Safe Speed Forums

Okay, nothing to do with road safety, but still gets my blood pressure up. My emphases in bold.

http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=\SpecialReports\archive\200506\SPE20050621a.html
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Britain Considers Energy Rationing to Meet Kyoto Obligations
By Mike Wendling
CNSNews.com Correspondent
June 21, 2005

London (CNSNews.com) - British residents could face a form of energy rationing within the next decade under proposals currently being studied to reduce the U.K.'s carbon dioxide emissions to comply with the Kyoto Protocol.

Under the proposals, known as Domestic Tradable Quotas (DTQs), every individual would be issued a "carbon card," from which points would be deducted every time the cardholder purchased fossil fuel, for example, by filling up a car or taking a flight.

Over time, the number of points allotted to each card would decline. High-energy users would be able to purchase points from low-energy users, with the end result being a trading market in carbon similar to the one already in place in the U.K. for industrial users.

A report set to be released this week by the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises Prime Minister Tony Blair on environmental issues, will recommend that by 2007, the British government should seriously consider introducing DTQs.

The report, a draft copy of which was obtained by Cybercast News Service, calls for more research into how the proposals would work in practice.

British Environment Minister Elliott Morley said in a telephone interview that the DTQ plan, also called personal carbon allowances, is one of several being considered by the government.

"Personal carbon allowances are a very attractive intellectual idea," he said. "The implementation would potentially be very expensive, but that shouldn't stop us from looking at the arguments," he said.

Morley said the government was also considering a straightforward carbon tax, and acknowledged that the complexity of a centrally run system could be a major barrier.

"There is a big job involved in explaining the idea of carbon allowances to the public (but) we shouldn't rule any idea out just on this basis," he said.

One of Britain's leading scientists looking into the proposals characterized DTQs as a form of rationing and said the project would start from a point of strict equality in the allocation of "carbon points," despite wide current disparities in individual energy usage.

"Every individual, whether you're the Queen or someone living in a poor neighborhood, will get the same carbon allocation," said Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Center at the University of Manchester.

A bill to establish DTQs and a trading system was introduced in the last parliamentary session by MP Colin Challen, a member of Blair's Labor Party. Challen's legislation was introduced as a private members bill, where debate is limited to ten minutes, and it stood virtually no chance of passing.

Challen said that some sort of compulsory energy program would be necessary to meet Blair's environmental promises. Under the Kyoto accord, which the U.S. has backed out of, the U.K. will need to reduce its emissions by 12.5 percent by 2012.

Washington withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. President George W. Bush said limits on greenhouse gas emissions would be too expensive to implement, harming the U.S. economy -- with adverse effects on American workers.

President Bush also argued that the agreement did require developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, even though some of those countries -- such as China and India -- are among the world's heaviest polluters.

Some scientists question whether global warming is taking place to begin with -- and whether the Kyoto Protocol is an effective solution.

The Blair government, however, has unilaterally pledged to reduce U.K. carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050. Scientists say more research is needed to understand how DTQs and other proposals designed to meet such goals would affect the British economy.

"We have to get far more personal in the ways we tackle carbon emissions," Challen said in a phone interview. "A voluntary approach will only get through to about 20 percent of the population."

Challen said his proposals have support among senior government officials in the U.K.'s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but said that some ministers were "understandably wary" of a mandatory plan with potentially sweeping economic consequences.

Researchers also have suggested that the plan could be linked to the Blair administration's proposed mandatory ID card, a controversial bill that is scheduled to be reconsidered in Parliament later this month.

A proposal to issue every U.K. resident with a card containing biometric information such as fingerprints and an iris scan was opposed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in the last legislative term, and the bill failed after time ran out.

Anti-card campaigners have expressed worries about the possibility that the vast majority of U.K. energy transactions would be logged in a central database.

"There's clearly many other ways such a (carbon trading) scheme could be offered without adding the massive bureaucracy of an ID card system," said Michael Parker, spokesman for the NO2ID group.

