mistermack

There's no discrepancy there. Methane is 80 times more warming, but CO2 persists much longer. So, over a 100 year period, the factor is 25, because the Methane has dwindled but the CO2 is still around.

Here in Gloucester, they built a giant incinerator not far from me. There was a lot off opposition to it, but it does mean that demolition timber in the area is used to generate electricity for 25,000 homes, rather than put into landfill, where it would be generating methane eventually.

I'm not sure about the logic of restricting wood burning for heat. After all, it replaces fossil fuel, it's not operating in a vacuum. If all heating was done by renewables, then I would agree that wood burning adds to the CO2 levels. I believe that coal power stations in the UK are now burning North American wood chips, as a renewable alternative.

I don't think they said that. They said that they replant 2 trees, for every one harvested, to compensate for the ones that die and don't reach maturity. I don't think they replant double the area. Methane is 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas. CO2 does persist longer though. As far as termites go, I would have expected the figures for methane emissions by termites to be the net amount that escapes the nest. It would be tricky to measure the methane given off by one termite.

I'm very keen that forests should be preserved. But for me, it's to preserve species and habitats. I think the climate value is overstated. A mature forsest has an awful lot of rotting wood, and that produces a heck of a lot of methane. I read somewhere that termites on their own produce far more methane than cows across the world. And the carbon cycle for a mature forest is pretty much in balance. It takes in CO2, and emits it, in roughly equal measures. A brand new forest, growing up from nothing, will store carbon for quite a while, but eventually it reaches balance. The only real carbon sinks are in the ocean, tiny animals producing shells that turn into rocks.

There is also the factor of what percentage of light that your reflector sends can actually hit the solar sail. The further it goes, the harder that the target is to hit. You might start off with nearly 100% of the light hitting the sail, but you would probably end up closer to 0%.

If you do your own car maintenance, what I'm talking about would ben unavoidable. I bought a Renault Megane coupe cabriolet when I scrapped the Renault Espace. ( yes, I'm a glutton for punishment, but they are all as bad as each other). I needed to replace two bulbs in the headlights. To do that, you have to take the entire front off the car. Removing panels under the wheel arches as well and dropping the front bumper assembly down, just to get access to change two light bulbs. Most people would not attempt it. Look it up online if you don't believe me. Halfords will change light bulbs on most cars. On that car, they have a written instruction to staff "do not attempt". The fact that any manufacturer would design such an outrageous thing shows that there is a deliberate process. They get away with it because all of the manufacturers do similar things. Cars could easily be made today that were reliable and easy to service. The technology has moved on enormously in the last fifty years. But the manufacturers get a big income stream from servicing, and if cars lasted too long and were cheap and easy to maintain, sales of new cars would suffer, so they HAVE to ensure that they are uneconomic to maintain, past a certain age. If you have a car that is worth £1,000 and you are quoted £1200 to change the cam belt, what do you do? That's the reality, and that's why you see such clean undamaged cars in the breakers yards these days.

I was right then. I thought you were trying to troll me. Whatever's bugging you, I hope you get over it. Bye.

To be honest, zapatos, I don't detect any intention from you to engage in a meaningful way, so the answer is no. If someone doesn't want to know, then I'd rather not waste my time.

I'm talking about new cars.

I'm not getting my point across then. What I'm saying is that new cars are designed for new car buyers. Those people on average keep a new car for six years. The components are designed to outlast six years of average mileage. So the new car buyers are not really influenced by the redundancy designed into them. The only way that they are affected is in the devaluation when trading in, or selling their car. People tend to just accept that as a fact of life, as most brands are affected equally. So long as the manufacturer produces a car that lasts until the first owner trades it in, they won't damage their reputation. New car owners also tend to use the manufacturer's main dealers for servicing as well. So designing the requirement for special tools into the car doesn't really affect that market. It's an ongoing process. Year on year, the cars are becoming more specialised so that only main dealers have the ability to service them.

