Dump Your Deezel

[Mandrake]

I think you've actually backed up my assertion for me, although to be fair, I'm looking at the 'whole car' scenario. I have no problem with BEVs being cleaner and greener than ICEs, but owning and driving a BEV doesn't mean you're making the world better, it just means you're making it less worse than driving an ICE vehicle. No mass market vehicle - no matter what powers it - could be considered green or clean at any point when you consider how the raw materials that manufacture it get to the factory and you consider the thousands of people involved in its production - from the cleaner travelling to work to clean the office where they design it, to the bod getting to work that sticks the badge on the bootlid when it's built, to the person delivering it at the end. Then consider the fact that most cars spend most of their time doing nothing deteriorating on the driveway / parked up on the roadside / sitting in the car park at work / etc.
I buy a car with any motive power you care to mention, it spends most of its time doing nothing and deteriorating, I then get rid of it when it's no longer fit for purpose. That ain't ever going to be 'green' or 'clean' - not now, not ever.
There isn't a 'clean' or 'green' way to own a vehicle - just degrees of 'dirtiness'

I get your point, however arguing that not driving a car at all is cleaner and greener than driving either an ICE or BEV is an entirely separate debate to which one is cleaner and better (technically, less bad as you point out) for the environment.

The reality is that a lot of people do actually need a car, including me. Public transport isn't the panacea some people seem to think it is, and in my own personal circumstances of trying to drop my toddler off with his Gran so he can go to Nursery and I can go to work (and carpool SWMBO to work as well) public transport simply does not work. It's not even physically possible in my particular circumstances, due to scheduling of the trains and buses that would be required, it's car or nothing - one reason I have two cars as I can't afford to be without one working even for a few days!

So by all means reduce car ownership where possible but for those that genuinely can't make do without a car, it might as well be the cleanest and greenest you can get. I'm doing 1000 miles a month in my Ion and that is not contributing any exhaust emissions in the areas I drive, including past the school I work at. (Meanwhile parents sit there waiting for their kids idling huge Diesel SUV's right next to the no idling sign...) Brake wear is minimal and as its a small car tyre particulates will be fairly low as well.

The primary reason I drive the Ion on my commute despite it being a small, somewhat cramped, no frills and very short range car is that the running costs per mile are rediculously low, (8x less than the Xantia, and 4x less than the typical 40mpg Diesel) however the fact that is not polluting everywhere I go also factors highly in my thinking, especially now I'm a parent.

If I could upgrade to a slightly bigger, longer range more comfortable and capable EV that could manage all my driving needs without too much hassle then I doubt I would buy another ICE once the Xantia goes.

[GiveMeABreak]

I think there's a common misconception regarding the 'greenness' of BEVs. They're not 'clean' and they're not 'green', they're just slightly less dirty than ICE vehicles.
It's not about what type of motive power your vehicle has, it's about the fact that you've got a vehicle in the first place.

..... at any point when you consider how the raw materials that manufacture it get to the factory and you consider the thousands of people involved in its production

Yes, very little is mentioned from the greenies about the environmental impacts of sourcing lithium and of the difficulty in recycling of it in consumer devices, nor of the impact on local indigenous people in South America and the like. Interestingly one of the artlicles below mentions the issue of recycling being difficult becasue the manufacturers are secretive of their manufacturing processes, so nobody knows quite what the make up is and how to recycle some of these batteries - so not very recyclable after all....

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en ... ous-people

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium ... ent-impact

[myglaren]

I'll have to have a dig, sure I kept it somewhere but earlier in the year there was a proposal to greenify the crem in Durham and also have the waste heat generate electricity.

[mickthemaverick]

Way back in the 70's I was at an OU Summer School in Bath for a technology course and we were taken to visit a company called Sevalco in Avonmouth. Their business since 1952 had been the manufacture of Carbon Black for the rubber, principally tyre, industry. The arrival of a new "Green" thinking production manager resulted in the company looking severely at its production process which involved a huge air pollution problem and a horrendous waste of energy in the form of lost heat. The new man looked around for a production process with low cost of materials and high heat demand. In his desire to reduce the pollution he set about filtering the smoke from the process and gathering the solid waste material which he was determined to recycle into something useful. He settled on brick making as the kilns would be ideally suited to use the heat being generated by the chemical plant and set about locating a suitable source of clay to mix with his chimney waste. After 3 month's searching with geologist assistance they finally located a source that was readily available, exceptionally cheap to transport and free to them!! It was the land occupied by their own plant and surrounding fields would you believe!! So the brick making plant was built and the bricks produced from the clay and chimney waste were used to build homes for their workers on the land from which the top 15 metres or so (I can't remember the exact figure) had been removed for clay.