However, the plan's proponents suggest that the rationing system could be implemented within the decade.

"I'm not a betting man, but I think this could realistically be up and running within four to ten years," Anderson said.
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Three things in particular wound me up about this. The first is that they look like they thinking about this as another way to sell the ID card idea - whether you're worried about terrorism or worried about fraud, and now worried about global warming, ID cards are supposed to be the answer . The second is the usual social engineering aspect of it. Again they're considering it as a wealth redistribution scheme without actually claiming it'll do anything meaningful (though I wouldn't object to wealth redistributed in my direction). And at least as annoying... I find out about this on a foriegn website . I couldn't find this at all on UK sites. Where the hell is this in the UK media? Are the UK journos sitting on it, or are they just sitting on their arses? It comes to something when people in other nations are getting better information about what our government is up to than we do.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

You have to laugh. Nothing we do here will make any significant difference to global emissions while the Far East (and China in particular) develop their economies at breakneck speed.

The best way of keeping the lid on worldwide emissions levels (even if you think this is a valid way to proceed) is to improve the practices in developing countries or slow their rate of growth in some way. This is, of course, politically "difficult".

The currently proposed ideas are similar to electric cars. They reduce local pollution but don't help overall unless clean generation is adopted.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Well if they are going to introduce this scheme it has to be soon.

That recent article about how scientists at Nasa have linked sun spots to our climbing temperature have predicted that sun spot levels may be levelling off and even perhaps start decreasing, which therefore could mean lowering temperatures.

If they introduce this scheme at the right time I could imagine the Blair and his cronies crowing about how their carbon cards saved the world and if we got rid of them then temperatures would start increasing again.

Recent article? Sunspot activity has been a prime suspect for many, many years, but you can't tax sunspots can you, so there is no point in funding research into the idea that they might be the real cause. The concept was first noticed back in the little ice-age when from 1645 and 1715 there was a significant drop in sunspot activity (yes it was measured even then) coinciding with a significant drop in temperature and ice fairs on the Thames. Look for "Maunder Minimum" on the web after the scientist that studied it.

Unfortunately the inertia in the system is such that it will take years for a sablisation or downward trend to be confirmed - the upward trend is pretty small in the first place. Expect at least 5 more years of this nonsense before a lot of people turn round and blame a small number of people whose research was deliberately misinterpreted in the first place. The one thing that is certain, it won't be any polititians fault for the over-reaction will it?

I like this article on the subject http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4115 which makes you wonder exactly what is it that the pro Global Warming people are trying to achieve?

Most of my mileage and flights are on company business.

So who gets rationed me or the company.

Could be the end of BBQs............

Since public transport also uses carbon based fuel will you get screwed if you take the bus?

Ok now I see, the academics have been left to rule the asylum.

This carbon rationing b*llocks was mentioned on Twatsport2000, nuff said

Another one to add to my list of reasons to bail out of this screwed up country.

I am starting to see the logic. Make this Country so screwed up that asylum seakers will want to leave on their own..

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Speed camera policy Kills

I'm very much a sceptic on the whole idea for the reasons already given, among others. But I'm also very much anti ID cards, which ought to be anathema in what is supposedly a free society. And it's worrying to find out about the latest idea to help foist the bloody things on us in somebody else's news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4123442.stm is titled "'Bury bad news' claim on ID cards" and is dated today, two days after the June 21st CNS News story linking energy rationing to ID cards. Does it mention anything about the energy rationing proposal? Anything about Challen's private members bill? Does it buggery! I suppose the thinking is that most of us will be so stupified by Nonentity Love Island, depressing soaps and Big Brother's current crop of annoying wannabees that we won't notice or care.

Bread and f ing circuses!


I should bloody coco. Last one turn out the lights. Oh, hang on, no need. Whoever's still left will be freezing in the dark by then anyway.

