[Kev0607]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

I used to work on what were classed as agricultural diesels quite a few moons ago Kev and i always had black tissues! Being agricultural, the emissions control varied from none on the older stuff to starting to improve (but nowhere near cars limits at the time) on the new stuff. Putting a 100kW generator on a load bank (basically a giant fan heater) and dropping full load on it always created a big black cloud, ten times worse with a 1MW generator! Nice job for a cold winters day though having a 1MW fan heater keeping you warm!

I have to agree on BEVs, while clean at the point of use their green credentials during manufacture don't stack up. Saw a report recently that suggested most would take about 70k miles to "break even" on the zero-emissions amortising the carbon footprint from manufacture. By then they'd be getting to the point of replacement so nothing gained. Factor in that not all electric provided for charging these beasts comes from renewable energy and suddenly their impact on the environment is as bad, if not worse, than the ICE propelled cars.

I think they will have their time but will be brief as many companies are still researching other propulsion methods. Someone, somewhere will come up with something that is free (or nearly) to produce and gives us zero-impact on the environment propulsion. I think it will come from magnetism, let's face it, we live on a huge magnet so it's a case of harnessing that resource and using it for free energy.

As for air quality, i remember when we had the no fly zone because of the Icelandic volcano spouting ash into the air. The air quality improved immediately and remained good until they restarted using aircraft. Bear in mind that during lockdown we still had air freight coming in but not during the Icelandic volcano incident. Would be intersting to compare the air quality between the first lockdown when the roads were deserted and when the volcanic ash was floating around with all aircraft grounded! We still had car travel during the volcano episode so would give an intersting pointer as to which is more polluting.

Thanks, i've enjoyed a lot of your posts too.

Thanks for your comment regarding my posts, much appreciated.

That's an interesting point about the electric cars taking a while to "break even"... I didn't think of that. That could take a good while, across millions or even billions of cars!

I hope a new propulsion method is identified soon. As I said before, this whole electric scheme isn't "green" when you dig deep.

I was reading on some other forums, just as you mentioned pollution & I come across something that I'd like to mention to you...

Many people travelling on the underground in London claim to have black tissues when they blow their noses. A lot of that is brake dust from the trains when they slow down & its also due to the high levels of iron in the tunnels. Some even claimed that it got onto their clothes, like white shirts were getting dirty around the collars & cuffs!

Breathing that in a confined space can't be good!