Once the kilns were up and running our "green" man observed the heat, though now carbon free, emanating from their chimney's and installed water pipes in and around the chimneys and piped the resulting hot water to radiators throughout their offices and warehouses. Even with that he was not satisfied as there was still a large heat loss because his central heating system was not required on warmer days. So he revamped the water piping and pumped the water round the chimneys until it began to boil. The resulting steam was piped off at the top of the structure and used to drive turbines connected to generators which supplied the necessary power for the companies needs for heating and lighting and surplus left over which was fed into a local grid to supply the worker's houses which they had built from the reclaimed clay bricks!!

No magic is involved here, as the plant still consumed a significant amount of fossil fuel in the shape of oil used to fire the original chemical process for the Carbon Black production, however our 'Mr Green' did his very best to avoid polluting the air, minimise the loss of heat energy and hence wastage of the oil resource and look after the welfare of his workers and the profits of the company. A jolly resourcful and determined man in my view!!

[Hell Razor5543]

Which only goes to show that 'Going Green' is not a recent 'cool' thing to be seen doing but can be achieved by proper planning and thought. Well done, that man (and his employers for listening to him and acting upon his thinking).

[Peter.N.]

If we had a few more people like that and less concerned with large profits the world would be a better place. Sadly there are very few about.

Peter

[myglaren]

The town I lived in had/has a similar solution to waste material.
We actually looked out onto the power station, there were lots of railway wagons rolling up with oil for the generators, but also all the bin lorries.
The incinerator was combined with the power station and the waste heat used to run the turbines.
Also, the waste heat from the combined operation was used to heat water that was piped throughout the town, there were no fires, boilers or similar, the whole town was heated from the power station and there was no limit on how warm your dwelling was or how much hot water available for baths and showers. We lived in a rented flat and the costs were included in the rent, it was minimal, around £10 a month, far less than individually run boilers would have been.
Also very efficient. - they even heated some of the town center pavements to keep them ice and snow free.

They have expanded a lot on that now with newer more efficient generators and a biological operation that uses food and garden waste to produce methane that runs the buses for the town.

[white exec]

Battersea power station had some commendable energy-recovery systems designed in. Despite being coal-fired, waste heat from the steam turbines was used to pre-heat the water used, and was piped under the Thames to a large housing estate opposite in Pimlico, to provide DHW and central heating.

The chimneys not only had scrubbers fitted to dilute and recover acid fumes, but ash from the chimneys and the furnaces (the coal was ground to a powder, and injected, so it burned much like oil) was recovered and sold off to companies producing building blocks. Furnace clinker went the same way.

As a 12-year-old, my Dad took me round the place, while it was in full swing. His company had supplied several of the vast transformers installed there. The control rooms (plenty of pictures on Wikipedia) were fabulous: stainless steel, brass and marble, huge tall control/display panels covered in moving-iron meters, including several labelled Palace of of Westminster, Buckingham Palace (not O.H.M.S. and painted gold), and . . . Trolleybuses!

Despite running on coal - brought in by river barge from the north-east - dirty smoke from the chimneys was almost never seen, but then pollution isn't always visible. As a youngster, the place made quite an impression on me. It was, in its time, I think, the largest brick-built building anywhere, having been designed by award-winning architects.

[mickthemaverick]

and . . . Trolleybuses!

Bring back the trolley buses I say!! I used to love my monthly ride from Euston to my Nan's when I was 4-7!!

[white exec]

Winter Warmer

[NewcastleFalcon]

Unbelievable....I have just dug out that exact picture from your post in pictures of the day

And, miles away, the warm and inviting glow of a Reading winter . . .
Whyever did we get rid of these clean, fast and silent lovelies?

There’s some good stuff in them there archives


And my reply was

Lovely atmospheric image. I do remember the trolley buses from my youth in Newcastle. I suspect natural selection and survival of the fittest, because it was not just in Newcastle that Trams and Trolley Buses disappeared it was everywhere with few exceptions. An ageing infrastructure needing re-investment, and an alternative in the diesel bus which could go anywhere, without having to construct and maintain new networks of posts wires and rails.

I think there was also a "modernisation" agenda for the Cities across the country and the wires strung above the streets were aesthetically unpleasing and also a factor in decisions to do away with the Trolley bus. More aesthetically pleasing concrete car parks and flyovers and high rise living were the order of the day!

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

What could be if we did Dump our Deezels:

Borrowed from web

[Peter.N.]

Unfortunately I live three miles from a road with a bus route.

Peter

[white exec]

Better start making some Diversion ? signs, Peter!

[Peter.N.]

No way, don't want any traffic up here.

Peter