Renault......oops

[cajal]

Here

regards

cajal

[vette]

Peugot too by the looks of it.

It's quite disgraceful in my opinion.

[Chancer]

Disgraceful that they found no evidence of wrongdoing?

 

Disgraceful that the GGT should take pleasure in tipping off the media and seeing Renault shares drop 25% as a consequence?

 

Or something else?

[cajal]

the latest.........

Paris (AFP) - Renault diesel

engines have been found to exceed emissions limits, French Environment

Minister Segolene Royal said on Thursday, but added no cheating software

had been found in the cars.

Royal

spoke after a commission she appointed submitted test results of French

and foreign cars, which found carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide

emissions in Renault cars to be too high, as were those of two

non-French automakers.

It would be interesting to compare the published emissions figures of vehicles on the forecourt against the test engine figures.

regards

cajal

[Aardvark]

Whos is actually concerned with the emissions figures anyway?  I don't know anyone who would be bothered either way.  Manufacturers of just about everything tell lies about their products.

[Théière]

Primarily asthma sufferers, the elderly, the parents and grand parents of young children, those with breathing difficulties and the rest of us who don't like polluting more than we need to.

[Chancer]

So long as they all submit the vehicles to the same testing regime, which they do, and if they all cheat in a similar manner, which I'm sure in time we will find to be true then the figures are valid as a comparison for choosing between vehicles.

 

I never believed the emission figures any more than I believed fuel economy figures or coverage of paint but as long as they are all lying from the same hymn sheet they give me an indication of which vehicle is better or worse then another.

 

The figures that I do believe are scandalous are the mpg figures that they put out for hybrid vehicles, the person who thought up that test regime must have been as bent as a nine bob note.

[vette]

Disgraceful that they found no evidence of wrongdoing?Disgraceful that the GGT should take pleasure in tipping off the media and seeing Renault shares drop 25% as a consequence?

Or something else?

Sorry Chancer.

I was referring to the whole scheme of things in relation to emissions cheating by a number of manufacturers.

I really do hate that black diesel smoke.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Théière"]Primarily asthma sufferers, the elderly, the parents and grand parents of young children, those with breathing difficulties[/quote]None of those categories affect me at all and I'm with Aardvark, emissions wouldn't even enter my mind when choosing a car.

[Aardvark]

And unless it affects the taxation on a new car heavily I doubt if many other people bother either. The ones that make the most "fashionable" comments about emissions probably fly to their holidays in the sun on planes that burn fuel by the ton and fill their trolley with food from abroad flown in for their convenience.

[Théière]

[quote user="AnOther"]None of those categories affect me at all and I'm with Aardvark, emissions wouldn't even enter my mind when choosing a car.[/quote]

But what if you were affected?

As Aardvark says many things travel the length and breadth of the world to arrive and some may even go into low emission cars [blink].

What special features does the higher emission car have that the low emission doesn't?  When looking at the small MPV market for my last run about I wanted the Citroen Picasso version as its very much the same as the Renault Scenic but the Renault is a higher tax bracket and produces more emissions.

Ended up with the Renault because the Picasso owner was messing about but I am conscious that it chucks out more and from the reports now probably quite a lot more.

As I discussed with Q before he left the Panorama program on VW showed that as per usual the Gov tests are a pile of smelly emissions themselves.

Buy a Tesla, as much fun as you can have with your clothes on [:)]

[AnOther]

[quote user="Théière"]But what if you were affected?[/quote]I'm not so it's moot[:D]

What if I did say have an asthmatic grand child though, would my personal choice of car make any difference whatsoever to air he or she breathed, no of course it wouldn't.

If there's one thing I've learnt about life it's that precious few individuals have any material affect on anything and as I know for sure that I'm not in that elite group and never will be the choices I make affect nobody but me.

[andyh4]

Buy a Tesla and delude yourself.

You simply switch the pollution point from the car to a power station - probably not near where you live, so you can pretend that you are driving cleanly.

Hydrogen cars will be next; releasing nothing but clean water. Water vapour being a much more global warming gas than CO2 - but hey we all know water is safe don't we?

[Théière]

On the basis that electricity not from coal fired power stations is a bit cleaner than burning fossil fuels in your engine and the depositories are also miles from the refineries so needing more deliveries, I can't see your point.

