h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

alcohol engines burn to hot? how do the indy cart racing cars manage to bur alcohol then (methanol rather than ethanol). And fuel cells and electric/hybrid electric vehicles are being developed due to the need for emission free cars. The electricity generation can then be green or not. If you manage to get hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell electric cars with solar cells, not only do you have clean energy for the cars, but you have a distrubuted energy generation facility as well. and green solutions work much better as distributed energy generation systems.

Yea, verily, CART and IRL racecars burn alcohol. They also come with lovingly individually-produced engines with advanced ceramics and other features that (so far) haven't been deemed suitable for mass production. Maybe it's time to start deeming.

As for electric vehicles... that only shifts the energy generation problem from the individual vehicles to the power plants. This may allow for distribution of energy generation, but it doesn't *make* it distributed.

Actually, next generation electric vehicles will generate their power using non-polluting fuel cells. Ideally the fuel cells will be produced in factories that use natural gas for their energy needs.

The electric cars would also use small amounts of natural gas to complement the fuel cells.

I think this discussion's gotten to the point where you need to write a Guide entry on Next Generation Electric Cars.

I hope I don't have to take the fuel cell back to the factory for a refill. 8(

To bring us back on topic. It is highly unlikely that breakthroughs in fuel cell technology will be lead by the big American car makers.

Although, of course, as soon as some foreign owned/based firm is suspected of achieving a breakthrough the firm will be deluged in American money.

You don't have to be an European-born rocket scientist to work that one out.

actually, the next development in fuel cells and methanol engines seem likely to come from california. this is due to the fact that to be allowed to sell any of your cars in calafornia, you also have to make a minimum number of polution free cars also, you won't have to take your fuel cells back to the factory, as that is not how they work. they work by directly generating electricity from a "clean" chemical reaction (where clean is defined as something that does not gradually kill the fuel cell).

*JUMPING STRAIGHT IN* (due to boredom)

A few points to earlier bits of this thread that are totally off topic!

1) Have you ever thought who pays the clowns that say global warming isn't happenning or is a natural phenomenon, Shell, Texaco and other big oil companies fund a research body called the "global climate change coalition" this body periodiclly funds the publishing of reports that deny global warming being caused by pollution or is nothing to worry about. They've never found any support for pollution causing catastrophic global warming effects. Funny that!

2)On the subject of the fuel cell engine, don't you think the manufacturers are being bought off the oil companies and the research and development delayed. Or maybe they just don't want to re-tool their factories!

3) the reason an eastern european is thought to suffer from the xenophobia and a pakistani suffers from racism is a bit complicated. The e.e. is not that distinguishable from the racial sterotype that is british, but so are the Irish, Welsh and Scots, though in a foreign country they can suffer from racism. You can take prejudice and xenophobia anywhere, but you can only be racist when you are the race in a position of power.
Prejudice + Power = racism

*back on topic at last!*
Z.

*Jumps back in to add to an off-topic point he made*

Did anyone hear about the bloke who invented an non-wearing rubber substance that could replace car tyre rubber, meaning you'd very rarely have to change your tyres! He was offered an outrageous amount of money to sell his patent, and he did. To a big tyre manufacturer, not sure wehter it was Dunlop or Goodyear, tho might have been Michellin! And they locked it in a big safe that they called Pandora!

Z.

Two points. The tyre invention thing is yet another urban myth. It normally comes coupled with the yarn about the guy who invented a water-powered engine. Presumably the bit of paper on which he wrote down this breakthrough in physics is also in Pandora's safe. (Do a google search for urban myths)

Global warming scaremongering is promoted by the well-funded multinational anarchist group, Greenpeace. As I may have mentioned earlier, I live near a beach. I also live in a country (New Zealand) that is a near-neighbour of Antartica. The Pacific Ocean is not rising. Trust me. I have been leaving my towel in the same place on the beach for years - just above the unchanging high-tide mark.

In short, there is a difference between polluting your neighbourhood (country) and the oh so trendy non-scientific fad of global warming. All countries have a duty to make sure their citizens can enjoy unpolluted air.

I guess we will have to put up with listening/reading all this misinformation for quite some time. The grant-seeking clowns and braindead media all attended places from which (in most cases) there hasn't been an original thought for 50 years - the universities.

No ones mentioned them yet but something Loonytunes said about greenpeace,

WHAT ABOUT THE FRENCH?

They did commit a 'terrorist' act on the rainbow warrior by blowing it up and killing several people. And they eat garlic and don't use deoderant!

Calling an organised campaign ggroup anarchists is a bit much really, they do take responsibility for all their actions, they have a heirarchy and also a membership something that a real anarchist would shirk from.

So loony tunes, how would you feel if the french decided totest another nuclear device in the pacific, would you show some allegiance to Greenpeace's stance or would you support the french!

Z.

Any self-appointed group of people who (often) act outside the law of countries they are operating in are, by definition, anarchists.

One Dutch guy was killed in the French Secret Service organised Rainbow Warrior bombing outrage. He died because he reboarded the boat - the unexploded bomb had previously been discovered and the boat cleared - to get his camera. Not, I suggest, a great loss to the human gene pool.

I agree with your sentiments about the unscrupulous French. I remember (in the 70s) joining a "Ban The Bomb" march that went from London's Hyde Park to the French Embassy. When the march organisers tried to hand a protest letter to the ambassador they were told he was in Paris.

The pub crawl afterwards was rather smashing (in every sense of the word). Anarchists have all the fun

Dictionary definition of anarchy

1 - political disorder and violence

2 - the complete absence of government

3 - disorder in any sphere of activity

I don't think any of these can be applied to the ORGANISATION that is greenpeace!