I didn't claim heightened risk, I was just pointing to a new risk. Whether the overall risk is higher or lower is a different matter. The only evidence that I've seen is the special procedure that they used in formula one. Of course, in a car worth millions, and in the gaze of millions, they can't afford to fry a track marshall and they have the budget to deal with the hazard. Maybe something as simple as surge protection in each cell would be enough to keep things safe. I haven't seen any info on the subject. I've dealt in cars all my life. Years ago, you would go to a breakers yard, and the cars would be rotted out, worn out, and beyond repair. Even then, there would be extensive welding and repairing done, to keep cars on the road. Today, as I mentioned with my Espace, a simple rubber seal failure can make a car uneconomic to repair. Go to a breakers yard, and you will see cars that look virtually new, in excellent condition inside and out. They are being scrapped because of the cost of repairing some part or other. The main one is the cam belt in the engine. The majority of cars have a rubber cam belt that wears out after about 80,000 miles or perishes after 8 to 10 years. When it fails, the engine is damaged beyond economic repair. So the manufacturers are in a win/win situation. They get the business replacing the cam belt, (which they make difficult) or replacing the engine when it fails, or the car gets scrapped, supporting the demand for new cars. Cam belts can be long lasting cam chains, they could even be gear driven for longer life. But that's just one example. The modern car is full of stuff designed to fail, or designed to need special service tools, and designed to be near impossible for the owner to service. Even expensive cars are not immune. My brother-in-law had the cams go on his big Mercedes. Not a high mileage car, but it was a full engine replacement out of warranty. Probably more than 50% of cars in breakers yards are there because of cam belt failure. But it can cost thousands to change a simple rubber belt, with some cars you have to remove the engine to change it. With the improved rust prevention, the manufacturers need some other way to ensure that the supply of used cars doesn't swamp the market. Planned redundancy is it.

There is also a potential of death due to electrocution in the event of a crash. Not just for the occupants, but for the emergency services. (I'm deducing that from what I've heard on the commentary to formula one races. There has to be special procedures to handle crashed cars, now that they have hybrid power). Not that I know any details, but when you have batteries capable of powering cars, they can certainly fry a human body. Especially if there are fluids around.

Rustproofing was rudimentary. Salt might have been a minor contributor, but it was really just primitive systmes and materials in the field of rust-proofing. I can remember reports of brand-new cars coming off the production lines at British-Leyland, with rust bubbles already forming, and needing re-finishing. No salt involved. I don't remember salt being any more intensively used years ago. It's used more efficiently these days. It's a wet salt/brine spray now, it used to be dry salt that would fly around in the wind, most of it missing the road surface. Fifty years ago, there was very little salt used on Irish roads, but the cars rusted just the same as the English ones, so I can't blame the salt.

I'm with Peterkin, in an earlier post, about the planned redundancy that manufacturers put into their cars. Chips are an excellent oportunity for planning the forced scrapping at a later date. But there are lots of other methods. I recently scrapped my Renault Espace, that I had had for four years, because of a failed hydraulic seal on the clutch pedal line. Years ago, you would just replace it in half an hour with a few simple tools. In the Espace, the clutch master and slave cylinders are a sealed-for-life unit, that has to be replaced in one unit, and cannot be repaired. OK, so bite the bullet and replace it all? Yes,but, to do that, you have to remove virtually the entire dashboard of the car, involving very many hours of work for an exerienced mechanic, and certainly not something an amateur would be able to do. So a perfectly good car gets scrapped for the failure of a bit of rubber seal. They also design in totally unnecessary features, that need special tools to service, so that only their own dealers will get the business, when things go wrong. You might think that the public would rebel against these practices by not buying. But not a bit of it. The people who buy new cars have no incentive to favour cars without the built-in redundancy. Because they get a fairly substantial warranty when they buy, and most of the inbuilt problems are designed to pop up after a certain mileage. New car buyers are fairly protected from the planned redundancy, and only lose out when they trade in their cars for a new one, and find that they have devalued greatly due to the inbuilt redundancy. Fifty years ago, cars were extremely rust-prone, so there was no need to build in redundancy. Nowadays, rust is much less of a problem, so new methods are being employed.