Drivers and petrol - tea shop

Nothing compared to this colonial ingenuity.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/gas-station-thieves-use-tra...

Last month a few tabloids ran a story about a thief filling up a wheelie bin with petrol...  I won't put links, and TBH I've half convinced myself it is fake news anyway.

brooksby wrote:

Last month a few tabloids ran a story about a thief filling up a wheelie bin with petrol...  I won't put links, and TBH I've half convinced myself it is fake news anyway.

Found the story (slow work day) and seems to be semi-fake news, from the video he's clearly filling containers inside the wheelie bin, the bin itself is just a convenient trolley to carry away the jerrycans or whatever he has inside it.

Insulate British had a very good point.

Provide jobs, reduce people's heating bills, reduce carbon.

And relatively quick.

True - but those are not the skilled / "technology" jobs we are seeking apparently. Nor is "use less energy / resources and make your usage more efficient" the way things run long-term.

Digression: I suspect you can live a very fulfilling life at a former level of technology *.  But we all want to keep up with the Joneses because that drives our social lives and that involves having more / new stuff.

* Caveat - we'd almost certainly need to back-port some modern medical tech because no-one - not even "alternative medicine" types - wants to go back to shamans and herbalists to fix their broken leg. Healt spending as a percentage of "income" continues to rise and indeed faster than GDP.

It was an incredibly good point, made incredibly badly.

There was an opinion piece in the Telegraph (boo/hiss etc etc) recently calling for more insulation and better energy efficiency.

The comments were full of those vehemently opposed to the idea ostensibly because of IB's antics.

They (IB) aren't making many friends. However I doubt there would be many people signing up to the idea - who haven't already - even if it was presented by Jacob Rees-Mogg (or indeed anyone short of the queen).  The objections you hear are almost exactly the same as for bike infra. "Yes we need to do something about this / I'm all for the environment, BUT..." It's usually "not now", "not in this way", "not here", "I'll do this for myself in my own time" etc.

Rich_cb wrote:

It was an incredibly good point, made incredibly badly. There was an opinion piece in the Telegraph (boo/hiss etc etc) recently calling for more insulation and better energy efficiency. The comments were full of those vehemently opposed to the idea ostensibly because of IB's antics.

The problem with protesting is that you'll either get criticised for not making enough of an impact, or you'll get criticised for making too much of an impact.

I'd suggest that if IB are winding up Telegraph (and other papers, too) commenters then they're heading in the right direction. Whether they will be successful remains to be seen.

Historically, if we look at almost any successful protests that ended up effecting a meaningful change, there were hordes of people criticising their tactics. My favourite example is the suffragettes and their use of violence to get what they wanted (eventually).

Ultimately, if you want to change the status quo, then people (especially the older and wealthier) will get upset and angry - there's simply no way to change things whilst keeping people happy unless you just kick the can down the road (c.f. conservative strategy). Unfortunately, the world has been kicking the can down the road for decades.

It's not to do with the engine, it's to do with the aerodynamics. Your vehicle uses considerably less fuel at 55mph than at 70mph because air displacement is less of an issue at lower speeds. The energy required to contend with air displacement increases exponentially the faster you go. While cars are admittedly more aerodynamic than they were in the 1970s, the improvement has been that great that it brings such a benefit. Try making the whole motorway journey at 55mph and then at 70mph and you will see a significant difference. Bear in mind that the stop/go traffic you contend with at either end will burn a lot of fuel. Bear in mind also that to make you fuel go further, slow acceleration will make a big saving too.

OldRidgeback wrote:

It's not to do with the engine, it's to do with the aerodynamics. Your vehicle uses considerably less fuel at 55mph than at 70mph because air displacement is less of an issue at lower speeds. The energy required to contend with air displacement increases exponentially the faster you go. While cars are admittedly more aerodynamic than they were in the 1970s, the improvement has been that great that it brings such a benefit. Try making the whole motorway journey at 55mph and then at 70mph and you will see a significant difference. Bear in mind that the stop/go traffic you contend with at either end will burn a lot of fuel. Bear in mind also that to make you fuel go further, slow acceleration will make a big saving too.

I agree.  I did just that in my previous car, if I was driving on a motorway at 70mph I would average around 50mpg (calculated from fill to fill), but I had been away visiting friends in Central Scotland and was driving back to Southern Scotland around 9pm on a Sunday evening.  I wasn't in a hurry and needed fuel so I filled the car up, reset the fuel consumption computer as I set off from my friends and I basically sat with the cruise control on at 50mph for the 90miles of driving on motorways and quiet A Roads, by the end of the journey the the car was displaying 65mpg average for the journey..... when I refilled the car the following morning and it came back at 62mpg.

That basically ties in with the estimates that fuel consumption is increased by around 20% for an increase of 15-20mph about 50mph.  Apparently however for electric cars the difference is bigger.  Estimates put that at 50mph a Tesla would use 220Wh per mile travelled but by 70mph that is increased to 300Wh per mile so that seems to be about 35% less efficent 

I'd disagree that fuel efficiency has nothing to do with the engine, but I take your point.  I drove beyond Cambridge at 55mph, so a fair stretch: cruise control on empty roads with no braking; Cambridge to Grantham at 60mph and the rest - as far as was possible - at 70mph, but by this time traffic has picked up and there was some light braking.  

My understanding of aerodynamics is that circa 50% of fuel is expended overcoming wind resistance at speeds above 50mph... but the difference between 55 and 70 is negligible - 2-3mpg according to my fuel utilisation data anyway. I wish it were otherwise.  

Chris Hayes wrote:

The speed limit was lowered when engines were normally aspirated and cars were generally inefficient....

ICE cars are still hugely inefficient. The best you'll get from a diesel engine is about 40% thermodynamic efficiency, and that peak efficiency comes at relatively high load. This masks the aerodynamic effect to a degree — in electric cars and on bicycles it is clear. Aero drag goes up with the square of the speed.

Chris Hayes wrote:

I'd question whether driving at 55mph (as opposed to the speed limt) saves much on modern engines.

I reckon you save the most by driving at 62mph, so you can sit in the left lane behind a massive great HGV

wycombewheeler wrote:

Chris Hayes wrote:

I'd question whether driving at 55mph (as opposed to the speed limt) saves much on modern engines.

I reckon you save the most by driving at 62mph, so you can sit in the left lane behind a massive great HGV

Motoring peleton.  Apparently also works for bikes if you can gear high enough.

Well, at least in part, it will be because the source crude is only one cost of many that has to be factored in. Leaving aside costs of refinement, there will be costs of franchising, of employment, of taxes, of heating and lighting, etc., etc., which may all have increased over the last ten years. Then you also have to consider sales of other products - if those have fallen, or margins have shrunk, the shortfall would have to be made up in the price of the core product.

There is also a suspicion that companies are making up for the loss of revenue when prices were low during the pandemic.

I found out today that different refineries are set up to process specific types of crude oil. So, a refinery cannot start to process Saudi oil if it was originally set up for Russian supplies.

kinderje wrote:

I found out today that different refineries are set up to process specific types of crude oil. So, a refinery cannot start to process Saudi oil if it was originally set up for Russian supplies.

Also apparently different blends produced for summer and winter markets.

A bit like Pimms.

Spangly Shiny wrote:

As I recall at the time of London Olympics the cost of Brent Crude was north o $130 a barrel yet the pump price was £1.32 (I still have the till runs). How is it that with a Brent crude price of $119 a barrel today the pump price is ove £1.50?

Since brexit the value of the pound against the dollar has dropped by about 30%. Oil is priced in dollars, so this accounts for most of the difference you are seeing.