if that
won't put up the price or reduce the availability of human food.

This is eco-friendly technology
that we can do right now and it works, and the more ways there are to be
free of fossil fuel, the better for world peace and for pollution
reduction.

I dunno about `world peace' - the oil producers might be kicking up a
fuss. On the other hand, nations like China and Japan are 100% for
anything at all that'll reduce the amount of fossil fuel burning - just
so long as it's economically and technically sensible (in China, they
don't even have to worry about it being socially acceptable: the
authorities can just do stuff). And the EU is all for `going green'.
So while N. America, the Middle East, and Russia might be against
sanity, they can't do a thing: who can withstand a bureaucratic
onslaught from the EU? Very few - and Chinese bureaucracy is possibly
worse in some ways, albeit possibly a bit less persistent.

There's not
enough waste veg oil to power us all on the road.

But what there is might as well be used by someone - and it does get us
back to the chippy :))

Indeed - thing is, I can't help feeling that there are better things to
do with waste than to just burn it straight off. On the other hand, the
basic idea of only using waste as biofuel feedstock is a good principle
to work on, I think.

Rowland.

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