Unbelievable !!!

[Dryce]

The change wasn't pollution-related, BTW, instead it was COVID-related - the idea was to make-up the shortfall in Congestion Charge revenues following the various lockdowns during 2020 which saw a significant decline in traffic in Central London (and much better air quality, obviously).

On the same note, the London Congestion Charge should not be confused with air quality. We have ULEZ specifically addressing the latter. The Congestion Charge's immediate aim has always been simply to reduce traffic congestion, as the name implies.

Hmmmmmm.

So you introduce a charge for a purpose. Then the purpose is over-achieved by an unrelated cause - you extend the charge to cover the shortfall in revenue.

THAT KIND OF STINKS !!

And is a reason that revenue from ULEZs and Congestion zones should not go to the councils that instigate them.

Simple rule to any council that wants such a zone should be: You pay to implement it, you pay to operate it, you get nothing from it.

That would make the whole setup more honest.

 

[Dryce]

There are cities (Oxford, Edinburgh, etc) where private vehicles are banned from city centres. I would support schemes like this in most large cities, plus more streets converted to pedestrian areas. With the necessary improvements in public transport, obviously.

I can't speak fpor Oxford.

But Edinburgh has a history of p*ss poor traffic planning going back to at least when I was in my 20s and probably longer (ie. a long long long long time).

So now they undemocratically impose a 20mph zone and more restrictions.

London is another example. It's horribly congested in part because they failed to develop the roads during the 70s onwards. The M25 was built far out. What do you have as an inner ring ..... 'The South Circular' and its northern sibling left unfit fpor purpose. They neglected to build decent new Thames crossing. The planners neglected the city and created the problems. So the solution is to enlarge the ULEZ in October I find it rather ironic that they extend the ULEZ out to the edges of these highly congested roads and don't include them.

 

[markjay]

Hmmmmmm.

So you introduce a charge for a purpose. Then the purpose is over-achieved by an unrelated cause - you extend the charge to cover the shortfall in revenue.

THAT KIND OF STINKS !!

And is a reason that revenue from ULEZs and Congestion zones should not go to the councils that instigate them.

Simple rule to any council that wants such a zone should be: You pay to implement it, you pay to operate it, you get nothing from it.

That would make the whole setup more honest.

From memory, Ken Livingston's idea when first proposing the London Congestion Charge, was that the charge will cover the operating cost and will not produce any profit or loss to TfL.

It's worth noting that Livingston, who was the first Mayor of London, was known as 'red Ken' due to his extreme Socialist agenda, so it sounds plausible that he was not expecting the scheme to generate profit.

 

[Dryce]

It's worth noting that Livingston, who was the first Mayor of London, was known as 'red Ken' due to his extreme Socialist agenda, so it sounds plausible that he was not expecting the scheme to generate profit.

Hmmmmmm.

 

[Dickster]

From what I read, the actual amount of pollution generated by commercial space flights is miniscule compared to the pollution from civil aviation.

There are, however, two issues here.

The first is that the higher in the atmosphere that the pollutants are released, the longer they linger, and in the case of space flights it could take as long as 2-3 years for the pollutants to drop to the ground. And releasing water vapour at that height, where it isn't normally found, could have an adverse effect of weather systems.

The second issue is the obvious fact that commercial flights were unaffordable and rare (and unsafe) in the early days of civil aviation, and look at it now - so it's not unreasonable to assume that one day commercial space flights will take off (excuse the pun) and become an affordable and common activity enjoyed by all.

So here's a question: were the Wright brothers genius inventers who gave ordinary people affordable, safe, and fast transport across the globe - of foolish people who inadvertently set in motion one of the most polluting industries in the world? Or both?

And equally, how will Musk, Bezos, and Branson be remembered - as trail-blazing pioneers who made space accessible to all, or as spoilt billionaires who set the world on a self-destructive patch?

Seems odd to me that whilst we are up sh@t creek on earth, we laud the achievements of these three spending billions, on joy rides into space …..

 

[Dickster]

a. Equally, F1 cars go in circles, but the technology developed trickles-down to cars that we see on the road getting people from A to B. Clearly the idea behind all these commercial space flight is to eventually find practical means of lifting people and cargo off the planet.

b. Theoretical question 1: Had you lived in 1903 and known then what we know now about pollution caused by aviation, would have you have campaigned for the Right bothers' enterprise to be shut-down and for government to legislate against any form of carbon-powered flight?

c. I am not sure that the majority of humanity share your view that mankind is destined to live and die on planet Earth.

d. If you what you are suggesting about MAD is correct, that it is very depressing, and I would argue that it produced more harm than a nuclear war would. It means that as a precondition of our coexisting on this planet, we must never ever leave it. Perhaps in the same way that a truce with Germany in 1940 would have condemned most of Europe to living under Nazism for the next thousand years - an actual nuclear war would have been horrific (WW2 was) but at the same time it would have ended MAD and allowed us to travel to the starts.