Water vapour is more global warming really, why?

[Jonzjob]

Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels [:-))] and there were I thinking that it was just taken out of the water, using lots of electricity [8-)]

I would think that any company would be really, truly sorry about being caught in their lies and I think that one way to slow them down would be to make the bosses criminally liable for them. Then those bosses would make  it their business to make dammed sure they knew what was happening in their company?

I would love to have been a fly on the wall at the end of the last ice age when the stone age, or what ever it was, scientists were accusing each other of inventing fire??? [Www]

[Rabbie]

I read today that London has already exceeded its target figure for the whole year in polluting emissions. Something to be proud of.

I am not an asthmatic and am not particularly affected by these emissions but I am shocked by the selfish attitudes expressed by some contributors to this thread. Something needs to be done and soon if we are going to survive until the next millennium.

[Aardvark]

Selfish attitudes?  Realistic is much nearer the mark.  As stated above there is absolutely nothing anyone on this thread or anywhere else can do to reverse the trend.  The 1 percent of the world's population that have the money and influence to make the changes necessary are not willing to give up their own personal agendas.  They may well offer up "cleaner" alternatives but those will have more to do with generating short term profit for the makers than long term benefits for the rest of humanity than haven't the cash to buy them.

[andyh4]

Theiere wrote:

Water vapour is more global warming really, why?

Unquote

Leaving aside the points made by J and that most hydrogen today is made from methane and produces CO2 as a by-product; it could be produced from solar cells and there are plans to do so.

Despite all of this it is an incredibly effective reflector of heat and therefore a very very powerful greenhouse gas.

For evidence, 3 days ago we had 8 degrees during the day with overcast conditions that persisted through the night. The temperature fell to around 1 degree at its low point.

2 days ago the cloud (otherwise known as water vapour and droplets) cleared and we had a bright sunny day with temperatures again up to 8 degrees. Overnight the sky stayed clear and the temperature dropped to minus eight. So low indeed that during the day the temperature s unable to recover to the previous daytime levels - in fact just about squeezed up to above freezing.

you will of course want to criticise the scientific absolutes of this one example, but you cannot deny that clear night = cold nights because the heat escapes from the Earth, whereas cloudy nights where there is a cover of high levels of water vapour and droplets lead to much warmer nights.

But please feel free to Wiki water as a greenhouse gas.

[Théière]

It certainly appears Aardvark and Another are selfish and I don't particularly like the brevity of their replies but I do understand where they are coming from.  As Jonzjob posted the majority of hydrogen for eco cars comes from cheap process's which are polluting and require fossil fuels but if the process uses gases which are wasted in some cases as the by product of the petrol chemical industry then it's not quite so bad.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. so the rich don't want others to get close to them, it's a disease they suffer from whilst often trampling the better solutions under foot.  The paradox of photo voltaic panels being offered with good feed in incentives just long enough for the well healed to buy them and further maximise their savings when banks offer precious little and then, in our case the PM pulls in the incentives now the peasants are beginning to invest in the technology so he can please the energy companies he lunches with. the losers in the game are us and the environment. It's the game of accountants, if it's not on their budget sheet it's on someone elses, in this case the worlds but it not on theirs so they get a bonus.

Back to the point. NO2 is high from diesels, it's bloody obvious that Government tests were a pile of smelly stuff designed a bit as Aardvark says to play some of us for fools whilst heavy marketing budgets spin "Clean Diesels"  The Panorama program showed very clearly that inside the cabin you and passengers are subjected to very high levels of particulates and NO2 which over time is likely to cause breathing issues or exacerbate existing ones in others.

The issue is you can form an opinion as expressed by Aardvark which could close your mind to real alternatives when they do appear.  My pool filtration uses 91% less electricity than normal setups which if you take the 1 million pools in france alone it could stop around 2 million tons of CO2 per year.  However on some forum they just a negative response but they do want to know how and with pictures I do it so they can line their pockets. Incidentally for a new build pool based on devis I have seen it costs no more than the original bad setup but I really believe people no longer trust anything so just plough on regardless which helps big business further.