Apologies for being in a ranting mood this afternoon. I'm waiting for my mum to ring up and do my head in about Henman losing again. Thank God for dial up keeping the line busy.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Carbon dioxide absorbs infra red radation, in the region of
13-17micro meters (Most of the IR emitted by the earth is at this wave length). If you look at the specturm of IR escaping from space, obsevered form the outside of the atmosphere by the Nimbus 4 satellite (5 May 1979). you will see a sudden and large drop in the radation escaping at 13-17 micro meters. This was in 1979.

My point is ten or twenty years on or Carbon dioxide emissions have increased. I belive myself that the amount of radation emitted in this wavelength range could pretty much zero. Therefore carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at satuation level, so increaseing levels of carbon dioxide would really make little difference now. We should foucs on other green house gasses.

Belive it or not water is a green house gas , so is ozone- these are removed from the atmosphere by natural processes, so was carbon dioxode untill we started chopping down trees, etc.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Wate vapour is indeed a powerful greenhouse gas, and there's a lot of it (about 100 times more than CO2)
It absorbs IR over a much broader spectrum than CO2 does.
In fact, except for in the coldest, driest regions of the world, the 13-17um radiation is principally absorbed by water vapour, with what's left being absorbed by CO2. And, indeed, the massively cold Siberian and far Northern American winter air masses account for most of the observed warming.
So it's pretty safe to say that, between CO2 and water vapour, we are at saturation levels - so piling on more CO2 isn't going to have much effect.
And then there's the strongly negative feedback mechanism of clouds, which both increases the albedo and vaults huge amounts of heat into the upper atmosphere, through convection, from where it's dissipated back into space.
Without this strong negative feedback the atmosphere would be far too hot to support life as we know it - just from the absorption of water vapour by itself.

It's interesting that you mentioned a sudden drop in radiation escaping in 1979. "Angell's Complete 5000 to 30000 Foot Temperature History" (weather balloon temperature measurements) shows a sudden and dramatic temperature jump of about 0.35 degrees C around 1976 - there being no increasing or decreasing trend either before or after.
This dramatic jump was only noticed about 20 years later.
There appears to be no sudden change in CO2 levels around that time, so it looks like there's something else which they haven't taken into account.

It would be interesting to see what else happened around 1976-1979. Sunspot activity? Volcanic eruptions? El Nino? Or something else? Wasn't that the time of the fuel crisis, when fossil fuel consumption dropped sharply worldwide?

Interesting, anyway.

Cheers
Peter

And even the EU gets back in

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/articl ... 56,00.html

"The EU’s draft third directive on driving licences says tests should contain an assessment of the environmental impact of a candidate’s driving style."


Another gem "Under the DSA guidelines instructors will be expected to teach awareness of starting the engine without excessive use of the accelerator, using gears efficiently by selecting the highest suitable gear without causing the engine to labour, and using engine braking and cruise control where appropriate."

Thought that was part of the idea behind the test along with safety.
Cruise control at 28mph???? - Car or pushbike test??

That bit seems reasonable if treated as teaching a car-friendly style of driving. But the environment has got stuff all to do with road safety and learning to be safe behind the wheel... even if you buy into anthropogenic global warming it's totally irrelevant. What's next - making them aware of how many trees die to produce the average car's owner's manual?

I'd say this was the thin end of a rather ludicrous wedge, but unfortunately we've already passed that stage. I found that out about a year or so ago when my sister told me that the theory test multuple guesstions included one along the lines of "Which of the following is the most environmentally sound way of getting from A to B - car, MPV, bus, tram" (or something like that). Speeding faster towards despair than anything else sometimes.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Cruise Control?

Why on earth do they think that cruise control helps with fuel economy? The cruise control system is reactive not predictive. Therefore it doesn't take into account what is about to happen on the road - a good driver will be lifting off just before a down slope, CC cannot, because it doesn't know the slope is there.

Several people I know have concluded that CC is less economical than manual control.

True, but on the other hand it does react a damn sight faster than a human can, and it can keep on doing that without getting tired/bored for the entire duration of the journey.