C. Really? You think that most people see our future on another planet?

 

[Dickster]

This may be a bit simplistic, but surely if we are looking to reduce pollution (and/or congestion) in cities we should be banning the vehicles/polluters rather than still allowing them in and charging for the privilege.
Alternate means of transporting people & goods must be found.
Whenever I visit London I either go by train or I drive to the outskirts, park up and use the tube.

Exactly.

 

[markjay]

C. Really? You think that most people see our future on another planet?

'Our' future as in the current generation, no. But the future of humanity? Yes.

This does not mean it will actually happen, but given that we know that planet earth will eventually reach the end of it's natural life, I think that most people would like to think that humanity will not end with the planet (albeit in many million years), but will somehow continue, and the only scientific possibility is by inhabiting other planets.

I am not suggesting that there are any specific plans to do so any time soon, just that between the competing thoughts that humanity will die with the planet or will thrive elsewhere in the galaxy, most people will prefer the latter.

 

[markjay]

Seems odd to me that whilst we are up sh@t creek on earth, we laud the achievements of these three spending billions, on joy rides into space …..

I didn't say they were faultless... I merely described what they do. Equally, some of the great explorers were in fact privateers (or, in other words, licensed pirates).

 

[Bellow]

'Our' future as in the current generation, no. But the future of humanity? Yes.

This does not mean it will actually happen, but given that we know that planet earth will eventually reach the end of it's natural life, I think that most people would like to think that humanity will not end with the planet (albeit in many million years), but will somehow continue, and the only scientific possibility is by inhabiting other planets.

Just as every person buying a lottery ticket has an unreasonable expectation....

More to the point though, when what is required to be endured to arrive on another planet and then survive in its atmosphere is considered and considered acceptable - what kind of ignorance does that suggest with regard to understanding the absolute privilege that planet earth bestows on human life? Here, we are already where we need to be and in a beneficial atmosphere the moment we emerge from the womb. The notion of living on another planet can only exist in the mind of ingrates ignorant and unappreciative of what they already have.

I am not suggesting that there are any specific plans to do so any time soon, just that between the competing thoughts that humanity will die with the planet or will thrive elsewhere in the galaxy, most people will prefer the latter.

Remove the need for a physical presence (though mostly it is couched in such terms) and you describe to a tee religion.

 

[m80]

An occasional ice age sees off large amounts of life.
Dinosaurs said bye bye because of an asteroid (according to those 'experts').
Us lot will over populate ourselves out of existence before we get to travel to a so far undiscovered habitable planet at an unquantifiable distance that even it's light takes to reach us.

Before that, we will be fighting for the resources we are depleting at an accelerated rate.
Uninhabitable places on the planet will become habitable, but to a very limited degree.
We will be living in an increasing amount of pollution and waste that we 'must' produce.
The elite will be housing themselves within ever greater protected environments so the plebs can't get to 'em.
We will be given more stringent legislation by which we must abide, for the good of all.
It will all seem so normal as we (well future generations) will be educated that that's the way it is.

As a population we have become and will become even more so, too large to succeed.

Happy to consider other views.

 

[markjay]

All I can say is that much of what we have and do now would have been considered impossible by our ancestors.

 

[markjay]

At any rate, I didn't say we will get to go to other planets, just that (in my estimation) most people believe we will, if for now other reason than that the alternative option is somewhat depressing.

 

[Bellow]

All I can say is that much of what we have and do now would have been considered impossible by our ancestors.

The ICE has been around for more than a century, is so ubiquitous that we are struggling to imagine life without it but 100+ years of development and still it delivers not much better than 30% efficiency in use. Sometimes, you have to accept the limits of technology. Or accept that we will run out of time before the limits can be breached.

 

[Bellow]

At any rate, I didn't say we will get to go to other planets, just that (in my estimation) most people believe we will, if for now other reason than that the alternative option is somewhat depressing.

Depressing it may well be but it is plausible.
Many here are asking what will kill off humankind. It has been predicted before that in a world getting ever more bleak to eke out survival in suicide will become commonplace and the consequences of that are obvious. No amount of dreaming about inhabiting another planet prevents that scenario. Only ensuring that this planet remains habitable is viable. Anything else is pie in the sky and pies don't fly in outer space.

