*Moved - Alternative (green) Engines

[Rubbond]

On this CO2 issue - when indeed will people (i.e.the media) wake up to the
fact that CO2 emissions amount to nothing more than how much fuel is
consumed? All hydrocarbons burn to produce carbon dioxide and water, and
certain amounts of carbon monoxide, carbon, and oxidised forms of various
impurities such as sulphur in the fuel and lubricating oils used.
Carbon dioxide and water are naturally occuring molecules and essential to
life here on earth. God forbid if car manufacturers in desperation start to
reduce CO2 emissions by producing more CO!
I'm a great fan at the moment of diesel engines because they are so reliable
and fuel-efficient, but when will the car manufacturers or the media tell us
exactly what does come out of the exhaust pipe, so we can make an informed
choice?

[Rubbond]

Interesting programme here yesterday on Discovery Channel on the Z06
Corvette engine - 4 hour build time by just one technician (and a lot of
power
tools)!
Nevertheless nice and compact and it seems it goes like stink. But wouldn't
BMW be the obvious choice for a modern engine for Bristol, with Bristol's
heritage?
Andrew.

[406Special]

CO2, I heard on a Radio 4 (BBC) news article last week, is mainly
produced (in nature) by insects and farm animals. Apparently
insects, mainly termites, generate more CO2 than automobiles. The
news article tried to be serious, however comments about how to stop
insects from farting lowered the tone greatly. Also feed stocks
(diet) can reduce CO2 produced from livestock, not from the gas
emitted from the tail end, but from the breath that is emitted from
the front end (especially by ruminants).

No matter what one says, the facts that I have read imply that cars &
trucks generate less than 3% of the world's CO2. Last year Porsche
GB put out a pretty strong argument in a large daily paper against
the congestion charge being levied by the then left wing "Red" Ken
Livingston, mayor of London, claiming that CO2 from cars was
miniscule compared to the natural production by nature's best.
Bloody insects, cows, sheep and pigs generate more, so I am being told.

Issue for me and I guess some of you too, is that there are a lot of
conflicting facts and opinions. e.g. as the Artcic ice recedes, the
Antarctic increases. Some say on radio and press that as a result of
shifting ice concentrations, the earth will become lop-sided as a
result and cause even more climate change due to some latitudes going
further north and some further south. Go figure!

Clyde

[Jervaulx]

Although admitted off topic, i'll just mention that many experts have
noticed that many sea levels are in fact dropping and they don't know why.
So not all are rising as the government would like us to believe.

Like Morgan cars, i do think BMW could be a possible alternative if Chrysler
engines weren't available.

Andrew

[Claude]

Originally Posted by 406Special

CO2, I heard on a Radio 4 (BBC) news article last week, is mainly
produced (in nature) by insects and farm animals. Apparently
insects, mainly termites, generate more CO2 than automobiles. The
news article tried to be serious, however comments about how to stop
insects from farting lowered the tone greatly. Also feed stocks
(diet) can reduce CO2 produced from livestock, not from the gas
emitted from the tail end, but from the breath that is emitted from
the front end (especially by ruminants).

No matter what one says, the facts that I have read imply that cars &
trucks generate less than 3% of the world's CO2. Last year Porsche
GB put out a pretty strong argument in a large daily paper against
the congestion charge being levied by the then left wing "Red" Ken
Livingston, mayor of London, claiming that CO2 from cars was
miniscule compared to the natural production by nature's best.
Bloody insects, cows, sheep and pigs generate more, so I am being told.

Issue for me and I guess some of you too, is that there are a lot of
conflicting facts and opinions. e.g. as the Artcic ice recedes, the
Antarctic increases. Some say on radio and press that as a result of
shifting ice concentrations, the earth will become lop-sided as a
result and cause even more climate change due to some latitudes going
further north and some further south. Go figure!

Clyde

There is a group called the Natural Step where a Swedish doctor sought to find environmental principles all could agree upon. He came up with four:

In the sustainable society, Nature is not subject to systematically increasing:

1. concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust,
2. concentrations of substances produced by society,
3. degradation by physical means and, in that society...
4. people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.

In other words, that Man rebalance his relationship to Nature while not creating inequities that produce human suffering.

The CO2 debate was initially funded by Margaret Thatcher who wanted to wipe out the coal mining industry (read unions), but not increase dependencies on Arabs. Global warming as science pointed to nuclear reactors, an energy source beloved by those who decry welfare of the poor, but love subsidies for the rich. The Greens leaped on the bandwagon because substances extracted from the earth's crust, burned for energy with the detritus laid on Nature (i.e. gas, oil and coal) came under the greenhouse gas science... thus creating some strange bedfellows. The Natural Step's perspective is simple. OK to use uranium, provided you don't ask Nature to deal with the remaining poisons. Ditto coal, oil and gas. Or as my mother always said to us children, "clean up after yourself."

The issue of natural emissions is a side show, irrelevant to reality, but relevant to Kyoto. It is the product of bad policy where environmental responsibility is deemed impossible, but putting a price tag on pollution is believed to be feasible.

As an owner of six cars (two conventional, four classics) and two motorbikes, I acknowledge that burning petrochemicals and dumping their remains into the air is not a good thing. While I love driving, and have a passion for the art of fine motor vehicles, I appreciate that we live in a rare period in human history... sort of like the late teenage years... where conscious irresponsibility is the norm. Civilisation will look back (and yes, I do believe the future will be better) at our burning one of the most precious of resources (oil) as the utmost lunacy, but I will be driving to the beach shortly to go for a walk in our glorious summer, with sunsets made more beautiful due to the Australian bush fires (2,000 km away).

The solution is not to make cars more efficient, but to change the way we live, so to accomplish the mundane chores of daily life, we do not need to drive a car. We have a new company in Sydney that proposes to do this. See www.parallelvillage.com and click the Sydney link. It is a solution that offers a far higher quality of life, a lower cost of living and it keeps the cars in the motorpool, there whenever needed, but not needed day to day because everything is within a ten-minute walk. Such a solution was not possible prior to telepresence, but while our media looks at the gloom of the world, in fact technology is changing the world for the better.

In the meanwhile, I look forward to someone finding an engine and transmission that will seamlessly bolt into my 411 with minor modifications, a good fit, decent performance and silent. I had the petrol tank rebuilt (it leaked like a sieve), so diesel or petrol will be the preferred fuels, unless someone can come up with an electric motor solution with affordable and durable batteries.

However, if someone is coming to New Zealand and can toss a good 727 transmission into the container, let me know. After five rebuilds, I have concluded it has incompatible parts inside it, and the easiest solution is to toss it.

Claude

[californiabristol]

It seems that natural systems can be thrown off balance by very small
amounts, and the CO2
attributed by man is blamed for this. Taking all other variables into
account, this effect of
man-made CO2 still makes sense. The launch failure this week of the
Orbiting Carbon
Observatory is a major setback for understanding the Earth's CO2 sources.

Greg

[Aleph]

No it;s not. 95% of CO2 is produced by algea in the oceans an the
rainforrests. Please look at this nice documentary on channel 4 that exposed
the "man made climate change" as an unscientific hoax.


At least not as something I'll give up my well-maintained, LPG running V8
for.

[californiabristol]

Well done! Problem solved. I will forward this information to NASA,
and they will be relieved to know the original effort was pointless from
the start. It's about time someone exposed the environmental industrial
complex.


Admin Comment: Now that the inevitable has happened and this thread has morphed into a debate about climate change, I have have closed it. If anyone wishes to continue the debate on BristolCars.info please do so in the Other Topics of Interest forum. Thanks, Kevin.