On cars, hydrogen can be produced in the vehicle by electrolysis but it uses more energy than it produces but if a much smaller engine was used as the generator and the bulk of the fuel is water the system could work as a hybrid.  Some companies already do this to their fleet vehicles but it hasn't had a mass appeal you might think it would so somewhere it must be being slowed. I would bet if you produced a hydrogen car in the way I said they would pass some law banning the local production of hydrogen.

    

[Théière]

That's incredible Andyh4, wow I never heard that!  Exactly why Ano and Aardvark have their opinion.

"As a greenhouse gas, the higher concentration of water

vapor is then able to absorb more thermal IR energy radiated from the

Earth, thus further warming the atmosphere. The warmer atmosphere can

then hold more water vapor and so on and so on".

Where does the heat come from? oh yes the sun and as it says the water vapour is able to absorb more energy and also shield us.  Energy from the earth is already there and so the net effect is zero.  You feel colder when there are cloudy skies but hotter when the sun can get at you.

Why are there clouds, why isn't water vapour just spread out in a thin layer as the earth is spinning quite fast? drop a liquid onto a rotating object it spreads, it doesn't form clouds.  Clouds are the result of dust particles so we need dust in the air to form more clouds to make it rain in more places in the world so should we keep polluting?

[AnOther]

[quote user="Rabbie"]I am shocked by the selfish attitudes expressed by some contributors to this thread.[/quote]Shocked huh Robbie ?

Bearing in mind that I'm neither rich nor poor and that I've never bought a new car in my life because I regard it as a mugs game, here's your opportunity to tell me exactly what you'd like or expect me to do ?

We're all selfish to one degree or another, it's just that some don't know it or won't admit it [;-)]

[Chancer]

I was surprised by ANO's first posting and did think it a little selfish but at least honest, however on reading his subsequent posting I now understand exactly where he is coming from and agree.

 

I just Wonder how much is true science and how much is just aimed at getting us all to change our cars once again like it was with unleaded fuel, catalytic convertors and now diesel particulate filters, the cars of my youth would come close to killing me whilst tuning the engine in a lock up garage, my 14 year old supposedly polluting diesel is far far cleaner and its likely that I will end up keeping it till its 20th year unless the powers that be have their way, they being the motor industry and its lobbyists.

 

There is a huge environmental cost on buying a new car every 3 years and the subsequent scrapping of perfectly serviceable vehicles, look how many new vehicles were artificially sold during the years of the scrappage scheme and how many good cars were needlessly scrapped including many classics, now the new vehicles sold that were majority diesels are being demonised and you can be sure that if the motor industry can once again manipulate the government into paying for us to scrap them and buy new cars it will all start again.

[Théière]

[quote user="Chancer"]

I was surprised by ANO's first posting and did think it a little selfish but at least honest, however on reading his subsequent posting I now understand exactly where he is coming from and agree.

[/quote]

Yes ditto but we know Ano well enough by now to know there is more to it and honesty is were it should be on a forum in order to discuss a point of view honest opinion is necessary although it may not line up with others points of view.

Q had some info on electric vehicles and that was a good discussion but electric just isn't there as a viable option for anything but short journeys around town, give it a few years.

I do agree as well, real science is lost because the pillocks of MP's who get this and that for passing a mandate that we should all scrap our vehicles and scrap them again and most like again, take the LEZ cobblers. The TFL website listed the vehicles you could check your reg to see if it passed. BIL scrapped his Merc Vito to buy a new van. Found out later the Merc was ok and complained to TFL and was awarded £1500 compensation.

Balance the environmental issues against people needing jobs, at least jobs in bad environmental sectors. 

[andyh4]

So you are clearly a believer in Gaia and self regulating systems T.

Your hypothesis on water and water vapour is exactly analogous to the arguments put forward several decades ago about CO2. Plants thrive on CO2 and the warmer it is the more they grow, ergo CO2 will become self regulating as higher levels of CO2 and warmer temperatures will result in plants growing faster and consuming the CO2.*

We know that that one isn't working out too well just now. I hope you are right and I am wrong if the H2 car starts to take a hold.

* The theory may still be right but the point of equilibrium may well be much higher than we would want.

[AnOther]

Still waiting for Robbie [:D]