 

[markjay]

Depressing it may well be but it is plausible.
Many here are asking what will kill off humankind. It has been predicted before that in a world getting ever more bleak to eke out survival in suicide will become commonplace and the consequences of that are obvious. No amount of dreaming about inhabiting another planet prevents that scenario. Only ensuring that this planet remains habitable is viable. Anything else is pie in the sky and pies don't fly in outer space.

A distpoian future and total extinction of all mankind are two different things.

Our planet may well becone a horrific place to live in, both environmentally and socially, and possibly modern civilisation will disappear altogether - but this is not the same as a mass extinction event.

This planet will remain habitable until it has run its course, even if we all live like isolated tribes in the Amazons.

Many millions of years in the future, yes. The goal for mankind would be to keep this planet habitable at least until we have an alternative.

 

[BoristheBounce]

The ICE has been around for more than a century, is so ubiquitous that we are struggling to imagine life without it but 100+ years of development and still it delivers not much better than 30% efficiency in use. Sometimes, you have to accept the limits of technology. Or accept that we will run out of time before the limits can be breached.

A quote from the Mercedes F1 technology site, it proves it can be done if you throw enough money at it.

"From an engineering point of view, the hybrid power units used in Formula One are truly mind-blowing in terms of their thermal efficiency - in other words, their ability to convert fuel energy into useful work. When the internal combustion engine was developed by Nicolaus Otto in 1876, it had a thermal efficiency of about 17 percent. That means that only around 17 percent of the energy in the fuel was converted into useful work.

In 2013, one year before the introduction of hybrid power units in Formula One, the thermal efficiency of an average road car reached roughly 30 per cent, meaning that only about one third of the petrol in the car was used to propel it. In the summer of 2017, the staff at Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth, UK ran a Mercedes-Benz F1 power unit on their dyno - and it showed an astonishing number. The F1 M08 EQ Power+ power unit reached a thermal efficiency of over 50 percent, making it the one of the most efficient internal combustion engines ever."

Like many other things this will filter down to road cars, or would have if allowed to.

 

[Bellow]

A quote from the Mercedes F1 technology site, it proves it can be done if you throw enough money at it.

"From an engineering point of view, the hybrid power units used in Formula One are truly mind-blowing in terms of their thermal efficiency - in other words, their ability to convert fuel energy into useful work. When the internal combustion engine was developed by Nicolaus Otto in 1876, it had a thermal efficiency of about 17 percent. That means that only around 17 percent of the energy in the fuel was converted into useful work.

In 2013, one year before the introduction of hybrid power units in Formula One, the thermal efficiency of an average road car reached roughly 30 per cent, meaning that only about one third of the petrol in the car was used to propel it. In the summer of 2017, the staff at Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains in Brixworth, UK ran a Mercedes-Benz F1 power unit on their dyno - and it showed an astonishing number. The F1 M08 EQ Power+ power unit reached a thermal efficiency of over 50 percent, making it the one of the most efficient internal combustion engines ever."

Like many other things this will filter down to road cars, or would have if allowed to.

Yes, I'm well aware of the efficiencies attained there - and the cost (which you also recognise) which is why I said 'in use' not in the rarefied world of F1.
The cost though is prohibitive and it's debatable whether the efficiency gains there would actually make it to road use. Thermal efficiency of 50% with a piston engine is not new. Engines in the largest of ships have been enjoying such efficiency for decades but despite the price to build those engines being considerably more sensitive than that for a F1 car, still no trickle down gains for road cars though the scaling is an element in that.

 

[Bellow]

A distpoian future and total extinction of all mankind are two different things.

Our planet may well becone a horrific place to live in, both environmentally and socially, and possibly modern civilisation will disappear altogether - but this is not the same as a mass extinction event.

This planet will remain habitable until it has run its course, even if we all live like isolated tribes in the Amazons.

Many millions of years in the future, yes. The goal for mankind would be to keep this planet habitable at least until we have an alternative.

In such an existential crisis - goals don't exist.
Maybe, an 'isolated tribe' could make it through without the depression of mourning luxury they never knew - but there is a shaky assumption there that their habitat survives.

 

[BoristheBounce]

Yes, I'm well aware of the efficiencies attained there - and the cost (which you also recognise) which is why I said 'in use' not in the rarefied world of F1.
The cost though is prohibitive and it's debatable whether the efficiency gains there would actually make it to road use. Thermal efficiency of 50% with a piston engine is not new. Engines in the largest of ships have been enjoying such efficiency for decades but despite the price to build those engines being considerably more sensitive than that for a F1 car, still no trickle down gains for road cars though the scaling is an element in that.

All I was pointing out is that it is possible; like I said it would trickle down to general cars if allowed to, but for this to happen it has to be large scale, I fear its too late at this stage, the ICE is doomed unless something can be salvaged form the Hydrogen sector and made commercial.