My experience suggests otherwise - over the length of a typical journey where I might use CC (i.e. when the traffic/road/weather conditions allow a fixed/slightly varying speed to be maintained) I find it usually beats me by about 10%. At specific points within that journey I might have been able to do better than the CC, but its consistency and finesse more than makes up for that over the entire journey.

On the subject of "tired/bored" the other aspect of cruise control is that it takes away somthing that you should be concentrating on - so if CC is going to be recommended as the standard way of driving how many more accidents are we going to get where the driver has effectively switched off totally as a result of boredom?

When I first started using CC that was my experience too - both feet with nothing to do, only the steering to handle, mind drifting... Then I started to realise that the thing about CC is that, in order to be used most effectively (i.e. maintaining as consistent a speed as possible) you really have to start observing the road ahead and behind to avoid being caught in a lane of slower moving traffic with no space to safely overtake. Controlling your speed manually, it's a piece of cake to just lift off or dab the accelerator a bit to synchronise yourself with the available gaps in the next lane, but when you've got the CC pushing you forwards at a constant speed you're having to think further ahead. There's something rather satisfying about gliding from lane to lane, maintaining your own forward progress without touching the CC settings whilst at the same time keeping out of everyone elses way,

From 1990 to 1995 I had a Series 3 Jaguar Sovereign V12 and I used to enjoy the cruise control on that car. I reckon on long motorway journeys the cruise control yielded better economy figures (up to 27 mpg) by maintaining a consistent speed, whereas I would find the speed creeping up more than I had intended, if I didn't use the CC.

On the other hand, on normal A and B roads through hilly terrain I think I probably obtained better economy by not using the CC.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Tried cruise control on a hired car (mondeo) for about a week - new gadget tried it with open mind - after that no thanks.- got the feeling that next i'd be putting my feet up.As far as i am concerned an overated bit of expensive kit.The old hand throttle on the Landrover was better.

How many of these "experts" actually drive. Perhaps it would be better if they went to a driving school first to see how to put brain into gear.
Like the ideas about driving for economy - isnt that part of the skill of driving getting there as safely and cheaply as possible- got to be when HM Govt sees motorists as cash cows

No use on most British roads. Congestion means constantly changing speeds and with no undertaking its a pain. Adaptive cruise is starting to appear which adjusts speed to compensate for the car infront but these are rare.

But drive from LA to SanFransisco and its a must if you want to still have use of your right leg when you get there............

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Speed camera policy Kills

I've found the same.
During the fuel blockade a few years ago I had to stretch a tank of petrol to last me a week, so I had the consumption computer on full-time.
I found I got significantly better mileage with manual control than CC.
Cruising at a steady 80 gave better figures than at a constant 70 or 60, as i didn't have to slow up for the traffic nearly as often.
The best figures I got was if I maintained a constant light pressure on the accelerator - I was up to 90+ on downhills and down to 50ish on uphills.
This style of driving makes you really have to read the traffic, though.

A few more things I learned in that week:

1) Stay on the motorway if you're trying to conserve fuel. A and B roads, particularly the twisty variety, make you drink fuel.

2) Brisk acceleration on on-ramps helps a lot - most of them are downhill and so you have gravity helping, and it saves having to accelerate once on the motorway.

3) If faced with the choice, it's better to accelerate slightly to pass someone than having to brake to stay behind them.

4) Windy conditions account for about 3-5 mpg, so try not to drive if it's windy.

Cheers
Peter

Exactly - go that bit slower uphill using as much momentum as possible, gain as much momentum downhill as you can.

Shut the windows. these add lot to the cars wind resistance, as do sun roofs etc.

I had a 2.5L V6 Mondeo, and for business reasons was forced to go to Slough and back twice at the peak of the crisis. According to the computer, by driving very carefully and allowing myself to go slower uphill and faster downhill I got 45mpg - typically the car gave 30mpg with my driving style and 28mpg was the manufacturers average.

CC doesn't do this - if you really want to drive economically manual control is the only way to go.