Is Petrol King Again ?

[ollie323]

I drive both diesel and petrol and i have to say, the diesel is an enjoyable drive. However, cost wise, the petrol car wins out. My 92 civic does 4.5 to 4.2L/100k over a tank. My spanking new cee'd is a diesel and supposedly can do 4.3L/100k but it seems to only want to do 5 to 5.5L/100k. So on that alone, the civic is cheaper to run. Now factor in the unjustified higher price of diesel and i just want to get rid of the cee'd! Having said that, i don't drive hard. From what i can see, diesels economy doesn't drop as bad as petrols does when driven hard so diesel does better there.

ollie

 

[werner]

I think it's a tad ridiculous for the Green Party to be pushing Diesel through the new carbon emissions VRT ratings.

How can we be saving the environment when Diesel cars emit Carcinogenic material into the atmosphere.

Lets get to the point here.

BMW have already built the Hydro 7 series.

This means that the technology IS AVAILABLE.

The question is how much is a litre of water at your local petrol station ( for those of you who still have a local petrol station left )

It would be phenomenally expensive to provide an infrastructure for Hydrogen distribution to math petrol/diesel and Hydrogen has major failures when you study it a little,

Hydrogen just moves the Co2 problem from the streets to the power station - its even more looney than the bio fuels campaign where Palm Oil is produced by clearing Indonesian Rain Forests, thus creating even more greenhouse gases. Or Bio-diesels diverting crops resulting starvation in developing countries. How about making Hydrogen from re-newables? The big problem with all renewable energy sources like wind generators and solar cells is that they do not provide a continuous supply and we have no effective way to store electrical energy on a large scale. From a practical standpoint existing wind turbines are virtually useless with an average maximum output of 20% at best because wind is so variable and sometimes as demonstrated across europe there are days with not enough wind to drive a generator.Also Load balancing with wind turbines on a national grid like the ESB’s is a nightmare since you have no idea from minute to minute what they can provide. They are only built to win browny points for Green party supporters and non-logically thinking environmentalists.
Hydrogen as a car fuel should not even be considered if it is produced from a reforming process in a refinery. This is a highly inefficient form of energy production which would render the fuel a very long way from being non-CO2 producing. If it's going to be done it has to be by electrolysis which is VERY energy intensive. In terms of renewable energy, hydrogen is a storage mechanism for energy, just like a battery. If it is to be used as a renewable it needs to be "created" from water. To do this electricity is needed thus increasing the use of fossil fuels. This is why Hydrogen is a storage medium. Hydrogen cannot be considered clean either as a vast amount of water vapour is produced in the production of hydrogen. If all of the vehicles in the world were converted to run on Hydrogen the increase in water vapour, a major greenhouse gas, would contribute to Global warming on a scale of magnitude many times that of C02 or NoX.