I'd call them hippies with attitude myself, and am proud to have partaken in organised GP actions in the past.

Does sound like you like anarchism if you enjoyed smashing up london to protest against the french!!!?

Z.

3 - disorder in any sphere of activity.

Japanese whale boat skippers (and numerous others) would say that this definition is a pretty good description of Greenpeace activities.

Here in clean, green New Zealand, while eating my (hopefully not genetically-modified) cornflakes this morning, I heard this startling news story on the radio.

The Government says it has no plans to introduce a flatulence tax, to tackle methane gas emissions from livestock.

Climate Change spokesman Pete Hodgson says methane emissions from sheep and cattle account for about half of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. He says this week's budget will provide some funding for research into ways to reduce the emissions.

Mr Hodgson also wants the primary sector to help pay for long term research. He says existing research suggests changing what the animals eat may improve their conversion of food into body weight, as well as helping the environment.

Changing the cattle feed, huh? Do you know where I can find this article on the net? (Doing some research on mass production of cattle)

Lentilla, do a google search for bovine. Put the country domain status as nz

Here's something that may help

Gas by moonlight

What do you get when you combine a bunch of boffins with an interest in bovine excrement and a balloon that needs Civil Aviation approval to fly?

The New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research's (Niwa's) latest investigation into laughing gas.

Niwa scientist and project co-ordinator Mike Harvey and his sidekicks Tony Bromley and Ross Martin have called a Gordonton paddock home for the past four weeks trying to measure the levels of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, in the Waikato atmosphere.

While the site looks like something from a futuristic movie, and the investigation involves a big orange balloon, Dr Harvey is adamant it is no laughing matter. While farmers across the country are cashing in on a good dairying season, cattle byproducts are causing 90 per cent of New Zealand's contribution to nitrous oxide, a gas which is damaging the ozone layer. Put simply, nitrous oxide is created when animal excrement mixes with the soil.

"There's very little known about it really. Obviously this is not something we can easily fix but this study should help us come up with some ideas," Dr Harvey said.

For four weeks the three scientists have worked by moonlight collecting gas readings and data, sometimes spending 30 hours straight at the site.

"The Waikato is the best place to do this test because of the high number of dairy farms," Dr Harvey said.

The giant balloon, officially called "Kytoon", is inflated and suspended in the air attached to a rope. Devices attached to the rope collect gas samples and readings.

"We can't fly it any higher than 300m because of civil aviation rules."

Readings are also taken from the ground and all the work with the kytoon is done at night when the atmosphere is still. The tests at Gordonton finished recently. Landcare, Lincoln University and Geological and Nuclear Sciences are all involved in analysing the data.

At this point I am absolutely confused about who is for and against what and whether the greenhouse effect is to be taken seriously or not. I would guess that Greenpeace (et al) have basically the right idea, but, like anything political, are made known by over-zealous people who do not have a grasp of the situation.

The point about the French interests me. My father, (living in the East of England) an octegenerian bigot, is so amazingly vehemently opposed to anything French, whether justified or not, as I particularly noticed on a recent visit. Even Colemans's French mustard is banned from the kitchen, although it has nothing whatsoever to do with the French type of mustard, and undoubtedly does not come from France. I was surprised they hadn't had the French windows taken out, until I realised they call them patio doors in the UK these days.

But, in the BSE question, for example, or with apples or whatever, I can't see that the French have been any different in their attitude to the UK than any other European country, if they have bothered to have an attitude at all. In Germany there was certainly a very great awareness when BSE became more widespread, and every butcher had signs up saying "We do NOT sell British Beef".

And yet driving, or sitting in a car park with my father, it is embarrassing and eventually boring, to hear him rant on about all these people driving Renaults and Peugeots - they rate even higher in his (bigoted) hatred than people playing loud music.

Quite honestly, I don't see what the fuss is about. What are the British media SAYING about the French to make people think like this?
Probably I know lots more French people than my father does (he would refuse to meet any anyway) and I wouldn't say they were any more patriotic than any other people.

Sorry, this was a bit of a rant from my own family background, don't know how typical it is, but I am very wary of the media, having seen what went on in Britain in the Falklands war, and the information that was conveyed there as opposed to the (obviously more impartial) news that we got here in Germany.

And seen from the German point of view, Britain is in the Dark Ages when it comes to saving the environment. But to go on to that subject would make this posting three times longer and would take you people even further off the subject. Sorry about rant. Perhaps someone could just enlighten me on how typical my Telegraph-reading father is.

I have never understood why some people have taken a dislike to the French. Apart from a misguided adoration of Jerry Lewis, they seem all right to me!

I believe part of the problem is their infuriating refusal to speak English

My father has never been close enough to anyone French to establish their willingness to speak English. He's always going on about pinning them to the ground and pelletting them with their bloody Golden Delicious, though.

I must admit I was once riled by a French female in Malta buying tickets to get into a museum or something and insisting on asking for tickets for "deux adultes" - I mean, is it that hard to pronounce adult the English way? But that's the only time really.

Here I have French friends and we speak French or German, depending upon the situation. France has a lot going for it. I wouldn't mind living there (after Germany it is a lot more easy-going!)

I remember going into a shop in a small town in France to buy some bread. My girlfriend (threee years spent learning French at school) and I (two years French tuition) ended up having to point to get what we wanted. I guess the problem was our accents.

Revenge is sweet though. Shown on NZ TV recently were pictures of French winemakers protesting at the amount of excellent, cheap, NZ wine flooding into France.